Omer (00:11.360)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan, and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies, and insights to help you build, launch, and grow your SaaS business.
In this episode, I talked to Max Armbruster, the founder and CEO of TalkPush, a SaaS recruitment platform that leverages the power of messaging and social media to help businesses that need to hire large numbers of employees.
Max used to interview hundreds of candidates on the phone every year.
It took up a lot of his time, and at the end of each day, he felt drained.
He desperately wanted to use technology to make hiring more productive, but he couldn't find anything that didn't create unnecessary barriers between him and the candidate.
So, as he says, he kept calling.
In 2014, he released the first prototype of Tock Bush and and sold it to a small call center.
The product would call candidates and use an interactive voice response service to ask them screening questions.
One day during lunch with his team, someone mentioned that Facebook had launched a platform that enabled you to build and integrate chatbots with Facebook Messenger.
Max hadn't heard about this before, but immediately knew that this was what they needed.
So before they'd finished lunch, Max had already told his team that that they needed to stop what they were doing and start focusing on building a chatbot.
From its humble beginnings in 2014, Max has grown Talk Push into a business that's doing over $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
We talk about how he took a pain that he was personally experiencing and turned it into a business.
And we have a great discussion on the ups and downs of building a million dollar SaaS business and the lessons that he's learned along the way.
So I hope you enjoy the interview.
Max, welcome to the show.
Max Armbruster (02:24.300)
Thank you, Omer.
Omer (02:25.820)
So I'm going to start with a tough question.
What inspires or motivates you?
Is there a favorite quote that you can share with us?
Max Armbruster (02:33.740)
Yeah, I really like this quote, which I heard recently from Sheryl Sandberg, who said done is better than perfect, which then I looked it up and there's a Benjamin Franklin version.
Well done is better than well said.
And then there's the French version, which I like, which is perfect is the enemy of good.
And so it's, you know, it's about just getting it done.
And if it's not perfect, that's okay.
Let's just get it done and see what happens.
Omer (03:03.010)
I love that.
And I think I had a recent guest, Nathan Conney, who Might have shared that quote or mentioned it in the conversation.
And I was actually inspired by that and I printed it out and I've got a little poster just two feet away from me.
Max Armbruster (03:18.540)
I may have heard it from the show.
It's possible.
I listen to your show a lot.
Omer (03:22.620)
Yeah.
And, yeah, it's actually good because I find myself wasting a lot of time trying to perfect things which don't need to be so perfect.
Max Armbruster (03:30.540)
I spend a lot of time trying to hire perfectionist people and then I teach them to be sloppy.
Omer (03:38.700)
All right, so let's give the audience an overview of Talk Push.
So can you just explain to us, like, what does the business do?
What problems are you trying to solve?
Max Armbruster (03:50.380)
We're recruitment software and we are working on high volume.
So we're working with employers who have a lot of candidates coming in and they.
The problem that I'm trying to solve is the one that I saw when I was already an entrepreneur, a SaaS entrepreneur, 10 years ago.
And I was meeting companies who didn't do anything on the digital side for recruitment.
They had career websites that were basically dead ends where it was difficult to apply.
And then I saw some other employers and companies that had very complicated career sites.
And I realized that the way they were thinking about it is there's so many candidates out there, we have such a strong brand that we have an overflow of traffic if we start opening the gates.
So rather than opening the gates, we're going to leave them closed or we're going to make it very complicated for people to apply.
And I thought it was such a waste when you think, you know, you go back to when you're a young version of you and you're looking for a job and you're dreaming of working for big companies, you know, IBM or Coca Cola, that you can't get your voice heard, you can't get your name out there and you can't get an interview.
And you feel like, if only I could get myself heard by the right person, I would be able to make that connection and maybe I'd get hired.
That's really the core, the essence, what we want to solve and what gets us going.
So how we're addressing this problem today is we have a recruitment CRM.
So that's a candidate recruitment relationship management software.
We collect data from different channels so we can collect it from job boards, marketplaces, social media, Facebook events, career fairs.
And we collect all this data, all these applicants, and we start a conversation with them.
And that conversation is powered by what is called a Conversational agent.
That's the pretty word for a chatbot.
And so we build chatbots that can engage with candidates and take them through the candidate journey.
Omer (05:53.420)
Okay, so I just want to understand this a little bit more.
So I like the candidate relationship management, a new category created with CRM.
Max Armbruster (06:03.340)
I didn't come up with that, but, yeah, it's the other CRM.
In fact, you know, in recruitment, they always copy sales and marketing.
They always get their best ideas from that area.
Omer (06:12.540)
So somebody using this would start by basically populating some kind of database with prospective hires or candidates, and then give me an example of how the chatbot might engage with a prospective candidate.
Max Armbruster (06:30.390)
Well, we hired our.
Our head of Latin America.
So we're a small company, but we already have heads of region, and we have a head of Latin America.
And he actually first saw an ad where we were hiring for ourselves, an ad from Talk Push.
And we published this ad on Facebook and Instagram and indeed and a few other places.
And he saw this ad, clicked on it, and it took him.
It opened his Facebook messenger and asked him a few qualifying questions.
And from his answers, we were able to determine this is somebody we really like to meet.
And that's how, you know, the working relationship began.
He was not who we had in mind exactly for the profile, but because we liked him immediately, I liked him when I listened to his answers.
I put him at the top of the list and we gave him a job.
So that's a real life example that I can think of.
But then chatbots can be used then afterwards to continue the conversation with a candidate as they go through different stages.
So in the chatbot world, it's all about context.
What is point A to point B?
And that changes with time.
So you have a candidate, initially it's about educating them about the company and then making them choose a job and then telling about themselves and then getting them to come to the office.
And then we even have a chatbot that can measure the candidate's satisfaction.
So after the interview, after they leave the interview, a sequence that would ask the candidate, how was everything?
Did you like the interview?
Would you like to refer some friends for this company?
And so, you know, the more we unfold this chatbot world, the more it feels like we're building.
You know, I mean, they're very dumb robots, but they try to mimic as much as the human behavior as possible.
Omer (08:23.410)
So you kind of saw this opportunity from your own experience of recruiting and what you were seeing around you.
But how did this kind of seeing a need turn into a business.
Max Armbruster (08:39.140)
So it's not my first company.
I started three companies before and my previous recruitment software company, I sold and exited to a bigger company that was better funded.
And I thought that there were not enough differentiators, that we were too much of a.
Me too.
And so I always thought, you know, when you get started, you've got very few things going for you, so you've got to focus on a very small niche and a very separate market from everyone else.
And so I started out by thinking we're going to address the problems of a small geography and a specific problem.
And that turned out to be, for me, what we found.
What I found to be the best way to approach it was to serve as the.
The first screening point for candidates who are applying for jobs in Southeast Asia, particularly for call centers where as soon as they would apply, we would call them and we would call them on their mobile phone and ask them some questions from an ivr, from a recorded voice.
And so that was our first product.
And with that product we were able to sign our first pilot customers and to build from there.
And then in mid-2016, or I think April 2016, Facebook opened its API for chatbots.
I was having lunch with my engineers that day and one of them mentioned it offhandedly.
It hadn't even hit my radar.
And as soon as I heard that, I dropped my fork and I dropped what I was eating.
I said, okay, guys, whatever we're doing, let's refocus our efforts on this, because this chatbot world, it's really touching to everything that we're interested about doing something more real time, more fun, more conversational, capturing the voice, all that.
So that took a big turn for us because then we rethought our UI to build around conversation and so on.
Omer (10:32.580)
Does the product depend on Facebook messenger or is it kind of a multi platform type solution?
Max Armbruster (10:37.980)
It's omnichannel.
You can have these bots that would live on your career site or on Facebook messenger or on other messaging apps or on sms.
So in some ways the US is a little bit behind the rest of the world when it comes to messaging because the adoption of WhatsApp line, Messenger, WeChat is coming from other places mostly.
And on those other platforms you can communicate where you can send images, videos, and there's just a little bit more content that's being exchanged.
So it's really perfect for jobs that require where you want to collect data, which is not just text.
And, and that's what we're doing with Facebook Messenger.
So it's a great communication messaging tool, but we can also work with the other channels.
Omer (11:25.820)
So when you started the business, there was no kind of software product.
It sounds like you're saying initially it was this kind of phone service with this kind of recorded.
Max Armbruster (11:36.540)
No, we had the software.
We had the software.
We looked at it more like there's a phone call, we get the recording and then we post the recording online.
And then you would consult all your candidate, you would listen to all your candidates online, just like on SoundCloud, like a SoundCloud for candidates or for recruiters.
Whereas now we think of us more of ourselves, more like a slack for recruiters because it's about all this communication interaction because now we've activated two way messaging for sms, for Facebook messenger, for other things.
And so those bot conversations, they're happening in the background all the time.
But at any point in time a recruiter can step in and take over from the bot.
So you can have machine to man communication that goes to man to man.
Omer (12:20.110)
Or you know, when you started out, how did you figure out what to build?
Why was it that that automated feature and focusing on call centers was the first thing you built?
Max Armbruster (12:29.030)
It was because I knew the solution to the problem that I wanted to solve existed, but it did not exist for our geography.
I was between Singapore and Hong Kong at the time and in emerging markets, most people, the volume of the market, did not have Internet on their phone and did not have a smartphone.
So I thought those solutions that the US companies and the European companies are building are mostly, it was around video interviewing companies like HireVue and Sonru, which have been around for over a decade, which collect video and from the video people can make hiring decisions.
But that was disconnected from the reality that I was seeing, you know, which was billions, you know, the most populous region in the world with the majority of people not being able to take advantage of this.
So I thought, well, we'll do like a low, low cost version, no video version of these guys.
And that's going to be based on phone calls because that works everywhere.
Everybody's got a mobile phone.
Even in, you know, the far reaches of Africa, people have mobile phones.
So if I can reach, I can hire them.
Omer (13:37.080)
And how did you get your first customer?
Max Armbruster (13:39.720)
It was somebody I had met in the past.
So I went my initial contacts, I went through friends and I went through my business network.
I've been working in Asia for 10 years at the time.
So yeah, I tapped into that.
Omer (13:53.400)
So it was just through kind of Relationships that kind of got you in the door.
Max Armbruster (13:57.240)
And yeah, it was a good relationship where actually I talked to the business owner, I said, I've got this idea, I've got this prototype I want to build, and if I build it, will you buy it?
And he said, yes.
And then I built it.
Omer (14:09.580)
And he bought it.
Max Armbruster (14:10.460)
Yeah, yeah, he bought it.
He kept it for two or three years and then they got bought by another company.
And so we lost them as a customer because the new buyer changed all the software.
But now I think we're going to win them back this month.
Omer (14:26.460)
How did you figure out pricing?
Because you mentioned, you said, hey, you know, I'm going to, we'll just create a lower cost version of it though.
Is that kind of what your pricing strategy was like?
Look at what was already out there and do something cheaper or what was the thought process you went through to come up with the right price?
Max Armbruster (14:42.600)
No, we're not a cheaper version.
I meant to say that we're sort of a low.
I did say low cost, but what I meant was low tech in a way.
Instead of doing video, you do phone calls, which is kind of like going back in time.
That's right.
Like, like sort of emerging market friendly.
But about, about the pricing, certainly the price, price sensitivity outside of the US is much, much higher.
People in the US are used to buying at a higher price, so you have to take that into consideration.
Perhaps.
But if you're doing value selling, where you're selling a service where you say, I'm going to save you $10,000 every month, I think you can justify, you know, selling yourselfware for 2000.
And if you can save, show them that you can save 20,000, then maybe you can charge them four or five.
And I always had this number in my mind where if I can give our customers 4 to 5x return on investment, then my pricing is about right.
And if I can't defend those numbers, then I have to rethink about my pricing.
Omer (15:40.690)
Yeah.
So how much did you charge that first customer?
Max Armbruster (15:43.329)
I don't know if it was 400 or $800.
A day?
No, not a day, sorry, a month.
It was enough to pay the bill, but, you know, felt like it feels like real money.
And so if it feels like real money, then, then it works.
Omer (15:58.030)
One thing I want to get clear is that you guys are already doing over $100,000.
Mrr.
Max Armbruster (16:06.670)
Yeah.
Omer (16:07.230)
Right.
Max Armbruster (16:07.790)
Yes.
Omer (16:08.190)
So that's awesome.
I congratulated you earlier about that and your response was interesting because you said it's just a Number?
Max Armbruster (16:14.590)
Well, it's just a number.
Yeah.
Because it's behind me now, so it's just a number.
But for the longest time, it was like I had a hard time thinking we'd ever get there.
I'm very happy we're past now.
Omer (16:29.010)
When you launched the business back in 2014, you'd said that the first couple of years were like the hard years where things weren't going to plan or the way that you had kind of hoped.
Can you give us some examples of what was going on in that time?
Because I'm sure there are people out there who are listening to this whole are probably in the same position and don't feel like or believe that they can get to a hundred thousand dollars.
Mrr.
But maybe they're struggling with similar kinds of issues that you were.
Max Armbruster (17:00.050)
Well, it's hard to condense all the issues I've been through.
I'll say that recruiting was super hard initially because I would go and try to hire people and then lean on my credentials because I'd already have 15 years of experience.
I'd already had some.
Some startups which I exited.
And I would lean on that to hire and to convince people that, okay, you're in good hands, you're in experienced hands, and that's all well and good, of course, but there's just a certain traction and once you've been around for two or three years, you get access to people and to talent that was not necessarily available on day one.
It's really one of the greatest things is that the longer you're in the game, the better your team is going to be.
And my engineering team is so much better than it was at the beginning.
I mean, multiple factor.
And then my sales team, my customer success team.
And some of these are additions to the team.
Some of these are people who have grown into the role.
Where I first interviewed our head of engineering, he was developer.
He had some good experience, but he hadn't led a big team.
Now he's leading a team of 10 engineers and he's loving it.
And that happened, had nothing to do with me.
So it happened with time.
And so good things happen with time on the recruitment side.
For entrepreneurs out there who are early stage, it's like, just continue to invest time in doing recruitment and invest time into your people and stay alive.
The talent pool will increase and your team will improve.
So there were those challenges and then challenges on the sales and marketing side and deciding what we were doing, because when we looked at the competitive landscape, there were companies that were Specialized in sourcing, companies that were specialized in screening.
And sometimes we didn't know which one we were.
And we had a lot of product ambiguity and difficulties in marketing ourselves.
And because we're creating a bit of a new category where we're solving sort of bigger problems like candidate experience and speed to hire, we can touch on both of those things, but we didn't fit any of the categories.
And so that was difficult at the beginning because it made it difficult to sell, to market and to communicate.
And it became a lot easier when we were able to embrace the messaging revolution because then we had a clear messaging now messaging and all that real time communication that touches everyone.
Everybody knows what it means in the real world.
So it became a lot easier to communicate.
So those were some of the pains I'm thinking about right now.
I'm sure there were many more.
Omer (19:51.640)
Did you raise money right away?
Because I know you've raised over a million dollars since you launched back in 2014.
How did that start?
Did you kind of bootstrap the business initially or kind of look for investors early?
Kind of at the start?
Max Armbruster (20:07.790)
Yeah, I wanted investors at the start and I got some.
I initially went with people in my network friends, so they were angel investors.
And some of my money from my, my previous business.
And then after a year we did a seed round that was led by 500 Startups.
I think that was after a year, maybe a year and a half.
And then afterwards, in total, we raised 1.5 to this day.
And we had a subsequent, a couple of other rounds afterwards as well.
Omer (20:41.880)
Had you raised money before in previous businesses?
Max Armbruster (20:45.160)
No, I, I hadn't.
My previous businesses were bootstrapped, but I was familiar with the space a little bit.
I was still a little bit green, you know, and I feel still very green in many ways, of course, because I haven't, I'm a baby in the fundraising world.
But I guess I could advise a few people at Steve's stage now, I've certainly been through a ton of meetings.
Omer (21:11.080)
So what was the hardest part of raising money as a first time entrepreneur?
Trying to go out and do that.
Max Armbruster (21:17.880)
Well, you know, it takes time.
You, you work on your pitch and really it's hard to get communication back from them.
Investors don't have too many incentives to just tell you how they feel and why they're rejecting you.
So it's hard to get value out of those meetings, which is, you know, heartbreaking because your time is so precious.
If you get rejected by a customer, you'd like to know why.
And they usually tell you, but if you get rejected by an investor, you don't get that.
So it's a little bit hard psychologically, but you keep going and keep working at it.
I mean, there's.
I think there's a lot of money out there, and there's a lot of investors at the seed stage, angel investors, small funds.
And so if you continue working at it and of course your fundamentals stay good, then that helps.
For me, it's just a sales job.
You know, you just.
It's numbers, numbers, numbers.
Omer (22:12.080)
Yeah.
So if you were going through that process again of raising money, what do you think you would do differently?
Max Armbruster (22:17.840)
People usually say raise more at the beginning so you don't have to raise again.
I tend to disagree where I like the fact that I raised in smaller amounts.
And that gave me an opportunity to rethink about, okay, what does this business really stand for?
What's our projection?
And to rethink the business on a more regular basis.
So for me, as a solo founder, it worked to do smaller rounds and smaller seed rounds rather than get all the money at once.
And I think it was, in that sense, less of a distraction.
I mean, it's not an all or nothing scenario.
You know, you can grow more organically in a way, even though it's.
It's not bootstrapped, this real money from real investors.
So you've got to be careful about that, not to let it get to your head that I build this on my own.
No way.
I couldn't have done it without all their support, of course.
But part of that support was also just pitching and hearing them tell you this resonates.
This doesn't resonate.
And when you pitch investors, you're asking them for their money.
I mean, you're really improving your pitch.
And that pitch can then be helpful when you're doing sales and marketing, because if you can.
If you can get somebody to sign a check for you for $100,000, you can get somebody to sign a check for you for 10,000 for your software.
Omer (23:34.440)
Right, right.
Okay.
So we talked about how you got your first customer, and it was kind of through a relationship kind of that opened the door for you there.
Beyond that first customer, how did you start acquiring customers?
What was kind of your main vehicle?
Was it just kind of outbound sales, making cold calls?
Like, how did you figure out who to go after?
And sort of, what was the process?
Max Armbruster (24:05.250)
We realized early on that we were trying to solve too many problems for too many people.
So we stayed super focused in the initial Two, three years in our core target market.
So we focused on exclusively high volume recruitment situations, which gave us a sort of a mini brand where people would recognize us in our geography, in our initial core markets.
And that made the cost of sale lower because we could get referrals within the industry and we could go to industry events and to trade fairs.
And within, within a year or two, people recognize you and they say, oh yeah, you're talk bush.
You say, really, you've heard of us?
How awesome.
And, and so, you know, initially it was like that, enterprise sales, direct sales, get the meetings.
And because I travel a lot and most of my customers are outside of where I reside, using the old trick of hey, I'm in town for a couple of days, let's meet up to get those initial meetings.
And I got most of my customers initially like that.
And then afterwards, I'm a big fan of building a community, showcasing the work of our users, doing video testimonials and letting the word of mouth happen and seeing what comes out of it.
And it's pretty amazing what can happen.
You know, we signed last month, we signed a customer in Bangladesh after doing a sales call in Chicago from a referral in Manila.
Yeah, but these connections happen.
Omer (25:38.380)
So what was that market like?
Like you said, we try to kind of focus.
But what exactly which market was that?
Max Armbruster (25:45.260)
Yeah, so it's the, the business process outsourcing industry, which is big IT companies like Accenture or genpact and then big call center companies like Teleperformance or Alorica.
These are companies that all have more than 100,000 employees and typically hire more than 10,000 people every year.
So their recruitment channel challenges are very unique because when you deal with that kind of volume, it's a unique challenge which is not solved by most of the software you find in the market.
And that's what I meant by focus.
It's like stay very focused on the very big fish.
That's what we did.
Omer (26:24.450)
Okay, now there was a time that you didn't stay focused.
Right.
Because there were some customers that you told me about that you kind of feel you maybe regretted having brought them on.
Max Armbruster (26:37.570)
Yes.
So you want me to share my pains?
Talk about.
Right.
Well, we try to get outside of that industry a little bit.
And some of these introductions came from investors, for example, and said, hey, I know this guy in this company.
And I said, well, okay, it's not exactly what we do, but okay, I'll give it a go.
And this massive distraction showing all the gaps in the software that we have spending three months trying to win them over, negotiating a deal and then losing them in the end because nobody's convinced that there's a change of personnel.
That kind of distraction is real.
And then another kind of distraction while we're talking about investor recommendations would be if they're, they're pushing you to hit revenue targets a bit too early in your journey before you, you, you sort of find repeatability from one customer to another is trying to achieve your, your revenue targets too early.
And I'm not going to put the blame on, on the investors.
The, the investors say what they want and then it's my job as a CEO to either deliver to them or realign their expectations.
And I think initially I was chasing revenue a bit too aggressively and signed some contracts that retrospectively I was giving away too much, I was promising too much, giving away too much.
And most of those early customers from two years ago where we decided to over promise and we were able to readjust and say, okay, we said we would take over 80% of all your recruitment activity through this channel and through our software, let's refocus a little bit on what we do.
Let's focus on the productivity increases.
And so we only lost one customer, one or two customers last year.
So it's not like we had massive churn, but it was still a big distraction.
And we spent a lot of money trying to deliver on promises that had been inflated a little bit, you know, where we took our dreams for a reality.
And I think that all stemmed from trying to hit big revenue numbers too soon.
And I think, you know, the hockey stick, maybe it'll happen one day, but you don't have, you shouldn't be chasing it, you should let it happen.
Omer (28:51.390)
I think one of the typical challenges by going after these types of customers, you talked about these kind of business process outsourcing, but kind of like the size of these companies with over 100,000 employees, number one, I guess is figuring out who do you go and talk to and how do you get in front of that person.
And then the second issue, I guess is in an organization like that, what does the sales cycle look like and how long does it take you to go from lead to closing a sale?
Let's start with that first piece in terms of like, how do you figure out who to go and talk to in a company like that?
Max Armbruster (29:29.500)
Well, I used to work at SAP and it's an army.
It's an army of people who go and sell to enterprise customers.
We have solutions, architect, value engineering, we have consultants like Accenture and Deloitte who also help to sell and install SAP, and then you have industry experts and so on.
And to a certain degree, I recommend for a startup to also try to replicate that diversity and to see if you can create different touch points for your customers.
The customer decision at the enterprise level will happen at every level.
So there's the CEO for what we do, the head of hr, the head of talent acquisition.
Underneath there's the recruitment manager, maybe a sourcing marketing manager, and then there'll be some recruiters and then phone screeners.
And you really have to sell at every level, because if you mess up one of those, I mean, maybe you don't need the CEO, but you definitely need one level below him.
And if you mess up at any level there, then the service can go wrong.
So in order to sell at every level or to engage at every level, you need a team structure that replicates that.
And so as opposed to those management how to books that say, oh, startups, you should have a flat management structure.
Early on, we created a system where we had a customer success executive reporting to a manager, reporting to a director, reporting to me, and that those four layers allowed us to align nicely with the four decision makers and the four layers with our customer.
So I would talk to the head of hr, our customer success director would talk to the head of talent acquisition, and so on and so forth, all the way down to the user.
Because each of those people have different reasons to buy, different Personas.
They're looking at it from a different perspective.
So we have to sell four different ways.
Omer (31:21.680)
Okay, so the reason for doing that was to each person being able to communicate appropriately to whoever they're talking to in the organization.
Max Armbruster (31:34.560)
Yeah.
Omer (31:35.520)
But then was there also kind of a perception, reason for doing it as well, in terms of when the prospective customer is kind of looking at your organization and totally talking at people at different levels, does that kind of make kind of impact how they think about their decision making?
Max Armbruster (31:51.110)
Totally.
I mean, at the beginning it was me in my laptop in my backpack traveling and saying, hey, you want to try this?
I mean, it was a much longer sales cycle because I had to go up and down the organization.
I've got a busy agenda.
So I don't necessarily always have the patience to go through that sales cycle because it could be 612 months convincing everybody, going through procurement and waiting for budgets to become available and so on.
And now we've got conversations where people are coming in.
They say, oh, yeah, we've heard about you and so and so used to work there and he's worked with you and that works.
And then we have a time from the moment that is a qualified lead to the moment we sell, where it can be wrapped up in a week or two.
And we're talking about software that's $10,000 a year and upwards.
So it's not a small decision.
But yeah, we figured it out because we've multiplied all those touch points and because we anticipate every objection that can happen before it happens.
Omer (32:49.830)
You said when you were kind of going out there, sales cycle could be six to 12 months.
What does that typically look like for you guys?
Max Armbruster (32:56.750)
Right now it's less than three months, I would say.
Yeah, counting procurement.
Omer (33:02.310)
And do you think it's because of this kind of sales structure you put in place?
Is that the primary reason or were there other things as well that have helped you to shorten that sales cycle?
Max Armbruster (33:14.880)
The team is better.
That's the number one thing.
The product is better, the team is better, the brand is starting to be recognized.
All these factors play in and just the confidence of what our value proposition is.
Initially, we spent a lot of our meetings where it would be pure exploration of tell me about yourself, tell me about your problems, tell me about this.
And this type of consultative selling is great when you're selling service, but it doesn't have the speed.
So if you want to increase the speed to sell, you have to come in with a couple of plays already mapped out and where you know exactly dozen cents, what you can deliver for your customer.
Omer (33:55.490)
Do you think it was this kind of organization structure that you put in place with your sales team that was the primary reason that helped you shorten this sales cycle?
Or were there other factors as well that helped you to close deals faster?
Max Armbruster (34:13.110)
The organization help, the product helps, the product's better, the team is better.
The brand, we have a small brand, people know about us and everything kind of gets easier with time.
But really, I mean, this structure helped and also just generally word of mouth and referrals help.
So you really can't get any sort of word of mouth and referrals when you're doing enterprise SaaS after year two or three.
So until then you just kind of just gotta be patient.
Omer (34:43.110)
So kind of looking back at the last four years, if you were kind of giving yourself Advice back in 2014, what would you be telling yourself?
What would you be doing differently?
Max Armbruster (34:56.630)
I have made so many mistakes.
So with the power of insight, I could tell me, I would give me a whole different business plan.
My business at the time we started the business in one city.
Currently we don't have any employees in that city.
So we even changed home and country.
We changed our focus, we changed our products so much.
So it's really been quite the journey.
And I would just continue to just say stick with it, stay focused on the big idea, what are you delivering?
What's the value that you want to deliver for your customers?
And everything will fall into place because, because that's how it's been.
And I would say focus on, continuously focus on recruitment.
If you're a little frustrated sometimes and you don't feel like you're getting enough help, especially as a solo founder, it can be lonely sometime.
Just continue to invest in recruitment and your people and help is on the way.
Omer (35:51.030)
How much time do you put into strategy and planning and thinking about where you're taking the business?
Because you kind of made that interesting comment earlier where you said, hey, you know, I was at lunch with the team and somebody mentioned kind of Facebook was opened up their kind of platform for chatbots.
And I was like, okay, let's drop everything and let's go after that.
And so it didn't sound like there was a lot of thought put into that, but it turned out to be a smart decision that a big part of your business is based on today.
Max Armbruster (36:22.950)
It was an obvious decision.
Yeah.
Because it was aligned with what we were trying to accomplish and I didn't know that this technology was available and we, we were already working a lot on that platform on Facebook.
So it was just, it was very obvious and clear.
But on the topic of long term versus short term.
Yeah, maybe I can say, I mean, my personal style is to think more along short term targets.
We have a very spread out team in four different offices all over the world.
And so management by objective is something that helps where we know exactly what everybody needs to deliver within four months.
So we do our appraisal.
You know, some companies do every month, some companies do once a year.
We do appraisals every four months.
And that's been really helpful.
I don't remember what your question is, but I think that's an answer to it.
Omer (37:13.260)
All right, well that's a good, that's a good time for us to move into the lightning round.
All right, so you know the drill here.
So I'm going to ask you seven questions and just try to answer them as quickly as you can.
Max Armbruster (37:27.390)
All right.
Omer (37:27.950)
What's the best piece of business advice you've ever received?
Max Armbruster (37:32.910)
People say hire slow fire, fast And I like that.
Although I think Hire Fast Fire Fast also works.
Omer (37:42.270)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Max Armbruster (37:45.310)
I really loved reading Rework.
And then I also recommend High Output Management by Andy Grove.
Omer (37:53.070)
Or what's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Max Armbruster (37:58.990)
You have to be a good recruiter, which really boils down to being a good sales guy.
Omer (38:06.590)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Max Armbruster (38:11.230)
Well, I couldn't do my job without Uber and WhatsApp.
WhatsApp for desktop really helped.
Helps us in our productivity.
We moved to Slack for most of our communication since then.
But what's great about WhatsApp that Slack doesn't have is you can send audio notes.
So even if I'm sending these messages out, like, people can feel like I'm.
Even though I'm on the other side of the planet, they feel like they can hear me.
And we can talk asynchronously.
So that's very productive.
Omer (38:40.300)
What's the WhatsApp desktop app?
Does it have to hook up to your phone or something?
Max Armbruster (38:45.380)
Yeah, yeah, it's synchronized, so it's free.
I mean, if you've ever worked on Slack, it's the same thing, except, I mean, there are very, very few minor differences, but it's essentially the same thing.
So the WhatsApp and the.
And the app are synced.
Slack does that.
In fact, talkbush does that as well.
Omer (39:03.460)
I have to try that.
Okay, what's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the time?
Max Armbruster (39:10.020)
I mean, I will make the time eventually.
I want to work on virtual reality entertainment for certain segments of the population.
I'm thinking for the older segments for more senior people.
Omer (39:24.200)
Okay.
Max Armbruster (39:25.880)
I know it's very specific, but I know I've been working on Talkbrush for four years.
I've had time to think about
Omer (39:34.200)
what's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know.
Max Armbruster (39:38.280)
Well, I don't know if it's that much fun, but I do yoga.
I used to play basketball, but now I'm older, so I do yoga to keep in shape.
And I'm using the mindbody app because I travel a lot.
We have customers in 12 or 15 different countries.
And I've been able to, like, book yoga classes, I think, in eight countries using that app.
So if somebody at mindbody is listening, you know, you can.
You can put me on your podcast.
Omer (40:05.140)
Love it.
And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Max Armbruster (40:10.020)
I love reading about science fiction.
I. I like comedy and cartoons, so, I mean, I'm a big fan of Rick and Morty.
Omer (40:18.430)
All right, all right.
So, Max, if people want to find out more about Talk Push, they can go to talkpush.com.
Max Armbruster (40:29.550)
absolutely.
Absolutely.
Talkpush.com and our YouTube channel if they want to see how we can transform their recruitment experiences.
Omer (40:38.110)
And if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Max Armbruster (40:42.870)
Well, they can contact through the website or send an email to hellotalkpush.com.
Omer (40:50.870)
all right, sweet.
Thank you.
I appreciate you making the time to join me here.
What is it?
It's almost ten o' clock there in Paris.
Max Armbruster (41:01.510)
Yeah, it's time for a glass of In Paris.
Absolutely.
Thank you very much, Omar, for your time and for inviting me to this podcast and for all the wonderful content that keeps me company throughout this long journey.
Omer (41:18.750)
That's awesome.
Thanks, man.
I really enjoyed this conversation.
All the best.
Max Armbruster (41:23.550)
Pleasure is all mine.
Cheers.
Omer (41:25.030)
Cheers.
