How can founders build companies that scale without burning themselves out in the process?
In this episode, Noah Shanok, Founder and former CEO of Stitcher, reflects on his entrepreneurial journey leading one of the earliest podcast platforms, which ultimately sold to SiriusXM for $325 million. He shares candid lessons from the early days of Stitcher, navigating sleepless nights, hiring versatile early employees, and learning from missteps along the way.
Noah also discusses how his time at Amazon influenced his approach to structured hiring, why prioritizing personal well-being is critical for long-term effectiveness, and how founders can overcome imposter syndrome. Now working as a coach to entrepreneurs, he brings a unique perspective on balancing growth with sustainability, drawing on both successes and challenges from his own journey.
Prioritize Yourself as a Founder: Noah candidly discussed his early days at Stitcher, which were characterized by overworking, sleep deprivation, and unhealthy habits. He advocates for founders to prioritize their well-being to ensure they can think clearly in the short term while remaining effective in the long run.
Building the Right Team: Noah emphasized the impact of hiring a versatile team early on. His advice to recruit a “jack of all trades” who can adapt and grow with the company resonates with many startup leaders.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: Noah addressed the imposter syndrome prevalent among founders. He shared strategies to navigate these feelings by focusing on decision-making confidence and holding oneself accountable.
The Importance of Timing and Market Dynamics: Reflecting on Stitcher’s challenges, Noah acknowledged the role of timing and market forces. Factors such as market readiness and timing of product launches are crucial in scaling a business successfully, emphasizing that external shifts can heavily influence a startup’s trajectory regardless of internal effort and execution.
Leveraging Strategic Partnerships: Noah’s success in securing high-profile deals started with creating strategic partnerships. By working with seasoned advisors, founders can effectively enter new markets and secure pivotal deals that may hasten growth and establish industry credibility.
Quote of the Show:
“ I’ve helped hire hundreds of people at Amazon. If I started another company I would implement a very light version of Amazon’s process, and I would do it very, very early.” - Noah Shanok
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahshanok/
Website: https://startupceo.coach/
Ways to Tune In:
Substack:
Spotify:
Apple Podcasts:
Transistor: https://podcast.notanotherceo.com/
#NotAnotherCEO #BusinessSuccess #Stitcher
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:42 The Importance of Hiring a Versatile Team Member
02:24 Finding the Right Person for the Job
07:00 Lessons from Amazon’s Hiring Process
13:29 Stitcher’s Early Business Development Deals
21:37 Challenges and Realities of Strategic Partnerships
26:53 Coaching Founders: Common Challenges and Solutions
32:29 Transformative Changes and New Habits
33:13 The Impact of Prioritizing Self-Care
37:50 The Power of CEO Support Systems
38:24 Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
45:24 Lessons from Stitcher: Timing and Market Dynamics
48:58 The Drive to Build and Help Others
51:50 The Importance of Mentors and Advisors
57:25 The Need for a Support System for CEOs
59:38 Advice for Founders
Transcript:
Noah: [00:00:00] A lot of founders that I talk to
don’t realize that they need to prioritize themselves for the long run, and they also need to prioritize themselves so that they can think in the near term.
David: Today’s guest is Noah Schock, founder and former CEO of Stitcher. before podcast became the cultural force they are today. Noah and his team built one of the most recognizable podcast platforms in the world. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Noah helped shape the modern podcasting landscape. Stitcher was ultimately acquired by SiriusXM for $325 [00:01:00] million. Stitcher, Noah went to Amazon and led the team that built out programs helping founders and nascent companies leverage AWS. he’s dedicated himself to helping the next generation of founders and CEOs learn from his experiences through coaching. Please welcome Noah Schock.
Noah: Thanks so much for having me, Gary.
David: I’m excited to do this. Um, I, I know we’ve, we’ve done a couple calls leading up to this and I’m really excited to get out into the world, um, this conversation. So, um, first question, what is the one thing that you did at Stitcher, big or small, that had the biggest impact? And you do, again, if you’re CEO of another company in the future?
Noah: I would hire a jack of all trades, like a do anything athlete, and I would do it as early as humanly possible. So someone a couple years, out of school At the later stages, this role turns [00:02:00] into several different roles like chief of staff and EA and office manager and head of strategy and finance.
But in the beginning, you just need a smart person who can get shit done, and that allows me as the CEO to focus on the highest leverage. things
David: So I agree with that statement, and I tell people the same thing. And the next question people ask me, which is what I’ll ask you, is how do you find that person?
Noah: Yeah, so I, I had tried an ea which, which didn’t, which wasn’t what I needed, and I think I just tried posting a few different things. And, um, it was about a year into Stitcher that I hired Eve Peters, who was a couple years outta Stanford and had started a company that had failed and she just wanted some more startup experience before starting her [00:03:00] next company.
And so she, she did everything from helping me with like board decks and investor emails to ordering things to the office. And the best part was when she was ready to leave and start another company, which you did. Her last task was to replace herself
David: And how many over a period of, how long were you running Citrus? Eight years
Noah: eight,
eight, eight years. And, and we had three and they were all awesome. So we had Eve Peters, and then we had Danielle Novi, and then we had, uh, Jen, Jen and MEChA. And they were all really awesome. And obviously, like as you grow, the role changes a little bit and we, we were also able to offset some of the load with like, you know, ahead of finance and like kind of strategy and that kind of thing.
But it was the highest leverage thing thing for me. I, I see founders [00:04:00] hold on to the leverage tasks like way too long. Like they’re, they’re doing their rippling, they’re ordering computers for new employees. They’re like booking travel, they’re ordering swag. They, they shouldn’t be doing those things in the first place.
The, the only thing that matters obviously in the early days is finding product market fit. And the only way you can do that is by building stuff and talking to customers. And if you’re not doing one of those two things, you’re, you’re wasting your time.
David: Hmm, I, I remember early days. Of BetterCloud. I remember I was ordering the snacks for the office from Fresh Direct,
Noah: We all were.
David: and I was taking it so seriously, you know, and, and it was, but I was doing it at 11 at night
Noah: Yeah.
David: And I’m like, if I don’t order it, it’s not gonna, we’re not gonna have snacks.
And I, I remember going through that and someone said to me, how stupid, like, why are you spending your time doing this? You know? Um, and, and there was, [00:05:00] there was so many things like that. I mean, finding office space, it is important. I mean, but it’s so time
Noah: Yep.
David: And I had a jack of all trades, Eli, and I said, Hey, can you help us find office space?
He said, well, I’ve never found office space before. I said, it’s not that difficult. And he just went out onto the streets of New York and just literally went into office buildings and asked if, if they have office space, no broker, no nothing, and found us office space. You know? And you realize, I think to that point, if you have the right person, they can do probably also more than you think they can do.
Noah: Yeah, the person has gotta be super high horsepower and, and see the comp context, like the more they’re in the fold with you, the, the, the better. But that’s right. they, they can do much more than you would expect
David: What do you think is the one attri? Like if you could only choose one attribute for that person, for people listening, I’m gonna go hire this person. You guys convinced me. What is the number one attribute that you would look [00:06:00] for?
Noah: I wanna answer the question with, with two, two answers because they’re, they’re, they’re both sort of equal. Um, the, the first is horsepower. They just have to be like super smart. And, and the second is they’re willing to do anything. So they, they’re humble, they roll up their sleeves and they’re willing to, to do what, whatever it, it takes, including like ordering snacks for the office at 11:00 PM
David: Um, so let, let’s continue on the people front. Um, and so you. You know, you built that team, you built the Stitcher team. You then end up at Amazon and they have obviously a lot more structure to how they do interviewing, how they do hiring, all of that. Can you give me some things that you learned? I’ve never worked at a huge company like, like in Amazon, and I’m very curious like how that differed, you know, those two experiences when you, when you really think about the people side of things and finding [00:07:00] people.
Noah: Yeah, I actually thought that I was pretty good at hiring when I got to Amazon, and it turns out like I didn’t actually know that much. So for for context, in the early days of Stitcher, we did what I like to call vibe hiring. Which I see a lot. The hiring manager would meet with the person and then if they liked them based on some vibes and some loose questions, they’d like pass them to the next person who would also interview them based on vibes.
And there, there, so there was like literal or no structure to our process. And it was also like the furthest thing from objective. And we made some pretty big mistakes by hiring likable people who were like us. And I realized we needed to fix it, but I didn’t know how. So I just, I read this book called Who, which is a great book.
And I just had everybody read it and we started implementing some processes from the, from, from the book. And that [00:08:00] made us better, at least we had structure and some objective metrics that we were trying to measure these people against. But, but nobody taught me how to hire effectively or run a process.
Until I got to Amazon. So I, I get to Amazon, which is, which is famous for their hiring process. And I, I, I learned a ton. So at Amazon, once a candidate gets to the final round interview, then it, it’s a hundred percent about whether or not they’re the cultural, the right cultural fit for Amazon. So Amazon’s culture is codified by their leadership principles.
It’s, it’s the north star for, for, for everything, for hiring performance management. And people talk using the lingo for pretty much every day. And, and you’ve heard of some of these things like customer obsession and bias for action. This is what’s important to Amazon, is that, are you a fit for, for their, their, their [00:09:00] culture?
So the, the final round interview is there, there’s five people in the final round interview day, and it’s basically like. It’s pretty intense. It’s like back to back, you know, one, one-on-one interviewing. And each person interviewing is responsible for like two or three of the leadership principles. So let’s say I’m assessing on customer obsession, and you, I’m interviewing you.
I said, you know, I’ll say something like, David, tell me about a time in your, your past when you’ve worked backwards from, from, from the customer. And I’ll go deep on your story and, and, and assess whether or not it’s true customer obsession in the, in the, in the, in the way that we view it. So before you interview somebody at Amazon, and I interviewed hundreds of people by the time I got to Amazon, you shadow an experienced interviewer, and then as they, as you progress, somebody experienced shadows, you.
And the, the one, one of the keys to the Amazon interview [00:10:00] process is one person in the final round of interview day is called a bar raiser. And. people have heard of, you know, this sort of mystique bar, raiser thing. The job of the bar raiser. The bar raiser is not in the group that’s hiring. And the job of the bar, raiser is to make sure that the person hired is better than 50% of the people that are already in the group.
And that person is a super experienced interviewer, and they manage the debrief for the interview with all of the people that have interviewed the person. And they can basically veto the hiring manager. because the hiring manager’s job is to like get butts in seats and they’re under pressure to get butts in seats.
and, the bar raiser’s job is to make sure the butts are like the right ones. And so I, became a bar raiser at Amazon. so I’ve helped hire hundreds of, people at Amazon. And if I started another company, I would implement a [00:11:00] very light version of Amazon’s process. And I would do it very, very early.
David: The thing that you sa there’s, there’s many things in there that are useful to people listening. The one thing I’m gonna call out that I have not heard of before actually, is shadowing the experienced interviewer. That is a good, because that even the smallest someone could shadow the founder or the CEO doing the interview,
Noah: Yep.
David: know, and start to wa that is a, that’s such a simple one um, that’s a, that’s really powerful because I say it all the time and I’ve been writing recently on the Substack about this is few people ever get trained on how to interview nobody. And you’re thrown in and you just copy what people did when they interviewed you. And if you, if you didn’t go through a good interview process, it just on top of itself and continues. But the shadowing someone else, [00:12:00] it’s also, I guess, a way for you expand the pool of people you trust to interview, because that’s the other challenge from a time perspective, you, you don’t have enough hours in the day to interview.
Noah: That, that, that, that’s the thing. And, and the good ones, you’ll say your feedback, whether you’re inclined to hire the person or not at the same time. And so nobody can be swayed by the other person. And you do that in the debrief as well. You can’t see anybody else’s feedback until you’ve entered your own feedback and you’ve given a thumbs up or a thumbs thumb, thumbs down.
‘cause people are really swayed, obviously, by, by other people. And what’s amazing is not only watching an experienced interview or interview, it’s what is when you’re talking to them after the interview process, it’s what they saw that may not be apparent to a less experienced interviewer in the, in the interview.
It’s pretty amazing.
David: Yeah, I, I think doing, I, I like taking that [00:13:00] lightweight, a lightweight version of Amazon structure and putting that in early stage. I, every company I’ve been a part of would have saved millions of, I, I would say easily millions of dollars and maybe more importantly, just many months of time, you know, or years, I don’t know, combined hiring the wrong people, doing bad interviews, um, all of that.
Noah: Yeah, we, we definitely would’ve saved a lot of money if we were better at.
David: Yeah. Um, so I wanna transition a little bit. I mean, one of the things I think when I, when I researched the back round on Stitcher and all the things, I mean, I remember, you know, those, the heyday of Stitcher, everyone had heard of it. If you liked podcasts back then and um, you did some pretty cool business development deals. that period of time, can you talk about some of those early days and, and some of those deals that you did? Because I, I want to get into how you got there for, you know, for a company that was no one, you know, for, [00:14:00] for, uh, at that time, but you got some crazy deals done. Can we talk a little bit about what those deals looked like?
Noah: Yeah, so, so Stitcher was, was a podcast platform, obviously. And, and so there were, there were basically two types of, of deals that we did that were really interesting and sort of werent worth talking about. The first was deals with media companies and the second was deals. Car manufacturers, so I’ll, I’ll talk about the media companies first.
So these media companies were, you know, companies like NPR and Fox News that we were using their content in our podcast player and they, they were podcast RSS feeds, but we would repurpose them to stream them. And so it was a gray area whether or not we were allowed to actually use them. And so the deals were a little bit sensitive because we could, they could shut us off at any time or send us a cease and desist.
And so [00:15:00] we made the decision to get some traction first and then go try to get the deals. And so once we had some traction, I basically brought on an advisor to, to, to help us with the deals. And we were lucky. One of our investors was, was a guy named Will Wild. And he had a ton of media company experience he’d been a VP at, at, at several of them.
And he knew most of the folks we needed to talk to. And so I structured a deal with him where he would get cash and equity for each of the deals that he helped us close, that we, you know, we needed to get done. And, and that worked amazingly well. ‘cause he, he helped us with the pitch. He would walk us in.
It was, you know, it was a much friendlier meeting as a result of the fact that he knew them, then he would get the back channel on like, you know, what they actually needed. And, and so that, that worked really well. The, the automotive company deals were, were pretty interesting [00:16:00] in, in, in, in terms of their, like more of a story about luck and, and, and perseverance.
So we’re, we’re, basically, this was like 2008. And we were basically waiting for an auto auto manufacturer to come out with an internet connection directly into the head unit of the car. We viewed ourselves as the modern day replacement for top radio. And for us, the car was really the holy grail. And so we paid close attention to the auto manufacturers and you know, what they were doing in the, the head unit.
And one of our investors got wind that Ford was working on something in their, in their con console. And we didn’t have any connections there. And I just went bon bananas. Like I just, I like, I stalked people. I, you know, I made like four org charts of who we needed to talk to. I like went, you know, crazy on LinkedIn.
I pulled in every, [00:17:00] like, I, I basically pulled out every favor I could to try to get the right introductions there. And, um, as a result we were. Introduced. So it was a high profile announcement. It was the first announcement by a car manufacturer and it was announced by Ford, CEO, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.
And it was basically, the announcement was, was us Stitcher and Pandora directly into the, the, the head unit. And after we got that deal, the rest of ‘em just like came to us. I thought we were gonna have to continue to hunt, but it, it, it, it was a, it was a lot easier, but getting that first deal was, was, was really hard.
We were also, we didn’t have a lot of growth then, and I had to go, I had to go raise a, like a series BX round of funding and I asked Ford if for permission to have the software early, if I would buy, like I [00:18:00] bought a Ford Fusion car and I got the software, which was super buggy, like two years early. And I named the car Mrs.
B for B round of funding. And we, we had so little cash at the time that I think I put it like I put the car like on my credit card or I finance it myself or what have you. And I would just drive this car down to Sandhill Road and I would, you know, I would do the pitch and then I would get to the slide where the, you know, the, the, the CEO of Ford is, is, is announcing less.
And, and I would say, you know, I was so inspired by this, but that I actually have, I bought, I bought this car so I can show the future of radio and it worked about one third of the time. And so I, I started, like, I got to the point where if the meeting was going really well, I actually wouldn’t take him out to the car.
So I didn’t take benchmark out to the car. I didn’t tell benchmark about the car because I was like, the meeting’s going too, too well. Like it’s, it’s, I’m gonna like, you know, it might, it might get messed up, but it was, it was pretty [00:19:00] amazing. To as a, it was like the best fundraising prop ever. And it was pretty amazing to, to, to show kind of what our vision of the future of radio was, was, was in the car.
David: Just outta curiosity, why would it not go well?
Noah: It
literally like didn’t work half the time. I mean, it was so, I mean, even when it went to production, it didn’t work that well, but, but like in the early, it was so buggy and like, you know, first you need the, the internet connection worked through, through your phone. So the internet connection on the phone had to be good, then have to like sync with this, this sort of cluey device.
Then there was an audio part of it, so it, we have to understand what you said and it just didn’t work.
David: I both lessons though both of those are good lessons. I think the one with the media company one is a lesson that actually I have a company that I work with that’s going through something like this where. They originally thought we have to hire someone who knows this space to get into [00:20:00] this space.
And then they actually realized they they got an advisor, you know, in your case it was an investor in their case advisor, but really they just needed to be walked in the door. It wasn’t that they needed a full-time person to do the work. It’s, it was really just having the credibility to walk in the door and then once you’re in the door, you can work those deals.
I think, I mean, is that kind of what happened in that, in that situation?
Noah: Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. And, and, and he, he was, will, was good enough that he was able to coach us, you know, on our pitch. He coached us beforehand. He knew what they wanted to hear.
He knew what they were concerned about. And then, you know, and then he was in the room with us and the fact that he had the relationships all also helped for the back channel after.
But that, that’s right. We basically needed to get, walked in the door and we needed to understand their perspective. And it was a lot easier for us to, you know, kind of buy [00:21:00] cliff notes and relationships in order, in order to get us there. I, I think eventually we could have probably gotten there on our own, but it was, the deals were too sensitive, and if one of those folks shut us off, it would’ve been a problem, especially for the, the, the, the ones that were more popular on Stitcher.
And so, but I, I highly recommend that, I recommend that to, to clients all the time when it’s an industry that they don’t know and they can just speed up the process by six months by bringing in somebody who’s, who knows what they’re talking about.
David: Um, on the Ford one, what ended up happening with that deal? Ultimately, it sounds like it didn’t work too well once, once it was out. What happened with that deal
Noah: Y Well, I always thought that internet radio would replace co like the, the satellite radio and A MFM directly into the head unit like that. There [00:22:00] would be these. And, and actually I had, I remember I had a meeting with like the CEO and a bunch of people from Sirius xm. The, the guy was running SiriusXM at the time, I like was a character.
His, his name was Mel. And he walked into the room and there all his like hench people were there. And it was pretty awkward already ‘cause we’re, you know, we’re competitors. And literally the first thing he said, he didn’t even say hello. He’s like, why don’t you die already? That’s what he said. And I was like, why don’t you die already?
Like you’re, we’re the future of radio and. I, I, I was wrong. At least I was wrong at the timing of it needs to be as easy to use as possible. Now everybody listens to a podcast in their car, and most people, I think don’t, but, but AM and FM radio are still a big thing. They’re still, you know, the, the advertise like, it just didn’t go away fast enough.
And SiriusXM is a huge business and it’s still printing money. [00:23:00] And I, I think people really like convenience and the, they, they, they like this direct into the car thing. And so I, I was just wrong on the, on the, on the topic. And, and so to, to answer the question about Ford specifically, these head unit deals were Stitcher and Pandora and others were like, kind of preloaded into the head unit.
They were just, they turned out to just be more klugy than having your phone and just having, you know, an A-V-R-C-P like Bluetooth connection. And CarPlay also helped a lot because CarPlay MA made it easier for, for the, the apps to just
David: Right.
Noah: open up. So it just, it wasn’t Ford’s fault specifically, but it helped us a ton in those early [00:24:00] days because the optics of it was really that it was the future of radio and it was a very, very high profile deal with a public company that was
David: I
Noah: the time.
David: that that last part is, so that’s the LA that’s. I, we’ve all been through these like big strategics, in this case, the car manufacturers and other cases, you know, the big distributor, whatever it is, the big strategic companies saying, Hey, this new startup, they have a cool thing, looks really cool.
Let’s, let’s OE em it. Let’s embed it, let’s resell it. Let’s do something with it. And what you just said, I think is, is so spot on, which is it gives you the credibility, it helped you tell the story. It didn’t necessarily translate to revenue per se. Maybe in through other ways it maybe translated to fundraising, but I see this all the time.
Also, another one, right? I’m sure you’ve worked with hundreds of founders. Like, you know, you have someone like, no, no, no, I’m telling you, I’m telling you, this is the big company they’re gonna, they’re [00:25:00] gonna change the trajectory of I’m gonna get embedded and they’re gonna sell it to everyone. And then you do two years of negotiation and contracts and this, and then you go to actually like go live and.
Uh, it’s kind of crickets, you
Noah: Yeah.
David: I, I think you’re not the only, I guess what I’m saying is you’re not the only person who kind of goes through that. The question is, can you leverage? You said it so perfectly. It’s like, can you leverage that into other things and credibility and, you know, other types of business, but to expect that that’s the thing. Sometimes it is, but 95% it’s not.
Noah: Yeah. We expected it would be the thing, and, and, but it was, it became an amazing calling card for us and. They, and another funny story is we went out after the cs, we went out to dinner like our team and their, their team and the CTO of, of all of Ford Motor Company was, was there. And [00:26:00] he was asking one of our engineers, like, how many engineers are there on the team?
And you know, and you know, and our guy said like seven. And so he, he was like, oh, there’s seven people on your head unit team. And he’s like, no, I mean there’s seven total engineers and Stitcher. And this guy just went ghost wife.
David: Uh, that’s good stories. Um, so you, you have, you’ve had your own experience, founder, CEO, you have through the Amazon experience, you spent time with a lot of people. I mean, I think when we were talking about it, literally you said it’s over a hundred people, that you have found CEOs that you’ve worked with and advised and helped in some way, shape or form.
And now you do this as this is what you do. You, you coach people, you advise founders and CEOs. Can you talk about you’ve worked with a founder, when you start engaging with someone, when you start working with a ceo, e what are the top [00:27:00] 2, 3, 4 things that you. You help them with, you spend time with you, you see that they are most, let’s call it suboptimized, on like what are those
Noah: Yeah.
David: Things?
Noah: So I coach mostly founder CEOs and they usually come to me when they’re transitioning from a small team where they’re the CEO, but they’re mostly like a contributor. And now they have to become a leader, and that usually comes around Series A, maybe it’s 20 to 30 employees. They have some version of product market fit, and they’re trying to scale themselves.
And those challenges usually show up in some version of the following three things. One, is they’re pulled in too many directions and not doing anything well. The, second is that they’re lacking confidence or have imposter syndrome, and it’s [00:28:00] causing them to not act decisively enough And or, and oftentimes it’s all three.
They’re burned out and not taking care of themselves and, haven’t, in a long time. And there’s many other sort of permutations of, those and many other reasons why a, founder CEO might find me, but, those tend to be the, themes.
David: And those three things being pulled in too many directions, the imposter syndrome, having a hard time making decisions, being burnt out. Are those all things that you experienced in your journey
Noah: Oh yeah, a hundred hundred percent. Yeah.
David: what, what? Can you gimme some examples of when you were running Stitcher like. How did those things manifest themselves? When did they occur? You know, I think you, you said something there about the stages,
and it’s one of the things I think the, the founders CEOs that don’t [00:29:00] make it a lot of times are the ones that cannot scale as the company scales.
And they feel like, I am still gonna be at this, making all the decisions. I’m gonna be in the weeds on everything. I’m gonna have everyone coming to me, I’m gonna, you know, and um, so anyway, can you talk maybe about your experiences
Noah: Yeah,
I’ll start with the burnout one. ‘cause that, that one, um, I, I made some really big mistakes and I’ve actually been doing a, a talk for a quite a few years now, which is kind of a passion talk, talk of mine about, um, my own experience, kind of like burning out by the second year of Stitcher and then, and then having to kind of rebuild the plane while I, while I was flying it.
So, and, and appealing to. Founders to that basically prioritizing themselves is actually prioritizing their startup rather than sacrificing themselves at the altar of, of the startup, which is, which is [00:30:00] what we all think. Certainly, I thought you, you needed to do. So the first year, or two of Stitcher, I worked, I was not married at the time, didn’t have kids.
I worked a hundred plus hour weeks. I took a ton of stimulants and I slept like four hours a night. I felt like Stitcher was the center of the universe. To me, every failure or misstep felt deeply personal. And I also thought that I, didn’t have anybody really to talk to about, it. because you, obviously you can’t, it’s a very lonely job.
You can’t talk to your employees. You can’t, in some cases even talk to your Co-founder You know your girlfriend or partner doesn’t wanna hear about it. and, so. yeah, it’s incredibly lonely. So my sleep deprivation was really bad and it, was so bad that one, of my wake up calls [00:31:00] was we had to raise a series A in 2008, which was not a particularly good time to raise, money, and, and it, and in addition to that, every every investor we talked to had either lost money on podcasts or lost money on mobile or, or both.
And so I pitched literally every investor in Silicon Valley. I had pitched a hundred plus investors. Everybody passed. So I start pitching folks on, on, on, on the East Coast and we’re like this close to a term sheet. And the last milestone was, I was just to, to supposed to talk to, I was supposed to have breakfast with one of their entrepreneurs and residents and who had run an ad supportive business, stitchers ad supportive business.
And so it was a particularly bad sleep week for me. And I, I, so I, I did what I always did before meetings like that. I just took a ton of [00:32:00] caffeine and showed up to this meeting and I literally could not do simple math. Like we were talking about the ad business and the model. And, and I, like, I was not making, I wasn’t making sense.
And so we, we did not get that term sheet and it was a big wake up call for me. ‘cause I, I thought to myself, look, if I can’t get it through a meeting like this, how can I be making the decisions that I need to make to, to, to run a company effect effectively? And so I started taking that really seriously.
So I, I, I changed my sleep habits a lot. Um, I’ve always been good at, you know, kind of exercise, but I made sure I was doing that. I stopped consuming bad things. I started considering like mostly, mostly good things. And then I started doing some, some, some other things. Like I joined a CEO group that where we would talk privately to, like, similar to like A-A-A-Y-P-O group.
I started writing like [00:33:00] gratitude lists. I started doing things that kind of got me out of the, the, the, the context of my situation. And it made a, a really fundamental difference. So, so contrast that experience in our series A with our series B, which we, we, we didn’t have nearly as much growth. I slept for eight hours the night before department meeting at Benchmark.
I went for a run in the morning. I did some meditating. And I’m not saying that there weren’t other contributing factors, but I showed up to that meeting in a very, very different way than I did during the Series A
David: Hmm.
Noah: Founders. Um, I talked to a lot of founders that I talk to, don’t realize that. They need to prioritize themselves for the long run, and they also need to prioritize themselves so that they can think in, the near term.
David: Hmm.
Noah: And that was,
David: long? How long [00:34:00] from that series a moment or that realization to turning things like was that an immediate thing that you did that that, or was that over a period of six months, a year, did you have someone help you go through that?
Noah: I wish I could say it was like, you know, the next day I saw God and, you know, I fixed everything. But it was, it was a slow, it was a slow process. It, it, you know, change takes, takes time. And I was, it took me a while to sort of realize that and, and, and, and rationalize it. I, I did have some help from. Some from the CEO group that I was in.
I think some of them had kind of recognized that and some of ‘em hadn’t. And we looked at the ones who had recognized it and they, it seemed a lot better than, than we were. Um, so, so, so, so that helped. And then, and the more I did it and kind of invested in it, the more I [00:35:00] recognized that I was making better decisions.
I was showing up the right way. So
David: Hmm.
Noah: It, it, it took a while though.
David: I have for a personal que I, people who know me well, know that I don’t sleep well still to this day. Um, and like my email gives me anxiety. Like if I have any emails in my inbox, I can’t go to sleep. And, um. Are there any tips seriously? Like are there any tips that you have to, to be able to fully sleep through the night while running a company?
Like I, I have not ever been able to do it, so I’m curious like what that number one for me. Like what, what, what did you do there?
Noah: Oh, I have a, I have a ton of tips. I actually, I ended up going so deep on, on sort of sleep processes. ‘cause it was, it took me such, it took me a while to like fix, fix my sleep. Um, so I’ll give kind of the low hanging fruit and then, and then, and then I’m happy to do a sleep session with you because
David: Yeah.
Noah: I wanna see you sleeping, sleeping well.
[00:36:00] So there, there’s, there’s a set of sort of sleep hygiene thing that, things that are sort of, well, well, well known, which is no screens an hour before bed. Your, your body a screen tricks your body into thinking that it’s daytime. And so even if you think that you’re just zoning out on, like Instagram, you’re, you’re, you’re making your body think that it’s actually daytime and you need it like a wind down period.
You, you, you, you, you need your body to, to, to go offline and sort of decompress and have a wind down period. No caffeine after 3:00 PM no alcohol. It makes, uh, it makes the quality of your sleep worse. A lot of people drink bef to, to help them go to sleep, but the quality of your sleep is much worse. Your rem cycle’s much shorter and you end up waking up ‘cause you have to go to the bathroom more, more than, more than you would need to.
Your room should be cool and dark and same wake time every [00:37:00] morning. This was really hard for me. Like no matter what, weekends, weekdays, same wake time, your body’s a clock. Your body wants the same wake time every morning. And then for you. Who would be anxious about your email in the middle of the night and might check it.
You leave your phone outside of your bedroom. You don’t bring your phone into your bedroom. And if you’re, you know, one of those people that’s anxious about getting an emergency call, like, like, like I was, then you have an emergency bypass on for the, you know, for your loved ones. You, you put it very loud and you, you put your phone right outside your door, but you do not check it.
You do not look at your phone at night. You say goodnight to your phone before those things will help 80% of people. And then I got some more for a follow up conversation.
David: that, that’s really helpful. I, I, um, yeah, that’s really helpful. And to me, the part about the CEO, we, we just did a dinner with a bunch of CEOs actually here in my apartment. And the whole thing was about CEO support systems. It was about CEOs, it was [00:38:00] about coaches, advisors, therapists, all the different people kind of, that you need to surround yourself with, um, as a CEO.
And when you talk about this example, you know, I think, um, it, it, it is so powerful to have those other people to lean on. ‘cause not that many people really know what it’s like to be in that seat. Um, and so I, I like that. I, I’m curious about the imposter syndrome. The imposter syndrome is something that I would say every I don’t, wanna say every, but I wanna say 99% of founder CEOs that I meet with have imposter syndrome. And when you get going on it, I’m like, I have imposter syndrome. They have it you know, we’re, kind of going back and forth and, I talked to someone the other day, sold a company for multiple billions.
They had imposter syndrome, had to start another company to prove it wasn’t a fluke. Like literally that’s what they, told me, and I believe them and I’m curious from that perspective, how it manifested for you and or [00:39:00] how you help people with that, Because I think it’s pretty deep seated,
You know So I’ll talk about how I coach on it first. because I, think I’ve done a better job coaching on it than, for myself. I think it just took, some, time. and I’ll talk more about the, part of the hard thing about imposter syndrome is what it leads to, which is not being confident enough to make the decisions that you need to, make, that’s aside from like, you know, ruining your day in your head.
the, way that it manifests is, by that not, being decisive and confident in your decisions I found that in most cases, the CEOs that I’ve worked with and also myself, that they know, they actually know what they want to do. And it may not [00:40:00] be entirely obvious to them at the beginning of the session, but with a few questions, like the path really reveals itself.
And then it’s just about the hard thing of doing the thing that you really intuitively know that you need to do, but you don’t wanna do, like, letting the person go or pivoting away from something. People have been slaving over for a while, but it’s just not working that fast enough. And so in my coaching, I, help them get into the place.
I, help them get to the answer themselves. Sometimes I’ll tell them the answer, but usually like. They, know the answer most of the time. They do know the answer. and their gut gets stronger. I mean, you know this, like, your gut gets stronger over time as you start to, trust it. And then once they know what they need to do, then I’ll, help them get into the mental place to [00:41:00] actually do the thing.
Because it becomes about doing the, thing. And I’ll hold them accountable to it. And sometimes we may, if it’s like, I gotta let you, go or what have you, we will role play it in, advance and just get to the place. And then that’s their homework. Their homework is like, they have to go do this, hard thing.
And I hold them accountable to that. Like, they, like, they, they, they’re to me and, you know, boards hold CEOs accountable for, output metrics. You can’t really control output metrics like growth and revenue. I, hold people accountable to, input metrics and those are the things you can control.
And, what I’ve seen, and this was the same for, me, is that after a while when you start to be more decisive and you do the thing that, you know, you need to do, the imposter syndrome stuff starts to go away because you’re just like, this is the job. I’m [00:42:00] actually like, reasonably good at the job.
the other thing is like a, lot of folks who were founders, especially like the Y Combinator archetypes they’ve been getting gold stars their whole lives and all of a sudden you’re gonna do this thing where like if you get a 20 on a test, that’s such a win. You know? so, I think helping them to, kind of reframe what success looks like and that you can, you know that there’s a lot of luck in it and that you can only control the input metrics and you just have to.
Make the right call with very little information and, and, and, and, but it does, my own experience with it is that it does get better over, time.
I’m curious your experience with it. Yeah, I do think, there’s something about the reps where you have an idea or you want to do something, it takes you a long time [00:43:00] to trust that that’s the right thing to do. Then you do it. and you see that that was the right thing. And if you do that enough times for yourself, you’re kind of, you have to remind yourself sometimes, but you’re like, oh, I should let that person go. I’m not really sure, but you know, you should let them go. I was thinking about this the other day where I would like tell my wife, like, I’m having this really big problem with this particular person. And by the ninth time of me telling her, she’s like, well, I think you know the answer to what this is.
And then you would do it. And for both sides of the equation, for both people, it was probably the right thing to do. And if you do it enough times, I think you do start to trust that in yourself more because you see, you’re not always right, but you at least see that it’s like something about your gut.
You know, I, I think the part you said, which this goes back to the CEO support system, which is a big topic right now for us with not another CEO, but the, holding them accountable. And it’s not [00:44:00] like you’re their board member. You can’t fire them. But it almost doesn’t matter.
It’s just them saying it out loud to a person
who’s going
to Then check on them doing
That That I can see. That must be super powerful. because they’re not gonna go to their board member probably and tell them, I think I need to fire this person. because that creates a whole
different dynamic But they can have that conversation with you.
You can then say, okay, you made that decision. Next time we talk, you know, I’m gonna come back and ask you that. And just having some accountability makes a big difference.
Noah: Yeah. it, makes, it, it really does. And it’s, is a little bit like hiring a personal trainer, I guess. Like you’re investing in it, The company is investing a lot like a great CEO coach is expensive. and, so the company is investing a lot of money in the CEO’s growth and like, you know, you so, so, so like, you’re on the hook, like you gotta do what you agreed that you were gonna do otherwise, [00:45:00] what’s the point?
And I’ve never actually had to do this, but I’ve threatened a couple times like, if, they don’t do their homework, I’ll fire them because I get energy from watching a person grow. Like that’s, why I do this. And if they’re not doing it, we’re talking about the same thing every time then like, what’s the point?
David: hmm. Um, let’s go back for a second to Stitcher. What is the biggest challenge ever
Noah: I,
David: at Stitcher, and how did you overcome that?
Noah: well, the, the biggest challenge we never overcame, which was that we started a podcast company in 2006 before podcasts were a thing. And we basically had linear growth most of the time. Slowly growth at a venture cost to capital. And we, so we were within like months of running outta cash on three separate occasions.[00:46:00]
And my experience with Stitcher is a cautionary tale. Stitcher eventually sold to SiriusXM for $325 million, but my investors and team and I didn’t get rich from the sale. And I, ironically, we sold Stitcher. We, in 2014, which was the year that podcasts took off, there was this podcast called Serial, which became super popular.
And that’s what kind of po podcasts were like growing like this. And then as of 2014, they started growing like that. But running a company with slow linear growth for eight years with a venture cost of capital, taught me a lot of things about all their skills. So I got really good at raising money and hiring and retaining good talent and doing beauty deals, and basically grinding.
‘cause we never had the, the, the wind in our backs and, and most importantly, managing the mental game, which was the [00:47:00] hardest part for me. so, so my. Experience with Stitcher, and, and this is experience, experience with any person running any startup, as you know, is that it’s extremely challenging and the more time you’re in the hot seat, the more you learn.
I’ve never learned, and we’ll probably never learn as much as I did in the eight years that I was running Stitcher.
David: Hmm. The thing you said there about timing, um, it goes back to the part you said it before, like luck. Luck does have a big, big part to do with this. I mean, there’s some element of making your own luck, you know, to some,
Noah: Yep.
David: Degree. But, but something like that I remember, I mean, I love podcasts and when Serial came out, of course that was the, that was the change of the trajectory. Um. And if you had started the company four years later, you know, and raised money, four years later you would’ve been in the position to catch the wind and [00:48:00] not, you know, it’s like there’s timing and market dynamics. And I was talking to someone earlier today and we were talking about like liquidity windows that happen in the macro market.
Like there’s a lot of things that have to go your way, even if you work a hundred something hours a week. And even if you put your entire life into it, and even if you have the best product and the best team and the best, it’s still sometimes not enough actually.
Noah: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. And, and I think Mark Andreessen said that it was like something like 80 or 90% luck, and the rest was, was if, if you happen to catch it at the right time. That’s what they’re looking to make sure that the person is gonna take the company as far as they can possibly go.
David: Hm
Noah: But timing is a timing of up is a, is a, is a, is a really big part of it.
David: Um, I wanna transition to your background. Um, so did you always know that you were gonna start a [00:49:00] company? Were you always as a child? Were you, did you know I want to be an entrepreneur one day?
Noah: I think so. I, I, I grew up in New York City as you know, our family
David: Yeah.
Noah: Comfortable financially. My dad was like a Wall Street guy and taught me about business and markets and we were always coming up with like little business ideas and trying to, to make them work. And my mom was a child psychologist and social entrepreneur and actually became one of my entrepreneurial heroes, heroes when we were growing up.
She started a, a school, um, called the Heschel School, which became an icon in, in New York. And was one, uh, she was the first president and, and one of the, the co-founders. And seeing through my childhood watching this little school kind of grow, and we would have board meetings like in our, in our living room that would go like really late at night.
And then seeing the impact that that’s had. [00:50:00] And, um, and you know, everybody in New York now know, knows about the head of school and it’s considered this amazing school I I, that that was so inspirational for, for, for me.
David: Hmm. I think the exposure. I’ve talked, you know, now this, you’re the 60 something, you know, CEO that I’ve talked to and the number of people who had exposure at a young age. even, I asked people, was it like, did your parents say you’re gonna be an entrepreneur? And most people say no. It was just, and some people say, I didn’t even really think about it until just now, but it’s like some kind of osmosis, you know, that you’re just there and you’re seeing it, and you’re feeling it, and you kind of, um, you don’t even know what you’re like in those board meetings.
I can’t even imagine the stuff that you were, that you were processing and hearing and, and, um, and so I, I find that so interesting and it really motivates me with my kids to expose them to [00:51:00] everything that I can expose them to, because I don’t know what it’s gonna result in, but I feel like if they at least see it, is sinking in, you know?
Noah: Totally. And, and you, you definitely have to develop um, a kind of an optimism ‘cause you gotta be a little coco puffs to startups especially. So the odds are, you know, the odds are so low and you, you, and you have these ambitions that are so big that there, there has to be something in you. I think that, that, that kind of, that gives you the, the latitude to go, to go do it.
David: Hmm. Um, have you had a, a, it sounds like your mom is probably your role model. Have you had a mentor? Did you have a mentor, a coach or somebody advisor, someone who was helping you in those early days of Stitcher, the way you’re helping people now?
Noah: [00:52:00] I’ve, I’ve had, you know, many sort of folks that I’ve looked up to, to, to some extent, but I would say during the Stitcher time it was, it was, it was my mom. Like she, she at that point had, you know, run pretty, pretty significant organizations and she didn’t, you know, I couldn’t. Asked her for advice on tech stuff, but I asked her for a lot of advice on, um, on people dynamics and on leadership and very specific situations, and she was amazingly helpful to me.
David: What, what is it that drives you? What, what is it that gave you the, the, that drive to go start a company and do this crazy journey and, um, and what, what is it that drives you?
Noah: I think I, I always wanted to build stuff. I, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know exactly where it came from. I think just watching, [00:53:00] watching it, when I was growing up, I always wanted to build stuff. I was always interested in business. And now, you know, as a coach, I, I look back and like everybody in my family was like.
Either an entrepreneur in some form of business or, or a therapist. And, and so I feel like maybe now I found my true calling, like as I’ve, you know, kind of married, married, the, the, the two. But yeah, I always just had a burning desire to, to build and, and I also to help people. So,
David: Hmm.
Noah: And that second part, I got to do more now.
David: Uh, on that note, a personal question, because I’ve, I’ve, I’ve now spent the last couple of years advising companies and not building my own company per se, even though I’m starting to do that with not another CEO, but not really, you know? Um, and it’s kind of an interesting challenge to go from an operator to coach sideline person. How have [00:54:00] you dealt with that? Have you ever had the feeling of going back and building again? Have you, you know, how do you ever wanna put your hand on the wheel for the, for the people that you work with? Like, um, for, for an operator? I I find it difficult sometimes. And I’m curious how, how you’ve, because you’ve been doing this for a while now, for a lot of people.
Many more than I’ve done it for. Like how, how do you deal with that?
Noah: I, I think that especially with the, like, AI tools and how easy it is to build things, I, I am more compelled to build now and more than, than I have been in a really long time. Um, I, I, you know, I’ve always kind of had itches to, to do little things, but I’m, I’m more compelled to, to, to do it now. I do.
Sometimes wish I could, you know, the, the, uh, a client will tell me about a situation and I wish I could just like parachute in and, you know, be an operator for like a, [00:55:00] you know, run the company or run the sales team or whatever for like a, a, a week or two. I think it would be pretty, pretty, pretty awesome.
But I, but I also, I see how much it kind of wears on you, and I’m at a different life stage. I’m, you know, I’ve got a very young and growing family of like, you know, two, two kids and another one on the way. And I want, and I’m very, very gratified by my, my work. And so one of my goals next year is gonna be like, you know, I’m gonna time bound myself.
I’m gonna start, you know, building a little bit, but really time bound myself because I can just get super carried away with it. You know, the next thing I know, I’m, I’m, I’m off to, I’m off to the races again and I don’t think I want that, at least not how on.
David: I know, I don’t know. I don’t, this is, this [00:56:00] is why this not another seal thing keeps it getting bigger and bigger in terms of my. Ambitions for it because I, I don’t think I can, you know, I, I want, I enjoy building also, and I think I, um, you know, I, I, I, I told people I, in the beginning, I said, oh, I’ll take like six months.
And then it was a year, and then, then I started doing the advising and then, and then this, this definitely has, um, taken on a life of its own in, in a great way. And I feel like this may be that thing, you know, this may be that next thing and, um, but figure out how to really structure that is, is, um, but yeah, I can’t, I don’t think I can sit on the sideline for too long.
‘cause it’s, um, the operating is fun. I, I find the operating fun, I think. Um, and I think that, anyway, and building, building is fun and building is fun for the, the most interesting thing is just to ha I, I miss having a team. I tell everyone of everything, [00:57:00] of everything. I miss having a team. what I miss. I don’t really even care what the product is at some level. Like I, I miss having a group of people that you’re high fiving with and you’re, you know, building. And even the hard times when I talk to people I used to work with, it’s like we talk about all the shitty times and remember those almost more fondly than, than the
Noah: Yeah.
David: You know?
Noah: Yeah, I, I, I missed that. I missed that too. You know, something you said before about like the CEO sort of needing to be surrounded by, by, by folks. I, that struck me. I, you know, I raised a, a bunch of money at the time, you know, $30 million over three rounds was like a lot of, a lot of money. And they bet they, they never met anybody else on the team before they invested in any of the three rounds.
And so they’re betting all this money on a horse and, and, and at the time, and it’s [00:58:00] still the case to some extent, that there’s no, like, they’re not spending any money on taking care of the horse. And,
David: Hmm,
Noah: you know, you look at a, a Olympic athlete and the team that they are surrounded by, and the work that we do as startup CEOs is just as.
It is just as stressful and hard, and your odds are just as low. And I often wondered why there isn’t more of a structured team that you put behind you, or you have your, like, you know, you have your coach and you have your doctor, and you have your, you know, sort of
David: nutritionist,
Noah: nutritionist, psychological advisor
David: Yeah.
Noah: You with your, you know, with your imposter syndrome or what have you.
And maybe in the work that you’re doing, you’ll endeavor to put something together
David: Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re so right and there’s so many, I think there’s so many reasons why it’s, the [00:59:00] VCs want to do, a lot of them say like, we’ll do that for the CEOs, but what CEO wants to do that with their, with their VC and with their, you know, that’s what the PE firms do. And they say, here’s our operating team and we’ll be your support system.
And everyone’s like, I don’t want you to be my
Noah: yeah.
David: Like I, and so it’s a, it’s kind of a, but that’s actually what I believe. I believe exactly the same thing. And that, that analogy is so good because it isn’t just a person, it is the masseuse, the nutritionist, the coach, the psychologist, the agent, the, it’s all of those things, you know?
And so. Um, I like that a lot. Um, okay, Noah, last question. Knowing everything you know today, all the experience you’ve had, plus all the coaching that you’ve done, what is the one piece of advice you would go back and give yourself before you started your first job ever?
Noah: So the, the in, in, in my career anyway, the things that I thought were the most terrible in the moment ended up often being the biggest blessings. [01:00:00] So, as an example, I. I worked at one of those, like prestigious management consulting firms, and I got, they call it like counseled out where like they’re, you know, you’re not gonna make it to the, they said I’d make a great partner, but I wouldn’t actually make partner.
And I was just devastated. I worked so hard at that job and I had, I, I had thought when I got the job that I can, like, I’m never the smartest person in the room, but I can always outwork anybody else. And as it turns out, I just didn’t work. Like I, I, I, I couldn’t have worked any harder and I just, I was just bad at the job.
I, I wasn’t good at it. And, and it was, yeah, it was devastating to me. And, uh, and two years later I was running Stitcher and, you know, hiring people from there. And, and it turns out I was much better at the, at being a founder, CEO.
David: Noah, thank you very [01:01:00] much for doing this with me. I really enjoyed this and, um, I, I’m happy we got a chance to meet. I think it was Paula who put us, um, in touch. So I’m gonna thank Paula for that and um, yeah, thank you. I, I, there’s so much good stuff in here and, um, if people want to get in touch with you, what’s the be, what’s the best medium?
Is it LinkedIn or website or email? What’s the best way if someone wants to talk to you about
Noah: Yeah, LinkedIn. Um, I’m just Noah Shana, S-H-A-N-O-K, or just email me at noah@startupceo.coach.
David: Great, great. Awesome. Thank you Noah. Um, hopefully everyone enjoyed this. If you did, please share this out with your networks and we’ll see you for the next episode. If not, another CEO podcast.
[01:02:00]
1:00:58 Outro
