How fast can you scale a software business? 0 - 150 employees in 12 months...? How would you even manage that?! For Elias Torres, the CTO and co-founder of Drift, and my latest guest on the Escape Velocity podcast… it was easy. Elias is the stuff of legends. He’s a machine. He’s been either the founder, CTO or VP of engineering at: Hubspot  Performable Lookery And now Drift. He’s very technical, a coder at heart, but he’s mastered how to

Do you have your dream sales team yet? A team of high-converting closers who effortlessly book new accounts and funnel cash into your pockets until your revenue-pants are splitting at the seams? No? Neither did I.

I have a confession... In my mid-20s, I was the worst leader. I was trying to run a team and was wildly out-of-touch with so-called “good leadership”. I just didn’t know it yet. I held a team offsite, a getaway with the executive team to reflect on the quarter, set goals and come away reinvigorated. It didn’t work. My fault. I tried to force passion on the team, crack the whip on our productivity and focus on project management. In

When I was 24, I started my company Spheric. It nearly killed me. As an ambitious entrepreneur, I had to make it work and wouldn’t stop at anything. Before I knew it, I was pulling 100+ hour work weeks. That’s 14 hours per day, 7 days per week. (Sound familiar? Don’t lie… I bet you check in on your business on the weekend too.) There is NO WAY I would ever recommend doing that again!

I’ve seen it too many times... Agencies that screw a business like yours out of your hard-earned cash. You hire an agency wanting quick results but end up with a hole in your bank account and a laughable ROI to show for it. Whenever I see this, I don’t blame the agency.  I blame the business that hired them. Harsh? Yes.  But it’s true. Agencies can get you GREAT results (and I’ve worked with many over the years)... ...but ONLY

I nearly screamed at my lawyer…  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Years ago, I was finishing up a real estate deal when my lawyer told me that I had to notarize a document. No signature, no deal.  But that signature had to be from a notary, someone that’s earned the authority of the state to approve that I actually was who I said I was.

Over 10 years ago, I nearly had a breakdown that cost me my engagement to my fiancée. So, what happened?  I was working waaaaay too much. I was afraid that if I didn’t pull 70 - 80+ hour weeks, my business would come crashing down. In reality, I sucked at hiring people.

I want you to meet someone who I have huge respect for: Natalie Nagele. Not only has Natalie been working in the SaaS and software space since her late teens, but she’s been courageous enough to experiment with optimizing her team. ...even if it means asking them to work less.

Alright... Time to let the cat out of the bag: I’m a huge Elon Musk fan. Not because he’s in the limelight most weeks, but because of how he thinks about business. Elon thinks laterally.  He comes at business problems from obscure angles and I think that’s the secret behind his genius. If you could apply even one-tenth of his innovation to your business, you’ll leave your competition in the dust and future-proof your growth.

At 17 years old, I learned to code. It was the skill that helped me out of a pretty dark place, and I actually got pretty good at it.  But after 10 years of writing code for my own companies, I had to confront a difficult truth:  I was the bottleneck in my own company. I realised that writing code wasn’t enough. I had to be a leader. I had to learn how to hire, train, retain and manage different