Starter Girlz Podcast

How a 35-Year Software Expert Helped 90+ Startups Launch Smarter

• Jennifer Loehding • Season 7 • Episode 79

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Why do so many promising startup ideas fail before they even reach the market? In this episode of Starter Girlz, we sit down with David Hirschfeld, a 35-year software expert and founder of Tekyz Corp. David has helped over 90 startups launch smarter using his proven Launch First methodology.

If you're a startup founder, entrepreneur, or dreamer with a big idea, this conversation is essential. David shares powerful insights into startup launch strategy, pre-sales validation, and how to test your concept before writing a single line of code. You'll learn why the traditional MVP process often falls short—and how to validate your idea with real customers and generate revenue early on.

This episode is part of our ongoing series on entrepreneur motivation, real-world experiences, and startup journeysthat shape today’s business landscape.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • How to apply market validation effectively
  • Smarter go-to-market strategies for SaaS and product-based startups
  • Why narrowing your niche can accelerate growth
  • Inspiring success stories from over 90 startup founders
  • Common mistakes early-stage entrepreneurs make—and how to avoid them

David’s startup marketing strategy is practical, proven, and refreshingly simple. Whether you're launching your first product or pivoting an existing business, this episode challenges conventional thinking and offers a smarter way forward.

Learn more about David Hirschfeld at www.tekyze.com.

Subscribe for more episodes that explore the stories behind startup success, innovation, and entrepreneurial growth.

David Hirschfeld:

Serial entrepreneurs who are successful multiple times usually are founders who have a natural love for the problems and want to spend all their time talking with customers. Those are the, but founders who commonly fail are ones that love their product and believe in their vision and never step back far enough to recognize that the product they're building and the vision they have are all built on assumptions.

Jennifer Loehding:

Welcome to the Starter Girlz Podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment. We're here to help women succeed in every area of their lives career, money, relationships, and health and well-being while celebrating the remarkable journeys of individuals from all walks of life who've achieved amazing things. Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, build financial independence, nurture meaningful relationships or enhance your overall well-being, the Starter Girlz podcast is here to guide you. Join us as we explore the journeys of those who dare to dream big and achieve greatness. I'm your host, jennifer Loehding, and welcome to this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girlz podcast. I'm your host, jennifer Loehding, and wherever you are tuning in today, we are so thrilled to have you, so I want to open up with this. Today. Every journey has its twists and turns, moments of growth and experiences that shape who we are. Today, we're diving into a journey that spans over three decades, one that's been built on curiosity, innovation and resilience. A journey of a leader who's navigated some of the biggest names in tech, transitioned into entrepreneurship and now empowers others to scale their businesses with fresh, innovative solutions. And so you guys are going to get to hear from him in just a few minutes, but before we do that. We need to do that. Shout out for our sponsor.

Jennifer Loehding:

This episode is brought to you by Walt Mills Productions. Need to add excitement to your YouTube videos or some expert hands for editing? Look no further. Walt Mills is the solution you've been searching for. Walt is not only your go-to guy for spicing up content. He's the force behind a thriving film production company with numerous titles in the pipeline. Always on the lookout for raw talent, walt is eager to collaborate on film and internet productions. With a background deeply rooted in entertainment and promotion, walt Mills leverages years of skills to give you the spotlight you deserve. Want to learn more about Walt and his work? Head on over to waltmillsproductionsnet and let your content shine All right and with that, we do want to make one more mention to head on over to startergirlscom.

Jennifer Loehding:

There you can pick up on any episodes that you have missed. You can sign up for our community news, and we have a new thing on there. Now we have a fun quiz that you have missed. You can sign up for our community news, and we have a new thing on there. Now we have a fun quiz that you can take if you're a business owner and you want to find out what your number one subconscious block. I say success block because I hate subconscious success block that may be keeping you stuck right now. You can take the two-minute quiz and it will give you some insight into that. So be sure you head on over to startergirlscom and take care of business over there.

Jennifer Loehding:

All right, we want to welcome our guest on today. So my guest today is David Hirschfeld. With over 35 years of experience in software development, david's journey has taken him from roles at top tech companies like Intel and Motorola to launching a successful startup that spanned 22 countries. Now, as the founder of Tekyz Inc, he helps startups accelerate their growth with AI-driven solutions and the launch-first method. So, david, we want to welcome you to the show today. So excited to have you here.

David Hirschfeld:

Thanks, jennifer, I'm really excited to be here.

Jennifer Loehding:

This is going to be fun. And you know why this is going to be so much fun? Because I hardly ever get tech people on here, because I know very little about tech, so this is probably going to be just as enlightening for me today as it is for my audience.

Speaker 3:

So we're glad to have you Okay.

Jennifer Loehding:

So I want to open this up. I want to talk a little bit about we're going to get to your journey in just a minute, but I want to talk a little bit about your company, so you can tell us a little bit about what Techies is and what you're doing with your clients and give us some insight on that.

David Hirschfeld:

Sure. So I founded Techies 18 years ago with the idea that we were going to do custom software development, and I can give you the genesis of that maybe a little bit later, but we've been developing software for startups and scale-ups and mid-sized companies for the last 18 years. I worked with over 90 startups during that period of time, a few of them very successful, but the vast majority failed. They all failed for the same reason they lacked product market fit, because they wait way too long to validate product market fit through sales. So I developed a methodology called Launch First to help founders go from concept to cash flow in just a few months as a way of proving product market fit through pre-launch sales and make it very quick and easy to pivot if they're not able to do it, but really nail down who that early adopter is, and this reduces the risk dramatically for startups and also helps them fund their development through pre-launch sales instead of from investors.

Jennifer Loehding:

Okay. So let me make sure I understand this, because I told you I'm not savvy in all this parts of the things. So you're helping them with these pre-launch sales so they can make sure that the product is fitting for the market and then they can pivot if it isn't. Is that correct?

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, that's correct, okay, I just want to make sure I understood what you were saying. No, and I like it because to back that up and talk to, I guess, basically to prove your point. So I worked I would say I worked with a mentor. I've worked with a lot of mentors, but I had a really awesome mentor that I worked with for two years that had gone from building a brick and mortar business to moving into the on, you know, the online space and he was trying to teach us how to do that, because this was during COVID and he went through this whole thing.

Jennifer Loehding:

On that whole maybe not the pre-sell, but that whole product mark out, you know finding your, who your market is and making sure you're targeting that group. And you know cause we, as business owners, when you say fail. I'm sitting here thinking because a lot of times you know because we, as business owners, when you say fail, I'm sitting here thinking because a lot of times you know you're talking about credit market, but also we want to sell to everybody like right, we want to have every client and sometimes that's not an ideal situation.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, actually it's rarely an ideal situation, because the broader your market, the lower you have to make your price and the lower your closing ratio is for sales.

Speaker 3:

Oh, my God.

David Hirschfeld:

And the opposite is also true. The tighter you can get your niche, then the cleaner that you can make your messaging to who you're selling to, the more you can charge and the higher your closing ratio for your sales. So when you're starting out, that's what you need. You need to know a very specific niche that you're selling to. They need to be an early adopter and you need to be able to charge them a value proposition that's fitting for an early adopter, which is a lot more than if you're selling to a broad market. Yeah, and so that's what we do.

David Hirschfeld:

The first thing we do in Launch First is really nail down who that early adopter niche is, and then we put together a marketing and sales strategy to do pre-launch sales. We create a high fidelity prototype which is a design prototype. It's not real software. Think you've already built it, even though you're telling them it's a design prototype and the first version won't have all these features and it won't be available for a few months. They don't hear that because what they're looking at is so realistic. And then you offer them some high value proposition that they don't want to miss out on early on and they'll buy in enough numbers if you've targeted the right customer with the right messaging.

Jennifer Loehding:

That's good, and I have two things to say that, and then you're going to laugh at one of these. Okay, so Rover or not? Rover, roomba, roomba, the vacuum. Okay, they have the new mod, this new big model that came out.

Speaker 3:

It's like just launched out, like recently that has like the mop and the broom.

Jennifer Loehding:

I mean they had smaller, but this is like you know, it's like a 1400. So they're very clever. What do they do? They send out the campaign Like you can't even really see the model yet. They're just like something's coming Right. And then they send out this promo for us, because I buy Roombas, that we get it for 50% off. With this like video. You can't even find all the like features. In the beginning you don't even know, because they got me all hyped up looking at this stupid Roomba thing. I bought the Roomba, by the way, because I got it for 50% off. They know who their people are, right. So, to your point, yes, I can see how that is all, how that all works in the flow.

Jennifer Loehding:

But I was going to say something else to you. Oh, something else you mentioned that really stuck with me that when you tighten it up, the price is different than when you have it broader. Right, because this is no different in what you're talking about. Also in the creator space, in our space, because I go around and around with clients on this thing. They want to sell cheap products. Well then, if you're going to do that, you're going to be selling to a lot of people, right? You're going to have a lower price product going to a lot of people. If you're trying to get a core group of people, then yes, elevating your price is the way to do this. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because when I had initially built out this program, I built out a high ticket and then I had two different takes on that.

Jennifer Loehding:

I had one. Obviously you got to tighten it up, get that tight market, and then another person saying no, you need to put that to side and do this lower budget, you know program so that you can get the masses. Well, I didn't really want the masses, david, I want the tight, the certain people that want that product Right.

Speaker 3:

So I thought I had to go in the middle. I had to figure out the middle of this thing, because I was like those are the people that I want, but how do I get those people from here to there? You know what I mean. So what you're saying all point on, and I think that it spans across many business sectors. It's not just the tech space, it's also in our creative space as creators. So thank you for saying that.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah. So if you want to do something, if you think about it from a mass market perspective, you think of Kickstarter and people like that. Right, because you're selling a product to a very broad market and you're trying to get a bunch of people to fund your product by doing pre-launch sales. If you're thinking of B2B software in the same kind of vein, then you're thinking of something like AppSumo, if you're familiar with that, where they're selling usually lifetime licenses for some kind of new cool marketing app component, but they're going after very broad market people that are AppSumo followers. But if you're looking at high value B2B, then that's so we're so it's. There's lots of proof that this works. This pre-launch sale thing works, or the mass market kind of help fund your product through this the, the sale of your product instead of from investors works, but we're.

David Hirschfeld:

If you're going after a high value ticket, a high value item and a high ticket customer, then you just have to target it properly and there's a way to do that and you can do it. And the problem is most startups don't do that. What they do is they figure out that this is what they're building. They fall in love with their product, they build the MVP. They create a pitch deck and they go out and they try to raise money and then they find out nobody will give them money. And so then they try to sell the product and they find out nobody wants to buy it because they're not sure who the early adopter is. And they haven't done all the really hard work up front, which is that niche analysis piece and then nailing down that high value proposition.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I had a guy on here I actually just released this podcast today Dr Gerard Ibarra. He just launched a like a it's called Keep it Saved, which is an app and it basically stores documents is what it does it puts everything in a place for you. And he was talking about you know the funding and putting all this together. But one of the things he talked about he was talking about how I think he said like so many hours it was a lot, I can't remember the number, but putting in so many hours of just doing your research and finding out who you're, you're, you know doing who your clients are and stuff, because you're right, so many people they get and I I see it too with the clients I work. They'll come to me and they got a good idea and I'm like I'm not even sure what you're selling. Who's your audience?

Speaker 3:

Who are we targeting? Like, we need to figure that out because I can't help you, even get you know I'm not doing exactly what you're doing, but I can't even help you.

Jennifer Loehding:

Come up with a title name for this business.

Speaker 3:

We don't even know what we got and who we're targeting, you know.

Jennifer Loehding:

So what you're saying is all point on, you know. I don't know exactly what your method is, but what you're saying is is is yeah, and then you want to step back even one more step.

David Hirschfeld:

What problem are you solving?

Jennifer Loehding:

Exactly, you know, because they don't.

David Hirschfeld:

And it's funny when I'll ask founders, what's the problem? Statement here that you're say oh, and then they say, well, it does it, it does this, this is how you do that. And they say, well, that's a feature you know that's great.

Speaker 3:

I liked it. There's a feature, but what's the problem?

Jennifer Loehding:

no-transcript, like what is my actual mechanism? But what and what problem is this unique mechanism addressing? So I had to go back and like iron all and it was so hard I had to like sit down.

David Hirschfeld:

It is hard hard.

Jennifer Loehding:

I had to like sit down. It is hard, yeah, and I use I actually. You know what I did. You're going to probably love this. What I did is I went into chat, gpt, and I started typing in this is what I'm trying, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm doing who, who am I? What am I trying to solve here? And then it started spitting out ideas, which actually helped me kind of figure all of that out. But it was not an overnight thing, I'm not.

Speaker 3:

I'm telling you, it took me a little while to kind of navigate through. And then when I got it, I was like, oh my goodness, like what have I been doing? Because if I'd have had this a long time ago things would have been a lot simpler.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, a lot simpler. You might like this and you may have heard this. Have you ever heard of the five whys or the three whys? It depends on who you talk to.

Jennifer Loehding:

I don't know if I've heard it quite that way, but yeah, tell us.

David Hirschfeld:

If somebody finally does say, well, it solves this problem. This is a problem that this person has and it's usually something generic, like people don't have the information they need to make good decisions, I say, okay, fine, why does that matter? Right?

Speaker 3:

And then you ask why?

David Hirschfeld:

because that's a high-level problem statement and you can't sell anything based on a high-level problem statement. You have to get to a root-level problem statement. It usually means standing in the shoes of a particular stakeholder in a particular niche and talking about why that problem is a threat to their existence, both financially and from a perception perspective, and those are two independent things we measure. So how much does this person perceive that problem statement impacts them and why, and how much is it actually costing them? And we measure those separately and you know you're at a root level problem statement. When the problem statement begins with I hate that or I'm afraid of that or that's going to ruin me, because if I don't solve this problem, then this outcome is going to happen, which is bad, yeah, that's a root level. Anything short of that is not a root level problem statement no, it's great you're saying that.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's great that you're saying that because I just in the work that I, the thing that I built out, the course I built out, I talk a lot about root level problems in, but in a different space. And it's funny because it said you know, you hit a root level problem in this particular space when it starts crossing over into different boundaries and affecting things, and so it's a different scenario.

Jennifer Loehding:

But I understand what you're saying when you say root level, because a lot of people when they're looking at like, in this particular case, this course I'm building is talking about finances and not putting your energy in the right places Right, and a lot of times it's because people are looking at surface level things and not getting to the root problem of why they're doing what they're doing or not doing, what they're not making the phone call or not doing the follow-up or whatever that is. So it's completely different, but I get what you're saying is what I'm saying about it being you know, it has to be a real problem or real tangible.

Jennifer Loehding:

You can't just say something like you know, like you're gonna have better personal growth. Nobody really knows what that is on the surface level, but if you start talking about it affecting their cashflow, you know things that are real and you're going to have better personal growth as a benefit, not a problem.

Speaker 3:

Yes, Right.

Jennifer Loehding:

But if you just say that they're like okay, great, I'm going to have personal benefit. You know like I had to get down to like what are we talking about? Your finances, things that are really impacting business owners. You know that in their shoes, like their time management, we all want more money and we want to work less, right? We want to talk.

David Hirschfeld:

So then you're getting to the problem I don't have enough money or I'm working too much, which are two different problem statements, right, and so why does that matter? It's still that's like, yeah, so does everybody, cause you can have um, and the reason it has to have that high impact where you feel threatened by it because I may have a problem that costs a lot, yeah, Right, but I work in a company where we have these other initiatives and I'm never going to get buy in, so it doesn't. Doesn't threaten me the fact that it costs a lot, because, you know, or everybody in my industry struggles with the same problem I struggle with. So it's you know. So what, right? So that you're not going to sell that person very easily. You're not going to get their attention because they don't feel personally threatened by that problem, whereas you might have somebody that hates a problem and feels threatened by it, but then doesn't actually cost them very much, and so you can't charge a lot for it.

David Hirschfeld:

So you got to measure those two things independently and find the one that has both hot. Both of them are high yeah.

Jennifer Loehding:

And that's good. Thanks for sharing all of that. I love it. And I think it's important. I think this is a is a struggle, especially for people. I think that you're in my sector, kind of the creative space, because and I guess maybe it does mean cause I network a lot and talk to get people to show up and buy.

Jennifer Loehding:

And they're always trying to learn little hacks. And I've had so many people on here that have come back and we've talked about things like this, about your niche and about I had a guy on here named James Bond that he competed in the you remember the egg commercial where they did this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs, and it was the egg that would go in the frying pan. He actually competed with that. Whoever that group was or individual was that did that, and so he talks a lot about you know how do you target that right audience, but also making those things stick like catchy phrases and things like that, and so there's a lot to this.

Jennifer Loehding:

I feel like you know, but I think like you said it's the biggest thing is getting that product to market and not get hung up on your ideas, like you got to get off being hung up on your ideas you know, and that's a fatal flaw that founders have, and it's just sort of an.

David Hirschfeld:

it's very hard to break yourself from this. So founders who serial entrepreneurs who are successful multiple times, usually are founders who have a natural love for the problems and want to spend all their time talking with customers.

David Hirschfeld:

Those are the but founders who commonly fail are ones that love their product and believe in their vision and never, step back far enough to recognize that their pro, the product they're building and the vision they have are all built on assumptions and they're not thinking about the. You know they may have been originally solving a problem and they came up with a great idea and they forgot all about the problem.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, and they got all focused on delivering this idea networking and you get into a space where somebody just comes in and they they get in. All they do is start vomiting their stuff on you, right, and they don't even know what your problem is. They don't even know what they have meets your problem, cause they never asked the question. That's what I'm like.

Speaker 3:

That's what I'm feeling like when you're saying this to me and people do it. I'm sure yeah.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, and founders can learn to love the problem when they realize the importance of it. Yeah, and you know that you're struggling with loving the problem versus loving the product when every time you start talking about the problem and you talk with a potential customer about it, you start going into features.

David Hirschfeld:

You start talking about your features, and wouldn't this be helpful? As soon as you do that, you've lost the whole focus of the problem. So really smart are founders that have a really good instinct for this or have taught themselves to do this never talk about their product or features. They only talk to the like. When they're doing their research and trying to understand the customer, they just spend all the time talking about the problem and that and how, that person. How have you solved this problem in the past? Have you tried tools to solve this problem? How did that work out? What did work? Or you know how much does this problem cost you? How long have you been living with this problem? What other problems are like this that you're struggling with? You know that's a founder that's going to figure out how to solve the problem because they'll understand it so well.

David Hirschfeld:

And you talk to lots of potential clients that have that, that have a similar kind of problem or in a similar position, and you start to triangulate and really understand what the market needs, not just what each customer needs, but what the market really needs. Then the solution is just the natural mitigation of the problem, not the thing to be in love with, right right, it's making me think of the book, not the thing to be in love with, right right.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's making me think of the book Spend Selling. Have you read that one, spend Selling?

David Hirschfeld:

I've heard of that. I've not read that.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's an old book but interestingly enough, because you're kind of getting into the people side of things right, like where we're getting to get to figure out what that problem is that the client has. You're not going to know that unless you ask good questions. But in that book they talk about how to. You've kind of said this in several conversations about finding the pain points right and addressing those. It talks about that, like when you're selling like higher ticket items or bigger things, you know, and how do you? You've got to figure out, like you're asked the question to find out where the problem is with the client and then, okay, what is that costing you to continue doing it that way, you know?

David Hirschfeld:

so sort of getting into the shoes of the other person without really doing the product so much until you have to do that right, and what's the political will for addressing that problem and what is their budget money that people will use to spend? It depends on who you're marketing, right, if it's a owner of a company versus somebody inside of a larger company. There's a book that talks just about this issue, called the Mom Test. It's my favorite business book because it really gets you into the mom test.

Jennifer Loehding:

I like it.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, and the reason it's called that is because if you come up with a business idea and you ask your mom what she thinks about it and this assumes you have a good relationship with your mom, right? You ask her what she thinks about your business idea, she's going to say oh honey, I know you're going to be successful, you're so smart, it's a brilliant idea, right? You're not going to get an answer of any kind of value from her. That that's truthful, right? So the question is how do you ask questions about this business you want to pursue from your mom and get valuable, honest responses? That's why it's called the mom test and it's so well done. This book is so well done. It talks about all these things.

Jennifer Loehding:

I like the title. I think the title is good when you say mom, test.

Jennifer Loehding:

you're like what's that? You know the person that did that was clever on that. It's important. So no, this is all good. So I want to back this up because you've been in this space for a really long time. So I want to talk a little bit about your journey and kind of what led to the formation I know you mentioned in the beginning space for a while and you've worked for some well-known companies and then kind of moved into that entrepreneurship space. So kind of talk to us give us a little bit about that.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, so I started out in the late 80s. It's been quite a long time working for computer associates and then Texas Instruments, and then I became an independent consultant and I ran as a project manager for Allied Signal, arizona Public Service, intel, motorola, and then founded my first software company in logistics route distribution inventory management A very niche kind of product, I thought it would. Windows 3.1 had just come out and that was the first version of Windows. For anybody who remembers this or knows this, that was usable, right, and that started to make Windows take off, and so we made a Windows product for small businesses to handle logistics throughout distribution inventory management. And it took off, surprisingly took off, and so my partner and I ended up growing this over the next eight years to 800 customers in 22 countries and sold it to a publicly traded firm and I ended up VP of products for that company that acquired us for the next several years. So I thought, okay, I know what I'm doing with Stardust right.

David Hirschfeld:

Then I cast out again and started another software company in 2005. And this one was a trading network for wholesale auto dealers, which could have been very successful, but I didn't follow the same playbook as my first company and it failed. I tried to basically get critical mass, build up this network, then raise money from investors, and I did get offered money from an investor very early in that process. I was looking for $1.2 million and I got that, but they wanted what I thought was way too much equity. I never got another offer of investment ran out of the money that I was willing to invest in this business, and so now I've had a success, I've had a failure.

David Hirschfeld:

I wasn't sure why this one failed versus the other one that succeeded, and so I thought well, what I know how to do is build software, so I started Techies and out of the ashes of that and then, because I knew how to build software and market it to startups and existing companies that needed workflow automation. We've been doing that ever since, and now I'm starting to come out with some SaaS products this year. So I'm back. I'll be back in out with some SaaS products this year. So I'm back. I'll be back in the software business from my own sense as a still be doing the developing software for other people as well. But you know, we basically building products because we had our own need internally for some products and so we decided let's build these and automate this part of our own business, and we can turn this into something that can be a SaaS product, which usually makes the best SaaS products.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, yeah, well, and you lean back into your strengths too, which I think it happens, I think, so often. We get sort of like we're like, oh, I'm going to try something different, or I'm bored, I'm going to do something different. Then we realize we sort of migrate back into where our skillset is, right, you know, and we thrive because that's where we're naturally talented. I mean, even I feel like in my journey, you know, I've, I've, I was 22 years in Mary Kay, so I was kind of in a space where I was doing presentations and building teams and leadership, and I've always mine. I always tell me like I'm kind of the forward facing person, I'm the salesperson, I can be the person up in the front. They can get people to do things, have those conversations, find out what people need to know. You put me in the back end where I have to do like in. You know, engineering. Oddly enough, I was, I'm married to, a chemical engineer, which is kind of funny because he's that the back person the quiet doesn't talk.

Speaker 3:

You know, I'm the forward. I tell him you don't sell. I'm not doing that because I can't do it, you know. So I think yeah.

David Hirschfeld:

Opposites attract. Right yeah, Opposites attract.

Jennifer Loehding:

I guess, I think we just sort of kind of lean into our talents. And, you know, every time I think maybe I should do something, you know, maybe I should do this, I'm like no, I know what's going to happen if I try to do that. We need to stay where we're gifted at, you know. So I love it.

David Hirschfeld:

I think and you know clearly you guys are doing something well if you've been in this space, at least with TechEase, for this long and it's still thriving. Yeah, Thank you, I appreciate that. And then Launch First just came out of the watching so many companies fail and then having this epiphany why my company failed versus the one that I was successful with. And then I just started to put the methodology together.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, yeah, it's good, I just started to put the methodology together. Yeah, yeah, that's good. I'd love to know, because somebody listening to this and these are my fun questions, where I really like to get into the heads of people Somebody listening to this is going to go okay, this guy, he's been successful. He was successful all the way up. Clearly, nothing's ever happened. But this company let's talk about TechEase. What were maybe some of the challenges in the beginning that you had, if you can remember them, as an entrepreneur trying to get this thing up and running?

David Hirschfeld:

Well, the challenges were how to build know people needed software development and if you have 20 plus years experience then you sound like you know what you're doing when you talk to people, so you know that was much easier Then. What was really hard was learning how to build a really top team in a contracting role with other companies, and it took us years it took me years to figure out some of the formula for that and then to really build all the procedures and protocols and systems internally so that our team just continues to get better and better and grow. So if you go to the techiescom spelled T-E-K-Y-Z for anybody looking for it you'll see at the very top of the page of the homepage it says hyper exceptional software development team.

Speaker 3:

And.

David Hirschfeld:

I don't expect anybody to believe me when yes, because I say it and it says it at the top of my webpage but if you run in an exceptional manner, you produce certain artifacts that typical teams don't produce in terms of the level of detail, the amount of tracking, the transparency, the accuracy in terms of estimates and the level, things like that. And I have lots of evidence to show people, because I don't expect anybody to say believe me just because I say something. That's sort of like somebody says trust me. That's code for don't you can't trust me, right? So, anyway, it took me years to figure that out and then many years of hiring the right people. So one of my philosophies about hiring is I can only hire somebody if I believe they're smarter than I am.

David Hirschfeld:

And then the ball. So the balls rolls up. The ball rolls uphill in my company and my job as well as, like my director of operations job. Our jobs are to sweep out all the things out of the way of our team so that they can produce better value, and more value because they're smarter than we are in the thing that they're trying to do and deliver and as opposed to us having to drive them and manage them tightly right. So to the degree that we need to do any kind of management, we try to build automation and scaffolding in our systems so that the management happens as a natural course of just doing their work and in terms of like time tracking, accountability, things like that, and that's what we spend our energy doing just continuing to improve our systems.

David Hirschfeld:

Now, ai is a huge part of that. So we just took our estimation methodology, which took us years to develop, and we're very accurate in our estimates. We like to be within 10% of the estimate for an entire project and we're really good at estimating where we're usually within 10% of that estimate. Most teams are good. Teams are within 30%, but an average software development shop would be 2x or 3x of what they estimate and that's very common and we're not. That doesn't hold water with us, but it's really hard to get there and it's a lot of effort and time to build these estimates with that much detail in a brand new project. So we built an AI model for our estimation tool. We just released the first version internally.

David Hirschfeld:

So now we have an AI tool that's building out our estimates for us, with us supervising making sure it's doing a really good job with that and that will keep getting better and better and eventually that's going to go to market as a SaaS product. That's one of them and we'll basically make it available to other shops and in the process of doing that, we're going to do launch first. So right now we built it around Google Sheets. That's our user interface, because that's how we've been doing our estimates for years. We use Google Sheets as our tool for publishing the estimates.

David Hirschfeld:

So this first version is around Google Sheets. Then we'll go out and do a pre-launch sale. We designed the SaaS front end as a really nice user experience for people once we do build the software. But we're not going to build that until we can see that we've got product market fit and that we're selling the product to other software development shops in decent numbers and then we'll build that front end. So we're, you know, following our, you know, basically eating our own cooking. Yeah, in a sense right.

Jennifer Loehding:

No, it's good. It's good Something I wanted to. You said a lot of really good things there, but I do want to point out you know that you mentioned about hiring people that are smarter than you, because I think those are real. I think that's a great characteristic of leadership, because I think a lot of times, you know, leaders get into positions where they want to, and I say this sincerely because I probably did a lot of this in the beginning when I was building teams, and it was a different product, but we were still building teams and trying to get things out there.

Jennifer Loehding:

And so, you know, oftentimes I feel like leaders get threatened to hire people that are smarter than them because they want to manage, they want to and trying to get things out there, and so oftentimes I feel like leaders get threatened to hire people that are smarter than them because they want to manage, they want to be in that micromanaging role and keep people under control, and really that's not what we want. We want to let people shine, and when you hire people that are greater than you, you're going to have more potential for growth, because you're bringing in different dynamics, different conversations. You're just adding to the pool. Of greatness is the way I see it, so it's really a dumb thing if you're not doing that.

David Hirschfeld:

So smart on you for recognizing that. Oh, thank you. And it takes a little while to build that culture right, when everybody recognizes that they don't want to bring other people in that aren't really smart and experienced. Experience and smart are two different things, right. I mean, we want both. We don't hire people if they don't have a lot of experience, because it's too hard when they haven't worked in teams and worked in large projects and multiple of them. They don't have enough experience to bring in to solve problems in the right way, in the best way. Right. But so we have to have both. But once they get the hang of it and they realize the value of this, they become ruthless to protect their team, because you want that right.

David Hirschfeld:

So if we accidentally hire somebody by mistake that isn't as smart as we thought they were, or they somehow got around our recruiting process which almost never happens, but it used to happen occasionally and we would let them go right away and not try to keep them and bring them along, because you can't fix IQ, you can fix other things. Even integrity is something you can work on. If somebody's not a compulsive liar, right, you can even work on integrity when they realize there's something really worth investing in in terms of people and trust and all that. You can work on that to some degree. You can't work. You can work on work ethic. Even you cannot work on IQ. That's just something you're born with.

David Hirschfeld:

So if you've hired somebody and just not smart enough or somehow they lied on the interview process and you've found out that we let them go immediately because we're not helping them in their career, if we carry them for six months only to let them go, then and it took a while for my team to realize that this is important because you want to send the message to your team that you care about them enough to not pollute the team with people that aren't a good fit for the team. So it's our mistake.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I know, and I'm thinking about a lot of things because we hear we talk about culture a lot, right, like culture and companies and stuff. And there's a I don't know if you've read the book the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. It's like a really good book. There's a I don't know what the type of company that they were all working for, but they were talking about the different players in there. And there's like one player in there, this particular one.

Jennifer Loehding:

She was a high performance player but she was kind of a cancer within the group, like she just was not a team player, not, you know, very individual lone wolf kind of thing, and I don't remember all the specifics of it, but it's a really good book to speak to that about how you want to create that dynamic that you want with your team, right, like what you're looking for in a group, and part of my program that I built out I talk a lot about that because of coming from Mary Kay. Mary Kay is big on culture and a lot of those people stay in there Go back to what you said in the very beginning about the money.

Jennifer Loehding:

might not be making a lot, but the culture is right or whatever. There were a lot of people in there that were probably not making money group and they can produce the work and do the things they need to do and you know cause when you don't. Yeah, I know, and I speak to that, not in that space but I can speak when we've had bad.

Speaker 3:

When I had bad people in my team, they were a cancer.

David Hirschfeld:

I mean they literally were like a cancer in there because they bring everybody down.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, and you would have got this back and forth and just so I might. And it's funny because I even you know, when I do my work now, like I feel like I have all these processes for the types of clients that I want, the types of guests I want to bring on my podcast, and I do. I have all these little like you talk about. They get through. Like I had very few people they get three of on my podcast that I don't air out because I have such a.

Jennifer Loehding:

I have a filtering process because I'm looking for things I'm looking for, you know, like that communication. I'm looking for the things they're saying to me, how they're communicating, you know, and even like, when you guys come in, I get a lot of these agents that reach out to me to get their people on here and I really want to talk to you guys. Like I want people contacting me directly, because then I know where they're at, I know they've researched, I know they've looked at the stuff. They're not just having somebody go out and filter for them and find it, you know, because then I then I'm having to go through and get them to answer questions and they're not, so I don't even know who I'm talking to. Sometimes you know what I mean.

Jennifer Loehding:

So we all have to have processes for how we want to build our teams, because it reflects in our work and it goes back to what you said a while ago when the team is right, the work shows up good.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, exactly, and then and if the team is right and the culture's there, they're going to prevent other people from coming in that aren't good fits. So you know, we always have everybody, everybody that's a stakeholder in the, in the position that's being hired for. They get involved in the interview process. But we always start like I said, it's gotta be IQ for that position. And then there's a psychographic profile. We wanna make sure it fits the job, because that's a really important thing that a friend of mine who's in human capital business taught me that if you know, if you've got 20 different people that have done a job really exceptionally well and you know their psychographic profile of the of those people, then that's the first thing you should hire for, because because they'll naturally have the ability to deliver, to perform on that job Now and at the level that you want. You still need the IQ right and the experience, but yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 3:

That's really good information for anybody that's out there right now talking about you know, building your team and stuff. I think that was great, so thank you for sharing all of that good stuff.

Jennifer Loehding:

I don't have any build teams right now. I did it for so long. It's weird because I'm not really doing that right now, but I still. You know, I have to collaborate with people to do things that you know jobs and stuff like that and so I think all of these are really good skills. We've talked about, you know, team building and building your culture and all of those things. So all important good stuff. So I want to ask you a couple of questions, kind of from the your perspective, and I I'm looking on here cause I have them down on my notes so I don't forget what to tell you, but I want to ask you personally, as an entrepreneur and as a as a leader, what, what is one belief that you feel like has shaped your success?

Jennifer Loehding:

I'm sure there are many, but give us maybe one that you feel like has been the big thing.

David Hirschfeld:

Well, I think I've been sort of dribbling them out throughout the interview, right? So only hire people if they're smarter than I am. Basically create playbooks. So as we start to get processes, we know that work. Then we document those processes in terms of playbooks and we have a whole library of playbooks. That way we can bring new people in and they're not going to suck the life out of the person who has to mentor them, because that's the only person with the tribal knowledge, which is a problem for companies that have all of their expertise stuck in tribal knowledge, right, because then it requires the best people to have to stop what they're doing to train new people coming on. Yeah, there's always going to be a little bit of that, but we want as little as possible so that new people coming in have some place that they can refer to and also that they can read in advance to learn how to do that job, because there's playbooks that have been documented. So that's important and those playbooks become intellectual property and increase the value of your company.

David Hirschfeld:

The more you document these things, we automate everything we can. So, like I said, we're automating our estimation process shop and we're automating our daily standup meetings with an AI agent to help our everybody on our team do that. For anybody who's a software developer, they'll know what that means. They won't know what having an AI agent do that means, but but it's a big deal. We're automating how we interact with our project management system. We're like crazy about being detailed in project management and tracking from build to build and release to release, you know, so that we can accurately estimate, estimate and always give our clients, you know, up-to-date information about anything. But it requires a lot of tedium in terms of having to record bugs and record feature requests and then between each version of our product, of a product that we're delivering, the same feature request or the same bug gets reported multiple times, not always the same way. So you end up with all these duplicates that somebody has to go through at the end of every major release and try to clean out all the pollution out of the tracking system.

David Hirschfeld:

And then if a customer asks about when there was a bug that was reported a couple of weeks ago, do you know when that's coming out, trying to figure out what release it's planned for and which bug they're referring to because of how it was entered. Anyway. So we're building an AI model for this. That, basically, is going to be our voice interface of the project management system. So our clients can say I've got to have an app and they just tap on the microphone and say I found a bug on this screen and maybe the AI will ask clarification questions about what screen and then it says what's the bug and the person will say what the bug is.

David Hirschfeld:

And then it can look and say I found two other bugs that look similar to this one. And then it reads them to them, or either of these similar, the same bug or similar and they say, yeah, the first one is similar, so, okay, should I update that with the differences? And then they say, yeah, please do that. And it updates the existing bug, doesn't create a new one. And then it says that's scheduled to be put into a build 604, which is coming out in three weeks, and the person can say, well, increase the priority, because I'd like that fixed sooner. And they say, okay, I'll move it up to a new build. Now development has been taken out of the conversation. Development can use it for the same thing, qa can use it in the same way and the client has a real-time interface that gets them the information that they need on a real-time basis about the project. Really way more satisfying experience to do this. This is something that's in development right now.

Jennifer Loehding:

Very good, very good Awesome.

David Hirschfeld:

Things like that. So we're always trying to find better ways of making the experience better for our developers, for our testers, for our project managers, for our clients.

Jennifer Loehding:

Very good, very good, all right, and what is the? We all have kind of our morning routine. I love this question. So what is the one morning thing that you feel like you do every day that kind of gets your day going?

David Hirschfeld:

Well, that I should do every day. I try to do it every day, and that's my morning affirmations, affirmations, not affirmations, affirmations, right? So they're grouped into five sections and each one has four bullets in it, with the idea that I say them out loud, I read them out loud and I think about each one as I'm saying it, with the idea that, you know, there's actually science around this, about sort of reprogramming your mind to express yourself in a way that makes these affirmations actually happen, whether it's on health or finance or relationships or friendships or whatever it is. If you say them out loud every day, you actually start to create that, those realities in your life.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, no, I just did a. I was on somebody's show a couple of weeks ago and I talked a little bit about that. You know, I said it's not the cure all for everything, but it certainly isn't going to hurt you and it does help. And I was actually talking about how, when I first started doing them because I was in kind of a bad place and so every day I would get up and I had the same affirmation I would just write something amazing is going to happen.

Jennifer Loehding:

Today I did that every day for like a year, every single day for like a year, and I don't do them as much now because I kind of just do them in my head now. So you know, I kind of I'm in this space a lot, so I feel like I'm doing these like all the time with people, but there was a time when I didn't. I had to write it down every single day and read it out loud until I could get that kind of in my, in that, my mind, in that space. But there's a lot to that. So I do, I tell people, you know it's, it's, it's not going to hurt you not to do it. That's the thing, it's not good on you.

David Hirschfeld:

And the voicing it out loud is really important because it triggers your brain in a different way when you're saying it out loud as opposed to just reading it quietly to yourself. So it's a reprogramming process, yeah, and if you say that, like what you said, you start to recognize the things that are amazing, right, and then your energy goes into making those things happen. Even if nothing changes, you'll actually start creating amazing things by just pulling out the amazing things every day and then building on those, one of the coaching certifications I'm program or certified in.

Jennifer Loehding:

She was talking all about that, how it's scientific in the brain, like when you do this, because naturally, when you put your energy into something that you want, you're subconsciously going to do things that draw you in that path. So if it's negative, you're going to go, you're going to do things in that, and if it's positive, it's going to go. So I had to work really hard at the positive, because I didn't come from a space where I was feeling good about myself and what was happening and all of these things, and so I had to really shift some patterns and so that's why I did that. And then now I'm at it.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's funny because I don't really have to gratitude journal, do all that. I was telling somebody on the show right before this one today that you know, most of days, even on a bad day, I can find something to be grateful for. I can find where there was something good that happened in the day and I just I've trained myself to do that. I call it now it's like an unconscious, competent thing, kind of like driving your car brushing your teeth. I just naturally, if I'm not doing that, david, I'm in a really bad place.

David Hirschfeld:

You better run because I'm in a bad place if I'm not, you know. Well, it's amazing to me that because you must have worked really hard at this, because you seem like such a positive person.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I did.

David Hirschfeld:

That's all right People.

Jennifer Loehding:

When I tell my story, people that know me now, I always joke about that, because people that know me now that don't know my story or don't know me before this time it's a very different dynamic or don't know me before, this time it's a very different dynamic? It really is. I have been in this. I had a health crisis in 2012, that kind of started this, and then it was in about 2017 or 18 when I started going a lot into this, and so I've been working on it for a long time.

Speaker 3:

And back it up that I was in Mary Kay for 22 years, I told somebody one day, like I was in that company for 17 years hearing affirmations and they went in one ear and out the other.

Jennifer Loehding:

It wasn't until like I had a real reason that I needed to do that, that I actually started doing it.

David Hirschfeld:

So you know when the Well, good for you, I'm impressed.

Jennifer Loehding:

Thank you. When the student's ready to receive, the teacher arrives right. That's how it is.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, that's right, all right, one last thing.

Jennifer Loehding:

I want to ask you what is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

David Hirschfeld:

Okay, the best piece I've ever received.

David Hirschfeld:

I'm sure you got more than one, but Boy, nothing is coming to mind, like I got into the whole. All the things I've said are things I've heard, so you pick. I mean they're all really good things. All the things I talked about today, I don't think any of them are original, except maybe the only hire people that are smarter than me that one I've heard other people say it since, but that one I just came up with on my own. But all the rest, like focusing on the problem and the customer, these are things I've heard and recognized the truth in them. That's probably the most important is focusing on, is recognizing that you have to be in love with the problem. Yeah, so for best advice. And also the morning aphor, the morning affirmations. That's really important If you want to reprogram yourself into a different direction.

David Hirschfeld:

Say them every day, and they should be grouped. You have a group of them that are health-related, a group of them that are finance-related. A group of them are health related, a group of them that are finance related, a group of them. And they should be very general, high level things, not specific, like not I'm going to make an investment today or something. Well, unless you want, unless your thing is to make an investment, new investment every single day. Right, more like I'm just I'm going to. My investments will continually grow. You know that's a kind of a affirmation right, finance? You know being successful financially is easy for me. That's a good affirmation. Yeah, and there should be something altruistic about your affirmations too. Yeah, it shouldn't just be all about you. There should be some that are altruistic in there, because giving back to the world, there's something that creates more value in people's lives when they give back.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I would agree with you on that too. So it's huge. I think that it's hard to find fulfillment when you haven't figured that piece out, david, this has all been good. So yeah, and I'm sure somebody listening to this is going to want to catch up with you or check out techies or you know. So where do we want to send them so that they can find out more about you and the company?

David Hirschfeld:

T-E-K-Y-Z and you can email me directly. I don't put this link in the show notes, but if somebody made it to the end of the show then it's simple. David at tekyz. com, I'd love to hear from you about your ideas, or we can just chat about startups in general or about software or tech in general, and I'm easy to find on LinkedIn.

Jennifer Loehding:

Very good, very good. Yeah, we'll make sure we get the website in the show notes. We won't put the email in there. They listen, they stick in here and listen all the way through. Then they know how to get you. That's a special moment here. You stuck it through the end, right? Good stuff, David. Well, we appreciate your time and your knowledge and wisdom and all the good stuff and and I'm glad we got to get you on here and do all that have this conversation.

David Hirschfeld:

Yeah, thanks, Jennifer. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Jennifer Loehding:

Absolutely, of course, to our audience. We appreciate you. We hope that you found this episode both inspiring and informative and, of course, reach out to David if you have questions or need help with. You know startup, the launch first method, any of those things, and you know what to do on our end. So you need to share, like comment, do all the things so we can keep sharing all this amazing content and getting these awesome people on the show. And I'm going to leave you with the final thought that I always say in order to live the extraordinary, you must start, and every start begins with a decision. You guys, take care, be safe, be kind to one another and we will see you next time.

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