Ep160 - Sam Crowther (Founder & CEO - Kasada) on sales, structure and the founder journey

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep160 – Sam Crowther (Co-founder & CEO – Kasada) on sales, structure and the founder journey April 28, 2022 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep160 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Kasada, Sam Crowther. Sam launched Kasada as a 19 year in 2015 to help protect businesses from bots. Fast forward 7 years and the company is now used by many Fortune 50 companies and has gone on to raise $39M in funding from leading international and local investors such as Reinventure, Our Innovation Fund and Malcolm Turnbull (the former Prime Minister of Australia). Despite all of these successes, there have also been plenty of challenging moments and in this interview Sam shares some of those challenges including the period where he doubted his own abilities that ultimately led to him stepping down from the CEO role. In this interview we discussed: The customer insights that led to Sam pivoting his first business, USig, into KasadaHow Sam landed Sportsbet as their first customer and their approach to enterprise salesHow they raised funding from investors like Malcolm TurnbullThe structures Sam has put into place since returning as CEO that make him a better and more confident leader& much more Timestamps  4:53: Sam’s background6:15: Sam discusses joining Macquarie Bank after graduating from high school to join their fledgling Cyber security department and the early concept that led to Kasada8:12: The journey of launching USig and the insight that led to the pivot 10:13: process it took to go through for the actual pivot11:14: How to attract your early hires to the company14:50: How they landed SportsBet as their first customer18:40: How to effectively qualify enterprise sales leads20:39: How to tease our importance and understanding of the problem by the Enterprise customer22:20: How to move beyond your own network 25:13: Kasada’s fund-raising journey and how he brought on investors like OIF and Malcolm Turnbull on to his cap table31:41: How founders can do their own DD on investors34:41: Why Sam stepped away from the CEO role40:37: How founders can create the right structure around them42:58: How a CEO coach has helped Sam45:27: When and how to bring in team leads/build structures and how to hire for Its50:03: How to mitigate against bad hires Our partners A big thank you to our podcast partners for this episode Lawpath Lawpath’s Legal Advice Plan gives you access to lawyers on demand for one low monthly fee. Create legal documents, sign online and have a lawyer on-call to help you through any legal need for a fraction of the cost.  Lawpath has helped Australian businesses save over $100 million in legal fees, and are offering Startup Playbook listeners up to 20% off their most popular legal plans. Visit lawpath.com/playbook for your exclusive discount and discover an easier way to get your legals sorted. Scendar  We’re Scendar, an accounting and advisory practice better described as Finance as a Service (FaaS). We’re focused on founders, funders and startups. Clients that are ever-changing and adapting. We like fast movers. And as you might have guessed, we’re not your basic accountancy. We can take care of tax and the books whilst building a syndicate fund and a multimilliondollar exit strategy.  At Scendar, we’re empowered by our client’s potential. Find out more at Scendar.com Dovetail Studios  Dovetail Studios operates a venture studio and VC to transform ambitious ideas into unstoppable businesses. On top of being a renowned product development partner for startups like Afterpay, they also operate a VC fund to invest in early-stage companies that go through their venture studio program. So if you’re a non-technical, early-stage founder looking for a talented team to help supercharge your success, check out dovetailstudios.com Links Mentioned  Sam’s Links  Sam’s LinkedInKasada People Mentioned  Tyrone Dougherty (Kasada)Johnathon Hope (Kasada)Mackenzie Etherington (Kasada)Dick Ward (Sportsbet)Nick Rieniets (Kasada)Malcolm Turnbull (Investor)David Shein (Investor – OIF VC)Danny Gilligan (Investor – Reinventure)Simone Archbold (Kasada)David Turner (Kasada)Pieter Danhieux (Secure Code Warrior) Companies Mentioned  KasadaReinventureOur Innovation FundAkamaiSecure Code Warrior Previous Episodes Mentioned  Ep 114 – Malcolm Turnbull (Former PM & Investor) on timing, conviction and trustEp133 – David Shein (Co-founder & GP – OIF VC) on legendary customer serviceEp109 – Nick Crocker (Partner – Blackbird VC) on investing with convictionEp029 -Simon Cant (Co-founder & GP – Reinventure) on the relationship between startups and corporates Special Thanks: Special thanks to David Shein, Malcolm Turnbull and Tyrone Dougherty for their help with research for this interview!  Feedback/connect/say hello: Rohit@startupplaybook.co @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player. Find all links to the podcast here. https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep160_-_Sam_Crowther_Founder__CEO_-_Kasada_on_sales_structure_and_the_founder_journey.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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