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Alex Allain: Welcome to Decoding Sales, a podcast. We're an engineer. That's me, Alex, and a salesperson. 

Peter Ahn: That's me. Peter, 

Alex Allain: talk about the art and science of sales as it relates to life and business. And after our, uh, last episode that Peter took solo. Thank you, Peter. , I am back again. Of course. Wasn't 

Peter Ahn: the same without you.

Alex Allain: I, you know, , you can never go back. , so. This is a really exciting episode because we are going to talk about a topic that I think is a little bit controversial. We are gonna debate design partnerships. So, Peter, , , this came up, , before the, the call you were talking about.

VCs love to give people advice on getting their first a sale, um mm-hmm. First enterprise sale and, uh, they, they give some advice that you sort of disagree with. So, uh, I want you to just kinda . Lay out the standard model and, and, and what's wrong with it? Yeah, a little debate. 

Peter Ahn: So, yeah, this has happened several times actually over the last few months where [00:01:00] I meet with the startup founder that's VC-backed, and they're explaining to me the difficulties of trying to figure out product market fit on the B2B side.

And in parallel, they're also mentioning that they're talking to a lot of companies and being purposely open-minded about what they could build, , and have it be experimental, sometimes free, sometimes like just enough price. Or, or cost to cover their own like internal resources to get their first customer across the finish line.

But I think that's dangerous to say, Hey, we're gonna do a free to cheap design partnership. Because in my experience, B2B companies don't invest a ton of might or internal resources behind things that are experiments. 

Alex Allain: Hmm. 

Peter Ahn: And so that's the core thing I'm grappling with right now with founders and it, I think it also is cultural.

I, you know, you know, I work with a lot of Asian founders, minority founders, and founders who have felt [00:02:00] like. The other, or an outsider. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Which is why I help a lot with hey, like you can actually say these things on a call that protect your time or your value. And in Asian culture too, we're always kind of taught to think about the greater good over , our own personal interests.

But that can backfire in B2B sales in the early going when you don't have any customers, because I think that it's the wrong way to think about, , getting your first trailblazer prospects through the door. Your first trailblazer prospects should also be leaning into the situation as much as you are. You can't just be building for somebody's experiment or for somebody's.

Itch in AI, let's say you have to be building for something that's core to your prospect's business. Hmm. 

Alex Allain: So, , let me see if I can, , understand the, the shape of this a bit. So, you know, when people are starting these design partnerships, it seems like part of what they're doing is like trying to do a bit of [00:03:00] problem discovery almost.

Mm-hmm. To figure out like where is their sort of heat or energy. So what is your proposal for how they should think about this if they don't have an answer already for where is the heater energy? Is it that simply the fact that somebody is like, not willing to engage with you? , a sign that there's, and they're only if, if it's only a design partnership, if it's only something that's cheap or, or free, that that's a sign that, you know what, this isn't gonna go anywhere anyway, so you might as well just step back.

Is that kind of your thought process? 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a combination of things. Obviously the most straightforward, . Data point around whether or not somebody is worth your time is whether or not they'll pay big dollars. So , I always suggest founders really think about what is their price point.

Don't make this, this nebulous. Oh, we'll work with you. Think about what the impact is that you're driving, whether it's cost savings or revenue generation, and put a price tag. Where obviously for your early customers, it's gonna be a little bit [00:04:00] lower, but it's still gonna be set at a point , that makes sense from kind of a value creation standpoint, right?

So don't ever go in with like free or cheap mentality. , the second thing too is see kind of from a, a relationship partnership standpoint, how open they are about their internal pains. If somebody's just looking at your product saying, oh, it's interesting. From a , technical standpoint, that's probably not a good fit for somebody.

You should continue talking to. Somebody has to actually be able to say, Peter, I, I have a problem with this aspect of my business. We're trying to grow at this rate, but it's starting to decrease. Or, you know, our costs in this department are skyrocketing, so we need to figure something out very, very soon.

I think those two elements combined for like a really powerful prospect to vendor engagement, whereas if somebody's just looking at it from technical interest and they're also not willing to invest meaningful dollars, it's [00:05:00] probably not a good situation for you to be in, even in the early days. 

Alex Allain: Well, Peter, what would you say to somebody who says, well, look, I, you know, I just need to get in the door.

I'm gonna find that heat and energy when my product is starting to roll out and, you know, maybe we don't have it yet, but we're gonna get there. Mm-hmm. We're gonna, you know, we just, we we're only, we're outsiders now, so they don't trust us. You know, we're not getting that partnership that we need to figure out those pain points.

Peter Ahn: Yeah. So I think to get in the door, . You can still command a price point that is meaningful for the prospect. Even if you don't have any proof points, because there are those innovators out there that you need to find. And I think, , just getting in the door is not just getting in the door. It's also you need to figure out how do you help with change management with an enterprise organization?

What is the customer success cost once you get in the door? , who are you aligning with? Right? Just getting in the door with a junior level person is not actually helpful. All because you're probably [00:06:00] still gonna spend as much time with that organization, but you're not getting to the core priorities that leadership cares about.

So I think that, , getting in the door. Isn't just a simple, let's land. You have to think about all these elements around who you're aligning with, who's your sponsor, what are you impacting? And if you're just, if your goal is just to get in the door, you're not really, I think, gonna drive meaningful revenue because you're gonna waste a lot of time with ankle biters who likely are just looking at you from a window shopping perspective versus, again, like a core strategy perspective.

Alex Allain: Hmm. Okay. Okay. So I like this. So let me like say that back to you a little bit. I think I'm seeing the outlines of your point. So part of what you're saying is as follows, if you don't have somebody as a potential design partner who's already kind of on the initial calls, willing to be somewhat open with you, then that's not necessarily gonna change when you [00:07:00] get in the door.

And second, if you get in the door, but you don't have the right. Relationships, then you're not gonna make any progress. And one sign that you don't have the right relationship is they're not willing to put up some significant investment or stake in the first place. Because you know, important people at organizations who command large budgets are willing to make bets.

And you should be looking for that kind of innovator or that kind of person. Because the people, I mean, I guess the other way to think about it's, if they're not willing to make a bet now, when are they gonna be willing to make a bet? And I. Prove something, there's gonna be a series of bets that have to be made for your product to go anywhere for them to even allow you behind the curtains to see what the problems are because that's gonna feel sensitive.

And so if they're not willing to do that early, it's probably just a bad sign. So I think what you're saying am most is like. A desire for a cheap design partnership from a prospect is a sign that the rest of the design partnership isn't going to be successful in the way it needs to be. Is that the right way to think about this?

Peter Ahn: Yes, that's exactly the right way to [00:08:00] think about it. Yeah. And even at the executive level, very few people know how to take strategic bets for companies, right? Mm-hmm. Which is why asking the hard questions up front, which is why we focus so much on phraseology. Because you know, you could be dealing with a C-Suite or executive vice president that is a follower.

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. And 

Peter Ahn: that is one of the most dangerous design partnerships you can get into. 

Alex Allain: Hmm. If you're 

Peter Ahn: working with a follower, which by definition of that, most of the world are followers, right. Very few people are leaders. If you were dealing with the follower in the tech space, you could waste a ton of time.

And imagine if you can repurpose that finite set of calories to risk takers who are going to, you know, 10 x, 20 x the trajectory of your company. 

Alex Allain: Hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Versus, um, kind of stay stagnant because you're. You know, worried about tactical things that your sponsor can't do, like set up the [00:09:00] next call or unlock budget.

Right? Hmm. Oh, I like this. Those are all interrelated. Yeah. 

Alex Allain: So, okay. So, so in some sense you're saying if a, if company's asking for a cheap design partnership or sort of like in some sense it's all you can get out of them. That's like a negative sign. Yes. That they're not an innovator, that they're going to be a follower.

. Give us like maybe a few sentences on like a, people can guess. It's probably somewhat obvious if you think hard about it, but what's wrong with working with the follower? How do they burn you? What's gonna happen in that design partnership that's going to be bad? 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. I think there's a couple things.

I think one thing that's gonna be bad is that you are going to have a lot more detractors early on in the deal cycle. Mm-hmm. People probably aren't looking at them internally as the people who they should follow. Right. , and that's very dangerous because in enterprise sales, even if you have a really strong leader, there's always detractors.

Alex Allain: Hmm. You 

Peter Ahn: know, nobody, no [00:10:00] deal has zero detractors. So it's just a question of do you have 30 detractors or five detractors? Mm-hmm. So if you're dealing with a follower type, they might have a lot more doubts internally that you might not see upfront. Hmm. On the surface. Mm-hmm. So, so that's one thing. And then the second thing is if you're dealing with a follower.

, the renewal might be hard too, year two, because the other thing about enterprise software is in year one, that's just the start of the relationship. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: So leaders are, I think, are able to say, Hey, listen, like this is what this startup can do for us in year one, by the way, it's gonna take a quarter or two to ramp up.

And so the internal comms of how you grow in terms of presence within the organization can be very much affected by the sponsor you're working with, right? Mm-hmm. The executive you're working with. , and then the last thing is like their peers externally, let's look externally, go beyond internally. , externally, there are certain leaders who are seen with respect, right?

[00:11:00] So if I'm dealing with the CIO, you know, there are certain CIOs who are respected amongst other CIOs. There are certain CIOs who aren't respected amongst other CIOs. So if you're dealing with the one that. Is respected. Obviously the network effects are gonna be a lot more positive, so there's gonna be kind of downstream effects on your pipeline.

I think depending on who your reference is. It's not just about the logo, it's also about their reputation in this space for adopting technology, because hopefully this isn't the, you know, your executives first rodeo in terms of taking a risk on, on, , forward facing or modern futuristic technology. 

Alex Allain: Yeah, I like that.

So basically what you're saying is like these followers are, are, are not actually gonna be sort of like seed. No, it's gonna be a hard deal. You're gonna struggle a lot. You might not get it renewed and then they're not gonna be sort of like seeds in the network to help you grow to the next. You know, non-design, partnership sales.

I would imagine Peter also that like the literal process of doing a design partnership with [00:12:00] them, they're gonna be, in an older environment, it's gonna be slower and more difficult to like iterate your product with them as well. Because they're not an innovator, they're not a risk taker. So they're using legacy systems more.

They're using, they have an old mindset about how things work. It's gonna be kind of like an impedance mismatch of sorts. Is that, is that fair or is that a 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, I think so. No, I think that like you, you still probably could learn a lot from a mid-level design partner champion, let's say, at a large organization, but you're probably just not gonna have the same impact as if you were aligned with somebody who's gonna bring you to the top.

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. Right? 

Peter Ahn: So you could be like iterating on the product, but then you might realize two quarters down the line, oh, like I'm dealing with this like senior manager and their C-suite had no idea we were doing all this work. That's a very real thing that happens often too. Mm-hmm. Right. Where they feel like really excited that they're in Netflix, but they're in a very junior niche kind of department within Netflix and [00:13:00] the, the chief there doesn't know what's going on.

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Right. So you get kind of this shiny object syndrome too with that, 

And so the details matter in a di like even if you were to go by the way down to like the levels of it being quote, unquote cheaper than what you would normally charge, um. You need to make sure that you're doing it strategically with the right people who are eventually going to lean in with budget and who are giving you access in exchange for you giving them, let's say like a lower price point.

Right? So all these things matter. And the problem I have with this design partnership talk is , it's pretty narrow and. Black and white. It's like you're either in or out. And that's not the only thing you should talk about when you're landing logos. It's like, are you in at a high quality level?

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Right. And is this strategic to the company because you ask those questions on the first call. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Yeah. What's a, [00:14:00] what's a good analogy here for people, you know, in like a, a nor like a normal life analogy. It's like you wanna be part of a part of a community, but you like. Yeah. You know, you're buying the buying on the edge of town or something instead of in the center.

I don't know. I mean, here's a good 

Peter Ahn: example, right? Like actually that it's kind of related to sales, where people are like, oh, like I'm gonna go to this event and there's this person headlining it. It's like Drew, let's say Drew Houston from Drop Fox. Mm-hmm. Or that's, it's like Sam Altman from OpenAI. Yeah.

And people are all excited to go to this talk because it's Sam Altman. Or like people got so excited about founder mode because it was Brian Chesky like talking about it. And Airbnb is like, you know, seen as a great growth story. Mm-hmm. And then people start to like implement whatever is talked about.

Or they go to these events and they're all like starstruck and then few months later they realize, oh, actually this isn't kind of like what I expected it to be. Right, [00:15:00] because you didn't actually like take the time to understand, like let's say you're going to an event. You didn't actually spend time with Drew.

You were just talking and he was talking to like a thousand people. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. 

Peter Ahn: Or in the case of like founder mode, you actually didn't talk to Brian Chesky about it. You actually just like read something and then like kind of tried to implement it. I think it's kind of like a similar dynamic where people are like, oh, like I just wanna land at Nike because it's Nike.

But you don't realize, you don't want to just like be in their eye shot, right? Yeah. You actually want to be like in the core of what they're doing. And if not, it's a waste of your time. Right? It's a waste of your time to like, think about founder mode if you're, you're not in a B2C company that is kind of constructed, like Airbnb as an example, right?

Culturally, right. 

Alex Allain: You know, I thought your analogy here was gonna go in a slightly different direction actually, where it was, it was gonna be like, you're, you're going to this event and you tell all your friends, I'm gonna see Sam Altman. And like, you know, you, you go to the [00:16:00] event, you're in the back seats, like you hear Sam Altman, you have some sound bites that are already on YouTube.

And then, you know, you're, you come back and you talk to your friends. You're like, so, so tell me about Sam. Like, what did he tell you? And you're like, you know, well, you know, he said AI is coming. Yeah. It like, I was there, what was he like? Yeah. But you know, like, yeah, that's kind of what I, but I was there.

Yeah. I was in the back. You know, it just, it, that's kind of where I thought you were gonna go. I like, I liked that analogy. You're like, you're not really there, you're not really meeting Sam Altman. You're not really meeting Drew, you're not really meeting, you know, any of these folks. You're not really getting the story.

You're just kind of like. There, and it feels like that's what you're talking about, these design partnerships. You're, you're just kind of there. You didn't really work with like capital in Nike. You worked with like some guy who happened to be employed by Nike or maybe it's a woman. 

Peter Ahn: Exactly. 

Alex Allain: But you know, it doesn't matter.

Yeah. It's like some, some like person whose job title on LinkedIn says Nike is not the same thing as working with Nike. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The goal of those. Okay, I like that. The goal of kind of [00:17:00] meeting these people or going to those events shouldn't be just like seeing these people. It should be actually learning something and having it be tangibly helpful to you.

Same thing with design partnerships. It's not to land logos, it's to actually grow your business meaningfully. But I feel like a lot of folks are so kind of focused on landing logos because they want to go into that boardroom or that board meeting and say, oh, I landed X, Y, and z.

But it's kind shortsighted, right? Or like, oh, they want to be able to go when they're fundraising, say they're in X, Y, and Z business. Mm-hmm. And it goes the other way around too. Like if you flip on, flip this to VCs, like a lot of VCs haven't had enterprise sales experience, which is okay, right? But as a venture capitalist, you should be thinking, okay, if I don't have this experience, why am I asking for a design partnership?

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. Right. 

Peter Ahn: And if I'm unhappy with a portfolio company that's closed two deals at 200 k [00:18:00] each per year, by the way, which is very impressive, right? Because especially if those two logos are meaningful, why am I unhappy about two deals when now I feel like from my perspective as an enterprise sales leader, I would be super excited , if I was a venture investor.

I wouldn't look at that as two deals. Mm-hmm. I'd be like, oh my gosh. Like Coinbase ISS engineering team and Roblox as engineering team is investing in you at 200 KA pop and you had zero customers. Mm-hmm. That's like amazing. Right? Mm-hmm. It's almost like a foregone conclusion that you're gonna be successful, right?

But a lot of folks are like, well, how many more design partnerships do you have? Like you need to be at 10 logos, or, you know, like, these are all kind of the wrong questions, right? The right questions are, what are you solving for these companies, and how deep are you in them? 

Alex Allain: Hey, I wanna, I wanna ask you another question here.

, , I think there's like a flip side to this too, where like, if you have a really big partnership with a company that [00:19:00] can't, that's not always a good thing if they're pulling you like in a particular direction that's specific to their use case and. Another risk, I think. Peter, I'm curious how you think about this.

So that's risk number one is just getting tugged one specific direction in a too big a design partnership. And the second, which is the opposite of what we've been talking about. And then the second is, , you know, sometimes people are gonna be seen as innovators, but they might be seen as kind of, you know, they'll try anything.

Peter Ahn: Sure. Yeah. 

Alex Allain: Right. So how do you think about kind of distinguishing between the innovator and the. The, the clown leader, the clown king. Yeah, if you will. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. I think, , for that one, it's all about like what questions you ask around their track record, right? Like, what's the last thing you've done that kind of takes a similar shape as this, right?

So when we were selling Dropbox or Slack, it'd be like, what was the last collaboration software that you actually led initiatives on? You can learn a lot from that because either that was successful or a failure and they've either [00:20:00] built up a lot of champions or they built up a lot of detractors in that process, right?

Mm-hmm. So I think there's an art in how you uncover that. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. Um, 

Peter Ahn: and it's also really clear too, in internal meetings, you know, you'll see dissent pretty clearly by the way, you know, from folks who don't respect their vp. 

Alex Allain: Hmm. 

Peter Ahn: , and you can sense the cultural dynamics, which is also why in sales I always say like, make sure you're not speaking.

I. Too much. Mm-hmm. You need to be able to listen to figure out what the dynamics are. Hmm. So, so that's what I would say on like innovators, you're completely right. You don't want that person who's like, oh, I've tried this, tried that, but it's all died on the vine. 

Alex Allain: You need somebody who's actually proven.

Success. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I, I think you mentioned like there's data points, right? So there's data points in that. Mm-hmm. How many people are coming to the meeting, how many people are engaging, how many people are like outwardly disagreeing with this person mm-hmm. Et cetera, et cetera. , , so there's that part.

I think the first part is also really good to bring up too. You definitely don't want to have a single customer control your [00:21:00] roadmap, which is why. For, especially for like PLG to enterprise companies, let's say, but even like Pure B2B companies that are starting off, the founding team knows what they're good at technically.

They know kind of what is outside the peripheries of what they can do and what is like probably gonna be a home run. Mm-hmm. Because either they've had millions of users already validate that from a product led side. Or because you know, they have a certain experience and their B2B product, right now, the core of what they built is good for these, like one or two like really painful things.

Mm-hmm. And so I think that is part of the process too, where you need to be able to say, no, we, that's outside of our. Core strengths. Mm-hmm. Or this is our core strength. If our core strength doesn't align with your pain point, it might not be the right fit. So this is like also part of the vernacular I'm trying to coach founders on.

Mm-hmm. It is like, don't be afraid to say no. In fact, you should say no more than you say yes. [00:22:00] Because then even the yeses are hard to get over the finish line. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Like when you're trying to actually implement, , , the technology. So I don't know if that answers your question, Alex, but 

Alex Allain: I think that helps.

I think that helps. So you have to kind of, I mean, I guess part of the point here is like you're, you can't even just like go into these design partnerships like throwing darts. You have to have some sense of what you're trying to. Do with it and what's your core? Mm-hmm. And that also gives you something to anchor on in terms of like.

Why you should be able to push for a high deal size. Like you have a core, you have something and yeah, you need to like find exactly within that core like what the right thing is. But it's not like you're just guessing totally randomly. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. And you, you're in the neighborhood. 

Alex Allain: You just need to find the house.

Peter Ahn: Yeah. And you're, you have opinions on how to build the house too, 

Alex Allain: right? Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: And that's important, is what I'm saying. Like, 'cause a lot of folks will say like, well, there's 10 different companies. They're actually all the same kind of company size and industry. Mm-hmm. But they're asking for the [00:23:00] execution to be slightly different.

Right. And so you need to find those people who agree with your execution path too. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Because you don't have unlimited product surface area, you don't have unlimited product management capability or engineering capability. So you need to say, this is the way we're gonna do it, are you on board or not?

And you might adjust that, by the way, because you've pitched 20 folks and. Out of the 20, folks, like 18 of 'em are saying a different way to execute. But you need to kind of make that intentional and make sure you're only focusing on a few things at a time. Mm-hmm. Not a bunch of things. And unfortunately a lot of founders, I think in design partnership world, end up focusing on too much.

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. And 

Peter Ahn: then , they realize, oh, we should have focused on A, not C and D, but they're still supporting C and D because they happen to end up closing the design partnership. 

Alex Allain: Hmm. Yeah. That's great.

So Peter, let's, uh, maybe let's wrap this up a little bit with two things. Mm-hmm. , maybe a little bit of a summary of what not to, to [00:24:00] do, what to watch, what are like the, what are the red flags to watch out for? But I think the other part of this is like, how do you know when to do a design partnership?

Peter Ahn: Like a free design partnership, like if at all, any, is that what you're saying? 

Alex Allain: Yeah. What's, what's, if you imagine that, you know the words design partnership means something and that's designing something together, when is the right time to say yes to a, to that? Maybe the price point is Great question.

Yeah. Maybe it's never that you would do a free one, but you would do it for a discount. Like what is your, how do you think about that? 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, okay. So I'm glad you brought that up too, because yeah, it makes me feel like so far it seems like, oh, I just don't like design partnerships at all. But yes, there is a world where you might do something for free and that's when growth and validating kind of the product.

As a like, commercial vehicle is not the goal, right? Hmm. So there are founders who are like, listen Peter, I don't care about revenue right now. I just wanna learn. Mm-hmm. And like I don't have this pressure of [00:25:00] like landing 10 design partners. Like that's not what my board is telling me. They're just telling me, do you have product market fit?

And do you have like a go to market approach that can start to show from that? 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Right. And so if you don't really truly have product market fit yet, and you're in this exploratory phase where. You do want to try 10 different things? Sure. Then do a design partnership. I just find that a lot of founders are using design partnership as a way to build the go-to-market engine, and I think that is the wrong approach.

So I, I think that would be the answer is like, ask why are you doing a design partnership? And again, do you really think, yeah. Do you 

Alex Allain: really think that that design partner, like, I mean, I feel like everything we just said about why design partnerships are bad would say that that free design partnership would also be bad.

Peter Ahn: Yeah, I, I lean towards that for sure. But, you know, there might be, I'm giving myself a little bit of a, I don't want to do this. What, Peter got wrong episode with this one, so I'm trying to show both sides of the coin here. Yeah. Um, 

Alex Allain: look, [00:26:00] let's, let's, I, I, yeah, but you gotta have an internally consistent logic.

Have you ever seen one of those desi free design partnerships work? In your experience with the, you've worked with a lot of founders. 

Peter Ahn: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Alex Allain: Have you ever seen one 

Peter Ahn: work? I. So I would say I've seen one work where I was the design partner actually, which is interesting. 

Alex Allain: Peter's good at negotiating free stuff is what we're hearing.

Peter Ahn: But yes, there was a customer momentum, um, which I also happened to be an advisor for , after like a, a few years of working with them. , I just wanted it for free 'cause I was, I knew I was their first customer and I was just start, I was starting off my journey at Twin Gate too. Mm-hmm.

And what they said was, we will do this for free. I think it was like for two months. Mm-hmm. As long as like, you can go to bat for us for budget internally. Mm. And then they also were looking at me be, even though I was at a startup, their ICP now is not, not really like. True startups, they're going more like mid-market.

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Which I think is smart for them. Like Zscaler [00:27:00] uses them, for example. Mm-hmm. And they have, you know, thousands of people on their sales force, but they were like, but you have large company experience being at Google. And Dropbox grew quite a bit and Slack did as well. So they wanted to use me as a way to learn mm-hmm.

What to build. Mm. Right. And they were actually interested in my like individual perspectives. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Because they weren't salespeople. They were engineers who were building the product. 

Alex Allain: And why did that work? How, why would none of your earlier advice have applied to cutting you out? Or was it because you were,.

You were clearly an innovator. You were clearly you. They had negotiated that going to bat. You were in the like executive suite, like is that sort of the key points here or what? Yeah, I think they 

Peter Ahn: trusted that I could, like, you know, I was an executive at the time. I was reporting directly to the CEO. I was going to have budget.

I. You know, like it was just happened to be, I was just starting out in the role. Mm-hmm. And trying to get my bearings. And also they tested me on my like philosophies too. Mm-hmm. Around like, they were like a Slack first, like [00:28:00] realtime notification type of product. And I was already doing that manually, with Slack, if that makes sense.

Mm-hmm. You know. What they were trying to build and automate around, I was already doing. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. So I think 

Peter Ahn: there was a lot of vetting around that. And I also had experience that wasn't just startups. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Right? , and there was an opportunity for me to become an advisor longer term. So they were like building a relationship with me individually.

, but you know, the question is like, if they didn't do that and they went straight to actually like selling. To mid-market, they could have had success there too. Mm-hmm. You know, like, I don't know what the differences would've been. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Right. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. I guess like one question is like, did they just kind of screw up?

Peter Ahn: Yeah. Should they not 

Alex Allain: have worked with you or like 

Peter Ahn: That's actually a good question. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Yeah. 

Peter Ahn: Because a lot of the things I suggested did end up getting in the product, but there were also other things that didn't end up going in the product too, right? Mm-hmm. 

Alex Allain: Mm-hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Um, because they were more like startup.

Type things. Right. Obviously the pain points I was [00:29:00] dealing with, even though I was, I used to work at large companies, was still very startup centric. 

Alex Allain: Right. Of course. You, you know, the startup ex, you know, both, but you're living one Yeah. Is just gonna be more top of mind. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. So I think like, I guess like my thing is , , I, I don't like design partnerships the way it's usually executed on and implemented today.

Mm-hmm. And I guess, like what I'm trying to say is there could be, it's, I think it'd be hard to convince me. That you should like start with that mentality of design partnership. Mm-hmm. Actually, I, I for sure know you shouldn't start with that mentality, but if the outcome eventually becomes oh, . We are doing a design partnership, you really need to think through multiple data points on why.

Mm-hmm. It has to be really compelling. The reason why, 'cause it should be outside the norm, not the norm. And today I feel like it's almost like the norm mentioning things like design partnerships. 

Alex Allain: So let me try something here. So it seems to me that there are some things that are must haves for any design partnership to be successful and some things that are red [00:30:00] flags.

So in terms of success must haves the person you're working with has to be a leader. They have to be an expert. They have to be someone that is pretty open with you about their problems early on, and probably has some like pretty close alignment to your, the direction of your vision and the problem space you're interested in.

Mm-hmm. If they're not in any of those things, that's just like, not even like just stop. , they need to have access to. Some pathway to the senior ranks of the company. They need to have pathway to budget. It can't just be a free thing forever. There needs to be some stepping stones there. Maybe you start off with something sort of like free as like a pilot if these other things are in place and there's a path to like a more substantial budget.

Um, and you're probably looking for this person to be a champion. So you want them to be respected in Yep. In the ecosystem. So red flags on the flip side, are gonna be things like, you know, you're not really getting core problems [00:31:00] from them. They're interested in the technology, but they're not really interested in, they're not acting like a design partner, even before you've signed something, they're not opening up and surfacing their problems.

They could be a leader, but they could be cagey. They're looking at this as a way to get something cheap or free. , but not as a way to like, innovate and create value, like mm-hmm. Those are the kinds of things that I'm kind of hearing you say, what am I missing? What would you add to that sort of like summary?

Peter Ahn: No, I think that's a really good summary. Yeah. It's just making sure that you are aligning to somebody who has influence and power, right. At the org and on, on kind of like more of like a peer level too. And yeah, just be really thoughtful about where you're spending your time is the main thing. 

Alex Allain: Yeah.

Because you can have a great design partnership where they're paying you or a bad design partnership where they're not, those are gonna take the same effort to get, take the same effort to execute. And one of them will feel very different. 

Peter Ahn: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. . And I think most people just [00:32:00] don't know how and, and what questions to ask to get there.

Which is why, and it's hard. It's not a very natural thing for people to be like, how powerful are you in the org? Which is not how you would ask the question. 

Alex Allain: You know what I'm saying? Yeah. This goes back to navigating internal stakeholders, that episode. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's kind of a lot of art in how you kind of build up this framing of why you're gonna work with certain companies.

Mm-hmm. And it takes a lot more intention and thought than like, oh, I'm gonna land here. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. So just to summarize for folks a little bit, like a lot of what we're talking about here is applying the lessons from , earlier podcasts, decoding sales. Yeah. , so, you know, navigating internal stakeholders, like really, you know, discovery calls, those sorts of things.

All of those topics I think are gonna be, Peter, correct me if I'm misspeaking outta outta school here, but like, that's kinda what you're talking about is like, , you have to apply the same sales process and mentality. Yes. And what you're looking for. Is maybe [00:33:00] a little bit different or like at least you have certain criteria that you need to be, people need to be meeting to merit.

Like a design partnership. 

Peter Ahn: . Yeah, that's a perfect way to think about it. You really have to qualify out more companies than you qualify in in the early days. 

Alex Allain: Yeah, this is like one of those. You're, you're not making friends, you're, you're making like roommates or something, you know, it's like you can have a lot more friends and you have roommates and you wanna be a little pickier.

Peter Ahn: . Yeah. And your first 10 customers are going to be critical to the shape of your roadmap and company growth. So make sure, in year two, your roadmap isn't going haywire because you've said yes to 10 companies that you probably regret saying yes to. 

Alex Allain: That's great. Well, Peter, do you have any advice for the VCs out there?

Anything you think they should be hearing other than like, listen to this episode and send it to your founders? 

Peter Ahn: I think, um, they should really be my advice to VCs is really get into the weeds of the [00:34:00] positioning and the messaging and the impact of what your portfolio companies are solving. 

Alex Allain: Hmm. 

Peter Ahn: Because then I think it'll change your perspective on.

You know, landing logos, because it's not about that , for your portfolio company's revenue to grow. Mm-hmm. It's not about landing logos, it's about solving critical problems for the most innovative companies out there. 

Alex Allain: Great 

Peter Ahn: and learn about enterprise sales more than you know today too, because there's a lot of nuances.

Nice. And there's a lot of things under the hood. I think that could be really helpful to founders. That again, isn't just about metrics or numbers or number of logos. 

Alex Allain: Great. Anyone you wanna call out here? Any beefs you wanna start? 

Peter Ahn: Not No, not anybody like that I can think of right now. I mean, there are few.

Peter definitely has 

Alex Allain: people in mind. He just doesn't wanna say them. 

Peter Ahn: I just don't wanna say publicly. 

Alex Allain: Yeah. Well it's okay. Probably get us, get us a lot [00:35:00] more listens if we went into controversy, but we, we can, 

Peter Ahn: I know, right? I will give a positive remark at a really nice lunch with Chen Li the other day.

Uhhuh, and he totally gets it, 

Alex Allain: you know. Oh nice. So that's wonder. I think you'll understand. 

Peter Ahn: Yeah. And he hasn't been in like a formal sales position, but he's been such a, like, you know, he's a student of whatever industry. , he gets like, uh, dropped into Right. Nice. And he's had to talk a lot about sales 'cause he has a lot of early stage investments and I think he's, I.

Really, you know, starting to provide a lot of great advice that is counter to, oh, just get like design partnerships going. 

Alex Allain: That's great. All right, well we'll have to get him to like retweet and like this episode. I know, 

Peter Ahn: right? Yeah. Awesome. 

Alex Allain: Alright Peter, well this has been fun. Anything else you wanna say before we wrap this?

Peter Ahn: No, this has been awesome to do this again, man. I missed these. 

Alex Allain: Yeah, this was great. I love the, you know, debating design partnerships. Awesome. Well, this has been decoding sales. , I think we have an outro here where we say things like. Like, subscribe, press all the nice [00:36:00] buttons on all the nice apps. , you can email us at, podcasters@decodingsalespodcast.com.

,and otherwise we will be back with more exciting episodes in the future. .