Yash From Momentum (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to Building Momentum, the show where we peel back the curtain on the exciting and often chaotic world of building a successful SaaS business. I'm Yash, your host for this show, where every episode we bring to you the stories and strategies of founders who've been in the trenches, conquering churns, scaling their teams, and building products that people and businesses love. In this episode, we'll be chatting with Lucas from Kardz
Kardz is a social collaboration platform that helps you stay on top of everything and save time while you are at it. We're excited to hear their story and the lessons they've learned along the way. We'll be dissecting the wins, the losses, and everything in between. So buckle up, grab your headphones, and get ready to dive into the world of SaaS. Hey, Lucas, how are you doing today?
Lucas Pessoa (00:41)
Hey, Yash, how's it going? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking.
Yash From Momentum (00:46)
Awesome. Things going great as well. Firstly, thank you for joining in. And I wanted to start this conversation by just starting to ask you, what's the big, bad, hairy problem that you're trying to fix, that you're trying to solve?
Lucas Pessoa (01:01)
Okay, that's a cool question. Right now, I would say building a sales pipeline, understanding how to feed it and what's the conversion rates. So we make sure that we know what we're doing as we're tweaking things in the process.
Yash From Momentum (01:17)
And that's interesting because one of the things that I've, in my limited experience that I've seen, and this is a mistake that I've committed myself, is that if you are a builder, you typically find comfort zone in building the product. And then you just, you sort of, for some reason, attach yourself to the idea that if I build one more feature, people will come and people will discover it. And the fact that a great product is going to attract a lot of customers, but that's not necessarily true.
And it's great that you're already sort of thinking about building a sales pipeline and a distribution channel at Kardz. And we'll a little deeper into that as well. But talk to us about the Kardz a little bit. Why do we need another collaboration or a task communication platform or a task management system? Why do we need a platform like Kardz? What's your right to exist?
Lucas Pessoa (02:03)
Right, awesome. Okay, yeah, so the biggest thing about Kardz, and it was born from like a personal struggle, right, with managing not only tasks, but the communication that happens around them. So
We're bridging the gap that exists right now between like task management, knowing what I have to do, both in the context of the team, the company, but also just myself, like so I can prioritize exactly what I need to get done all in one place, but also bridging that gap with emails, like conversations that are happening outside of that platform that you would have.
which if you're again, our focus right now is kind of agencies and service providers. A lot of that conversation will happen with clients, will happen with freelancers, will help happen with people out at the jobs. And they won't
using the same platform you're using. So they'll send you emails, they'll send you WhatsApp, they'll send whatever they want and expect you to respond to that. So the biggest difference is we bring those into the platform as well. So as you open a task, as you open something you're working on, you have all those conversations right next to it to give it context and vice versa.
Yash From Momentum (03:03)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, this is extremely relatable and I'll tell you why because I think a couple of weeks ago we have a project manager at Momentum 91.
And a couple of weeks ago, I was having conversation with the project manager. so her biggest challenge was that she was feeling stuck because a large amount of her time was just going into making sure that all of the client communication that's happening in different places is sort of being brought into one place. And then relevant people are given access to the relevant amount of
information, right? like that was, there was half of the work that she was doing. She's working on two projects and there was half of the work that she was doing. And this is something that we've seen previously at ClientJoy as well. We've been running an agency for about eight years now. And so this is extremely relatable because we had like a, we had Pipe Drive and then we had DocuSign and then we had Asana and Slack and then we
I think Fresh Desk, which was for managing tickets, and then QuickBooks for invoicing, and then Manual Reconciliation of Payments. All of these had some of the other form of client touch points, and still the client communication would happen across email and WhatsApp. And in some cases, the client didn't prefer WhatsApp because they had privacy concerns, so they'd do it on Telegram. And then someone was using a Discord server and stuff like that, right?
Lucas Pessoa (04:39)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (04:43)
So it was a mess. this is great. And I'm so sorry. This is very relatable. This has happened to us for like half a decade. But it's an interesting problem, a difficult problem to solve. It's an interesting problem. Sorry, you were saying.
Lucas Pessoa (04:50)
Ha ha.
Yeah.
I was going to say that's exactly it. Like I felt that problem in the agency I worked at as a product manager. and, it's exactly what he said, like all of these places, they, they allow clients, they allow guest users, they allow people to like go in common in certain tasks or common in tickets, but they just don't do it. And usually what people ended up doing is like, how can we force clients to come and do this? So you try to teach them, but they have their own way of collaborating.
Yash From Momentum (05:04)
Yeah.
Lucas Pessoa (05:27)
own way of communicating. So what I've been trying to do and slowly work in that direction is kind of what, you know, automated, like autopilot cars are doing right now, right? Like we, I don't know if you remember, cause I'm kind of a geek. So a while ago, they had a lot of different cities had all these projects of like creating roadways for auto, for like autopilot cars where
You have to build the lanes where the cars are going to be going, right? And then that never happened because you have to create a whole infrastructure for something to work. And what cars are doing right now is no, actually we're going to allow them to live where they should be living and have them think for themselves. And you don't have to build something special for it. So it's kind of trying the same thing. know, like we don't have to force clients to use what we want them to use.
Let's just create a platform that brings that information and works around that chaotic environment and bring it all to one place for you.
Yash From Momentum (06:28)
That's.
And I'm sure that there is a deeper insight somewhere in that analogy because what I'm able to get out of it is that if there is a choice between changing behavior of a stakeholder or solving for that behavior using technology, you should always go for solving for that behavior using technology and keeping the behavior safe. So it's because it's significantly easier to build technology that adapts to the behavior
rather then changing the behavior that adapts to a previous technology or something that already exists. So that's an interesting point. And that also brings me to my next question, which is something that I found fascinating about you is the fact that you started as a civil engineer, your education as a civil engineer, but eventually graduated as a mechanical engineer, then worked
at a services firm, then moved to a product firm, and then now are building a product for yourself. And that's a great curve, And I'm sure that there are things that you've learned.
Lucas Pessoa (07:22)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (07:32)
at all of those points that are very very different from each other. So those are not incremental learnings. They are just learning different things. They are not even on the same plane. So can you talk us a little about that journey? How did that happen? Why did that happen?
Lucas Pessoa (07:46)
Yeah, of course. So as I started school, like you said, civil engineering, I loved the math part of things, right? Like I love building things and I thought, well, actually I wanted architecture, but the school I went to, BYU didn't have an architecture program. And then my friends and family were like, well, just go to civil engineering because it's related, it's construction. I was like, okay, I'll do that. So I started civil engineering.
And my second year in it, I started doing an internship. And then I realized like, all the, what I wanted, which was, you know, building, designing, making sure I'm solving problems. A lot of it was being taken out. And it was mostly like, okay, make this work and just do the math to make something work. And I was like, well, I don't really want that part. I mean, I want that part to be in it.
but I want the design itself. want, you know, making sure I can tell what the direction, what direction we're going and all of that. So I was bummed out, understanding that that was, you know, what my future would be. And I actually went on a study abroad program with the mechanical engineering department for product development, like physical product development.
And it was in Singapore. And so we were there for semester. And that's when my life kind of changed, or at least the way I thought about things. And I realized, mechanical engineering is what I really want, because you get both. You get to do all the math and make sure you have the right materials and all of that. But at the same time, you're using that information to redesign and improve your product with the goal
make change, really changing people's lives, right? And when I got back from that study abroad, the first thing I did was switch from civil to mechanical. In mechanical then, I stayed within this product development emphasis in robotics. So I always liked coding and like putting machines to work and things like
Yash From Momentum (09:36)
Mechanica.
Lucas Pessoa (09:48)
And I focused on product development, which brought me closer to the business side of things and understanding is no, is there a market for, for something? So one of our classes was really like developing a product for the market. so we had to do benchmarking, understanding, you know, pros and cons, pricing strategy, and a bunch of other stuff as we were building a product, which was like a foldable drone that, you know, you could carry around.
and it had to be like phone controlled by your phone. So that was really fun to do. And then I started saying that I liked that side too, know, like kind of understanding the business, how we're gonna talk to people. And right after I graduated, that's when the start of COVID hit.
and no one really knew what was going to be the future of work. A lot of people were scared of hiring because they didn't know if they're going to have the money. And I applied to different companies in mechanical engineering, but I also had a cousin that worked at a software company, a development agency. And he said, well, we're hiring for product managers, and I think you'd be a good fit because of all the thought process.
And at first I was like, well, that's not really what I want. I want mechanical engineering, but with all the different jobs, even interviews that I did, the final step ended up not turning to an offer. was like, well, might as well get something and start working. So I accepted that. I mean, I interviewed, got the offer and accepted that job at Dev Squad, which was the agency for software development.
That's where I actually had the idea for Kardz because like I said, I was struggling on, I thought I was, you know, using 50 % of my time, 40 % of my time, just connecting people's and ideas. And it kind of got me frustrated because I was thinking, well, I went and did four years of school. You know, I really like all this math, all this complicated stuff, but here I am just, you know, being the middleman of conversations for like half of my time. Like there has to be something that can help me.
And I asked around, I asked other product managers, I asked my supervisor and everyone was just saying, no, that's like, that's part of the job. You know, that's what a product manager does. Right. That's, that's what you do. I was like, no. So I started looking up like online, used, you know, JIRA, we even had some Trello boards going on for, know, if I needed something from someone specifically.
Yash From Momentum (11:57)
That's a way of life.
Yeah, Yeah.
Lucas Pessoa (12:15)
I would go to their Trello board and put a test there, right? So basically we had all these outlets for like test management. And my initial idea was how can we, I just have, you know, all of that in one place. Like if I'm asking John.
you know, to get something done for me and he's over at DevOps or a different team, even internally, how can I make sure I can keep track of what I asked him, but also keep track of what I asked someone else and also have all the things that they've been asking me to do in Slack in one place, but also have the things I need to do for certain projects and my own to -dos, how can I put that in one place that would save me a lot of time? So initially that was the idea of Kardz, right?
Yash From Momentum (12:45)
a few.
Lucas Pessoa (12:57)
And I don't know if I'm talking a lot already.
Yash From Momentum (13:02)
No, this is interesting, right? And please continue on this journey. just make this one point. that is most of the task management or project management systems that we see around. And there's a longer conversation around that which we will have. They are designed from the standpoint
what ROI will they yield to the company that is purchasing it? But they're not designed from the perspective of the people who are using it. So it's designed from the perspective of a manager who wants to see reports in terms of time tracking and time sheets and all of those things. And while those are important, but the individual perspective is still missing. How do you make them productive is still an open -ended question. And so this is interesting. So please continue.
Lucas Pessoa (13:28)
Exactly.
Mm -hmm.
Okay, great. So yeah, that's, mean, you summarized it way better than I did. So that's exactly what I was thinking. Like, how can I be productive myself? Because, you know, all these platforms, like you said, they're created with the same structure. And even as I looked it up online, like there has to be like a platform that can do this. So I tried to doing like, how can I be more productive? A platform that help with collaboration, that help with productivity.
All of them, no joke, they all have the same structure, which is you have a company, you have boards or projects, you have tasks that live inside those boards or projects or clients, whatever you want to call them. And that's it. Like now.
Imagine me working with one project, my life's great. But now if I have two projects or three or four, now I'm going from board to board to understand what I have to get done. Then everyone I asked, what they ended up doing is create their own board or use notes inside the Mac or any other like to do list.
to replicate everything that they had in all those boards, plus their personal stuff, plus stuff that people asked them to do that was outside of like a project or something in a separate place. So now I'm duplicating all this work because I have to keep my own to -dos updated. As I get them done, I have to go and tell people that I got them done. If I have questions about them, I have to go and ask them. If one of those to -dos are inside of a project or a task, have to
Yash From Momentum (14:58)
Yeah.
Lucas Pessoa (15:18)
into that platform and update them. And that's what I was doing. That's what everyone was doing. So my initial product was targeted to that. Creating this, I even called in the very beginning a social collaboration platform, which you just collaborate with anyone in the world. You invite them to be your connections, kind of like a LinkedIn type of thing.
And once you're connected with that person, then you can start bringing them to collaborate in specific levels. And then you can have it all in one place. So I need help from John, but I also need help from Mark. I can send them tasks or bring them to collaborate in specific level without having to invite them to a whole board or project or even my company. So that was the problem I was targeting at first.
Yash From Momentum (16:03)
Yeah, and this problem, this challenge is really actually bigger than this as well because if you think about it, so let's say we are a Dev shop. So let's say we are an IT services company.
And there are seven, eight different roles. So there's UIUX designer, product manager, full stack front -end, back -end engineers, QA, DevOps. There are these broadly speaking, there are more roles, but broadly speaking, these six, roles. Only the engineers, which is full stack front -end, -end, are working on one project at a time. Even then, more often than not. So everyone else, like the designer, the project manager, the QA, DevOps, all of
Lucas Pessoa (16:30)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (16:43)
and even the leaders, right? So the people who are engineering managers or VP of engineering or sales people, they are working on multiple projects at once. after a point, it becomes extremely difficult to track. It becomes very, like, just making sure that I'm updating everyone and I'm getting my things done.
Lucas Pessoa (16:45)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (17:02)
While I'm working at that, it also is one of the things that I have to do. It's one additional thing that I need to do as well. But the other question that I have for you, Lucas, is that, so my journey, I wouldn't say has been fairly similar, but has been that of a lot of pivots.
did mechanical engineering, then worked as an investment banker, started an agency, built a product, exited that. And then now we are helping SaaS companies build products through India -based talent at momentum.
Lucas Pessoa (17:27)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (17:29)
And so there have been a couple of changes and now that I look at my journey in hindsight, it starts to make sense. There were different things that I was learning while I was doing different jobs. However, while I was living through it, and I want to understand a little more of your experience as well, while I was living through it, it didn't feel like my career is moving to anywhere.
Lucas Pessoa (17:50)
certain direction, yeah.
Yash From Momentum (17:50)
It was a time of lot of, yeah, it was a time of a lot of, you know, just internalized thinking that, you know, I did four years of mechanical engineering, but then now I'm doing banking, and then I'm starting a tech agency. Like, did that happen to you? How did you think about that? What were your, how was your approach on those things?
Lucas Pessoa (18:08)
Yeah, no, sure. It was very similar in that sense too, because like you said, mechanical engineering going to software.
And when I started at that company, actually, you know, I knew about coding, you know, Python, C #, you know, things that you use in mechanical products, but I didn't know much about like front end, back end, how do you merge those two? and so when I started, I felt like super dumb because, software developers, like they were going to ask me questions. They were coming to me and like, so how do you think we should do this? I'm like, I have no idea. Like,
Yash From Momentum (18:43)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lucas Pessoa (18:45)
Like, I don't know, talk to your supervisor in like the engineering department, not me. And after that happening, you know, a few times, you know, for a month, I was like, okay, I either have to go back to mechanical engineering, or I have to sit down and learn all of this and make sure, you know, I want to be able to answer those questions.
And again, with the market, the way it was, I wasn't sure how easy it would be to get a different job. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to focus and make this work. So I started studying software engineering by myself, also asking. I had resources in the company. had people with great knowledge that helped me out, would look over the code I was writing. I was studying with a bunch of people on YouTube.
so it was pretty interesting journey and that eventually allowed me to be where I'm at today as like actually coding my platform, you know? but as far as like pivoting and not sure what I was going to be doing with my life that I felt that same, struggle with, okay, I was there now. Am I just giving up like the four years of what I learned to do something completely new? and then.
Yash From Momentum (19:52)
Yeah.
Lucas Pessoa (19:53)
That's kind of what it felt like for me, but at the end of the day, there's so much from engineering, like from mechanical engineering that I use even today, the thought process, being able to break down problems into specific tasks, understanding, evaluating costs of not just money -wise, but
What am I giving up if I pursue this journey or exactly? Yeah. Understanding value. Like that's, there's so much I've learned and mechanical engineering that I'm using now that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. I wouldn't have that experience.
Yash From Momentum (20:15)
opportunity costs.
And so this is something that we briefly touched upon previously as well. And that's something that I want to understand a little more from you, which is, I mean, as soon as someone hears collaboration, task management, there are a couple of things that people would think. ClickUp, Jira, Asana, and so on and so forth. And these are fairly mature competitors who have been around for a decade or more in certain cases with significant amount of finances, great customer base.
good standing in the market and these are great products. So in a competitive industry, how are you thinking, like what's your approach towards competition? So how do you think about while you're building the product? Because I'm sure that as soon as, let's say if there's a customer who comes to you, who comes to Kardz, and when they come to Kardz, when they discover Kardz, they've already discovered your competitors before. And
Lucas Pessoa (20:55)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (21:17)
So they have certain expectation that they want you to live up to and then do better than that. And so there are these couple of interesting dynamics while building a SaaS product in a bit of a competitive space. By the way, another great thing about a competitive space is you never have to educate the market. So you don't have to talk about the benefits. You don't need to talk about all of it. I mean, it's fairly simple. So everyone knows that this will help me save time, money, and stuff like that.
Lucas Pessoa (21:39)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (21:43)
How do you approach, what is your approach towards competition?
Lucas Pessoa (21:46)
Yeah. So that was, that's been a great like learning curve about that. And one thing that was actually hard to me was how do I show value to these people that expect something different? because like, like I said, like all of these products and companies there, they set up their SaaS in a way that, you know, you have those same levels of hierarchy, you know, the company, the projects that.
tasks inside those projects. And I felt myself coming up with, you know, for good or for bad, like a completely different structure, whereas way more decentralized. You know, I have my to -dos. It can be part of a project, but everything seems more like scattered in a way that makes people anxious and feel like it makes them feel like it's not organized because
I'm just looking at my own to -do's or am I looking at, you know, it seems like sometimes it felt to people as I was presenting to them that they didn't have a bigger picture. And so.
It was a lot of struggling with, it seems like I had a lot of education to do because it was a completely different approach. So even though they understood the value of having like a platform to help with task management, they understood the value that other companies gave them, which is the value of, you know, having all in one place, the value of a manager, right? Like all those platforms, they're great for managers because
They have all organized the way they want. They are the ones that create the columns, the statuses, what things are going to look like, but they're not used to seeing the value to the end user and seeing the value that productivity has for, you know, you have one manager for 10 people. Like, what is it better that you have one manager that is, you know, 20 % more productive or 10 people that are 20 % more productive?
And today we live under the assumption then that the manager is the one that's more important to have that productivity. And so we sell to the manager. And while my product, right now, Kardz, I've learned that I have to have something for the managers. So I start building features that were focused on them. The greatest thing about the project, the company or the product,
is for that end user. It's making each person more productive. So you don't get the 20 % more productive for one person, but you get for the whole company. Right. And so there has been a lot of education around that because people really didn't see value at the end of the day. A lot of the times I would present to managers again, or even CEOs,
people in the processes of those companies and they would just say,
I don't feel like I have the same vision that I have in Trello today. And then I try to bring up, it's slightly different. You still have the same tools, like you have access to reports, you can see dashboards and all of that. But you're not forcing everyone to live the same way you do or to see things the same way you do. They are independent to be productive in their own way. They can create their own statuses.
Yash From Momentum (24:40)
Yeah.
Lucas Pessoa (25:02)
they can create their own columns, they can drag things, they can see it all in one place. And then usually the answer I would get is, well, my team doesn't suffer with that, right? Like my team is great, they're happy the way they are. And when you go ask the team themselves, they're like, no, I mean, there is some pains. But at the same time, it goes back to, no, that's all we know, right? That's all we know.
Yash From Momentum (25:20)
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Lucas Pessoa (25:27)
A lot of people I did ask, so do you feel any like struggles with, you know, having all these projects, all these different things you're accessing, like all the emails, slacks, whatever it is. And initially their response was no, like this is fine. Like I don't have anything. And I was like, okay, I don't know what to tell you now. You just broke my argument. But then I was like, I'm going to tell you about my company anyway. Right.
Yash From Momentum (25:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
Either. Yeah, absolutely.
Lucas Pessoa (25:55)
And what I found is after I told them, like a week later, they would reach out to me and it's like, dude, since like you told me what do do, I started noticing how much time I spend on those little things.
Yash From Momentum (26:09)
in.
Lucas Pessoa (26:10)
And now I see the value that you told me. Like now I see how much more productive I could be because now you told me what you do. And every time I'm writing an email or I'm copying information from one place to the other, I'm thinking, dang, wouldn't it be good if I just had something that did that for me or gave me the context.
Yash From Momentum (26:25)
Yeah, I didn't need to do that.
Lucas Pessoa (26:28)
Right. And so it was a bit of a challenge. mean, in no way, shape or form, I can say like I'm a unicorn or anything like that. But I've been trying to bring this new vision of how things can work. And it's hard to introduce that to a population that is so used to what they have right
Yash From Momentum (26:48)
Yeah, it's because if you go to people and say, hey, do you have a problem with the horses that you have? And they say, no. How do you sell them a car? yeah, so that's interesting, right? So I'm sure from a customer education standpoint as well.
Lucas Pessoa (26:59)
Right, what am I solving then?
Yash From Momentum (27:12)
there's this thing called delayed education, right? So which is where they think they're okay until someone tells them that there could be a better way. And then they start exploring, it just opens up the mind towards that possibility. And then they start seeing things, which I think is the case here and which is really nice. so the other, so this sort of brings us to the last part of our.
Lucas Pessoa (27:16)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (27:35)
of our conversation, which is where one of the things that we do is I ask you the question that our previous guest had asked, and then I wait for your question as well. And so our previous guest was a founder named Sebastian. He runs a company called Alphana.
Lucas Pessoa (27:43)
Mm -hmm. Okay.
Yash From Momentum (27:52)
Alphana is an AI company that helps you create 30, 30+ pieces of content from a single video that you may have created. as an example, this episode, it will help us create Twitter threads, Facebook posts, Instagram reels or TikTok videos and stuff like that.
Lucas Pessoa (28:08)
If you
Yash From Momentum (28:09)
just from the video. And one of the things that he's currently struggling with and trying to figure out and battling or wrestling with this is that there are multiple cohorts of customers that can use his product. So it can be used by creators, it can be used by coaches, it can be used by marketing teams at brands, it can also be used by agencies.
And these people will use that product in very different ways to accomplish different goals and get different amount of value, which I think could be a similar scenario with Kardz as well, because almost everyone needs collaboration. In such a scenario, how do you go about identifying your ideal clients? How do you go about saying, OK, this is the lower hanging fruit that I'm going to go after. Everything else I'm going to forget about it. And this, think, up to a certain extent, you've done that as well. So you're saying,
Lucas Pessoa (28:32)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (28:57)
that you're at this point of time you're looking at service companies or services or agencies. So how have you come to that conclusion or what's your thought process around it?
Lucas Pessoa (29:06)
Yeah, that's a really good question that a lot of companies and lot of products suffer from. the things I look at is basically two things I want to say.
One of them is how much value do they see in your product? So to try to identify that ideal customer, you have to find someone that suffers enough from that pain that they see more value in your product.
So if an agency right now doesn't suffer from it, like it's not something that radar, it's not something that you show them and they're like, my gosh, I really need this. Then they might not be your ideal customer, but then you keep going to all of those cohorts and understand which ones will say, yeah, I really need this. Where can I sign? cause now you know that they see the pain is going to be easier to sell to them.
But then comes the second part is how much can you make from that cohort? And how much can you learn? Because then you have to look at TAM, like what's your total addressable market? If you're talking about a very specific cohort, then maybe there's 500 of them in the world. And that's not sustainable, like you're not going to focus on them.
Not too much at least, you can even start with a few of them to get some money flowing to the bank, but you soon have to find a better ideal customer. So now it's kind of the balance of those two, you know, which ones you have enough of that you can focus to sell to, but also that feel that pain in a level that it's going to be easier to sell to them.
And kind of that's how I found agencies because they're the closest industry that really feel the pain of being in multiple collaborations, being talking every day with external people, internal. Like there's a lot of quick communication collaboration that's happening every day that that little bit that I add, giving context, allowing things all to be in one place makes a big difference for them.
And there's tons of agencies in the whole world. So that's how I found that's my ideal customer for now. And one thing that I would also say is don't think that because you're focusing on one, you're letting go of all of the other opportunities. Make sure you focus on that one.
But the idea is that you get so good on that one that you can start expanding after. So you're going to go after the other ones. You're going to go after the other cohorts, but just don't try to embrace the whole world. Focus on one, focus on the best one and allow the product to grow as you're moving to different cohorts. Don't try to plan for everything at the same time.
Yash From Momentum (31:52)
The last bit is extremely important because what starts to happen is as soon as you identify an ICP, start to go after it. our brain tends to not register our wins, but at every loss, like when you lose a deal or something like that, you start to think it might have been easier had we gone after another cohort and stuff like that. So it sort of plays tricks on you. So, but then what's the big challenge that you have
Lucas Pessoa (32:09)
Mm -hmm.
Yash From Momentum (32:18)
What's the result that you have?
Lucas Pessoa (32:19)
Yeah, so I would say right now is in hiring or like bringing people to work with you. So what
avenues, how do you find the best people? A lot of times has been like the people that I've found has been connections. I talk to someone about the company, I get in some hubs of startups in different parts of the world and end up finding people that are interested in being part of a startup and help with certain things. So there's kind of two questions, how you find them and then at what point do
realize okay that's the person I need that's the person I want because I mean at the start of everything you'll likely be giving off like quite a bit of equity.
because you might not have money to hire them. So it always that battle of like, am I giving equity to the right people to take the right seat? So how do you find the right people for the right seats? I think that's the main question. And that's a question for bigger companies too, right? Anyone. But I feel like...
Yash From Momentum (33:06)
Yeah.
This works at any scale.
Lucas Pessoa (33:26)
Yeah, I feel especially hard to start -ups because you really don't have money to like hire a company to do that for you or you don't have money to even pay your employees as much as they would have been getting because to find good people, they're likely going to be getting like a super good salary somewhere else. So how do you find them and find the ones that are willing to come work for a startup, know, and trust the vision and all of
Yash From Momentum (33:50)
That's a great question. the beauty of this question lies in its simplicity because it's so difficult to answer. It sounds like a very simple question, but it's extremely difficult to find a good answer to. And I sort of like to see my guests painfully trying to answer a question. You got off easy by the way.
Lucas Pessoa (33:58)
Right.
Yeah, I feel bad because it's a hard question. Yeah, we're all struggling with it.
Yash From Momentum (34:12)
This is great, right? So this is great for me. So this should be fun. But Lucas, that brings us to the end of this conversation. Thank you for joining in. And for everyone who's been watching this or listening to this on YouTube, Amazon Music, or Spotify, you'll be able to find the link to Kardz in the description wherever you are. Do check out the platform if you're looking to
Organize the work that you're doing and save your time while you're doing it. It's a great platform. It's a social collaboration platform to check them out as well. And thank you again, Lucas, for joining in.
Lucas Pessoa (34:49)
Of course, thank you, Yash. Thanks, everybody.
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