513: Online Meetings & Virtual Events During COVID-19

Explicit content warning

06/02/20 • -1 min

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about online meetings & virtual events during COVID-19.

One thing that has been on the rise during the COVID 19 crisis has been online conferences, and there are a number of factors that are causing this. One of those is that people ar3e working from home and have more time to attend these conferences.

In today’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about how the number of invitations to online events conferences has revved up rapidly, Hiten’s experience with online events, how people have more time for online events right now and much more.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 About today’s topic.

00:40 Why this topic was chosen.

01:28 How the number of invitations to online events and conferences has revved up rapidly.

02:02 Hiten’s experience with online events.

03:39 How things might gradually shift.

04:23 Why this explosion of online events fascinates Hiten.

04:54 How people have more time for online events right now.

06:00 How people are starving for new connections.

06:40 How online events are much easier to attend.

07:22 One thing that’s always going to be true about online events.

3 Key Points:

The amount of invitations to online events and conferences has revved up rapidly.
There’s been a lot of exuberance for online events, more than I’ve ever seen in my life.
This explosion is fascinating to me.

[0:00:00]

Steli Efti: Hey everybody this is [Steli Efti].

[0:00:03]

Hiten Shah: This is [Hiten Shah].

[0:00:04]

Steli Efti: Today on The Startup Chat we want to talk about online meetings, webinars, conferences during COVID-19, is it a good idea, is it a bad idea, is it going to, yeah what is happening in the world around the trying to bring physical events online, what are we experiencing, observing? We both felt like it’s an interesting thing that’s going on around the world, Zoom fatigue and other things pop to mind. We just wanted to chit chat and see what we’re observing, what we think will happen next, how to think about these things. Let me ask you first, I have just, the amount of invitations to online events and conferences for me has just ramped up drastically. Obviously because this is conference summer time I guess and a lot of conference organizers decided to try to do their events completely online but also just the amount of webinars that companies give, the amount of meetings that you, I mean we always because we were remote, always had a lot of Zoom meetings. It’s gotten even more because now I do Zoom meetings with friends, I do Zoom meetings, calls with family members. I just do a lot more of these virtual video conferencing calls. Yeah, I’m curious, are you also, I’ve done a few conferences, I’ve done a bunch of webinars and everything in between so far. I’m starting to try to figure out how I feel about all of this and if I want to do more or less and what’s going to happen in the market. What about you? What’s kind of been your experience of the last couple of weeks?

[0:01:45]

Hiten Shah: I think there’s been a lot of exuberance for online events like more than I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ll start that way because I still don’t know what to think because of what I just said, there’s been more than ever. For the moment, it feels like people are into it. Into it meaning there’s enough people that are still into it where if you throw some online something or other and have some way to promote it people will show up because it’s not that they don’t have anything better to do, it’s that they’re seeking connection. They’re seeking this. I led a few over the last two or three weeks. I wouldn’t say an insane amount but definitely more than I would’ve normally and I probably have a few more to lead in terms of like topics like product management or remote work or whatever in partnership with different folks. I’ve done that too. I think you’ve done probably more than me. Then even today, the today that we’re recording I have one that I’m going to that I’m actually attending not leading which is usually rare for me. I don’t go to a lot of these things. I don’t know, it’s in the air, what can I say? I’ve never seen anything like it. In terms of what happens next like you’ll probably just see a shift into, a shift or transformations of these events if we continue on the pace we are because I think people are going to get tired of it at some point it’s like hey, enough is enough, we don’t need more online events to go to on some regular cadence or whatever. Maybe the topics will dry up. That being said like I’m not sure because we’ve had online events for the longest time. These onlin...

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about online meetings & virtual events during COVID-19.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 About today’s topic.

00:40 Why this topic was chosen.

01:28 How the number of invitations to online events and conferences has revved up rapidly.

02:02 Hiten’s experience with online events.

03:39 How things might gradually shift.

04:23 Why this explosion of online events fascinates Hiten.

04:54 How people have more time for online events right now.

06:00 How people are starving for new connections.

06:40 How online events are much easier to attend.

07:22 One thing that’s always going to be true about online events.

3 Key Points:

The amount of invitations to online events and conferences has revved up rapidly.
There’s been a lot of exuberance for online events, more than I’ve ever seen in my life.
This explosion is fascinating to me.

[0:00:00]

Steli Efti: Hey everybody this is [Steli Efti].

[0:00:03]

Hiten Shah: This is [Hiten Shah].

[0:00:04]

[0:01:45]

Previous Episode

512: The Sales & Marketing Grind

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the Sales & Marketing Grind.

This episode is inspired by a tweet from Hiten that pointed out how marketing is a grind, one that you need to get used to, as it requires you to do the same thing over and over again in order to be successful.

In today’s episode of the show, Steli and Hiten talk about the tweet that inspired this episode, what prompted this tweet and why marketing is different from sales and much more.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 About today’s topic

00:34 Why this topic was chosen.

01:05 The tweet that inspired this episode.

01:40 What prompted Hiten’s tweet.

03:02 How marketing and sales is a grind.

04:09 How marketing and sales are like working out.

05:03 What makes Steli stay consistently on the sale grind.

08:22 A mindset that salespeople need to develop.

10:10 Why marketing is different from sales.

11:34 How Hiten gets through the grind.

3 Key Points:

The most difficult part of marketing and sales is getting used to the grind.
Just do more of what ended up working.
It’s the same thing over and over again.

[0:00:01]

Steli Efti: Hey, everybody. This is Steli Efti.

[0:00:03]

Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah, and today I’m going to start off the chat. Steli is prodding me to talk about a tweet, and this tweet was talking about how sales and marketing is a grind, and you have to do the same thing over and over and over again, and you might even quit before you hit gold. So what thoughts did it spur for you?

[0:00:33]

Steli Efti: Well, first let me actually read the tweet, right?

[0:00:36]

Hiten Shah: Yeah, go for it. I totally butchered it.

[0:00:38]

Steli Efti: So, “The most difficult part of sales and marketing is getting used to the grind, doing the same set of things over and over and over again, sometimes with such mediocre results that you think about giving up right before striking gold.” I like that tweet, because I think there’s a kernel of truth in there, but there are parts of me that instantly recognize the truth in this or my truth in this, but there’s also a part of me that wants to disagree, and then there is a immediate question that I have once in a while when you tweet, which is what prompted this? I literally go, “Huh, I wonder what prompted this? Probably something interesting. I have to remember to ask him next time I talk to him.” So let’s start the episode with that. I’ll tell you what I think about this, but first, what made you tweet this? What prompted this tweet, this thought?

[0:01:34]

Hiten Shah: Yeah, I think especially with sales and marketing, people look for the silver bullet, and the silver bullet is the one thing you can do and everything’s all taken care of. What I’ve noticed for sales and marketing, it’s not that. And so what prompted it, is nothing super in particular one event or anything like that, but I was just thinking why a lot of people have a hard time with sales and marketing, while let’s say with engineering or design or even product, they might not have as hard of a time. One conclusion I came to is you’re doing the same thing over and over again. When it comes to some of these other areas like engineering or product or design, the repetition is not the same. You’re not necessarily doing the same thing over and over again and likely seeing mediocre results. You have a tangible feeling of progress and momentum that can happen in those scenarios. While with sales and marketing, I don’t want to say it’s hit or miss, but especially earlier on when you’re trying to sell something or even marketing a product or service, the amount of grind is there. And then when something works, the next thing you have to do is just grind some more on the same thing. So even when it works, you’re just doing more of the same, it just happened to work that time, and you think you could make it work more. Whether it’s closing a deal because you changed your pitch all of a sudden, because you learned over many other conversations that you need to change your pitch, or with marketing where you do a lot of, usually you’re just doing a bunch of experiments early on to figure out what channels, what things work, and that’s like a grind in itself. But then when you actually figure something out that works, guess what? To do more of it, same grind. You just do more of whatever ended up working. And it’s not to say there’s no creativity to these things. It’s not to say any of that. It’s more about what feelings people go through and what motions they have to go t...

Next Episode

514: How to Keep Your Sanity in 2020

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to keep your sanity in 2020.

With all that is going on in the world at the moment, the COVID-19 epidemic and the current police brutality protests going on around the world, it’s really difficult to stay composed and not let it all affect your mental health negatively.

In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about things they are doing to stay sane at the moment, how nobody really knows how to feel right now, how information overload could be a problem right now and much more.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 About today’s topic.

00:23 Why this topic was chosen.

01:58 How Hiten is keeping his sanity right now.

02:36 The difference between luck and gratitude.

03:00 How nobody really knows how to feel right now.

03:12 How information overload could be a problem right now.

04:06 One really unique thing about these times.

05:50 How Steli is keeping his sanity right now.

07:19 One reason why this current situation is so intense.

09:07 How this current situation is hitting a nerve with a lot of people.

3 Key Points:

This year is something else!
These are unusual times
I just feel really lucky.
Nobody really knows how to feel.

[0:00:01]

Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti.

[0:00:03]

Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah.

[0:00:05]

Steli Efti: And today on the Startup Chat we’re going to talk about how to keep your sanity in 2020, how to be a founder during these times, how to be a human these times. Man, this year is something else, and I’m sure we’re not the only... Lots of people are going through a lot of things right now. I felt like typically we’re known for super short, super sharp, very tactical and practical episodes, but these are unusual times so maybe they call for an unusual Startup Chat episode. I felt like it might make sense for us to just check, how do we deal with this? How do we think about all the insanity that’s going on in the world? Maybe we do have a few things to share with our listeners that are going to be helpful or if not, maybe that in and of itself gives some comfort that not even the two of us know how to deal with this.

[0:01:02]

Hiten Shah: That’s right.

[0:01:03]

Steli Efti: So let me ask you, the first big wave was obviously the global pandemic and COVID, now we’re going through this wave of worldwide demonstrations and rights, peaceful protests kicked off by police brutality, but it’s maybe even bigger than just that. There’s a lot of different things that are in the mix that are going on right now. How have the last two, three weeks been for you, and for your team, and your company? Has it been different than the first COVID wave of craziness, and how do you cope? How do you keep your sanity during all of this right now?

[0:01:50]

Hiten Shah: Yeah. For me, I just feel really lucky and I think I have, at this point, an unlimited number of reasons why, and so I couldn’t even cover them. I think that’s how I deal with this, I just realize where I’m lucky and make sure that I don’t lose sight of that regardless of what else is going on for other people because that’s really helpful. I think we might’ve talked about this a little bit, but I’ve been really wrapping my head around for myself, the difference between luck and gratitude. I think we talked about that a little bit a couple of times at least, and for me, that’s the thing that helps the most is this idea of just remembering how lucky I am. If I have to, reminding other people whether it’s in my family or people around me, when they’re feeling sad or feeling the collective situation in whatever ways that they might be feeling it because one of the things about this is nobody really knows how to feel. Nobody knows how to act. We just don’t know. There’s a lot of combined things going on, a lot of opinions, a lot of information. I think the biggest risk is information overload, that’s what I’m noticing with people around me. In terms of my companies and teams and stuff, we keep those teams very small. That’s how we’ve always operated, regardless of what the goal is. That makes it so that there are less challenges on the teams for two reasons. One, they’re small, and small meaning less than 20 people, and two, they’re all remote, just like your team. That distributes literally any world situation or any local situation, really distributes it. The thing about what’s going on right now that I’m noticing and that I find very unique is that there are protests all over the world now. All over...