Hi Reader, This week on the Gentle Power podcast (Youtube | Spotify | Apple), we sat down with Omeed Tabiei, a corporate attorney-turned-operator who helps SaaS founders navigate everything from cofounder splits to investor talks and exits. We first met Omeed through a random LinkedIn DM (proof that serendipitous things really can start with a cold message). Omeed runs his own law firm specializing in SaaS startups. He’s helped clients raise capital, sell companies, and structure deals worth...
12 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, This week on our Gentle Power podcast (Youtube | Spotify | Apple), we sat down with Mariane Bekker, founder of the 80K-member founder community, Founders Bay. She is also the former Head of Engineering at Mindbody and an engineering leader with 15 years of experience building and growing technical teams through six exits. This conversation was especially illuminating because Mariane gave us a peek into what happens on the other side of the negotiation table: how hiring managers and...
20 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, This week, we led a workshop on negotiations for founders. The main takeaway was that many founders don’t realize they’re negotiating all the time, whether they’re discussing valuation with a VC, working out equity splits with cofounders, roles and responsibilities, when and who to bring on for their first hire, how much to cater to the asks of design partners/early customers, and more. Every one of those is a negotiation, and if founders are not mindful, they could inadvertently...
25 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, This week, we welcomed our first in-person guest to the pod! We were thrilled to host David Carvalho - an entrepreneur, DJ, and San Franciscan legend who for more than two decades has been at the crossroads of the Bay Area’s tech, music, and social scenes. Through the companies he founded and partners closely with (SFVibe, Boutique DJs, Founders Bay), David books talent for events as big as Dreamforce and the Super Bowl to private gatherings for Silicon Valley’s most influential...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, Earlier this week, one of our friends sent us a study that felt so relevant to our work. This research by renowned academic and author, Neil Rackham, conducted research on what separates great negotiators from average ones, and it confirmed something we’ve been coaching our clients on for years: certain words or phrases can quietly sabotage your negotiation. The study showed that skilled negotiators use only one fifth as many “irritator words” as average negotiators. These are...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, We’re often asked, “Do you use AI for client work on negotiations?” (the answer is NO) or “Couldn’t I just use AI to prepare for my negotiations?” (at the current state of AI, we strongly recommend against it). So this week on Gentle Power (episode here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts), we decided to put AI to the test. We asked an AI tool some key questions around negotiation strategy and compared its advice to what we’d recommend. Some of what it said was solid. But we also...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, In this week’s episode of Gentle Power, we explored two topics: one personal (do we negotiate with friends) and one negotiation-related (how companies use tricky language in job offers). Full episode here (YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts), with the main points below. Do we negotiate with friends (and each other)? We’re sometimes asked if we negotiate with each other or our friends. The short answer: yes, but not in the way people usually think. When most people say “negotiate,”...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, This week’s Gentle Power episode (Youtube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts) hit on a truth we see over and over: you can be brilliant, accomplished, and trained in negotiation, and still mishandle a high-stakes job offer. Our guest is a close friend who went to a top business school, was taking a negotiation class while she was in the middle of her own job offer process, and has a career full of negotiating multi-million-dollar deals. By all accounts, she should have been bulletproof....
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, This week on Gentle Power, we had a very special guest: Kevin Houng - an HR leader, former employment attorney, and one of Alex’s longest friends (think Halo marathons on the first Xbox back in 2001 😅). Kevin has advised executives at major companies, scaled startups through rapid growth, and overseen compensation strategies at organizations from 10 people to 10,000. In short: he’s been on the other side of the negotiation table, and he knows exactly how companies think about pay....
2 months ago • 2 min read