Supporting Underestimated Founders, Demystifying VC, and Rejecting the ‘Growth At All Costs’ Model with Sweta Govani, Founder of Founder-Led Marketing Club

Sweta Govani: [00:00:00] But when you grow up in a society like that, well meaning people will essentially tell you that your voice does not matter. And I, I was listening to one of the other episodes and you talked about how, you know, your parents were very encouraging and tell you anything is possible. That is the opposite of Asian culture.

and every story is different, so it's very, very deep, but I think it's always the two things that I've noticed , one, the stories, the identities, and the stories that make you feel less than.

Even though you are more than capable.

Hello, marginal listeners. I'm so glad to have you back with us this week. I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving if you celebrated and I have one more thing that you're about to be very grateful for. And that is this week's episode with Swetha Govani. Swetha is the founder of FounderLed Marketing Club, a program that helps underestimated founders get their first 100 happy paying customers on their terms. In today's episode, Swetha talks about immigrating to the [00:01:00] United States from Mumbai and how this helped her at a young age see issues of wealth disparity with brand new eyes.

She also discusses her early tech startup career driven by a healthy dose of perfectionism, we know it well, and how this illuminated the issues of different company funding models, not the least of which being venture capital.

We learned how this led Sweta to work with tech enabled founders, much like herself, helping them to customer fund their businesses and drive sustainable life changing wealth. This episode is such a gift for all of the underestimated, but more than capable founders out there seeking alternatives to the growth at all costs model.

So with that, I'm so excited to get into it and thank you again, Sweta, for sharing everything you did today.

Abby Schommer: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much Swetha for joining me today. I know you're on a business trip, so I really appreciate you taking the time amidst your, your business travels.

Sweta Govani: Of course, thanks so much for having me, Abby.

Abby Schommer: And what, what are you doing in Dallas? If you don't mind sharing.

Sweta Govani: mostly actually to visit family and so taking a few meetings while I'm here.

Abby Schommer: [00:02:00] I love that as an entrepreneur, work and life intersect so much.

Sweta Govani: Yes, I definitely think of the two of them as completely intertwined. one of the best things I think about entrepreneurship if you do it. Do it the way that I at least advocate for it. Some days I work on weekends, you know, I'll take a whole day and I'll work, but it also means in the middle of the week, I'll go do whatever I want to do, whether that's a family obligation or literally just taking a break because I feel like it, it's the best thing.

A

Abby Schommer: Yeah, and I feel like operating in that way allows us to show up better for our work to the more we're kind of pushing aside or casting aside the things that are really important in life. I feel like we're not able to show up in the same way in our business.

Sweta Govani: hundred percent, a hundred percent. It just means if I'm not feeling well, I'll take the afternoon and. I'll do better work tomorrow when I'm feeling better. I've seen it play out over and over again over the last two years. So it's huge.

Abby Schommer: I used to joke sometimes in corporate, I would be on meetings with people and I would almost [00:03:00] be apologetic for the state I was in. I'm like, I know you're paying a copious amount of money to be speaking with your Facebook representative today, but you're not getting the, you're not getting your money's worth on the call with me today.

It would be much better if we could connect tomorrow or like you said, maybe even on a weekend, but you don't have the ability to own your time the same way when you're in corporate. So just. One of the things that I think many of us drawn to entrepreneur

Sweta Govani: Oh yeah. It's one of my like life mottos, honestly, in the way that I'm building my business. I'm definitely building it for. Flexibility with lots of optionality as well, and that's what I advocate for and all the work that I do with others as well is we have to be able to build businesses our terms.

Otherwise, it takes the joy out of entrepreneurship,

Abby Schommer: right? This is something I talk about with a lot of my guests. There's a reason most folks don't choose this path. It is very demanding. And I know you probably roll your eyes on a lot of the get rich quick schemes you know, folks who make it seem like you can turn [00:04:00] your side hustle into this, million dollar ARR business overnight.

You know, it is hard work. It is demanding. But. You know, so long as you make space for yourself to do this work in a way that complies with the way that you do your best work and you are the best version of yourself, it can be very rewarding work. But if you if you don't do that, it's just a huge slog.

Sweta Govani: 100%. you know, I know there are a lot of statistics about why people gave up on building their business, why businesses, quote unquote, failed. But honestly, anecdotally, because I work with founders at the very earliest stages of their business. One of the most common reasons I is that they realized it wasn't what they thought it would be.

Abby Schommer: Mm

Sweta Govani: And they decided that the level of effort it's going to take To keep going and get it to whatever idea of success they have, and I don't even mean getting to million, multi million or life changing wealth, even just that first milestone of being able to pay themselves enough, they realize [00:05:00] how long that's going to take, how much effort it's going to be, and then frankly, you know, you know, I focus on underestimated founders and for a lot of them, They don't have the privilege to keep working on it.

They have to find other ways, to achieve their mission or potentially put it on pause for the time being.

Abby Schommer: Totally. And I think to the reality of being a founder is you need to reorient other elements of your life and kind of architect that life around what you want to build. And whether that is taking on another job because your business isn't able to pay you yet. And maybe you don't want to raise money yet, which I'm sure we'll get into at some point in this conversation, or you maybe don't want to raise money at all.

Um, but you need that cashflow, right? So one of the things that I speak openly about is that I do freelancing work in addition to my startup. And that's not because I'm not all in on my business. me, me doing freelancing work is no sign of a lack of commitment to my startup. It means that I am doing literally everything I [00:06:00] can from a fiduciary standpoint to keep my startup going.

Sweta Govani: I love that. I think that's amazing. It, there's absolutely no shame. And in fact, I always encourage it. figure out what you need to do to stay in the game. And if that means that you don't have the savings or for whatever reason, you know, you don't have the financial means to keep essentially investing your time and energy and hence also your runway and money.

into your business, then you're going to have to figure out some other way to do it. I'm obviously deeply biased in saying the best way to do it is to customer fund your business, but sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes, you know, you have to find other ways to generate and services revenue is one of the best ways to do it.

figure out a way to, you know, get some services revenue in so you can Focus on your business and keep going and stay in the game for as long as you need to and be realistic about it, you know, instead of having these unrealistic like I need to [00:07:00] get 5000 users in three months. Real story. I, like, that's not, that's not possible.

That's not how this works. So stay in the game.

Abby Schommer: I love it. Yeah. Doing whatever you can to stay in the game because what is so true is for underestimated founders like ourselves, there's so much that is Stacked against our favor. There's so many things that could take us out of the game, right? Like that lack of generational wealth, lack of, you know, built in network of connections that so whatever ways you can advocate for yourself and you can support yourself to keep yourself building the thing. Do it because, there's nothing that's going to be handed to a lot of founders who are in our situation.

Sweta Govani: Absolutely. couldn't agree more.

Abby Schommer: I love it. Okay. So before we get down a little bit more into, you know, how you are advising other founders. To get their first a hundred happy paying customers. I'd love to take a little bit of a step back, sweat, uh, and get our audiences familiar with your story. I know you have an extensive background in [00:08:00] startups, but I'd like to start even pre startups and talk little bit about your childhood and how you kind of entered into the workforce and what experiences you brought to bear on that. ,

Sweta Govani: I'll start off by saying I, I was born and raised in India. So I grew up in Mumbai and I moved to the U. S. when I was 13 years old, which means just in time for American high school.

so very transformative experience there, but a lot of my kind of focus and my desire to want to do mission driven work, particularly equity driven stems from being born and raised in Mumbai. And I don't know how familiar you or the listeners are with what Mumbai is like, and it's really hard to put into words, but one of the things I guess I didn't realize because that happens when you grow up in a place like this, but it wasn't until I left and went back, left and went back several times and visited home several times.

And [00:09:00] then also for my wedding, I had several of my friends who were born and raised in America, all American actually come to Mumbai with me and I got to see Mumbai from their perspective. And one of the biggest things that you realize is that there's a stark divide between the rich and poor. that exists everywhere in the world, but it's actually very visible in Mumbai.

So you really cannot escape it. As soon as you land, you're going, as you're driving to wherever you need to drive to, you will most likely drive by some number of slums. And even that image right there, the fact that you're sitting in a car, in an air conditioned car, and you're driving by someone's little hut that you can see into, which is their home, It completely changes the way you see the world and how aware you become of the deep privilege that we are born into

Abby Schommer: so funny thing, and I've never mentioned this on the podcast, but folks in my personal life know this. [00:10:00] Um, we, me and my husband have a close friend who married an Indian woman from So we, us white friends, flew to Mumbai for a multi day Indian wedding. This

Sweta Govani: Oh, my gosh.

Abby Schommer: years ago. I'm so glad that you painted this picture for our listeners because you know, This is the, this is like a perfect representation of what I experienced as well.

It's the second you leave the airport, it is what you described. And I mean, it makes you realize the infrastructure we have in this country. Like there is no infrastructure in Mumbai, like the streets. I mean, folks are driving in all different directions. I mean, we stayed at this wonderful hotel, but within feet of the hotel where those slums that you were, describing.

So that very stark juxtaposition of immense, immense, immense wealth. And. It was just, it was so, um, obvious in Mumbai in ways that, you know, growing up as a privileged white woman in the States, you know, [00:11:00] I had a very myopic understanding of class and I associated with folks who were in my own class in the town that I grew up in.

So, that hits, home more than, you know, because I, you know, I had a similar experience to your friends.

Sweta Govani: Oh, my gosh. So you, you got to see it. And it sounds kind of crazy when I say it, but I actually got to see it. I think I had, you grow, you become desynthesized to these things when you're growing up and it's sort of the quote unquote norm. Then at 13, I moved here, two years later, it was the first time I went back and I remember feeling so shook by all of the poverty and my friends, my childhood friends kept saying, what's the big deal?

Why are you behaving this way? And I couldn't shake it off. I couldn't, I think I had forgotten or it was like an awakening, like realizing, oh my gosh. I. This is what I grew up with. and I had always been the type of person who questioned it. I always asked my parents, you know, why, why are, are these people like this?

What can we do to help them? [00:12:00] Should we give them money? And, you know, you're always, well, money isn't going to solve all the problems and it's a systemic issue. And I was under 13 and I didn't fully understand all of that. And I still barely understand it because systemic issues are incredibly difficult.

And, when I think back to, um, Why I do what I do, not necessarily what I do, but why I do what I do, I can't justify not prioritizing some level of equity work and trying to support underestimated founders, or even trying to support founders who are doing mission driven work, finding some ways to do something about it.

The systems that we're born into that we likely will not change.

Abby Schommer: that's so beautiful. And also so deeply relatable. I mean, I've had later in life experiences where I've seen, yeah, socially marginalized folks be, excluded from conversations, excluded from founding teams, but once you you meet folks like that, I feel like there's [00:13:00] this in you. desire to create more access for those folks, right, because you also see what they can be really capable of.

Sweta Govani: Yes!

Abby Schommer: Yeah. I mean, I just think some of the some of the resilience that you build from a very early age, when again, you've had no guarantees in life.

Those are some of the table stakes things you need as a successful founder. You need resilience. You need not to fear failure. You need to be able to start over and you get indoctrinated into that very early in life when you're part of some of these underestimated, underrepresented groups.

Okay.

Sweta Govani: see, but I got so excited when you made that point, Abby, about

Abby Schommer: Okay.

Sweta Govani: And I think it's so, so powerful. I, I, of course, identify as underestimated as well. Uh, and so.

Abby Schommer: [00:14:00] Okay. Okay.

Sweta Govani: the things that you're, you're talking about is actually very, very true.

different when it's within the context of a country like America versus growing up in a country like India where, you know, I didn't, you know, I identify as like three primary things, right? Woman, person of color, and an immigrant. But growing up in India, I didn't think about the fact that I'm a quote unquote person of color, and I sure wasn't an immigrant, so the identity of me being a woman is something that has been with my whole life, and India is a very patriarchal society, so growing up in that, there is so much of what you're talking about where you're capable.

But when you grow up in a society like that, well meaning people will essentially tell you that your voice does not matter. And I, I was listening to one of the other episodes and you talked about how, you know, your parents were very encouraging and tell you anything is [00:15:00] possible. That is the opposite of Asian culture.

Abby Schommer: Yep. Silence.

Sweta Govani: So it's a lot that, you know, think about sort of like the cultural differences and what Being marginalized, being underestimated means, and it's so and nuanced, and every story is different, so it's very, very deep, but I think it's always the two things that I've noticed is it's, one, the stories, the identities, and the stories that make you feel less than.

Even though you are more than capable.

Abby Schommer: Yeah, that's so incredibly put. I've seen other folks experiences and again, I've seen how capable they are. And I just can't live in a world where all these incredibly competent, highly skilled individuals, oftentimes far more skilled than the status quo because they've had to be right.

Because if they don't have skills, better executive presence. they will not have a seat at the table. [00:16:00] They will not even be invited to certain conversations. I, I can't go on in life, seeing folks like that be passed up for opportunities and not at least try to play a small part in creating those opportunities or inviting folks to conversations or having their stories on podcasts like this in a way that can maybe inspire other folks at a younger age to say, Oh, maybe there is an avenue for me to. Build this thing. Maybe I do have, you know, some of the core competencies to do that.

Sweta Govani: Oh my gosh. Yes. All of that resonates so much.

Abby Schommer: Cool. Yeah. So I guess a quick question. So you moved here at 13 years old, your parents are Indian, did you have conversations with your parents, particularly when you moved to the United States about some of this, this internal reckoning you were having about, you know, Equity and maybe diving into equity and inclusion based work.

Sweta Govani: [00:17:00] No, I don't think so. Also, my parents actually stayed back in India,

Abby Schommer: Okay.

Sweta Govani: so they weren't around. That much, and it's only recently, part of the reason I live in Texas is to be near family, and part of that is to be able to have, you know, have those conversations that I didn't get to have, um, in my teen years, though I probably would have been a little bit like every other teenager and not had those anyway, um, it's hard to tell but I didn't, I did not talk to them about it, um, But I think they've always known.

I've just always been the type of person who always tried to volunteer. I also should say, I come from family who does. do an incredible amount to give back as much as possible as well. so my grandfather actually has this, like, incredible story he, my grandfather on my dad's side, was very present in my life growing up and, and still very much is, which I'm really fortunate.

And he was born and raised, actually, Outside of [00:18:00] Mumbai, way outside, actually, in a different state, in a tiny village, so far away from any major, major city, and his, his father passed away when he was really young, and he grew up, not only in this tiny village, without a father, working on other people's farms, He's just one of those people that we're talking about who beat all the odds and actually worked so incredibly hard And started to create these small businesses.

He started off, I believe the first business was selling bangles in his village, and then eventually worked his way up to bigger and bigger businesses, in bigger and bigger towns and cities, all the way to Mumbai, and then has also owned several businesses in America. So when I think about the examples that were in my life and what I saw possible, he is the epitome of breaking the cycle of poverty because of entrepreneurship [00:19:00] and creating opportunities for an entire new, two new, three now actually,

Abby Schommer: Okay.

Sweta Govani: and grandmother have always turned back and given more than they could. They're just those type of people, and I saw that, that act of service over and over again, and they coached their children to do that.

Right? By just by setting an example. They're not big on talking. None of them really are. Um, but they set wonderful, wonderful examples. And he continues to do that till this day. I'm going to go to India in December and there's a moment where they're going to recognize him for some donations he's made, and I get to attend that and be there in person, and I'm so excited.

so that, that's the example. And part of that is cultural, right? Culturally, we don't tend to be the type of culture that talks [00:20:00] about these things. But I'm appreciative of the examples that they've set, because I don't think that I would have cared as much as I do if I didn't have those examples in front of me.

Abby Schommer: And to your point, I mean, talking only gets you so far. I mean, talk is cheap, right? It's like what behavior is modeled for you? One theme that is very apparent across a lot of entrepreneurs. Is they had someone very early in their life that model to them that this was possible that business ownership and building something of your own was a viability. gave them acts. You know, they had a parent give them a computer. Uh, they had a parent who was a business owner or a sibling, right? And that goes so much further than talking to your child about building a business like for them to actually that played out. it shows to them that it is a possibility.

So I love that for you that you had that modeled to you at an early age. And not only did [00:21:00] you have entrepreneurship model, but you had social impact work modeled to as well through entrepreneurship. Like, yes, you can accrue wealth, but then the wealth that you accrue, you can give back. And what a beautiful example your grandfather set for you.

And it totally tracks for me why you followed a bit in his footsteps.

Sweta Govani: Oh, yes. I'm, I'm so grateful for the examples that they've set before us, all of us, my, my whole, my whole family.

Abby Schommer: Okay. So going back to, all right, you're in the States. You are here. Your parents are still in India. You're in high school. Walk us through a little bit of high school. What happened post high school? I'm just curious, like, how did you eventually get into tech and startup world? What predated those experiences?

Okay.

Sweta Govani: another very characteristic thing about me as an underestimated person is I was always a straight A kid. So many, many, I'm sure that tracks as well, right? I, growing up, I think the first memory I have, I [00:22:00] think it was seventh grade when I remember being like top of my class. in a very big class.

Moved here in high school and I was laser focused on education. It's what had been instilled in me and I needed to be good at it. I graduated in spite of all the transitions I had to make and there's a lot to unpack on being in a new country, uh, in high school. But largely it was a good experience. I think I honestly found my voice in high school because it was the first time that I remember in English class, the teacher sat us in a discussion circle and I remember thinking this is the first time in my life an authority figure wants to hear my opinion about something.

So that was super powerful. In spite of all the issues we have with the education system, I have the contrast that I lived with. So I can say that was pretty powerful for me. And so I graduated top 10 percent of my class, kind of kept going, frankly, with just focusing on doing all the things by the book.

. [00:23:00] graduated during the recession, and I was one of the few people around me who actually got a job. Got promoted every single year or got a raise or, or a new job or some kind of upgrade until my upper twenties.

And during that time, I tried to start a business twice. Both times I spent like about a year. with my co founders, two different set of co founders, designing it, getting it perfect, doing all the things you're supposed to do as a quote unquote perfectionist. I never launched either of those businesses. but trust me, I have the blueprints for both of them.

And I did so much work on creating the perfect product and the perfect service and building partnerships. So much work for a year. For both of them, didn't launch both of them. And finally, I think it was, honestly, I went and got my dream job after all of this. in a tech startup that was incubated within a [00:24:00] nonprofit.

got to do combine like everything I had a career in marketing for tech startups before that. And I had been kind of moving up the ladder and I had been doing kind of volunteer work and pro bono work. And my dream job finally got me an opportunity to combine the two worlds.

And not only that, the mission was actually helping entrepreneurs in emerging markets fundraise for their tech, for their startups. But as it goes with dream jobs, it was a dream job until it wasn't. And I was completely burnt out by the time I left. went on a big soul searching journey and I sat down and I thought about what, what brings me joy, what is in my zone of genius. I got a transition coach.

Again, going, doing everything by the books. I created a table of three different career paths I could pursue. And I made a goal that I was going to talk to a hundred people. And have a coffee chat with a hundred [00:25:00] people and just try to take a very data driven approach to figuring out the next chapter of my life.

This would now be career three for me. And I basically ended up eliminating all three options and was left with nothing. None of those were things I wanted to do. And You know, I don't know if you're familiar, but there's this amazing group called the Old Girls Club. Huge shout out to them because I ended up meeting several people through that.

And I kind of had this epiphany that I should just go off on my own. I still was not considering myself an entrepreneur. I just said, I'm going to focus on who I want to help.

Abby Schommer: Mm

Sweta Govani: I'm going to discover the best way that I can be helpful to them. So I started off actually as a consultant doing marketing for quote unquote early stage tech startups.

And eventually it got to the point where I realized, I don't think that this consulting model is actually a good [00:26:00] fit, if I want to help people who are at the earliest stages of business, What we've talked about, right?

These people who are highly skilled, talented, usually they're building businesses as like second, third career. So really skilled, talented people. They don't need me to come in and do marketing for them. They just need a framework to set them in the right direction. Some accountability. Some templates, some shortcuts to just think, get thoughts that are already in their brain, take all the research.

They almost always have done too much research like I had with my two previous ideas and just get on the right path. And so frankly, I ended up just throwing out like the whole consulting model. And that's what got me to where I am today, where I decided I'm just going to do a membership model and I templatize all of my knowledge and my experience that I have been using with the one on one clients and that me to just help many more founders in the ways that bring me [00:27:00] joy and is in my zone of genius versus whatever a marketing consultant for early stage tech startups is supposed to do.

Abby Schommer: Yeah. Okay. Two things. first perfectionism, huge theme of perfectionism throughout all of what you described, your first two business ideas, you created them. They were very viable business ideas that probably deserve to be out in the world. didn't put them out in the world and i what i know of to be true of you is you write a lot about perfectionism and how perfectionism is actually holding back a lot of particularly underestimated founders speaking as a female founder who it networks with a lot of other female founders i know this is characteristic of a lot of female founders it's because we feel that we need to be that much better. You know, people aren't going to give a second, third, fourth chances. We think so. When we launch anything, when we deploy anything, it needs to be perfect, In order for us to break through it [00:28:00] all. that is so antithetical to a true startup model, which is. The sooner you can launch something the sooner you can actually get signal to validate your hypothesis because nothing's perfect when it's just living in your head perfect to you is not going to be perfect for the who

Sweta Govani: Hello.

Abby Schommer: before you put your what. In front of the who, you have no idea how perfect it's going to be.

So I love how you had all these instances of, you had this innate perfectionism, but you found at various points in your life, even when you were contemplating a new career path or found the perfect job, it fell short of your

Sweta Govani: Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Good.

Abby Schommer: so deeply with me because again, [00:29:00] you learn as a founder is you should never get attached to your ideas. You should never get attached to your what you should get attached to your customers your tech, your product, your service, whatever it should just be a vehicle for serving the burning problem statements of those customers and yeah. Once you get there, you realize that it doesn't matter, right? Like the tech itself, the solution itself, it can be nimble. It can be ever evolving. It should be It should evolve with your customers. because we cling to perfectionism and because we cling to the perfect, what we really readily dismiss the importance of the who. So I'm so glad that two themes came up and everything you just shared.

Sweta Govani: yes, I'm so glad that resonates with you and it's almost validating to hear that that's been a theme that you've not only experienced but also seen in your conversations and it was a huge unlock for me when I, you know, when I set out to do this work. I didn't realize, I'm a very tactical [00:30:00] logical person.

So when I set out to do this work, I didn't expect how much mindset work is involved,

Abby Schommer: don't get me started. Don't even get me started.

Sweta Govani: because I thought, Okay, this is very logical. I'm showing you the framework. And then somehow people will come in and No, I can't do that. And I'm like, But yes, you can. I'm telling you. And then you'll hear all these things. And I go, Okay, let's unpack that. Why can't you And so often, The founders I work with will say, Sweta this feels like therapy, but, and then they'll finish the sentence.

I had no idea the amount of mindset work we all have to do as a founder and as an entrepreneur, you have to believe in yourself before anybody else has any reason to, because you just came up with an idea and you're kind of trying to figure out if this is even a real business. And through it all, you have to keep steering the ship.

There's no structure, there's no symptoms, [00:31:00] there's no systems rather, and you have to figure out what are you going to prioritize every single day that's going to help you make this idea into a real business. That's so much work!

Abby Schommer: It really, it really is. I think being a founder, you have to come to terms with and reckon with things that a lot of other folks don't. You need to develop a really acute sense of money. What money means to you, what your money mindset is, what money can and cannot be for you. You basically just also need to determine your why and your why can't be money.

If you're going to be a startup founder. And I just think a lot of these existential questions that loom large for founders, it's, you don't have to grapple with these questions. you're working for somebody else, because like you said, You're working for yourself, and you need to have that inner belief that what you have is worth building and is worth waking up for every [00:32:00] day, that is just core to being able to keep yourself in the game, and so I can totally imagine how so much of your work is important.

Thank you. that in people helping them believe that they're worthy of this work in this work deserves to be in the world I say every founder should have a therapist for this very reason, you know, of course, you're you're great and and someone who's been through it, you know, these are conversations that absolutely need to be having but. as well, what you might learn is that for you, maybe you're not interested in social impact or making, you know, a sweeping change with whatever you're building.

And that's totally fine. But what's not fine is if you. Think that's what you want and you're kind of posturing in this way that it's what you want then you're just going to burn out because you're not get the work that you're doing isn't actually going to be filling your cup because what's what's going to fill your cup is maybe know making money or affording yourself more time outside of work maybe [00:33:00] there's passions you want to pursue outside of you know what you're building and you just have to be so deeply reflective and honest with yourself about that. There's no hiding from it.

Sweta Govani: There's absolutely not. And I so agree that it just cannot, it cannot be just money. It's really, really hard, especially because most businesses are not actually going to make you meaningful money unless it's a pure services business, right? It's not going to make you meaningful, significant enough money for years.

Most founders I know, their first goal is, I want to be able to pay myself, meaningfully. No one ever talks about that publicly. They always say that to me, and they almost are saying it to me like they're telling me a secret.

Abby Schommer: Yeah,

Sweta Govani: Why are we, why are we shy about this? We need money pays bills. We do need money to pay bills, but it's not going to happen for a foreseeable future and that's something you have to be prepared for and that's why [00:34:00] you do need to have other ways to generate income.

You do need to have other things in your business that fills your cup so you can keep going your business itself will not be the one that pays the bills for quite some time.

Abby Schommer: I do think that the desire to have money now before your business is ready to pay you, I do think that fuels a lot of this desire to raise money very early in the startup journey

Sweta Govani: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Abby Schommer: and I think we've both talked openly about it. There's this kind of culture of public accolades around raising huge venture rounds very early in a founders journey. And well, yes, I understand that is incredible because it will afford you the ability to keep going. It's not the only way that you can keep going. you, again, you have to think about what you're giving up also looking at the value of money and what different types of money are going to afford you. These are questions you also need to be asking yourself as a founder in this journey.

Sweta Govani: All that venture capital does is [00:35:00] buys you time, sometimes we need that, but we have to know what the trade off is Right? We didn't buy validation. Our idea and our business is not magically now validated and good. In fact, you have to work harder. You have,

Abby Schommer: to answer to now have a cap table and you need to be giving them updates and you have people to answer to other than yourself now.

Sweta Govani: yes, and you have more people you need to make money for.

Abby Schommer: Yeah,

Sweta Govani: your venture capital firm, plus their investors. Everybody needs to make money. So imagine how much more money you, our business needs to make. Meanwhile, you could have made a multimillion dollar business and kept all of it.

Abby Schommer: right. And don't you think, too, do feel like the more we tout this narrative that in order to fund a startup, you need to raise venture capital. I mean, the data doesn't lie underrepresented groups do not get funded by venture capital, like female founded teams get 2 percent of venture [00:36:00] dollars.

And it's been that way for basically a decade. Like the needle is not moving. And so I do think that the more we associate Transcribed Startups with venture capital. The more we start to just eliminate people from the conversations because is not as easy for women to secure venture dollars. You know, it is not as easy for women of color, people of color, queer folks to secure venture dollars, folks without this built in network of people who've been in V.

C. or have exited companies before. I think it's it's such a damaging narrative in so many ways. It excludes people from, conceivably being able to build a startup at all on the terms that they think is, it needs to be the playbook. And then two, if you do raise venture capital, like you said, you are, giving up the reins of your company in a lot of ways, and it's buying you time.

But. How are you spending that time to, like, what, what type of work do you want to be doing when you're building your company? What types of conversations do you want to be having? How much agency do you want to have over building your own [00:37:00] business?

Sweta Govani: Oh my gosh, all of that, all of that resonates so much. I mean, What I think is interesting, too, is I absolutely agree, right, that statistics do not lie, women, people of color, all of these statistics, right, there's stats on everything, all these different identities that struggle to raise money, but then you also, on top of that, layer on the fact that, what is it, something like 99 percent of businesses actually don't raise,

Abby Schommer: Yeah.

Sweta Govani: and so you're 2 percent of the 1%, or it's something like 0.

05%, right, it's a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction, you've Of businesses, and we could argue that we can sit and change the system, but why are we playing a game that we cannot win at, and we're not even sure is the right game to play.

Abby Schommer: Yeah. I mean, this whole notion of, I know there's a lot of thought leaders in the space that are like, you know, what makes money boring businesses. based businesses. again, I think that this isn't to dissuade anybody from launching a tech company because I'd [00:38:00] be the biggest hypocrite in the world.

But, doing other coupling that work with other types of work. That is immediate cash flow, is so big. And I just think to there is weird elitism too, when it comes to platforming certain types of businesses versus others, like, Oh, having a tech startup that's venture funded is headline worthy.

Having a window washing business that is probably way more profitable from day one than a tech company that's not as headline worthy. So I feel like there is a little bit of this almost elitism when it comes to stack ranking, the types of business ownership That is worthy of accolades, right?

Sweta Govani: But here's the irony, right? I mean, the reason it makes headlines is because it's an anomaly, but somehow we think that the headlines are the norm.

Abby Schommer: Yes, right. And so much of your work is kind of demystifying those headlines for the founders you work with, right?

Sweta Govani: absolutely. And honestly, this point that you're bringing up, you know, I'm a huge advocate for just try to customer fund your business. Right. And [00:39:00] that's why I'm a huge believer in just focus on trying to get more happy paying customers. You try to raise, and I have seen this happen countless times. I should probably actually count because I think I could, countless times where founders tried to raise money.

That's the first thing that they do after they've kind of like formulated their idea a little bit. Maybe they, quote unquote, validated it and then they burn out. But instead of they had spent the same three to six months on actually trying to get customers, they would have been able to be, generate some revenue.

Or at least on a more, give the business a fair chance, at least give your business a fair chance.

Abby Schommer: Yeah. to me, this feels obvious, but it's obvious in hindsight for me because I have been doing this for a year, like very early days of rev science. Like we contemplated raising money. We realized, especially in the fundraising climate we were in, it wasn't going to be a viability.

And my co founder as well has had previous startups that he's bootstrapped. Right. So I have some, I have [00:40:00] Experience or institutionalized knowledge where I know this to be the case. Where did you in your journey, how did you realize kind of the trappings of fundraising and how did you come about building this happy paying customer model? Well, how did you come upon those realizations?

Sweta Govani: So there are two main experiences that I had that shaped this. So first was, I actually worked for a venture backed startup, um, that IPO'd while I was there. As it goes, as you may have read about a lot of startups like this, when you're preparing for an IPO, the executives are under incredible pressure for all sorts of metrics.

I won't go into all the details, but I'll say that I was asked to do certain unethical things that I refused to do. And fortunately, my boss at the time did respect my boundaries. And I don't know the full story of what happened and who did what. I stepped away from that. And I knew that was the [00:41:00] moment when I was going to leave that company, and it wasn't until way later when I started to better understand the venture model and research it that I realized.

That it was the executives who were under this pressure and they were likely putting that pressure on my boss who didn't want me to have to do that. And so I refused to do it and I'm glad I didn't do it. So that was really, I've lived inside the growth at all costs. Model, and it doesn't align with my worldview.

And two, um, one of the things that I was exploring actually when I was on the soul searching journey of what I wanted to do next, I started to really try to understand, uh, angel investing as one of the things that I want to do as part of my portfolio.

But what I learned in my process, I talked to a lot of angel investors who do this for a living. I talked to VCs to try to understand because eventually in order for angel investors to make money. You want your startups to raise venture [00:42:00] capital. And so I wanted to understand what were they looking for And simply put, there's one thing that really didn't, doesn't make sense to me, doesn't align with my worldview. the way the VC math works is that no matter the size of the fund,

they need one company that they've invested in out of all the companies they invest in, of whatever check size. They need one to give them a 10x return. And in order for that they have to incentivize and encourage every single portfolio company to keep pushing themselves.

And hence the growth at all costs model even exists. That mindset even exists. That means by default, VCs have to bet on only one company succeeding at the cost of the rest of them busting. That's a winner takes all model that I just don't align with on an ethical level.

Abby Schommer: at all costs in general. I mean, if you've ever worked at a publicly traded company, even right [00:43:00] where there's a stock price associated with your, with your company, the goal is to always beat last quarter's earnings, you always want to be beating, exceeding, exceeding. And I remember explaining this to my husband who works in education and. He was like, this is nonsensical. And I'm like, it is you, there's no, what other. Facet of life. Do we expect to continue to outpace outpace outpace ourselves? we have seasons of life, like we ebb and flow.

And so to hold anybody, because behind these businesses are people like these are people back businesses to hold anybody to that metric of. Continuing to outpace yourself it is just a insurmountable task, and I do think this is why we see a lot of corporate burnout and a lot of founder burnout. I think you're a founder and it's all on you, that is where it can be so much more pervasive.

you can feel like so much more of a failure because not it's not just that your company is [00:44:00] failing. You are your company. You are the failure. we are, again, we're humans, we're not machines. And any system that incents humans to act like machines is not in the best interest of those humans at all.

Sweta Govani: Yeah, that's exactly that's exactly it. for me, what it comes down to is how can we funding models? Because sometimes you need to fundraise. You need external capital. So if any of the listeners know, I would love to know. I really want to know what is the right fundraising model? What's the right investing model that aligns incentives in the right places?

Right. So how can we, we still need everybody involved to be able to make money. Right. But how can we do it in a way that creates the right incentives and is overall better for society.

Abby Schommer: and acknowledges that there's work and there's life because the reality is, and again, your motto, it's about keeping people in the game and [00:45:00] to your point, the current model of venture capital is it kind of almost relies on certain folks taking themselves out of the game or just burning out of

Sweta Govani: Burning out.

Abby Schommer: Yeah,

Sweta Govani: Yeah, absolutely. And I will say there are some really promising models that are out there. when I think about this, I do want to clarify, I'm still thinking about very serious Businesses that are still going to be making 10, 20, 50 million ARR, but the founder just had to think about different ways to fund their business.

I will die on the hill that the best way to fund your business is to customer fund it. But if you cannot, or if you want some growth capital, right, what are ways that we could structure it? And there are some companies and some funds that are doing really interesting work in that. I hope someday I'll get to do that as well.

But the current model personally, for me, just isn't aligned with my worldview is what is all it is. And I also just think Most businesses are actually not venture scalable. There are businesses that are, [00:46:00] but that's a very small fraction of them. people aren't not raising money just because of all these other factors, right?

People aren't raising money because only a finite number of businesses can actually be that big. But we can still be entrepreneurs and create generational wealth without having to be a unicorn.

Abby Schommer: Yeah. Let's go back to that hill that you would die on, but I'm not going to have you die there. I'm going to have you live a long, vibrant life there to continue doing this work of helping founders get their first a hundred happy paying customers. And that is kind of the premise of your company.

Now founder led marketing club and the work you do, how, how have you seen this done? Well, like how have you seen founders get. first a hundred happy paying customers. And could you also explain for us why you came up with that number a hundred

Sweta Govani: Yes. Okay. So first of all, when I say happy paying customers, each of those words actually represents a part of the business. So [00:47:00] customers is talking about acquisition. So can you actually meaningfully acquire customers? or how can you, um, paying refers to monetization.

So actually being able to make money, not just get users, but actually making money and ideally getting to profitability. And then happy refers to actually being able to deliver value and retain them, So holistically thinking about, So can I grow the number of happy paying customers that I have, right?

That's, that's the main, main question. the way that I came up with it was, was also part of those kinds of conversations that I was having with other investors. One of the themes that came up was I was asking advice to clarify. I was asking them for advice on what should I look for in businesses?

And they kept saying, well, you need, you need to see if. They've have this idea has legs. Is this, could this be a real business? Because it's so early stage, right? We're talking pre seeds. It's just an idea and it's just the founder. And people kept saying things like, Oh, you want to see if they have product market fit.

But that [00:48:00] doesn't make any sense to me because when you study it, it's actually incredibly difficult to even measure product market fit.

Abby Schommer: It is such an amorphous thing and product market fit changes. It should, you know, like you fit, you fit one, you know, criteria, and then your market changes. So yeah, it's such

Sweta Govani: Yes.

Abby Schommer: elusive thing. Yep.

Sweta Govani: It's an elusive thing. It's not actionable. It's stressful. It doesn't work. And so I thought, okay, well, all you're trying to measure is if there's This is a viable business. Let's just focus on business market fit and think about a metric that helps us holistically think about. All of the aspects of business that matter, not just the product, right?

So the product is incorporated in the happy part of it. You could never retain customers if your product is not good enough, but that's by itself is not sufficient. You need to be able to acquire, monetize, and retain all of it holistically. And so that, that was kind of. frankly, I came up with it while trying to explain this to one of my clients, just sort of saying, Okay, well, we want happy paying customers.

And they're like, Yeah, we do. And it's like, Oh, [00:49:00] cool. This is a good mantra, as it goes with a lot of a lot of things, right? It came out of genuinely just trying to explain, like, the mindset

Abby Schommer: Um, I'm

Sweta Govani: of what we should focus on. then the reason for 100, I will say, I use that as a rule of thumb. So

Abby Schommer: make

Sweta Govani: I always say what we're trying to look for is we're trying to move from zero to something.

So there are three numbers that I recommend that people focus on. The very first one is the first happy paying customer. And it's important, and I don't mean just first customers you get, we'll get first customers. But what we need to focus on is, is this a replicable happy paying customer? That's what we're trying to figure out.

So there are all these different ways that I help founders think about really unpacking, not only like the demographics and firmographics, but also thinking about, you know, the problem statements that you mentioned, right? I use a framework called job to be done. I love it. It's an amazing resource. Happy to share links to it.

If, that's helpful. And really thinking about what is it that we're trying to build, what is not only the problem we're solving, but what's the right way to position it, and really thinking about it holistically, and can we [00:50:00] get many more of them. And generally what I've found is if you do this right, by the time you get to about your 10, or 20th customer, you'll start to find the patterns and you will have discovered that one replicable, happy paying customer that you can build a go to market motion around, and then you can say, okay, now I'm going to try to get to 100.

And frankly, it's just a way, like I said, there's so much of this mindset work that's needed. And I specifically chose a number that felt far enough. But achievable enough that it gives you the discipline. I've noticed a lot of founders who come to me will say, I'm literally reviewing a couple of draft plans right now.

That's part of part of the onboarding process, and the numbers are always like hundreds or thousands of customers, and I always have to help them bring back and go. We need to figure out the fundamentals of your business before you can go to all of the cool, scalable playbooks that you want to do. [00:51:00] We need to be able to close one deal and be able to keep them.

If you haven't done one, you will not do a hundred. If you've not done a hundred, you will not do a thousand. That's just how it works. And so it's really about making it all achievable and to tie it all back to all the perfectionism things we're talking about. Honestly, it's my way of kind of saying, all right.

Most of us tend to be perfectionists. We're seeking validation anyway. Why don't we just seek it in the only way that it really will serve our business, which is with happy paying customers.

Abby Schommer: Another thing I think inherent in that a hundred happy paying customers, and also starting with one. And then when you get and retain one, then you move to the

Sweta Govani: Um, so I'm going to share my screen. The next section I'll start out again, I'm going to show you a couple of tools that you can use and make some changes to the screen. and show you what I mean. So I'm going to record it in French, So I'm to record it in [00:52:00] English, and then I'm going to record it in English, and then we'll see how it sounds.

And once I hit that button, And it looks like this, and as you can see,

Abby Schommer: yes to a certain group of customers. the more you can say emphatically no to another group of customers, the happier those customers will be. The more they'll pay, the longer they'll retain. I mean, we have this adage, right? Even outside of tech, you can't be everything to everyone. I think that's something we really have to remind people, particularly in entrepreneurship, and it does run counter to this growth at all costs, more, more, more, sometimes more and broadening, broadening the aperture of folks who could use your product is, is. Going to alienate your existing happy customers and make them less happy. So I love how you're focusing small, being intentional and making sure that you are getting that business, business market fit in a very pointed way before you're to the next milestone and scaling what works.

Sweta Govani: Scaling [00:53:00] what works. That's exactly it. That's exactly it.

Abby Schommer: Oh, I'm so, I love this. I, okay. So if I wanted to learn more about founder marketing club, if our audiences want to learn more about founder marketing club, where could they, where could they find you? And then also if you could layer in what is on the horizon for you, is there any new ventures you're thinking of launching? Yeah. Anything else in your go to market plans as of right now?

Sweta Govani: Oh, my gosh. I love it. So people can just go to happypayingcustomers. com. Um, and there's a page on Founderland Marketing Club there as well. Well, I just recently relaunched, uh, the Founderland Marketing Club. So I'm actually accepting new members now.

I had taken a little pause while I was, um, under construction, uh, and getting my customers to be happy as well, which takes more time than you would think for, for a membership program like this.

Abby Schommer: Without

Sweta Govani: but yeah, I'm really excited and that's really my, my big focus for next year is to reduce the number of one on one clients that I have and really go all in.

Abby Schommer: [00:54:00] MA.

Sweta Govani: membership and grow it and continue to get

Abby Schommer: a

Sweta Govani: members, but also create a community.

Abby Schommer: and

Sweta Govani: you know, just right before this, I got off a small group coaching session for the membership and one of the members who's about to hit her 1 million ARR, um, very soon.

Abby Schommer: June

Sweta Govani: said, Oh, you know, if you send me your draft plan, like I'm happy to provide feedback.

She's willing to volunteer her time to help someone else. That's what I want to continue to foster, right? That's my focus is

Abby Schommer: the,

Sweta Govani: of underestimated founders, making it to their first 100 customers and beyond getting to their first 1 million and helping others along the way as well. So curating a community, both within the led marketing club, but also.

A movement in its way of building and growing businesses. So you can do it on your terms and build lots of optionality for yourself and your [00:55:00] business.

Abby Schommer: I love it. And it's going back to what your grandfather did, right? Build a business. And then once you get to that point, find a way to give back. I know so many founders who are looking to do just that. And it's so much more meaningful coming from, you know, if you are an underestimated founder, speaking to another underestimated founder, who's yeah.

Been through it, who knows the barriers to entry and barriers to continuity. It's so, and again, just to have that modeled again, going back to modeling the behavior, not just talking about it, but seeing someone who did it, who looks like you, is so, so powerful. So I'm so excited about the community you're building.

, so if there's anything else, but before we leave our audiences today, if there's anything else you would love folks to walk away with having listened to this conversation. What would you want to say to them?

Sweta Govani: I would say, I genuinely believe whatever idea you have has legs. Just trust yourself. And instead of trying to run surveys and validate your idea and get developers and worry about all of that, [00:56:00] just take a deep breath, come up with a hypothesis on the what, but focus on the who, and just set a goal to talk to 100 of them, and before you know it, you will have happy paid customers.

If you need help, just reach out anytime. I have a bunch of free resources that I am happy to point you to. Happy to support you in whatever way that I can. I'm rooting for you. You can do it.

Abby Schommer: Wow. What a gift. Well, Sveta, thank you so much. Um, we'll include information about Funderland Marketing Club and Happy Paying Customers in the episode show notes. Also your contact details if folks want to get in touch directly. And again, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and all the intel.

Sweta Govani: Of course. Thank you so much for having me, Abby. This is so great. Thank you so much for listening to the marginal. podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the team at Cal pal with music. Bye Siddhartha. If you like what you heard today, please don't forget to. To rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. So you never miss an episode. You can view full episode show [00:57:00] notes@marginalpodcast.com and follow us at. At marginal podcast on Instagram. Thank you so much and we'll catch you next time.