Joe Davy of Banzai On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup
An Interview With Doug Noll
Mindfulness and meditation are key practices that I practice daily that help me navigate through stressful times. The practice of mindfulness has helped me quite a bit. I try not to get too high when things are good and too down when things are low. There will always be challenges. Some things will work, and some things will not work. The successes will never last long enough to make up for the challenges. As an entrepreneur there are always more challenges than successes, you have to stay focused on the process and not let your ego get caught up in the outcomes.
Startups have such a glamorous reputation. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles. Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup? In this series, called “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup” we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experiences about what it takes to create a highly successful startup. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Joe Davy
Joe Davy is Co-Founder and CEO of Banzai, a SaaS-based Engagement Marketing company. Banzai, founded in 2016, has nearly 100 employees globally with offices in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, and in Raleigh, North Carolina. Joe is a North Carolina native and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to starting Banzai, Joe was a software engineer at IBM, launched a startup called EvoApp, and was General Manager at Avalara, which went public in 2018 and currently has a $15B market cap. In 2019, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Enterprise Technology. Joe is an active investor and also serves as a Director of LegalPad and as a board member of the Seattle Symphony.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I grew up in a pretty rural part of North Carolina. Both of my parents were college professors. I loved computers and math, and for a long time I thought I would be a physicist and probably work at a university like my parents.
When I was a junior in high school, I attended a STEM-focused public boarding school. That’s where I was first exposed to the idea of entrepreneurship, when my Economics professor brought in two entrepreneurs to speak to our class.
I was fascinated by these guys and what they were doing. It sounded so much more fun than being a professor. Years later, I became friends with both speakers from that class, and we’re still good friends today.
After graduation from high school, IBM offered me a software engineering job. I stayed there for about a year and attended UNC Chapel Hill at the same time.
Learning through lived experience was critical for me. I had to learn some things the hard way. As Mark Twain said, “a man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” Some things will work, and some things won’t, but you have to keep trying.
I launched my first startup EvoApp, while a junior at UNC, and then I dropped out in my senior year as it started to take off. EvoApp was way ahead of its time technologically — we were one of the first big data companies at a time when few understood the possibilities. We committed one of the cardinal sins of startups, which was premature scaling, eventually bringing in an outside CEO to run the company while I stayed on as Chief Product Officer. Things unraveled slowly, then quickly, and in 2012, the business was sold in an asset acquisition.
From there I went on to briefly work with a private equity firm, helping them run a company they had invested in. After about a year of that, I joined Avalara full time where I got an education in how to build a fast-growing company. I was there for several years.
We launched Banzai in early 2016 as an on-demand inside sales platform. The idea was to build Mechanical Turk for simple sales tasks like lead qualification and event invitations. Eventually we found a niche and built a MarTech platform to help companies drive registrations to events. Then when the pandemic hit, we began to focus more on webinars and video marketing. Today Banzai which has nearly 100 team members, and provides a fast, intuitive and powerful platform of marketing tools to create videos, webinars, virtual events, and on-demand video marketing campaigns.
Being an entrepreneur is all about learning as you go, and the biggest lesson I took away is the importance of being in the arena. Sitting on the sidelines, I could have safely watched events unfold, but putting your own skin in the game through first-hand experience is the best way to grow in just about any field.
What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for Banzai? Can you share that story with us?
Good entrepreneurs develop an ability to spot a bad idea, but it can actually be tricky to separate the great ideas from the merely okay. A lot of it is about execution, but a lot of it is also about the customer, and some things you just can’t know until you’ve launched. For example, Amazon’s first attempt at AWS was a failure, and they had to pull it back and re-launch. I guess the other lesson there is knowing when to quit and when to keep trying.
When we started Banzai, we had four ideas that we thought were plausible use cases for our “on demand sales team” service. It turned out that none of those ideas got customers to open their wallets, but event registrations did. From there, we started building a SaaS product focused on event registrations, and that business took off. Unfortunately, we were knocked off course by the COVID shutdowns and field marketing, never really recovered.
Because we had built a customer-focused culture, we were able to figure out how to bounce back by understanding our customer needs. We acquired two companies and launched a video marketing business in the middle of COVID which became our main growth driver.
Ultimately, for new entrepreneurs figuring it out, the most important is to really understand what jobs your customers need done, and relentlessly pursue those. Some will work, some will not, but if you keep trying with a focus on solving customer problems, you’re much more likely to succeed.
Was there somebody in your life who inspired or helped you to start your journey with Banzai? Can you share a story with us?
My cofounder Andy Linteau, who passed away last June, was a big part of getting Banzai started. We were college roommates, and he was the only person I knew who was crazy enough to say yes at the time when I had the idea of starting Banzai. Andy was totally fearless and was willing to dive in and get started. He was a special person in my life, and he was a key part of Banzai’s story. After he died, we created The Andy Award which we give away every quarter to the team member who most exemplifies Banzai’s values.
What do you think makes Banzai stand out?
Banzai owns the video marketing category. Marketers have unique needs when it comes to live video such as engagement, analytics, on-demand, automation, data integration, etc. We’re in the process of becoming a public company, and our goal is to continue scaling by building more features to deepen this moat, and also by making strategic acquisitions to create more value for our customers.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I’m greatly involved in performing arts and working with children from communities who don’t traditionally have access to the arts. I’m the Vice Chairman of the Seattle Symphony and have been for two years. I run community engagement at the symphony, and we are responsible for getting over 4,000 school-aged kids to the Symphony last year. We do regular performances in prisons and for a variety of underserved groups to give them access to world-class live music, and to give them a platform to share their own musical cultures. It’s a very fulfilling role. More broadly, one of Banzai’s values is Serving Others. We do this with the way we work with customers and with each other, and we also do it in our communities. A few months ago, we gave everyone the day off work, which they could use for anything. One Banzai team member spent the whole day cooking, and then delivered food to a local shelter. Banzai people constantly surprise me like that with their generosity. We know we are blessed, and we want to pay it forward.
Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Resilience and perseverance. Anytime you are building a company or trying to do anything of significance perseverance is a necessity. COVID was a challenging time for us with the state of events. We had to completely rebuild the business from scratch. At Banzai we decided to not close shop like many other businesses. Instead, we decided to pivot and fight through it.
Resilience and perseverance have been the biggest character traits that have helped me in my life. Sometimes life is going to knock you down. It happens to everyone. It’s inevitable. Getting back up is what matters.
Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?
I know hundreds of successful startup founders from a variety of industries, the main thing that they all have in common is that they are all different. There is no universal set of advice that makes them successful. Any founder, if they are going to be successful, has to know what their personal strengths and weaknesses are. They have to build a life and business around their strengths. You have to figure out how to use your superpowers every single day.
There are many different paths to success and trying to replicate someone else’s path to success will almost always result in failure. Don’t follow a path that was meant for someone else.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started Banzai?
When we first started the company, we didn’t have any money, we boot-strapped the company for the first few years. We were hardly paying ourselves during this time and Andy my co-founder even moved to the Philippines to help get the company off the ground, as we couldn’t afford to hire anyone in the US. Andy even missed my wedding because of this. We had a third founder as well at the time who dropped out after a year, because it was too hard being broke.
Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? What strategies or techniques did you use to help overcome those challenges?
We always knew that it would work and that we needed to be persistent. We knew that we could figure out a good business by working closely with customers. We just put our noses to the grindstone and worked with customers every day to learn what pain points they had and how our business could help resolve these points of tension.
We developed a radical focus on the customer that we still have today. Because of the boot-strapped nature of our finances we were completely dependent upon our customers for our survival. We knew if we didn’t make our customers happy, we wouldn’t survive. That’s why we have the highest rated webinar product today.
The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy and is filled with challenges, failures, setbacks, as well as joys, thrills and celebrations. Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?
Mindfulness and meditation are key practices that I practice daily that help me navigate through stressful times. The practice of mindfulness has helped me quite a bit. I try not to get too high when things are good and too down when things are low. There will always be challenges. Some things will work, and some things will not work. The successes will never last long enough to make up for the challenges. As an entrepreneur there are always more challenges than successes, you have to stay focused on the process and not let your ego get caught up in the outcomes.
Many startups are not successful, and some are very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful startups from unsuccessful ones? What are your “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup”?
1–5 is all product. That is the answer. The way to tell if your product is ready to scale is your retention. If you have good retention, you can almost always make a good business out of it. If you have bad retention, there is almost no amount of “other stuff” you can do to fix this. Founders have to get the product right which means making a defensible, differentiated product that customers desperately need. Sometimes it can be hard to separate the great from the merely good product ideas, but it’s often possibly to spot the bad ideas by looking for things that don’t clearly solve a real customer problem.
An early-stage founder should look to build a great product which will usually mean a product with very high retention.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business?
Who you go into business with is the biggest decision you make that will impact the success or failure of your business. If you have a great team, you can deal with whatever challenges come your way. If you have discord among the founders, or you hire people who are unstable or toxic, it’s going to be an uphill battle the entire way.
Startup founders often work long hours, and it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends. What would you recommend to founders about how to best take care of their physical and mental wellness when starting a company?
If you drive a race car, you have to take special care of it. You have to change the oil and the tires, and check your spark plugs, and generally be much more attentive than you would for your daily commuter car. If you’re going to push yourself to work 14-hour days, you have to treat yourself like a high-performance vehicle. That means meditation, mindfulness, exercise and eating right. Take your vitamins, spend time with your friends and family, read, spend time in the sunlight, and keep yourself mentally fresh.
I encourage every friend or colleague of mine to find a personal maintenance plan that works best for them, so they can operate at the levels they need to show up at while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. If you break down because of poor maintenance, you can’t be there for the people who really need you.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Fear controls so much of people’s behavior, often with negative consequences. If more people were less fearful, we’d be able to realize an enormous amount of untapped potential.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private meal with, and why?
I’ve always wanted to meet Warren Buffet. I’ve admired how much he’s accomplished as an individual and he has his own unique way of doing things, which I respect.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Readers can follow my work online through our webpage or social media.
Website: https://www.banzai.io/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/jpdavy
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.
