The Hero's Journey in Business/Tae Hea Nahm - "Date" Wow, Unlearning Founders, Civilization~ Spark of Ages Ep. 10

Unlock the secrets of empathetic growth strategies and become the architect of your business's success story as I, Rajiv Parikh, converse with Tae Hea Nahm from Storm Ventures. Prepare to shift your perspective on customer relationships and discover the power of positioning customers as the champions of their own narratives. Our journey together reveals how the urgency of a customer's pain point can be the golden ticket for startups seeking engagement, and how aligning with your clients' goals can propel you towards mutual triumphs. Tae Hea's legal expertise sheds light on this alignment, guiding us through the nuances of winning client trust and fostering lasting success.

Embark on a voyage through the evolving realms of leadership, culture, and strategy. We navigate the intricate dance between the precision of mathematics and the fluid dynamics of legal systems, uncovering the profound influence of cultural shifts on company visions and leadership styles. Tae Hea and I dissect the saga of founders, where adaptability is king, and vision coupled with execution forms the lifeblood of entrepreneurial victory. We trace the paths of Marketo's ascension and entertain with a whimsical digression into the strategic depths of Sid Meier's Civilization, underscoring the parallels between gaming and business strategy.

Step into the vibrant tapestry of Silicon Valley as we celebrate its diversity and the community it nurtures. As the episode draws to a close, we leave you with reflections on the cultural revolutions that resonate with customers, the emotional milestones charting the champion's journey, and the pivotal strategies distinguishing industry frontrunners. Tune in for an episode that promises not just insights, but a treasure trove of experiences that could ignite your own spark for the ages alongside Tae Hea Nahm's wisdom.

Producer: Anand Shah & Sandeep Parikh
Technical Director & Sound Designer: Sandeep Parikh, Omar Najam
Executive Producers: Sandeep Parikh & Anand Shah
Associate Producers: Taryn Talley & Jesse Diep
Editor: Sean Meagher & Aidan McGarvey


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Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/

Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/

Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/

Transcript

Rajiv Parikh: 0:07

Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast, where we're talking to founders, innovators, ceos, investors, designers and artists. I'm talking game changers about their big world shaping ideas and what spark them. I'm your host, Rajiv Parikh. I'm the CEO and founder of PositionSquared, a growth marketing company based in Palo Alto. So, yes, I'm a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, but I'm also a business news junkie and a history nerd. I'm fascinated by how big world changing movements go from the spark of an idea to an innovation that reshapes our lives. In every episode, we're going to do a deep dive with our guests about what led them to their own eureka moments and how they are going about executing it and, perhaps most importantly, how they get other people to believe in them so that their idea could also someday become a spark for the ages. And if you'd like what you hear, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can also send feedback to us directly to spark@position2. com.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:05

This is the Spark of Ages podcast. So here we are with Tae Hea Nahm. I met him a couple years ago and what I love about him is that he's ever curious. He's digging in to what drives growth for companies, what drives great technological change which is exactly what I love, and he's turned it into a methodology that's super easy to understand Awesome. Let's get into our conversation with Tae Hea Nahm. Tae Hea Nahm is the Co-Founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures, an early stage VC firm investing in B2B software firms worldwide. Storm has invested in nine unicorns, including Marketo, Talkdesk and Workato. As an investor, he's also the founding CEO of Airspace, which was later sold to Cisco for $450 million. Tae Hea, welcome to the Spark of Ages.

Tae Hea Nahm: 2:13

Well, thank you very much for this opportunity and the kind introduction.

Rajiv Parikh: 2:17

One of the things we found really interesting about your approach is about how much focus and emphasis you place on psychology and emotions, because people who are growing a company so rapidly, it's so challenging for them on the company and its people. You think growth is just super fun, but actually it's not. And what I like about you is you think about how it impacts the business, the leaders and the startups and, ultimately, who becomes the hero. So for anyone who really wants to dive into the nuances of Tehi's approach to growth and go to market, you can go to Storm Ventures Survival to Thrival GTMfit. com and find all the details In his podcast and more. They help you build the right surfboard to help your company unlock growth at any stage of a company's journey. Now, one of the key elements of what you talk about is the importance of making an actual customer the hero of the customer journey. So can you briefly explain what that means and what led you to that?

Tae Hea Nahm: 3:18

Sure, the entire go-to-market methodology of mine is not like a technique, like product-like growth, sales-like growth or marketing. Instead, it's all based on customer empathy. And what led me to that is working with like attending board meetings with very smart founders, visionary founders, and they'll come back and say, oh, the customer's stupid, oh, the customer doesn't get this, or the political decision. And as I went through it time and time with companies, I realized that, regardless of whatever go-to-market you pursue, you need to have empathy for your customer and ultimately, it's about how to make that person successful and make them a hero.

Rajiv Parikh: 4:03

That's amazing. So this came to you when, when you first started on that journey, you were in law and associated with law, doing work for startups. When did that realization come to you?

Tae Hea Nahm: 4:17

Well, as an attorney, the key is getting clients, and so once I started having to get clients and learning how to market and sell to get clients, I realized that at that point, empathy is so important to really understand what they want, what their agenda is.

Rajiv Parikh: 4:36

That's amazing In that journey you came up with these terms. One of them is the notion of pain relief, and we always talk about people's pain points, and that becomes a point at which we're trying to solve it. But you had a twist on it.

Tae Hea Nahm: 4:54

Right. So what I say is that the journey that you begin with your customer normally begins if your potential champion has an urgent pain. And so if they don't have an urgent pain, then they're reluctant to really begin a journey with you. And that's because I have a particular model of a B2B customer, who is someone who is relatively smart but lazy and want to look good with their boss. And so if they don't have an urgent pain, then the laziness thing is I'll look at it tomorrow. And then tomorrow is I'll look at it tomorrow. And so next thing you know, it's months before they engage.

Rajiv Parikh: 5:36

And yeah, so they meet you for the first time. You're an entrepreneur, so if they're a normal company, you have so many alternatives you can buy from Right. You have all these established vendors. Why would someone want to work with you?

Tae Hea Nahm: 5:48

Right. So once you have someone who has an urgent pain, the next question is why you? And that's where I found that what companies really need is to have a wow, something that just really excites the potential champion. So they want to go with you and you can see the wow, because it changes their body language. They're asking a lot of questions, they bring in their boss and their colleagues and so forth. So you need a wow, right, there's this whole thing that pops right.

Rajiv Parikh: 6:19

Yes, you're sitting there across from someone and all of a sudden they go like and you get that feeling Right, Because the way they look at it is I can work with anybody in the world Exactly. Isn't it that you got to connect emotionally Like, isn't that the thing?

Tae Hea Nahm: 6:34

It's more of you excite emotionally. Yeah, so in fact, that's why I found, as I'm doing this workshop with our company, is that you need actually two very different types of wow. At the beginning, when you first meet with your potential champion, you need something to just really excite them so they want to keep being with you, and so we say you need a date. Wow, you need a reason why they should have a second date with you and a third date with you, why they should keep dating you.

Tae Hea Nahm: 7:01

So, and if you don't have that date, wow, then we see very poor conversion after first meetings.

Rajiv Parikh: 7:07

So filling out your Tinder profile is important. Work is what you're trying to say, right, being able to really have that log line and those cool pictures of you in front of LACMA that really matters.

Tae Hea Nahm: 7:21

That cool picture could be some story. You need something to excite the prospects so they say they want to keep dating you.

Rajiv Parikh: 7:29

What's an example? Of a date. Wow, one of your entrepreneurs had Other than some of these versions, which is Tinder. What's the Tinder version for a company?

Tae Hea Nahm: 7:39

I find the best date wow is very fast time to first value. So let's go back through the process. You have this potential customer that has an urgent pain and so they meet with you, so have an urgent pain and if you could offer them pain relief in five minutes, that's the best date wow. So I'll give you an example. Rajiv is where early investors in talk desk, one of the first cloud call center software companies and doing phenomenally well and they were one of the first so that you can have a call center without buying any specific hardware. Just have a headset and a browser and your call center is working in 24 hours, all connected with sales, forwards and so forth. So you have an instant call center in 24 hours with no special hardware.

Rajiv Parikh: 8:35

So it's so compelling because otherwise it would take months or years to set up.

Tae Hea Nahm: 8:40

Yes, and you got to buy all this extra hardware, all this kind of stuff On-premise on your machine.

Rajiv Parikh: 8:45

just set up and go.

Tae Hea Nahm: 8:46

In the cloud. In the cloud, so just with your browser, you have a call center in 24 hours. That's incredible, and you can pay for one call center agent and it scales up to thousands.

Rajiv Parikh: 8:57

So it's truly transformative for the right type of customer that wants to solve this problem right away. So what's the next? Wow, you said there's two owls.

Tae Hea Nahm: 9:06

Right. So the date wow, as I said, is critical. So you start getting your champion excited about you, but normally in order to get it approved you need to get the committee approval. It's just like you start dating and then you need the family to approve the marriage. So that's why we say we need a merry wow In there. Yeah, so the merry wow is what gets the boss, gets the committee get all that to sort of say this is the right partner. And so it's about giving your champion the merry wow to help the champion get that consensus approval. And that drives conversion at the bottom of the funnel.

Rajiv Parikh: 9:49

And a lot of folks focus just on that. They don't think about the urgent pain they focus on after that.

Tae Hea Nahm: 9:55

Well, what I find is that in the companies is that you're right, there's a lot of focus on the merry wow, because that usually happens with trials, and if you don't get the trial, then everyone wonders what went wrong. But when I did and I've done about 60 workshops with our companies and I talked to them and very few work on a date, while because if a customer doesn't show up on a second date, there's usually no feedback. That's right, and so the product team doesn't know what to work on. They get ghosted.

Rajiv Parikh: 10:26

They get ghosted. Yeah, exactly yeah.

Tae Hea Nahm: 10:29

And they blame it on the sales part, Exactly so. They say it's a sales problem because sales Terrible sales but won't even follow up. Right, Right and I do these workshops and they go and they no one's working on the product team's not working on a date while and you have poor conversion after first meetings and they think it's purely a sales problem. But sales doesn't know what to do.

Rajiv Parikh: 10:48

But if the product was really compelling, then they would get you past that first one.

Tae Hea Nahm: 10:52

If the urgent pain was truly there, you would get it. The urgent pain is why they meet you, but you need a date while to solve that urgent pain.

Rajiv Parikh: 11:02

And so the date while for talk desk was the notion of a 24 hours.

Tae Hea Nahm: 11:07

you get your call center up and running and what was the merry, while for them? Is that it has security, it's got scalability. It's the right long-term partner.

Rajiv Parikh: 11:16

Just like the, if your family was actually evaluating a marriage partner.

Tae Hea Nahm: 11:20

Exactly, exactly, and that's why I say date, while the reasons why you want to date someone may not necessarily the same reasons why you should marry someone.

Rajiv Parikh: 11:33

So the cool guy on a Harley may not be the one.

Tae Hea Nahm: 11:35

Exactly, but if you don't have the date while, then you don't get to the merry discussion.

Rajiv Parikh: 11:41

If you don't have the Harley, you may not even get to the Exactly.

Tae Hea Nahm: 11:45

And that's why it's important for the product team to understand you need both. That's great.

Rajiv Parikh: 11:51

And I think you take it a little further. Right Is you have this notion of date while, merry, while, but that's not enough, yeah, so that could be the reason. Now you're in, and usually what happens with startups is we get the deal and we all celebrate. Yes, we go out for drinks, we go out for wine. We take our VC out. They buy the wine.

Tae Hea Nahm: 12:09

Absolutely.

Rajiv Parikh: 12:10

And we're out there partying, but that is that enough.

Tae Hea Nahm: 12:15

Well, the first thing I do and, as I said, the whole idea of this methodology, is empathy, right? Yes, so we're celebrating our champions, freaked out, yeah, and this, and you know Buyer's remorse, not just buyer's remorse is that they?

Rajiv Parikh: 12:31

Buyer fear.

Tae Hea Nahm: 12:33

They put their neck out to do this. If the vendor fails, then many times the champion could get dinged, so they lose a promotion. They may even get fired. If they take a big enough risk, they've got the company Exactly. The point here about empathy is that first contract while we are celebrating like ring the bell, our champion is freaked out and is anxious, and so this is important, as I say, in terms of empathy, to understand where they're coming from.

Rajiv Parikh: 13:06

That's amazing, Because once you know that, you realize that okay, and a lot of times you've built up a product barely just to get you off the ground and it's not all fully fleshed out, as you at least presented it, that's right. So then, you've got to pay special attention to making sure that person becomes a hero.

Tae Hea Nahm: 13:25

There you go, exactly, and so, between first contrast and hero are some steps that we found that it's important to follow and, by the way, this whole outline is a nine-step process on how to make your champion a hero, which really, in my mind, is what defines customer empathy.

Rajiv Parikh: 13:47

I love this. So, listen, I'm the little brother that went off to Hollywood and started writing silly stories. That was kind of my relationship to Rajiv and all this. But what I've learned? I've learned so much about the hero's journey. We talk about it all the time and all the stories that we write out here whether it's a script for a TV show or a feature film or whatever I'm curious if that influenced you like Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. Is that something that's played into what you've created here or did you just, like, incidentally, come up with?

Tae Hea Nahm: 14:22

this. No, no, no, no. Absolutely Okay, as I you know, there's so much about heroes. You know the hero story and how people become heroes, especially in media, and it played a big part.

Rajiv Parikh: 14:40

Yes, To make that connection to the customer. So you just basically were like, let's make the customer the hero of their own story and then we are the support, like essentially the supporting cast, to help them through all the points of their journey.

Tae Hea Nahm: 14:56

Exactly.

Tae Hea Nahm: 14:58

And that's why, just like one very simple thing, is a lot of companies I know like to write customer case studies about how their product is fantastic, it does all these great things and so forth, and they get customer quotes to validate the customer case studies. And I'm saying, instead of that, you should and this is actually what Chandar he was the former CEO of Marquette on Koopa suggested is, instead of customer case studies, have hero stories about how your champion became a hero as crusaders of change happens to use your product, but using your product is the secondary part. It's more about how your champion became a hero.

Rajiv Parikh: 15:40

That's amazing, because then what happens is when you present it from a hero point of view, when you go to the next company that you're pitching, they know, they start to connect the dots and they say to themselves wow, this isn't just something good for my company and my strategy, this is good for me.

Tae Hea Nahm: 15:56

And the whole relationship I find between the company and the customer changes is that and I just had this discussion with one of our companies and they were saying is that it had a phenomenal change, because now success is not about selling more, about having these long term contracts, you know, these multi-million dollar deals. Its success is about how to make your champion a hero. It changes the culture of the company, it changes the interactions with the customer and the customer can feel it.

Rajiv Parikh: 16:30

It's really interesting and they feel it. They then work with it, you pay attention to it as a company and then. So this is that notion that you get those initial ones and that a lot of folks just talk about getting product market fit. But you guys actually have a wrinkle to that. You say product market fit is kind of interesting because you can get product market fit. You can get about 20 customers if the founder does their job and sells a bunch, but that's not enough to drive growth. There's a new term.

Tae Hea Nahm: 17:02

Right, you say that product market fit is necessary but not sufficient. Instead, what you need is to unlock growth, and what I mean by that is you know what you have with product market fit is you've got happy customers, people that are using. It is critical, and what we used to do was okay, we have product market fit, let's just hire a great, go to market people, give them a big budget, turn on marketing, turn on marketing.

Rajiv Parikh: 17:29

Higher position squared. Exactly All we got to do is turn the crank. Just get 10 more people like fuel to the gas, right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 17:36

Exactly. Just get all these leads hire 20 more reps, and then you just grow. Yeah, copy paste, and what we found instead is that burn rate goes up, results are flat and people are freaking out and we end up losing money.

Rajiv Parikh: 17:53

And people hire. They hire tons of salespeople spend money on marketing. They wonder why the salesperson can't nail it, the marketer can't nail it. So now, this notion of unlock growth is also I think you called it when you did the book with- God Timper Go to market fit. Let's go to market fit, yes, yeah.

Tae Hea Nahm: 18:10

So we say you have to find, go to market fit, and what that is is a repeatable process that works.

Rajiv Parikh: 18:16

It's couples therapy. If we're going back to the analogy, it's like now you're married and that's cool, but guess what? You've got 40 more years of this relationship. 50 more years of this relationship to figure out Right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 18:30

So you want a simple, repeatable process that mere morals can do, that it's not just superheroes like founders can sell.

Rajiv Parikh: 18:42

Founders know everything about it, all the background, but it doesn't necessarily translate For the next one to get their date while and marry while. You have to make it simple and straightforward and I think one of the things I liked about what you when you wrote about it you have to get it on one sheet. Yes, you have this go to market concept of repeatability on one sheet because you're going to scale it and it has to work. So what's one of your favorite stories of a company getting go to market fit?

Tae Hea Nahm: 19:12

Well, I mentioned talk desk and they just exploded. But also another is like Marketo. Marketo was great at demand generate. It helped create this whole idea of demand generation, of getting leads. And so I go to board meetings. I got different companies and they would say we're missing our numbers, why we can't get enough leads. And then one of the board members say, well, why don't you do demand generation to get more leads?

Rajiv Parikh: 19:39

And so then how did it shift from Phil Fernandez, the founder and CEO, and John Miller, one of the other co-founders my good friend, your good friend? How did it go from those two selling to everybody selling that go to market fit?

Tae Hea Nahm: 19:54

Well, they built a simple, repeatable process. So what is the urgent pain? Well, you need to get leads and then, with that for urgent pain, what is the use case and the customer profile that matches to it, and then you go in with a very simple date. And there again the question is why Marketo versus Eloquo or someone else? Is that Marketo was something very easy, it's. You could get it up and running really fast.

Rajiv Parikh: 20:24

So that's the part that was repeatable. A salesperson could go pitch that and it was straightforward enough for the marker on the other side to say oh, I got it.

Tae Hea Nahm: 20:34

Yeah, this can give me quick pain relief. So you start with an urgent pain, because if you don't have an urgent pain, they're not going to meet you. So you have an urgent pain. And then the date while it's fast relief, so you have fast time to value. And then you know, mary, while is about why this can scale, this will be the right long-term solution. With that you land and you get the first contract.

Tae Hea Nahm: 20:58

If you don't have an urgent pain, they're just not going to meet with you, if you don't have a date, while you just have poor conversion at the top of the funnel. And then, if you don't have a Mary, while you don't, you know, get the boss or the committee approval. So each one of those is sort of a critical element. And then, if you have it, then you can build a repeatable playbook to execute on it. But if you don't have an urgent pain, then You're wasting your time. Yeah, and if you don't have a date, while you're just going to have poor, you're going to have snow forever, right, right. And so that's why, you know, I look at this as sort of here is the framework, and then we go through with the executive team and they know that they have to build Because, like coming over the date, wow is a cross-functional activity.

Tae Hea Nahm: 21:46

Sales can't do it by themselves. So, yeah, sales product, and so it's about building the right cross-functional team. But if I could sort of continue on with the customer journey, because, as I said, we talked about right now at first contract, and I'm thinking how do you go from first contract to hero? Because usually, as I say, first contract is when our champion is freaked out. So the next milestone, what typically people talk about, is like completing a bond boarding. You know, you complete your checklist, all that kind of stuff, and to me that's not the next milestone.

Rajiv Parikh: 22:21

The next milestone it's actually something else.

Tae Hea Nahm: 22:24

Yes, it's, you have to deliver first value.

Rajiv Parikh: 22:27

You got to get them something and it can't be six months away.

Tae Hea Nahm: 22:31

Yes, and so what is first value? It's when the champion's boss or peers tell them you made the right decision.

Rajiv Parikh: 22:40

For my company. I tell them we got to get it done in the first month. You better give them something in the first month, don't give them the six-month project and deliver really.

Tae Hea Nahm: 22:49

Right so fast. Time to first value is so critical. But first value is delivering something so that the champion's boss or peers says you made the right decision, Because until then that anxiety doesn't go away. That's interesting, that's almost out of your hands.

Rajiv Parikh: 23:07

Your hero's a little more relaxed.

Tae Hea Nahm: 23:08

Yes, and so what you need to do is you have to find what metrics onboarding metrics or things like that correspond to the champion getting this social affirmation. Because then that's what I'm saying this go-to-market process is all about empathy. It's about understanding your champion, their fears, their needs and trying to help them along the way.

Rajiv Parikh: 23:34

So then you nail that, you got that initial social affirmation, you got that. Whatever the metric is for a talk desk or maybe for a it's getting the first campaign it's just campaign running.

Tae Hea Nahm: 23:46

Right, or getting the first agent up and running.

Rajiv Parikh: 23:48

Right. And then you said there's a couple more.

Tae Hea Nahm: 23:50

Yes, so after first value, that's when it's like a confidence builder. The next major milestone is what I say is that it becomes standard workflow.

Rajiv Parikh: 24:01

Yes.

Tae Hea Nahm: 24:02

What I mean by standard workflow is that there's a critical mass of users that are actively using the product, so that, even if your champion leaves, the product is sticky.

Rajiv Parikh: 24:12

And that kills a lot of companies.

Tae Hea Nahm: 24:14

Yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 24:15

I'm telling you, I just sat in a quarterly business review of a company that has a high churn rate. Why? Because when the sponsor leaves, they shut off the software.

Tae Hea Nahm: 24:25

Exactly so. It turns out that if you don't achieve standard workflow, where it becomes a habit within a company, you're at high renewal risk, because if your champion leaves, you're gone, that's the kiss of death, yes, and so that's why I said you need fast time to value.

Tae Hea Nahm: 24:43

And then you need this sort of fast time to standard workflow so it sort of becomes a habit. I mean, think of yourself. I mean, you know if someone buys all these like new SaaS applications or something, but you never log on to it. It's not part of your workflow. I don't know about you, but I even forget my password. I forget.

Rajiv Parikh: 25:03

But you got your two year contract, so you're all set.

Tae Hea Nahm: 25:05

But not really. Yeah, then you're just stuck.

Rajiv Parikh: 25:07

You have all that. Longer contract gives you time to do is establish it as a standard workflow. Yes, and then, once you get to the standard workflow, what's the next one? So that's your five right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 25:20

I think it's like six, but yeah, so standard workflow is like it becomes a habit within the company. And then the next thing that would say is that it's about driving adoption to full deployment. Yes, because once it's full deployment, your champion feels victorious. He's now, or she is, a hero because an opportunity coming here, because it's now fully deployed.

Rajiv Parikh: 25:42

So it vindicates my decision Company seeing huge values in the top desk case. It's been fully deployed. They have a whole contact center running. They're seeing benefits that they didn't get before.

Tae Hea Nahm: 25:53

And so it's about driving full deployment, and I find that there's a metric that I started using that really like to measure. This is to drive adoption, that is, and call it net usage retention. That's right. So we calculate the same way you calculate net revenue retention, but it just measures are my existing customer? Is this customer using the product more or less? That's right. If it's 100%, it's flat. If it's 140%, it's going up. 40% it's like snowflake, it's like a special snowflake.

Tae Hea Nahm: 26:27

It's like snowflake. So the whole idea is that net usage retention is drives and is a great early indicator of net revenue retention.

Rajiv Parikh: 26:36

That's right and then when you go to, then you nail this, you got that, you got your product in. People are full deployment, your driving growing is you have some some revenue metric or usage metric that enables the company to deploy it to other folks and then so a lot of other folks have it. They're really happy with it. So it's growing kind of on its own without as much work to do for the company, customer success manager or the salesperson.

Tae Hea Nahm: 27:03

And so the next step is, then, is to help your champion become a hero, and that is how to help your champion get promoted or become an industry celebrity, and there, what I find is that says as a vendor, you need to create a hero report.

Rajiv Parikh: 27:18

That's right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 27:19

What is a hero report is to take all this work that the champion has been doing, you know, about getting adoption, full deployment and all that into a one pager which drives a metric that the CEO or board cares about.

Rajiv Parikh: 27:36

Oh, that's amazing. So that, when, what would that? You're trying to drive that to a metric? In Marketo's case is like new pipeline pipeline Right, so we're driving new pipeline and that's the winner. So now that person becomes a hero.

Tae Hea Nahm: 27:50

Right, and because he's getting like impacting things at the CEO and because what is a hero in a company? Save the company.

Rajiv Parikh: 27:57

Yeah, is you're doing something that the CEO cares about in Marketo's case, it's being able to understand how I drive repeatable revenue.

Tae Hea Nahm: 28:04

Yeah, it's like Reggie in your case. How many employees do you have? 200. You have 200 employees. I mean, if one of them started doing things that drove, things that you really cared about that person's on the path to being a hero in your eyes, high replacement, absolutely.

Rajiv Parikh: 28:19

Speaking about replacements. So now we have the six elements of the story.

Tae Hea Nahm: 28:24

Right.

Rajiv Parikh: 28:24

And then eventually that company becomes the industry standard they go from. In the Marketo's case, from being a marketing manager to maybe even the CMO because, they embraced this revenue marketing approach or, in talk desks situation, probably someone that's the chief customer officer, right, chief contact officer. So it becomes an industry standard and everyone wins, right? Yes, so now there's this new thing, right, this thing that we're all. Let me switch gears a little bit. There's a new thing. It's called AI. Right, and your firm or AI has been around for a while.

Rajiv Parikh: 28:56

Absolutely, ai has been around for a while.

Rajiv Parikh: 28:58

I mean there's the old front. Now your firm, storm Ventures, focuses primarily on B2B, saas or software companies, and so you're looking at it and there's a whole world of AI things right now. Everybody says they're doing something in AI, and how do you? At the same time, there's a lot of talk about how AI replaces workers, changes workers, changes the way whole companies are built and run. So, from your perspective, how do you play out some of these scenarios? How do you think about what's happening next? Not just from if there's an investment scenario, there's a personal scenario. How should people think about it?

Tae Hea Nahm: 29:39

Right. It's something I've thought about a lot and we have a very specific strategy in mind. The way I look at it is we are going through a moment which reminds me very much of 1997, when the first browser came out, or 2007, when the iPhone came out, and what I mean by that is that the internet existed before the browser, mobile phones existed before the iPhone that's right, but each one created a dramatic change because after the browser, it created a dot com, after the iPhone created all the mobile apps. And, in the same way, what I feel is that AI has existed for a long time. The breakthrough moment is LLMs. Chatgpt is a large language model and it's the first time that everyday people like you and I can see and feel the power of AI in a broad sense. Before ChatGPT, we had AI, but it was all very task specific AI Think of Siri, think of AlphaGo that beat the Go player so it's very task specific. With ChatGPT and large language models, we are seeing the power of AI on a very broad, general scale.

Rajiv Parikh: 31:07

You can realize it in a fundamental way that you really couldn't before. Before you couldn't really play with it unless you were an expert. You knew potentially that someone was happening in the background.

Tae Hea Nahm: 31:17

And it was tied to very specific things. Yes, so exactly.

Rajiv Parikh: 31:20

Now anyone can go in and start asking questions or putting in asking for reports to be written or information to be dissected in the ChatGPT and it's just transformative.

Tae Hea Nahm: 31:33

Yes, and that's why, as I said, it reminds me of those moments, of the browser and the internet and the mobile Huge transition models. Yes, and so now, in a sense, users know what they want. They just for all these enterprise apps and all this. They want a chat, gpt, like experience for HR or for whatever, and there's gonna be a profound change, and so I view it as a Huge disruption right now with these large language models.

Rajiv Parikh: 32:09

So, just so, like that you know, when we were at the brow before the browser, it was just command line yes, right, you would just type in commands and you had to know what to do. Browser all the sudden opened your world to all the things you could potentially see it create the worldwide web.

Rajiv Parikh: 32:23

Right, and then with. And that you could buy things you could. Yes, it created dot-com talk to people in a way that you couldn't talk to before. Yes, with the mobile phone, all the sudden, you had the ability to take that Conversation anywhere, but then you could interact with apps, music and spotify.

Tae Hea Nahm: 32:41

You know, or uber, or uber, or what's that, or what's that I Mean. You know, uber, what's that?

Rajiv Parikh: 32:51

spotify, you know, all these mobile would not have existed without without widespread smartphone the iPhone yeah so so now you have AI and that's completely transformative and and, by the way, every year is like getting 10 times smarter chat.

Tae Hea Nahm: 33:08

GPT 3.5 was like having you knowa Smart college, a high school student, as your intern and now with four is like you know, maybe an undergrad as an intern, but pretty soon it's like you could have a genius Be your assistant when you think about it as an investment.

Rajiv Parikh: 33:26

Yes, and investing in companies. Are you saying, if they don't have an LLM or large language model story as part of what they're doing, does that? Does that change though your calculus, or is it that other companies like this will blow up companies that you might have invested in? How do you think about?

Tae Hea Nahm: 33:43

yes, I mean the large language model. So the way I look at investing is you know I'm looking to surf the wave, and so large language model is a huge tidal wave that's gonna like like the entire translation industry. It's gonna get disrupted, wow, because translation will become so good. Yep, you know Large language models are going to read all documents and analyze documents and make summaries very well. So think of all the lawyers that do discovery. It's God. You know reading emails, reading documents. You know you can just crank it. You know, have this crank it up.

Tae Hea Nahm: 34:27

You can file cases differently you can file cases, and but I'm just saying just, I mean, even as a.

Rajiv Parikh: 34:33

What I think about it with LLMs is that you can. From a lawyer's point of view, it may change the way you research. Yes, from the litigants point of view, you may be able to file cases In a. You may not need that initial attorney to make the assessment.

Tae Hea Nahm: 34:48

It's like having a good junior attorney help you. Yeah, you know it's just amazing.

Rajiv Parikh: 34:54

It could help you and it could even take you all the way to. Here's your idea and here's what your case. With the right she, is it worthwhile doing or not.

Tae Hea Nahm: 35:01

So that, and that's what I'm saying is that it is a fundamental disruption, comparable to the browser that then created the worldwide web and all the comms, or the smartphone that created all these mobile apps, and that you know the LLM is going to create all these LLM apps, and so that's what we're interested in investing in is LLM apps and and I even see that from my company right, we do marketing work.

Rajiv Parikh: 35:33

This is the easiest thing in the world to disrupt content creation.

Tae Hea Nahm: 35:39

Content creation is going to change. Yes, creation.

Rajiv Parikh: 35:42

So we look at it as a existential, existential opportunity. Yes and it's time to. We have to change, otherwise this business. Yes, the wave, the wave will crash above you as opposed to surfing.

Tae Hea Nahm: 35:54

Yeah, I mean we've seen like the power of and how we use chat GPT. Well, the next one that's going to come out, it's going to be multimodal.

Rajiv Parikh: 36:02

That's right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 36:03

So, and it's not just text, there'll be text, voice Video and all that so you know it's already.

Rajiv Parikh: 36:10

I think they're already piloting it with the latest version of chat GPT. Would you would you like? If you look at your favorite innovation? She mentioned now three. Would you consider that your favorite?

Tae Hea Nahm: 36:22

You mean the LLM?

Rajiv Parikh: 36:23

the notion of the LLM and what it drives. Would you say that's your favorite? Yes you say, another one was now I think it is.

Tae Hea Nahm: 36:32

It's going to be the most profound because it impacts a lot of this white collar work and it's going to make each of us so much smarter and productive.

Rajiv Parikh: 36:45

That's the part like if you take advantage of it.

Tae Hea Nahm: 36:48

Yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 36:50

And it's so easy to yes. It could fundamentally change all of our lives, not just the lives of the lower skilled folks, it's everyone everyone, yes, yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 37:00

I think so too. I think it's completely magical and completely exciting, and I see my own team playing with these things and I'm just they. They feel a sense of empowerment. What so? I kind of you? I take you, if we take you, back to when you decided to move down this path of enabling entrepreneurs, your son of immigrants. You came to the US at the age of five. Was there something in that time that said I need to go and Go into this world, or go into this game changing world, because it as as a kids, as a child of an immigrant your parent might say especially Korean parents or Indian parents you could be a doctor.

Rajiv Parikh: 37:44

Yeah you could be a little. I don't know if they said lawyer you could be, an engineer you could be yeah, no.

Tae Hea Nahm: 37:52

So I became a lawyer, actually as a compromise with my parents.

Rajiv Parikh: 37:58

Is this in the negotiation? Yeah, it was a negotiation.

Tae Hea Nahm: 38:01

They wanted me to go MD, phd. My father was a medical school professor in Korea and, and you know his view was, and you know Korea went through the civil war, and so for the Korean War, yes, and so his view is. There's a lot of political uncertainty, but one thing you know is every society wants doctors, yes, and so doctor is the best profession, and so a lot of, it's definitely the safest.

Rajiv Parikh: 38:26

Yes because everyone's gonna get hurt.

Tae Hea Nahm: 38:28

Yes, Absolutely, and so a lot of pressure to go to medicine. In my case, I was an applied math major at Harvard, and so I wanted to program and go to business school, and so we compromised on law school.

Rajiv Parikh: 38:45

So it's how they came along. You said okay, you and they were okay with you going down the math road, because that's technical. Yes and so you went to Harvard, which is, I'm sure, your parents dream. I'm sure they, growing up, they must have said you know what? All you got was a 98.

Tae Hea Nahm: 39:02

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yes, I got a lot of that. Yes, well, my mother would always say, if you got a 98, why don't you get a hundred? And if you got a hundred is like, can you do it again?

Rajiv Parikh: 39:12

What? No extra credit. But then when I went to, you don't know, we don't know what that's like at all.

Tae Hea Nahm: 39:20

But then when I went to Harvard and met other Koreans or Asians like myself, we found we're all raised the same way. You know, we were all raised to be thoroughbreds, to run races.

Rajiv Parikh: 39:32

So you found kinship, yes, harvard grads or Harvard students, and then from there you said go to law, because that was part of this negotiation, I can apply these techniques.

Tae Hea Nahm: 39:43

It's a professional degree. It's a yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 39:46

That you have to get licensed. Yes, they make good money. Yes and so you go. You go in as a lawyer and you work for a law firm for some time, a more traditional one. So I would then you went from there to like a venture firm, right, right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 40:00

So I Went to Wilson's on senior because Wilson's on senior focuses on startups and Made partner there and worked with lots of startups and then co-founded venture law group and so during that time period I worked with like several hundred startups and helped them get venture capital financing, go public, do M&A and just work with startups and the whole Startup journey.

Rajiv Parikh: 40:28

I'm just curious what was it like going from math to law, from applied math to I Thought tort was something you ate.

Tae Hea Nahm: 40:39

I didn't know. It was a yeah. I still thought that, so okay, thank you to know and I had no idea like what, like Brown versus school board of education, was All these supreme court cases? I had absolutely no idea. I knew a lot about for a transforms, but nothing about constitutions, law or things like that. So it was, for the first semester, like learning a foreign language.

Rajiv Parikh: 41:02

Hmm, it's a. It's a hard turn into law if you are so into math. Yeah, everything's a formula and you can always derive to a basic truth.

Tae Hea Nahm: 41:11

Exactly, and you realize that law is just based on human values. And so what people think is fair changes, completely changes over time, shifting across different countries. Exactly different systems.

Rajiv Parikh: 41:24

My son is a, is just graduated from law school and he said he really enjoyed international law Because you could see the fundamental basis was different country. But he's I think he's even studied, took a class, did a little bit of South African Law, right, the difference and their view of the world is just view of the human is different exactly says law is based on Values versus science is based on nature, which you know.

Tae Hea Nahm: 41:49

It doesn't change in that manner.

Rajiv Parikh: 41:51

Did that? Was that one of the sparks for you to say that's why startups are interesting? Because now you could see a Fundamentally different system that could be?

Tae Hea Nahm: 42:01

you know, I was actually just interested in new products and yet startups and that's why I went into applied math, because I was very interested in innovation. And this is where I think, as an immigrant, you always feel like you know you're outside rather than in, and so you know it's. Then it's like how can I innovate, how can I do things?

Rajiv Parikh: 42:23

You know, was this as a child like 9th, 10th grade, so ninth and 10th grade is when you go to high school. Yeah, freshman high school. Yeah, teacher.

Tae Hea Nahm: 42:32

I think it was just a whole variety, not one teacher, but just in general, and it helped that. You know, my father was a medical school professor in Korea, so he was into research, and I have an older brother who's a medical school professor and I think he's older right, he's 12 years older than me. Yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 42:48

And then it was a. That's usually 9th. 9th grade is a time of transition as an adolescent.

Tae Hea Nahm: 42:54

Yes, yes, and so that's why I became really interested in math and science and innovation, that kind of stuff, and that that's what I was interested in. And then through that I realized startups is just a very efficient way of implementing that. And then, as I worked with a lot of companies, I became fascinated in the startup journey and the importance of culture and vision within companies.

Rajiv Parikh: 43:23

When did you feel that you got bad exposures that after you went into law? Oh, did you feel that way somewhat in college, or that's when I Started working and working with a lot of startups and then all of a sudden you're because at Wilson's and see me, that's usually one of the go-to law firms for entrepreneurs right and so and that's why I went there Because you know, if you want to be a great doctor, you got to go where you get a lot of patients, right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 43:48

If you want to be a good lawyer, you need a lot of practice.

Rajiv Parikh: 43:52

So I went there and got a lot of volume and experience and you've got so many entrepreneurs and I think one at one point I heard you say you were closer to a lot of the entrepreneurs as an attorney.

Tae Hea Nahm: 44:04

Then as a VC. So in 2000 I made the switch from being an attorney to a VC and yeah so, and I would invest in several of our you know, my former clients and so as an attorney, you're like the family doctor. The CEOs will brainstorm with you, they'll talk about a lot of these ideas and concerns and so forth, and they also know, you know, you got attorney client privilege, you know, and then you can always fire your attorney, and so forth.

Rajiv Parikh: 44:35

You're not married to them like as a venture capitalist.

Tae Hea Nahm: 44:39

Not just married, but you know you have a VC who owns 20% of the company and it's on your board. Yeah, they can fire you, right, you know, you've got a VC who can fire you versus you know. And so I found that the same person Would, instead of like brainstorming with me, would just give me very filtered results.

Rajiv Parikh: 45:02

And you know, I guess the person doesn't want to look bad, doesn't want to express doubts if you do that, then you they think that same Vision they crafted right may be less than what they crafted.

Tae Hea Nahm: 45:13

So I found that's. As you know, reggie, ceo is a very lonely job because if you talk about your fears and doubts with your employees, don't freak out.

Rajiv Parikh: 45:22

They're gonna leave, you're gonna quit although that is kind of a new trend you can talk about.

Tae Hea Nahm: 45:28

Yeah, but they'll look for new jobs while they're looking on LinkedIn?

Rajiv Parikh: 45:31

Yeah, exactly exactly.

Tae Hea Nahm: 45:32

You know if you share that with your customers and your customers yeah, and so if you share that with your investors, then you know there's a good chance we're not gonna put more money in you or you know what To support you and so forth. So it's like, as CEO, it's really hard to share doubts and fears with a lot of people. Yes, and it turns out many times your company attorney.

Rajiv Parikh: 46:00

I'm getting. I'm getting a really good picture of you, tahi, because what one of the questions we always ask In our guest intake form? We always ask you what's a historical event or person or movement that inspires you, and you would have answered. Maybe it was your assistant that answered, but they answered military leaders.

Tae Hea Nahm: 46:17

Yeah, yeah, and so I'm yeah, no, yeah, no. I I've been fascinated by Military leaders and military history and so forth, because I mean, war is obviously Extremely horrible. You know people suffer and so forth, but I also found, because of that you can see the best and the worst of people and mm-hmm, and not that I want to be a war myself, but you know, by watching like war movies, reading about military leaders, I feel like you can really understand what leadership, true leadership, really is, what courage, inspiration and all that is when you know, I see that because the stakes are so high.

Rajiv Parikh: 47:03

You know the highest. You know life and death ultimately, and so you really have to be inspiring in a way that gets people willing to put their life on the line right. So we have a favorite war that you like to study, or a favorite that's a funny question what's your favorite war? Here's my weirdness I loved studying the Revolutionary War, american Revolutionary.

Tae Hea Nahm: 47:27

War. Yeah, that's a good one.

Rajiv Parikh: 47:28

World War two. Yeah, simple war is good. That's an intense time and I've studied that. World War one was a little less interesting. Nobody cares about one reason it's.

Tae Hea Nahm: 47:37

It's like the prequels, no Exactly the same way I'm very interested in the Civil War and World War two and so part of Civil War, you know we had the battle of Gettysburg right and so I was fortunate that my family and I we actually went to Gettysburg and Seeing the battlefield, because they kept that. They keep it in the same condition as it was back then and so Actually being there you get a much better understanding of you know how heroic it must really be. I mean to walk across like a mile and a half of cornfields, yes, or wheat fields, where you're just way out in the open, having yes.

Tae Hea Nahm: 48:27

Yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 48:29

Okay, this is my crazy pitch to he that I've always wanted to go, because I love going to those historical sites as well. You know, like following the tea party, like we know what that happened, we're from New England, so we we'd go visit. You know, as kids, I want to use a car. Okay, so you could pick up your phone and then, like, you could see People enacting the actual event, because people do these reenactments anyway. Yeah, so could you shoot that, and so it'd be. It is so immersive, right? Yeah, you could actually see the event happened for your very eyes.

Tae Hea Nahm: 49:02

I agree with you. I mean, I'm actually a huge believer in AR.

Rajiv Parikh: 49:07

Yes, great, so I can count you as an early investor. Perfect, okay, yeah, the Apple vision pro, an app on the Apple vision pro, will enable you one day I would assume enable you to do that.

Tae Hea Nahm: 49:18

Yes, it's gonna take time, but I think AR will replace all smartphones.

Rajiv Parikh: 49:24

So here's a. Here's an interesting one. This is great to learn about your, your passion for history and game-changers and one of the things that, as a person really close to the entrepreneurial journey You've talked about. As your growth is accelerating, ceos need to unlearn what they're good at. Help me explain.

Tae Hea Nahm: 49:46

Right. So basically, what makes you really succeed at one stage can kill you at the next stage of the company, in the early stage, for example, where you don't have go-to-market fit and you need to find a path. It's like you want someone like an explorer that can, without a map, without supplies, facing hostiles, they don't freak out and they find a path to through the wilderness. As soon as you find that path, you don't need an explorer type. That's right. You're done with that. Yeah, you're done with the explorer right now.

Tae Hea Nahm: 50:25

Yeah, you found the path. Instead, you need a warrior leader that can then, I recruit other great warriors, motivate and and so forth to fight a much bigger foe, because usually you know You're fighting bigger incumbents and so forth, so there's no fear and you just can be victorious and think of like Mel Gibson and brave heart. That's right, you know that kind of warrior leader leading from the front. Leading from the front. Winston Churchill bow war exactly, or like the Zalonsky in Ukraine right now.

Tae Hea Nahm: 51:00

I mean if Zalonsky had to flee Ukraine on the first day, had he taken the American plane ticket. Yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 51:07

It would have been a whole different game.

Tae Hea Nahm: 51:09

It'd be like Afghanistan. Yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 51:12

And they wouldn't fight with such. You need someone out there on the horse doing the sons of Scotland. You need something doing the big rousing speech. Okay.

Tae Hea Nahm: 51:21

All right, exactly, and this is why I'm so fascinated by military leaders and, like King Henry and Shakespeare at the battle of Ajinkor's like one of my favorite speeches. Then the next is you have this warrior leader that can you get the warriors. But then, after you have like 50 to 100 warriors, you know you need someone who's great at managing warrior leaders. Yeah, there the model that comes to mind.

Rajiv Parikh: 51:47

It's a whole different thing.

Tae Hea Nahm: 51:48

Yes, and so, like in World War two, because, as you know, like military history, it's like Dwight Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower was phenomenal at managing warrior leaders, even though he never fought in battle. You need a Robert the warrior.

Rajiv Parikh: 52:03

Yeah, or a general yeah. Okay, yeah, you know, and he's. Maybe even George Washington was that way. Yeah, he would. He would go, he would take his horse up to the plane to oversee the battle, but he wouldn't actually fight in it. Right? I want to connect that back to the entrepreneur, right? So the entrepreneur as that military leader First they're searching, Then they're working with other warrior leaders and then they're overseeing All those generals and they're just very different things.

Rajiv Parikh: 52:37

Do you feel like one CEO can do it all? Is it? There's some people with the notion of well you know, every time I hit a stage I'll get a different kind of CEO? Or or you know, like, what's your thought on this? You must know some that have done it all and some that have it.

Tae Hea Nahm: 52:53

So this has to do in particular, with founder CEOs. What I've observed an experience is that Most companies that succeed have founder CEOs that can transform himself or herself and learn and unlearn through this journey. So if you look at companies that have succeeded, that's right. The founder CEO has grown in this manner. At the same time, if you Look at most companies that get started, the founder CEO does not make it after, especially after two to two down rounds. Sometimes the one down round is the kiss one. One down round is the kiss of death. Yes, and so this is the other area that I've been actually so one is unlock the unlock growth and they make these transformations and the other is about what founder CEO?

Tae Hea Nahm: 53:54

first, because we invest a lot of first-time founder CEOs is what founder CEO Can really grow, yes, and be successful Is the other question that Been spending a lot of time on and trying to understand.

Rajiv Parikh: 54:11

Wait, so sorry. I let me. Let me understand, because you're saying unlock growth in terms of the product or whatever it is that they're selling the company, and then you're saying Learn to grow within themselves, to adapt and change. Is that?

Tae Hea Nahm: 54:24

is that? Yes, yes, okay.

Rajiv Parikh: 54:25

So you're you're looking for the kind of founder that can embrace the methodology and continue to change themselves as they go through each one of these phases, and you're trying to study what kind of person can be like that.

Tae Hea Nahm: 54:38

Yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 54:38

How do you evaluate that, though? I'm just care. Like you know you're saying you're, you invest a lot of first-timers like what do you look for? Are there, like you know, secret questions that you, or trick questions that you ask and you see they, they come up with?

Tae Hea Nahm: 54:50

a clever answer. How do you find that out? You know, just like everything, this is work in process, so I'll give you the the current state of thinking right now.

Tae Hea Nahm: 54:57

Okay and you got to understand whether, on all these things, this is like continual evolution because you know I'm continually trying to get better Okay is, when I look at successful CEOs, I find that there are three fundamental things we need. One is, uh, they need to have the right vision In terms of where the technology product and customers are going, and so forth. Having the right vision I think if we were investing in, like restaurants or something like that, it would be different, but in what we're doing, um, it's going through so much change.

Rajiv Parikh: 55:39

You know, tech Goes through so much change that if you don't have the right vision it, it doesn't really matter and is that sort of connected to a core value, that kind of a thing, like you know, because, because you're saying that there's, so there's some the shifting sands of tech, right, like, who knows, in three months ai make this big leap and it's gonna throw your whole business model off, off course. So what you're looking for in a founder is someone who's like I'm looking 50 or 10 years down the line, yeah, and connecting to like a core value.

Rajiv Parikh: 56:11

The their vision can subsume Technological change. Is that the thinking?

Tae Hea Nahm: 56:17

Yeah, I mean, just by talking with the person you can get an idea of whether you believe the vision. So the vision is so critical and a key element of the vision I find is A person is curious, and so it is sort of curious rather than being bombastic. And the second as a good instincts for the north star. So, and that's the first thing, is that you have to have the right vision, because if you don't have, it's like knowing where the wave is going If you don't know where the wave is going, you're going to make bad decisions, it's hard to recruit people, it's hard to get customers and all that. So it's just having the right vision Is critical and at the end you know this comes down to do I believe the vision Right.

Rajiv Parikh: 57:08

So so this one is the vision number one's the vision, the.

Tae Hea Nahm: 57:12

The second thing is is that the person's got to be able to drive execution. In other words, yep, when I say drive execution, I mean when this race. So if it's in the beginning, where you're an explorer, it's like you know, when the explorer race, or you know you got to be able to because you're competing, you have the vision, and then you got to like drive execution to win that race. And and there you can see a person who the drive the ability to hire the right people, make the right decisions. So it's about winning that race. And then the third thing is it goes, and this is what we were talking about is to change, is how do you change yourself so you can win the next race?

Rajiv Parikh: 58:05

Yes, so let's pick one of your favorite founders, because they can't all be like your kids that you love them all. Right, this is pick one of your founders. Yeah.

Tae Hea Nahm: 58:16

Sort of like. Well, take like Phil Fernandez, you know he was the founder CEO of Marketo and he had a vision of you know, this whole space, marketing automation space.

Rajiv Parikh: 58:30

Right the revenue marketer. Yes, you know, I have, and marketers shouldn't just be branding geeks Right, they should have a seat at the revenue table. They should be branding ones yes.

Tae Hea Nahm: 58:39

Have a seat at the revenue table.

Rajiv Parikh: 58:41

Yes, so that they have to be part of driving revenue? Yes, and then he had this vision yes. And he went from that vision to. He went through a lot of stuff. It wasn't a straight.

Tae Hea Nahm: 58:51

No, no, no, and I'm not trying to say, and he could persevere through it.

Rajiv Parikh: 58:55

Yes, so, that was part of your great founder. And then he found a way to execute by building a right team around him.

Tae Hea Nahm: 59:00

Yes, and then you know, win the first race, which was competing against Eloqua. That's right, that was a tough one. Yes, it's a tough because he was ahead.

Rajiv Parikh: 59:09

I know some of the founders there. Yeah, they're friends, yeah.

Tae Hea Nahm: 59:11

Now, it's a great company and they were ahead of Marketo, Right. But you know how can Marketo win? And the way it happened is that Eloqua got positioned as the powerful solution.

Rajiv Parikh: 59:22

Super comp. It's great, it's like a race car.

Tae Hea Nahm: 59:26

Yeah, you had to tune every freaking thing to make it work. So it became a competition between ease of use and power, right, and so, you know, some customers went for power, yes, and then some came for ease of use. But this is how Marketo took off.

Rajiv Parikh: 59:43

Made its place, yeah, then the last part was about shifting sands. Right, so this great execution.

Tae Hea Nahm: 59:48

Yes, but then you know, the company at one million is very different, a company at 10 million or 100 million.

Rajiv Parikh: 59:55

A billion or a billion.

Tae Hea Nahm: 59:56

Yes, and so being able to change yourself and your team.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:00:01

It's amazing.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:00:02

Yeah, it's amazing.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:00:03

And so he was able to traverse that whole thing yeah. Taking it, taking it public.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:00:08

Yes, absolutely yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:00:09

Yes, that's awesome. Okay, so now we're going to. This was really awesome. T. I love this Shift gears, so why don't you introduce it? Since you're the game guy, that's right. Before you go into the game, I will say that one of the things I there's people who play different types of games and what's your favorite game?

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:00:32

Civilization Okay.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:00:33

Good If it wasn't because the whole game is based on that answer, so great, okay. Who likes civilization?

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:00:39

because it's strategy games. You know I can play with strategy simulation games, so I can you know tax a lot of elements.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:00:51

See the whole world. You can see things evolve. You can see technology evolve.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:00:54

You start from small to big. Yes, yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:00:56

You go through the Stone Age, bronze Age, iron Age, all these ages. I got to tell you I had to stop playing these games back in business school because I found I was playing these games this in SimCity instead of reading my cases.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:01:12

Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:01:13

Yeah, I think we've all been there. You actually have the discipline to play that and still be a very successful VC. So you got to have some fun in life, right. You got to have some diversion, right, and look, if there's any diversion to have, it's got to be civilization. Okay, so this is our game segment that I'm now officially dubbing the spark tank. So welcome to the spark tank. Yes, spark tank. There you go. Great, Okay, Got sound effects and everything. I'm going to ask you just a few questions about civilization. It's just a trivia game here to see how good of a civilization junkie you really are. Okay, so I'm going to start off, I think, pretty easy. Question number one who created civilization? Was it A Sid Meier, B Jake Meier or C Oscar Meier?

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:02:07

Sid Meier.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:02:08

That's correct. Are you sure it wasn't the hot dog guy? Yeah, yeah, the pot.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:02:11

Yeah, the hot dog guy.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:02:12

Finally, that's your Sid Meier. Yes, correct, correct, Great. So one point on the board there. Okay, Civilization was a genre-defying game. Defining game, Sorry, Defying and defining. They define the genre of the 4x strategy game and the 4x's are, and you're going to complete the 4th x for us explore, expand, exploit and blank. A exist forever, B exterminate or C ex machina.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:02:46

X. What was the third one? X, machina.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:02:47

X machina. Remember the AI movie. It's usually never the third one, because that's the joke answer yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the second one.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:02:57

I can't remember the second one, but I think it's the second one Are you sure it explore, expand, exploit, exterminate?

Rajiv Parikh: 1:03:04

Yes, that is correct. That is the genre of 4x strategy games.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:03:09

Wow, so two for two.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:03:10

I would have picked exploit forever, so I guess I was off on this game. Yes, oh, that's right. I guess we could have you answer too. I think Teji would have a lot more fun with it. All right, so which of these things is an actual thing that can happen in the game of civilization? A Gandhi could nuke you, mahatma Gandhi could nuke you. B you can play as Finland and build a sauna wonder of the world. Or C you could become Genghis Khan's lover.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:03:45

It's the first one. Gandhi can nuke you.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:03:48

That is correct. There was actually a bug in the initial game that if you chose democracy for Gandhi as his, you know the form of government that he would become very aggressive and become a nuclear threat, and so the founders of the game thought it was so funny and fun that they kept it, and that's now a recurring theme that Gandhi can become very progressive. Talk about totally going against his makeup. Yeah, yeah, it's a comedic choice there. All right, which? This is so far three for three. There's only two more questions left. See if you can be a perfect five for five. Which of these does not appear as a buildable wonder in civilization? Six the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China or Machu Picchu? This one's a hard one. Yeah, it's a deep cut.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:04:44

Well, I know you can build the Taj Mahal and I know you could build Machu Picchu, so it must be the Great Wall.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:04:51

That is correct. You cannot build the Great Wall as a wonder. You can build it as an actual wall if you picked the Chinese civilization. So that's the deep cut. Wow, you are definitely a hardcore player. Final question which is the best civilization to play in civilization? Now, there is only one actual, right answer. So you're going to. This is not, this is not subjective A Teddy Roosevelt of America, b Shun-Doc of Korea or C Gandhi of India. Which one's the best civilization?

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:05:26

Would say Teddy Roosevelt.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:05:28

Wow, ok, all right, truly is whatever answer you picked. So congratulations Time for five. All right Now, but I actually play Napoleon of France. Oh, napoleon's, your guy.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:05:41

Yeah, a conqueror. Yeah, that's the person I generally play.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:05:45

And why do you pick that? Why do you like Napoleon of France?

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:05:48

I find that I get these extra cultural points in the beginning and it just helps me grow quickly.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:05:54

There you go. Oh, you like quick growth. It's the dating wow of Napoleon.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:05:59

Yeah, yeah, he's all about.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:01

He's all about scalable growth. I'm looking growth.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:06:04

But the thing I should tell you about games is, you know I love games, just like Rajiv, you know, did a lot of games and growing up. So I invested in a game company in Korea and it became a unicorn. I was on the board for 10 years.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:17

Oh my gosh, they were well.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:06:18

But then I found that games I liked don't become popular, and so that's when I realized I should stay away from B2C investing.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:27

They. I love that. I love that.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:06:29

Because to be a good B2C investor, you got to know what's going to be popular.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:33

And I'd say that's really hard yeah.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:06:35

And I don't have that skill.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:36

I think I've talked about this with other folks but I think B2C I've heard that B2C is harder because you're catching what is the flavor of the time- Right.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:06:47

But I think B2C is more straightforward. Send deep past that skill, you know, of knowing what's going to be popular. So I don't have that yes and no, but I could have an idea of how to sell.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:06:59

Listen, I could do a whole podcast on this myself, but it is about putting as many arrows in the quiver as you possibly can and shoot as many shots as you can at the target. That's awesome. Let me ask you the final question, which is you've had a great opportunity to see Silicon Valley up close and, from your perspective as a son of an immigrant family and or son of immigrants, what have you seen? If you would have marked the change in Silicon Valley, how would you mark it?

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:07:39

That's a great question. I would say that it's just becoming so global. It's like I feel like Silicon Valley is becoming a microcosm of the whole world.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:07:54

Yeah, it's true, there used to be a few folks, and now all the world's cultures come here.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:08:01

Exactly right.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:08:02

And you can sense it and feel it and touch it and anywhere you go, you can take that with you and you feel connected.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:08:10

Yes versus like. I grew up in St Louis, missouri, and it definitely doesn't have that same global feeling.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:08:17

Well, maybe they need to add another character to civilization. Maybe it's Steve Jobs, as the civilization of Silicon Valley that is expansive and expanding throughout the world. Right, right, right. Wow, that was fantastic. So, teji, I want to really thank you for all your time and your really thoughtful answers and just the brilliant insight that you've brought to us. So thank you for coming in today. Okay, well, thank you very much, really enjoyed it.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:08:50

Wow, he was just fantastic. I was just blown away at how in depth he could get, but not too deep and professorial. I didn't even have to do the whole watching out for you guys getting too deep in the weeds he was so clear and understandable.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:09:07

It was, say it on, and I think if I take one big thing away from him is that he was curious all his life. He saw what he combined. He's a great integrator. He combined his Korean heritage and their desire for making impact change but being successful and being hyper focused, and he fell in love with innovation at a young age. He fell in love with and he built his path through math and then becoming an attorney and then getting involved with startups. It was just this. It's not your typical path, but he saw he sees it as a straight forward path and it's just a really amazing background how he's taken to that and then built this amazing framework that's so easy to understand and follow and this is literally like 20 plus years of work that he's put into to make it that straightforward.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:10:02

You know, I'm gonna go off that for my big takeaway, which for me, was the whole unlearning piece. Yes, that's the thing that I need to that I struggle with as sort of the leader of my of effing funny, and it plays right into what you're talking about, with the curiosity as that being your kind of guidepost, trusting that you know, let your curiosity and the places that you have questions be the thing that drives you into how you know, either whatever your next endeavor is, or also for your company, but also for personal growth, and making sure that you're you're willing to change. You're right. You're the, you're the brave heart, right. You're William Wallace, who's fighting one minute, looking fighting one minute. And then you're the general looking over other general, other William Wallises.

Tae Hea Nahm: 1:10:51

And it's just amazing.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:10:53

At some point you're like listen, I got a bum ankle. I can't be the guy at the front of the the charge anymore, but I have a lot of experience and so I can help the next William Wallace do their thing. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the pod, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can find us on Apple, spotify, youtube and everywhere podcasts can be found. The show is produced by Sundee Perique in Anansha production, assistance by Taryn Talley and edited by Sean Maher and Matt Greenleaf All great people. I'm your host, rajiv Perique, from Position Squared, a leading growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at position2.com. This has been an F and funny production. We'll catch you next time and remember folks be ever curious.