Most people take job postings at face value. You either fit the requirements and apply for the job as listed by the company, or you don’t and apply to something else. Matt sees them a little differently. This week on our podcast, Gentle Power (Youtube | Spotify | Apple), we spoke with our friend Matt LeBaron, cofounder and CEO of Pocketbook. Matt helps large companies evaluate their software vendors, renegotiate contracts, and make smarter decisions about their tech stack. He also works as a...
8 days ago • 4 min read
Negotiations can feel complicated for anyone, and they often become even more nuanced when you're leading at work while carrying big responsibilities outside of your professional life, such as caring for kids or supporting family and aging parents. On this week’s episode of Gentle Power (Youtube | Spotify | Apple), we spoke with Shawna Samuel, whose consulting practice focuses on supporting executive-working mothers in demanding roles. Shawna began her career in global finance, where she...
12 days ago • 3 min read
We’ve both worked with therapists who practice IFS (Internal Family Systems), and it’s been life-changing. This school of thought starts from a simple concept: we’re made up of many parts, each trying to help in its own way, and even habits (like smoking) or fears (like public speaking) we don’t like are often doing their best to protect us. When you meet those parts with curiosity and kindness instead of frustration, you create room for change. This same concept translates surprisingly well...
19 days ago • 3 min read
Aloha friends, We bring you this newsletter from the final leg of our trip, Hawaii! We have some good friends who live on the big island, and thought it would be nice to see them on an extended layover on our way back to San Francisco from Korea. We just laughed right now at the random places we find ourselves working, this time writing this issue while sipping on hot chocolates in a kava bar in the charming town of Hilo. In this week’s episode of Gentle Power, we walked through some common...
26 days ago • 4 min read
We’ve been traveling recently for work and personal reasons, but that doesn’t mean things slow down with YourNegotiations.com! As bootstrapped founders, we’re often training the muscles to keep things moving forward while on the move (Alex yesterday even took a call with a prospective client while standing on top of the tallest mountain range in South Korea!), and that was definitely the case with our recent recordings of the Gentle Power podcast. We recorded our upcoming episodes while en...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
What your offer letter really says (with lawyer Alex Daniels) Some job offer negotiations need a lawyer’s perspective. Whenever we’re truly stumped, our first call is our friend and lawyer, Alex Daniels, whom we invited this week onto the Gentle Power podcast to tackle the most common questions we’ve heard from job seekers. In our conversation, we unpacked the legal side of job offers, clawback clauses, non-competes, negotiating severance, and more. Listen to the full episode here: YouTube |...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
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...
about 2 months 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...
about 2 months 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...
2 months ago • 3 min read