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...
11 days 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 |...
20 days 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...
26 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...
about 1 month 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...
about 1 month 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 2 months 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 2 months 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,”...
2 months ago • 3 min read