Off to the Valley

Prateek Panda: Off to the
Valley is off to the holidays

Hello and welcome to a special episode of

Off to the Valley podcast.

I'm your host Prateek Panda and
today we're taking a moment to

reflect on an incredible journey.

12 EPISODES

12 INSPIRING STORIES

one UNFORGETTABLE season

This season we've traveled
the world through the eyes of

extraordinary entrepreneurs

who dared to leave the familiar
and create something remarkable.

From Melissa Kwan's $600
leap to New York City, to

Esben's mastery of Scaling Across Borders.

To Lisa Wehden's Revolutionary
Immigration Solutions,

we've seen courage, innovation,
and grit come alive.

So, as we head into the holiday
season, we've compiled some

of the best moments from

Season 1

to relive the journey, the lessons,
and of course, the inspiration.

Let's dive in.

Melissa Kwan: I had 600 bucks
in my pocket and I moved to New

York and the rest was history.

I moved to New York,

got an apartment on Airbnb
for a couple months.

There was a lot of fear
about leaving home,

How do you feel accepted and
comfortable in a new city?

Ironically, even though in New
York, I didn't know anybody,

I felt more at home

I felt more that

I could be myself

Everybody was there to accomplish a
mission and I was also on a mission.

And then everything, in a new place became
more connected to who I was at the time.

And it turned out to be

the best decision I made.

After I moved to New York, I
also met my life partner who is

now my Co-founder to eWebinar.

And because of him, I got to , leave
New York to nomad for three years,

and then we eventually found
Amsterdam, which we have a home base.

It's just a kind of a

butterfly effect of things

that happen if you take the leap
towards something you don't know.

Lloyed Lobo: Almost 95 percent of the
people who've come to our traction

events, podcasts, I have cold emailed.

I do this over and over again.

The compound interest on cold emailing

people to build relationships
over 10 years is a massive

network of 120000 people.

Jason Lemkin wrote the
foreward on my book.

You know how I met Jason Lemkin?

I cold emailed him and cold emailed
him to come and moderate a session.

I was a big fan.

It took three or four tries.

What happened after that was he was so
impressed when he came to that event,

because he saw Rippling's founder there.

He saw Eventbrite's CEO.

Like that Chief Growth
Officer at LinkedIn.

He's like, how did you get all
these people to come to your event?

I said, I cold emailed them all.

Even I got on your
podcast from cold email.

Prateek Panda: Yeah.

We spoke two times and

we built an amazing rapport together.

That's a perfect example of, how you
can continue to build your network.

Lloyed Lobo: Exactly.

That's what I'm saying.

Most people don't ask.

Why don't you just ask?

It is the easiest thing to do.

Esben Friis-Jensen: I think
today you don't necessarily need

to be based in Silicon Valley.

You can still get a lot of
inspiration from being there

and network and connections.

So it's still good to go there.

But I think

you can start a startup from anywhere

maybe to give a bit more insights
on that second phase of our story.

So when we decided to start
Cobalt, that was 2013.

I think we wanted two things.

One, we wanted to build a company

and two, we also wanted some
kind of adventure, right?

And in the beginning it was very much
just like a project kind of thing.

We said, okay let's go build a company.

Let's try to build
something in three months.

The goal was to build an MVP and
then get one or three customers.

Kausambi Manjita: I think globally,
this is how we think about it.

And then keeping it region
agnostic as of now is that

we have our engineering and
technology and product hub in India,

and we have our inside
sales hub in India, right?

So these are, and because of that, we also
have our customer success, at least the

early support and success in India, right?

So this is the hub.

And then each region has their own
specific nuance of marketing and

own specific nuance of the kind of
partnerships that we can strike.

That is how we would have take a look
at each region and depending on where

the need is set up the appropriate go
to market teams in that region, right?

Sara Powell: It takes way more courage
to ask for help than it does to hide

in a , pretend everything is fine.

Now I have the support of
coaches, therapist, friends.

I also think it's so important
to surround yourself with other

people who are on entrepreneurship
journey or whatever field you're in,

they can share the lessons that
they've learned along the way.

Oren, my business accountability
buddy, has been a game changer,

we meet once a month, structure
our calls where we reflect on our

last month's, highs, lows what we
want to start doing the next month.

Having this structure has been so helpful
because when you're an entrepreneur,

it's like, my to do list is never ending.

How do I prioritize?

The relief maybe it is a
little crazy, but it does bring

structure when things are chaotic.

That has been really helpful
to have as support around me.

Vlad Gozman: The whole entrepreneurial
journey is way too glamorized and when you

open up media outlets you read about the

funding stories, you read about

the exits, but you don't read about

the burnout right?

Entrepreneurial journey is always
walking on the cusp of burnout.

And, you as a founder,
need to be aware of that.

Give yourself the time and the
mental space to counteract it.

Otherwise it will catch up with you and
at some point you'll fall off the cliff.

Now I was very close several times.

Luckily it didn't happen.

But I try to be mindful set
up some routines, some habits

that help me counteract the stress
that is prevailing to this day.

Prateek Sharma: Dollars are a commodity,

like anyone's dollars are interchangeable.

And that's in some ways true of the
VC business model at some level, like

VC is a fairly commodity business,

because all VCs are trying to sell
dollars to startups at one level.

So I advise founders to think of

dollar and function

The brand name VC like the one who can
write a large check etc they might serve a

function for a startup or they might not.

So founders, really have to
think how much capital they need?

What do they expect this capital to do?

Do they want support, access, expertise?

Do they want intros?

There are many things this broader
investor universe can do for founders

and if founders are able to connect that

I need this amount of capital,
these are the functions I need

solved or need support from.

That's a great place to start.

Nitin Pachisia: The six of us, there's
no way we can keep up with 20,000

founders, but in the community,

it's self serving.

Founders are collaborating with each
other, ideating, providing feedback

to each other opening doors and
sharing knowledge that they have.

One person might be an expert at pricing.

Another is an expert at coding.

And, they're coming together on.

Okay, you're building this SaaS product
and trying to do price discovery.

Here's how you can go about doing it.

That magic is happening in the community.

I think over time we will see more
and more people wanting to be in this

community that then leads to teams
forming and raising money selling

to people within the community.

I think if we do this right,

the community becomes a fully
functioning ecosystem of its own.

Lisa Wehden: There is a possible route
for transferring your H1B to your own

startup, but the reason why it's not very
desirable for lots of people is because

the H1B has a prevailing wage requirement.

And has a specific job classification.

So if you're a founder of a startup,
it's very difficult to pay yourself

the prevailing wage requirement,
because typically startup founders

pay themselves a much lower salary.

And the core insight
at Plymouth is actually

many more people are already
eligible for the O1 visa

pathway than they might realize.

And the O1 is great

because there's

no minimum degree requirement.

No minimum salary requirement.

You can apply any time in the year

and

get an answer within 15 business days
if you pay for premium processing.

So if you're an entrepreneurial
talent, it's just this really

great visa that you could pursue.

Dexter Zhuang: I would
encourage everyone listening to

consider a sabbatical

at different milestones in your
career and your life journey.

The reason why is because
when we're really busy,

we don't have time to process the
events that preceded us, whether

that's building our startups,
whether that is life experiences.

One of the beautiful
parts of a sabbatical is

you get to carve out space to
intentionally get those insights

and to learn more about yourself.

So that, that's how I
felt about my sabbatical.

That was really an amazing opportunity
to learn more about myself.

I'm someone who is very structured.

But on my sabbatical, what I learned
is I had to let go of that structure.

Alessio Pieroni: I really believe that
if you don't care personally for the

person that you're working with, it's
very difficult to be a great leader

no matter how skilled you are in
leadership tactics or management

or, any tools that you have.

I think it all starts from there and
that's what I try to do for, for my team.

The other thing is, I think the team
needs to know that I got their back, and

that's something that they always try to
bring it up and at the same time, this

is something that we've been discussing
a lot with my team lately and we decided

to have this sentence in defining

who we are, we are not a family.

We are a sports team, in the sense that
maybe I'm a bit more like the coach.

I like to look at myself as the
head of the hustle of the situation.

We're a team that need to perform
because obviously I can have your

back and can personally, but.

If you're not performing and our clients
are not happy with what we deliver,

obviously the relationship wouldn't work.

Tim Grassin: People love
being part of your adventures

and your stories and getting
to know you on a deeper level.

And at the end of the day,

people buy from people

is what I like to say is that you'll
be able to sell a lot more if it's

coming from you rather than your
company trying to promote itself,

just being an entity that has no soul.

And so, I teach people to, to
create founder-led sales strategies.

That's one of the main things that I've
been doing and it works quite well.

And then I have other
content-related playbooks.

So one of the playbooks that I used
at TendoPay, that was probably the

single most, powerful tactic that we
use was creating an industry podcast.

Not too far from this one.

Prateek Panda: And that's a wrap
for Season 1 of Off to the Valley.

This year has been an extraordinary
journey and none of it would

have been possible without you,

our listeners, our
supporters, our community.

Thank you for being a
part of this adventure.

As we welcome the new year, I'm
delighted to share that season 2

is launching in January 2025,

and I can't wait to bring you even more
incredible stories of those who left the

familiarity of home for New Horizons.

Subscribe to the channel to stay
updated and never miss an episode.

Until then, be kind, be happy, and

I'll see you in Season 2 of

Off to the Valley.

Wish you a Happy New Year.