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Dalton Caldwell

Published podcast speaker

Claims
22
Episodes
1
Shows
1
Named items
1

Books, apps, and tools

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book / recommends

Getting to Yes

“I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches and they need all this training, and I'll be like, "Well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads, and just read those and that'll get you 80% of the way there." You know what I'm saying? They want to hire someone for millions of dollars to give them sales coaching. I'm like, "Well, have you read these really basic sales books?" And they're like, "No." And so I think that's a low cost way to go on Amazon, Getting to Yes and a few other of the top sellers, I forget the names, and just read those, and that is your crash course on how to be great at sales.”

Lenny's Podcast · 18 Apr 2024

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

Claim ledger

What Dalton said.

22 transcript-backed records

01 / recommendation

Recommends Getting to Yes.

“I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches and they need all this training, and I'll be like, "Well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads, and just read those and that'll get you 80% of the way there." You know what I'm saying? They want to hire someone for millions of dollars to give them sales coaching. I'm like, "Well, have you read these really basic sales books?" And they're like, "No." And so I think that's a low cost way to go on Amazon, Getting to Yes and a few other of the top sellers, I forget the names, and just read those, and that is your crash course on how to be great at sales.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

02 / observation

The way to summarize that is if you look at all the startup stories that we have at YC and all the companies we funded over all the years, the underlying theme is that rationally the founder should have given up at some point.

“The way to summarize that is if you look at all the startup stories that we have at YC and all the companies we funded over all the years, the underlying theme is that rationally the founder should have given up at some point.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

03 / belief

I think that the advice that he's referencing here is just how important it is to not overdelegate and for the founders to stay close to things, as well as watch out for the trap of hiring super senior people with fancy resumes, really early in a startup.

“I think that the advice that he's referencing here is just how important it is to not overdelegate and for the founders to stay close to things, as well as watch out for the trap of hiring super senior people with fancy resumes, really early in a startup.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

04 / belief

I think evidence that they actually have thought about it. As per I said earlier, that they've done research, that they have opinions, that they care about it.

“I think evidence that they actually have thought about it. As per I said earlier, that they've done research, that they have opinions, that they care about it.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / belief

Do I value what I'm spending my time on? And I think that you just can go back to this over and over and over again as a good prompt on how to decide what to do with your life.

“Do I value what I'm spending my time on? And I think that you just can go back to this over and over and over again as a good prompt on how to decide what to do with your life.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / belief

I would argue that if we define it as the company had a near death experience where it was going poorly and the founders seriously wondered if it was all going to be over, a hundred percent of the time people go through that where the founder's like, "Yeah, I guess we're done.

“I would argue that if we define it as the company had a near death experience where it was going poorly and the founders seriously wondered if it was all going to be over, a hundred percent of the time people go through that where the founder's like, "Yeah, I guess we're done.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / belief

I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches and they need all this training, and I'll be like, "Well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads, and just read those and that'll get you 80% of the way there.

“I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches and they need all this training, and I'll be like, "Well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads, and just read those and that'll get you 80% of the way there.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / uncertainty

There's only so many years we get to have our careers, doing something that makes you miserable and the only reason you're doing it is to avoid losing face and you know in your heart is not going to work, I don't know, that seems like a pretty big opportunity cost on literally your life.

“There's only so many years we get to have our careers, doing something that makes you miserable and the only reason you're doing it is to avoid losing face and you know in your heart is not going to work, I don't know, that seems like a pretty big opportunity cost on literally your life.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / belief

I think if you just care a lot about your customers and you care a lot about the product, your instincts are pretty good on what to spend time on.

“I think if you just care a lot about your customers and you care a lot about the product, your instincts are pretty good on what to spend time on.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / belief

I think in the case of Stripe, I don't want to tell Patrick's story for him, but I recall him saying at some point he wasn't as sure that Stripe was going to work until they were a year or two in.

“I think in the case of Stripe, I don't want to tell Patrick's story for him, but I recall him saying at some point he wasn't as sure that Stripe was going to work until they were a year or two in.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / uncertainty

A bad startup idea is, I don't know, something that is obviously bad or something where you just can't get any positive feedback on.

“A bad startup idea is, I don't know, something that is obviously bad or something where you just can't get any positive feedback on.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

I think founders are afraid that they're going to run out of money and that's why they're going to shut down. And it's way more common that their idea doesn't work and they have a big fight with their co-founder, and then they can't agree on what to work on, and then they just like, "I don't want to do this anymore.

“I think founders are afraid that they're going to run out of money and that's why they're going to shut down. And it's way more common that their idea doesn't work and they have a big fight with their co-founder, and then they can't agree on what to work on, and then they just like, "I don't want to do this anymore.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / recommendation

I think growth and growth hacking and doing all this analytics, A/B testing stuff, is a total waste of time for very early startups. And that one of the weird things about having lots of startup advice on the internet, again, this is one of the reasons we started making videos at YC, is a lot of the advice was catered towards later stage companies.

“I think growth and growth hacking and doing all this analytics, A/B testing stuff, is a total waste of time for very early startups. And that one of the weird things about having lots of startup advice on the internet, again, this is one of the reasons we started making videos at YC, is a lot of the advice was catered towards later stage companies.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / evaluation

A few years ago, startups around trucking were super new and fresh because no one was doing them and they worked really well and then it became completely conventional wisdom to do trucking related startups.

“A few years ago, startups around trucking were super new and fresh because no one was doing them and they worked really well and then it became completely conventional wisdom to do trucking related startups.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

19 / evaluation

I think a lot of folks, the inclinations are to build a landing page and buy some Instagram ads and try to get people to sign up for something. And again, maybe that's something, but I think a lot of the reason people do that is they're just shy and they don't want to put themselves out there because it's a little awkward to go talk to people.

“I think a lot of folks, the inclinations are to build a landing page and buy some Instagram ads and try to get people to sign up for something. And again, maybe that's something, but I think a lot of the reason people do that is they're just shy and they don't want to put themselves out there because it's a little awkward to go talk to people.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

20 / evaluation

TI funded Razorpay, which is I think the largest payment processor in India, and the TAM of that was tiny because no one was using credit cards in 2015 in India.

“TI funded Razorpay, which is I think the largest payment processor in India, and the TAM of that was tiny because no one was using credit cards in 2015 in India.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

22 / evaluation

These are just very different personality types. But the thing that I would argue folks that build really big companies have in common is they just really want it and they really believe in themselves and they really believe they can make it work.

“These are just very different personality types. But the thing that I would argue folks that build really big companies have in common is they just really want it and they really believe in themselves and they really believe they can make it work.”
Speaker
Dalton Caldwell
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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