Coaching Isn't Optional: Francie Jain

Summary

In this episode of The Criss Project, host Christian Brim speaks with Francie Jain, founder of Terawatt, about her journey from hedge fund matchmaking to creating a platform for career coaching. They discuss the importance of psychological safety in workplaces, generational shifts in employee expectations, and the value of professional development. Francie emphasizes the role of coaching in employee retention and the need for businesses to invest in their people. The conversation also touches on the dynamics of venture capital, the mental health of founders, and the significance of relationships in business.

Takeaways

• Francie transitioned from hedge fund matchmaking to career coaching.
• The need for psychological safety is crucial for employee retention.
• Generational shifts have changed employee expectations from employers.
• Professional development is now a priority for younger employees.
• Coaching can significantly reduce turnover rates in organizations.
• Investing in people leads to higher returns on investment.
• Building relationships is key to successful business operations.
• Founders often struggle with mental health and work-life balance.
• Venture capital dynamics can create pressure on founders.
• Flexibility and a growth mindset are essential for success.

Visit the Rupp Group to learn more.

Want to be a guest on The Chris Project? Send Christian Brim a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/chrisproject

Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.132)
Welcome to another episode of The Criss Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, Francie Jane of Terrawatt. Francie, welcome to the show.

Francie Jain (00:12.653)
Thank you, Kristin. It's a pleasure to be here.

Christian Brim (00:15.864)
So why don't you tell the listeners who you are and what you do.

Francie Jain (00:21.719)
Yeah, so I am the founder of Terrawatt. I'm actually a multi career changer. I used to work in finance, did basically like matchmaking for hedge funds. I raised institutional capital for hedge funds and that was a great career. Yeah, no, I loved it.

Christian Brim (00:38.894)
That sounds awful. Okay, sorry. I'm just interjecting my opinion.

Francie Jain (00:43.107)
So the best use of my talents is one of my things is like matchmaking. And so like, I'm really good at creating relationships. So that was a great job, except that there were just a lot of a-holes in the space. And so I sort of maxed out. But otherwise, mean, training is interesting to me and like the strategies are in the, I mean, everything was great. was just some of the interpersonal stuff was hard and I'm not great at office politics.

Christian Brim (00:56.45)
That's why I said that sounds awful, you know.

Francie Jain (01:09.923)
And so I was interested in starting something on my own and had this idea for helping people have access to expert coaches. And so initially the idea was that I heard a statistic that it was like in 2016 that something like 10 million manufacturing workers had lost their jobs since 2000. And I thought, wow, that's a lot of people. Is that true?

And so A, that is true. But B, actually the peak of manufacturing was 1944. So any really time series you look at, you can like talk about how many manufacturing people have lost their jobs because any memory we all have of like manufacturing being a big force in America was like all, it all really culminates with like World War II and sort of putting everyone to work and the infrastructure projects. Anyway.

So all to say that like, yes, that was a big number. And I thought, wow, well, and I researched it was a true somewhere between 5 million, 15 million people at that time. But I think this is always going on, right? Because there's always a switch from manual to automation. And this has been going on for the whole world. it's not like, know, printing press used to be the people hand wrote stuff. So I thought, okay, well, who's helping all those people? That's a lot of people.

And if you typically think about manufacturing, it's not people who went to college. So high schools don't have career services. know, they're not, they're not places that like help people. So I was like, glad I got, I was just thinking like, that's, that must be really kind of tricky or like, well, wouldn't that be interesting? I love to like see what people are doing to help those people. Because the reason I started thinking that is as I've switched careers, my family and friends always like freak out.

Christian Brim (02:40.664)
Right.

Christian Brim (02:44.748)
Right?

Francie Jain (03:01.826)
You know, they're always like, are you going to do? How's it going to work? Oh my God. That, know, why, you know, like all the, whatever, all the negatives. And I was in such an optimist, I'm like, work out, you know, I'll figure it out. And I always did. And it was fine. But I think that like my sort of takeaway is that unless you're really trained to kind of be an optimist and see the forest for the trees and have strategy and a plan, you can get really bogged down by everyone else's fears. Anyway, it's my point is like, wow, wouldn't it be cool?

if people were able to access these coaches because it would really help them out. I've in my past, you know, employed coaches more for like individual problems than like over let's say six months span, but they were really helpful to me. so anyway, I had this funny memory where in business school, there once I realized how like wholesale and retail works where you could like, if you could get like 20 people together, you could buy things cheaper. They started like every week, they're being emailing, Hey,

we all band together, we can get these leather jackets for like, you know, 80 % off. And, and it was like every week. And so there's almost like a joke in my mind of like, oh, we all band together. And so I was just, and so I hadn't thought well, well, actually, if like, what if we got a bunch of people who are in the middle of a career transition, and we connected them to coaches, and then they could, if it was like 10 people, let's say they would each pay 10 % of the coaches rate, and they could learn from the coach and it would be a lot more affordable.

And I had this idea and I pitched it to a coach and the coach was like, yeah, I do that in a heartbeat. And I hadn't really thought about coaches needs and coaches need leads. And so there aren't great, a lot of great spots for coaches to get leads, especially like really thoughtful coaches who like care about their reputation and stuff like that. And so that's how this evolved. And the idea really is like the, you know, the goal is to help people find like the joy in their heart, find the exact.

Christian Brim (04:40.011)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Francie Jain (05:00.13)
perfect spot for them to be and have access to expertise that really helps them be the best they can be. like whatever that is, right? Like, you one of the things is that even if you are improving in work, that will help you at home and vice versa. you know, my joke is like you take yourself wherever you go. anything in the area where you're improving yourself or your skills, that helps the other areas. So that's sort of the initial like goal of the business.

Christian Brim (05:29.996)
Yeah, I quote a 80s song by, hmm, Social Distortion, I think, in the negative. it's, you can run all your life and not go anywhere. So, you know, it's the same thing you're saying there. So how long have you been doing this?

Francie Jain (05:46.762)
Yeah.

Francie Jain (05:54.339)
So the, that is like, so the, the germ, you know, the, the twinkle in my eye was 2016 and it sort of taken a while to turn it into like a business. So now we're a B2B business. have almost like a hundred coaches and I'd say this current iterations about one or two years old. The coaches meanwhile have been working 10, 20, 30 years on their expertise. So it's more just the, the my side of it is kind of new.

And, you know, one of the things I'm starting to realize is that like a lot of people with group coaching, they're kind of like, why that's a nice luxury. I don't need that. And what I've started to realize is there's a lot of research connecting psychological safety to low employee turnover. So any organization or even industry that has a high turnover rate is a really good, would benefit from coaching and anyone who's teaching psychological safety. so that I've been sort of

angling a lot on reducing turnover. And so I've been going after different industries or organizations that have high turnover.

Christian Brim (07:04.288)
Yes, you know, I don't remember. I think the title of the book was the dream manager. Are you familiar with it? I may be getting the title wrong, but it was essentially a company. I think they were in the janitorial cleaning space, commercial cleaning space.

Francie Jain (07:13.439)
Francie Jain (07:24.535)
Cool.

Christian Brim (07:25.694)
and had a whole bunch of turnover, as you would expect in a business like that. And they created this internal position to essentially be in charge of helping these individuals achieve their dreams, whatever they were. And that it significantly reduced their turnover.

Francie Jain (07:46.858)
Yes, yes.

Christian Brim (07:54.03)
And, you know, I think in this day and age, we've reached a point, you know, I, I'm, I'm of a certain age that, work, work was different, for my generation, maybe yours. don't know how old you are, but like, was, it was, something to be expected, something to be appreciated from the employee standpoint.

obviously that has morphed and not to say that my generation's take on it was, was right or wrong, but you know, the, younger generation, generations, my children and the ones, you know, that would be my grandchildren coming into the workforce that, that's not their goal anymore. Like work is not.

I mean, the be all end all career is not the end be all end all. And so, you you've got a generation or a workforce that is looking for something more from their employer than just a paycheck. And I think we as entrepreneurs have to be cognizant of that. We have to, you know,

Francie Jain (09:12.343)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (09:22.016)
right or wrong, that's the expectation. And those are the people that are applying for the job. And you you ignored it at your own peril because you're not going to hire any, you're not going to get anybody if you don't give them these things that they're looking for. And I think what they're looking for are the right things. They're looking for meaning, purpose, fulfillment from their job where...

You that wasn't the thing. I mean, you you did the work, you got a paycheck and that that that was the relationship, right?

Francie Jain (09:49.379)
Okay. True. Well, I will say there's a lot of research on that. one of the, so number one, yes, people, especially like the Gen Z's of the world want to be aligned with the mission of their organization. So there are a lot more interested in mission driven organizations. But the other thing that they're really interested in is learning on the job and having professional development.

provided by their employer. So, and the third thing that's interesting that plays into this is they have really high student loan debt as a generation. So I think if knowing those three facts as an employer, you just have to sort of solve for those. And we talked about this all the time with like my clients or sales calls is like, you know, that's what this generation really expects. And that's the way to keep them around. And it's a little bit.

counterintuitive because I'm Gen X and my, and always my sort of vibe when I was working as a young person was that my employer would say to me, know, like, you know, not exactly say, but the expectation was any professional development was on your own time on the weekends after work. You know, we don't pay for that. And the sort of like subtle kind of commentary was why would I pay to make you more valuable? You'll just leave. And now it's the opposite.

The more that you develop people, the less willing they are to leave. And that's why I love that story you were talking about the dream manager, because it turns out that like people develop a sense of loyalty when they're being developed as like a person or as a professional. And, you know, I think from like a, baby boom perspective, I think the question would be like, well, then what happens? I can't give everyone the CEO job. And it's like, of course you can't, that's not your job. Your job is just to offer.

professional development offer the ability to do more and you let the chips fall where they may. You you know, you know, so many spots and then you also have to assume that there will be like an alumni base and that's okay. And like the better you treat people, then the more you kind of have this alumni base and for many organizations, that's really valuable form of referral, you know, this alumni base.

Francie Jain (12:07.168)
I think it's just a different way of thinking about it. And it's a little bit more of like a rising tide lifts all boats than slices of pie. You know, where you're protecting what you've got.

Christian Brim (12:17.506)
Yeah, I don't know if it was Steve Jobs or who, I think it was one of those tech wizards that said, you know, what if we, the answer was, what if develop our people and they leave? And the response was, well, what if we don't and they stay? Yeah. Because I mean, in the business environment that we're in now, it's not static. And,

Francie Jain (12:36.202)
Exactly, that was the best. Yeah, that's so good. 100%.

Christian Brim (12:46.728)
Not that it ever was static, but the pace has definitely changed. And if you're not investing in your people, they're falling behind, which means you as an organization have are falling behind. So, you know, it's, it's really more about if you want to be selfish about it, it is self preservation for the company, you know, to, make those investments. And, know, in our business, I've.

Francie Jain (13:12.94)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (13:16.15)
We've done that. I remember my head of client service had invested in a young person during college, out of college. And I think she'd been here two or three years and she took a job in industry as opposed to public accounting, which technically we are. And God, she was devastated. And she's like, you know, I...

I poured all this into this person and they left and you know, it took her a while but it was probably about a year. She came back and she goes, you know, I did the right thing. And I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, I had been questioning, you know, should I have put all this energy into this person? And I'm like, well, yeah, you should have. You did the right thing because

You can't control them. I mean, if, you know, if this is not a good fit for them and this is not what they want, you don't want them here because if someone, you know, and, and I understand I'm not dealing with factory workers. I'm not even dealing with, you know, janitorial people. dealing with professionals and maybe that makes a difference, but you know, at the end of the day, if someone doesn't want to do their job, they're not going to do it well.

Francie Jain (14:42.862)
100%. Yeah, 100%. And I think that like, what I would just say to that person is great, you did such an incredible job. Now process size it, make it for, you know, several people a year, you know, find a way where that's how you recruit, you know, people from to your firm, and you just have to see where the like, like, see where the chips fall. And like, also, by the way, sometimes people come back to organization. So, you know,

Christian Brim (15:09.358)
Sure.

Francie Jain (15:10.964)
I think that like that never goes away. And, but now you've developed the skill to learn how to do it really well and you can just repeat it and, you know, find some other people to sort of put them through that process. Yeah. And I mean, it's like, we have this incredible case study from one of our coaches and it's just professional development and psychological safety and all these things that help people like communicate better and just like do their job better. There's like almost no downside.

So.

Christian Brim (15:41.056)
No, there really isn't. wonder, so you're doing sales to management. Do they have trouble accepting the need for coaching if they themselves are not being coached or have done, participated in coaching in the past? Like is there a hurdle to get them to understand the concept if they haven't participated?

Francie Jain (15:51.692)
Yeah.

Francie Jain (16:08.256)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think everyone thinks of it as a luxury. A. Whether even if even if it's in line with their professional development budget for their employees. Like one of the things that I always say all the time is like if you're paying for your employees to go to industry conferences, you can just replace that with group coaching. You know, and you actually probably get a higher return off of it. And the other thing they don't they're not aware and a lot of things that they're mostly not aware of.

But one thing is human capital investment is like 300%, 500%. I mean, there's a huge return on investment because also we have to remember labor is one of the top line items in organizations. So if you can get a high return on investment on developing your people, that's going to move the needle most in your organization. The thing I was going to say earlier when you were talking is the only reason it makes sense to not invest in people is if you're doing the exact same thing and you will always do the exact same thing.

But if you might use a different material or you might come up with a new product, then you'd want to invest in people.

Christian Brim (17:16.61)
Yeah, I don't know what business that would be.

Francie Jain (17:18.538)
Right, exactly, exactly.

Christian Brim (17:21.952)
I feel like you asked that question knowing the answer. So.

Francie Jain (17:25.974)
But I thought it through because I'm like, what would that, actually there are private equity companies where like firms will go buy like dying businesses and like that's a play on that. And like that might be an example. Like you're just like producing a widget and you're not looking to like grow in any way. You're just doing the same thing. And like that's like a play. That's okay. That's fine. But for most organizations, I think they always want to get better, more efficient, you know, whatever, more something.

Christian Brim (17:55.64)
So what is the distinction in your mind between like executive or business coaching versus what you do? Is there a distinction?

Francie Jain (18:07.944)
Well, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's really like, I think of it as like a big umbrella. it's like, we have all kinds of experts and coaches and trainers and all kinds of different things. For me, I just feel like any working with any of these experts makes you better at whatever the thing is that you're working on. Because unless you read like the 10 books about psychological safety, this person's going to be a great synthesizer for you and be able to answer your questions and help you practice.

So I just feel like it's really come, so the way I kind of like to do it is really to try to figure out what the problem is and is there a metric around that problem. So for instance, like turnover, what's the turnover rate and like what's the relationship of this organization's turnover rate to the industry's average, for instance, or are there other metrics like in hospitals, like a patient experience is a number. So is error rate.

And all of these things can be fixed with training, coaching, whatever, because a lot of times it's a human issue, right? It's not a machine issue. So how do you help humans? You help them find ways to connect better with other humans or problem solve with other humans. But it could be like, you could have a 10 week group course about psychological safety. You could have a 10 week group course about how to make better requests. I mean, you know what I mean? You can kind of like...

go as deep or wide as you want. But I think that, yeah, mean, the big resistance is, yeah, that's nice to have. We don't have the budget for it. And that's probably the biggest hurdle. And what I'm always trying to figure out is like how to communicate the return on investment. like, it's just, it's similar to like an IT investment or, you know, R &D. You know, it's kind of, especially if you work in a white collar business where ideas are kind of what drives it.

Christian Brim (20:06.786)
So we talk on this show about the entrepreneurial mental health mindset. And I know that the entrepreneur is the psychological exception. They're not normal humans. We're not normal humans. How do you see coaching entrepreneurs

Francie Jain (20:27.49)
you

Christian Brim (20:36.012)
in whatever capacity, what's the different challenge there coaching them versus an employee?

Francie Jain (20:41.462)
Mmm.

Francie Jain (20:47.854)
So that's a good question. So I'm not a coach, but here's what I'll say to that is I know that as a founder, there's a lot of discussion about mental health within founders. And I think that what I really try to do is have pretty decent boundaries about like blocking off the day. So I have enough like time where I'm doing like almost nothing. And I also really try to have like a North Star.

I think you can get really exhausted if you're not clear on what your North Star is. I also think, so my North Star is I'm just trying to get this business. Well, my joke is it's like a third grader. I'm trying to like grow it and get it off to college and so it can be on its own. No, the business, yeah.

Christian Brim (21:23.822)
What is your North Star?

Christian Brim (21:39.272)
You're not like a third grader, the business is like a third grader. Okay, yes.

Francie Jain (21:42.487)
So I mean like it can eat on its own. It's like fine, you know, but it's, it's not like, you know, working on its own yet. You know what I mean? I want it to be completely like rocking and rolling on its own. And that's sort of my goal. And so everything is four. And so in order to make that happen, I have these three stakeholders. So I'm really just trying to make happy and trying to find the right balance and like what we figured out with the coaches. So I feel pretty good about the situation there.

And now it's really like really, really understanding the buyer and doing a great job for them. and so anyways, that's my North star is just like doing a great job, being intellectually honest, you know, leading with trust, because really my whole thing is that anyone can do what I'm doing. I just want people to come back to me because we make it easier for them and it's not. It's like, makes their life easier. So for coaches, they just want to coach. So bringing them leads is like incredible for them.

They tell us what their rate is and then we go forward. it's like a pretty easy thing for coaches. think it's a little bit harder on on the sell side, but so I'm always just thinking like, that's what I'm trying to do. And I really worked hard to make this company be intellectually honest and like not take advantage of people. And like, that's, that's like in my gut anyway, but

Like my other joke is like these coaches are like ninjas of negotiation. I mean, you can't, you can't expect to like treat them poorly and have them stay. So I just treat them the way I'd like to be treated. So for instance, like we don't do, and it's like rigmarole, but like a lot of other organizations do, like we don't pay 60 days later or, you know, we don't, I'm trying to think what else, like anything where we can like treat them well, we do. Or for instance, if they want to get off the.

The platform, we take them up five seconds later. There's no drama. They don't pay anything to join us. It's really merit-based. The contract, we don't take their content. They own their own content. If they find clients, one-on-one clients through us, that's fine. We don't have a clawback. All these different things like that, I think people have in the past.

Francie Jain (23:57.395)
I'm done that these coaching organizations. So anyway, that's my North star. Just try to keep that clear so that like I don't get bogged down into, you know, what are the sales? What's who's, you know, buying this week or this person said they're going to buy them. They didn't buy. And I kind of try to just say, okay, like, you know, just keep doing the process, keep going, keep getting smarter the next day and just see what tomorrow brings.

And so that to me is really important. I think that like, and so like a lot of times at night, like I'll just watch like a Netflix show or something. I try not to sort of like push it hard because I know that like I could get burnt out and depressed. you know, you hear these really sad stories of people, you know, dying by suicide or founders, because I think they're just sort of not seeing the forest for the trees. Like, you know, you're, you're trying to do a great thing, but you can't make other people do.

what you want, right? You have to find the way to work creatively with other people.

Christian Brim (25:00.128)
Yeah, I'm going to put a pin in that because I've got a comment, but I was going to ask you first, do you work with a coach personally?

Francie Jain (25:09.57)
I don't but but all of the people I speak to these coaches all the time so they're always coaching me. It's like hysterical. Yeah, so like I did this one thing with one of our coaches that was a whole like series and it was kind of like learning how to outperform. It was that was a really cool one and it was basically his PhD was saying listen like every year he was a football coach. He's like every year they're like a few kids who like go way beyond their talent in terms of like how good they get and he was like.

Christian Brim (25:15.647)
okay.

Francie Jain (25:39.171)
And then he started realizing that that's like everywhere. And like, what do those kids know? Like what, what have they learned or what? And so he starts trying to teach that to people. It's kind of like, and it's basically like growth mindset. Um, and so I always find that like, when I'm tense, if I'm able to say, okay, like, what can I do now? What can I do today? What can I plan to do? What, you know, what, what do I have that could maybe move the needle and I'll try to learn more tomorrow.

Like that always seems to work. It works for me actually in tennis. I've been playing like competitively doubles. And when I'm doing poorly is usually when I'm like God, I should have gotten that or God, Francie hit over the net that kind of thing. But if I think, OK, like how do I get the serve in? How do I? How do I get the point? The ball back better this time? That's when I played really well.

Christian Brim (26:27.318)
Yeah, I mean, I have as a friend and a colleague, a entrepreneur turned psychologist. He had a, he had a very successful exit and then decided to go back and get his doctorate in psychology because that's what you do. evidently. and you know, one of the

Francie Jain (26:38.604)
Cool.

Christian Brim (26:56.416)
most profound statements he made to me was he said, yeah, entrepreneurs don't have very good coping mechanisms. And I thought about that. I said, yeah, I'd never heard it put into those clinical terms, but yeah, you're right. We don't. And in a lot of ways, entrepreneurs use their businesses as their coping mechanisms.

Francie Jain (27:24.546)
Mmm, that's delicious.

Christian Brim (27:25.582)
And yeah, and so it's almost like...

What they're lacking and what I was lacking for a long time is the humility, the vulnerability to say, I don't have this. I don't. And it's a strange place to be because on one hand to be an entrepreneur, you've got to have enough confidence in yourself and enough persistence to overcome things.

Francie Jain (27:43.436)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (28:04.152)
to even start a business. But at some point, it's beyond you. And you have to have the humility and the vulnerability to say, don't and involve others. And it's involving others in a meaningful way. It's not, you know, like just delegate all the shit that you don't wanna do.

it's, it's more of a peer colleague relationship. You know, and then, you know, you look at people like Steve Jobs, who was a raging narcissist and, and, you know, and you hear all these stories and you, you, people look to him and well, I don't want to be like him, you know, where you control all of the process and you're, you're just

beating people down. But we only hear about him because he was crazy. Like, are there other people that have been successful that weren't crazy and weren't narcissists and didn't behave like that? Right? And of course you do, but you don't hear about them, right?

Francie Jain (29:24.32)
Yeah, well, that's by the way, that's a media problem. I actually think there's a there's a big problem with that. The other issue in media is that they really only seem to really like to talk about people who've raised capital from venture because that's something that's like an objective measure that people are willing to talk about. And that's not helpful either, because just because you raise money doesn't mean you're good at not being an operator.

I also suspect that people that are good operators are not that interested in speaking to the media.

Christian Brim (29:58.334)
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. mean, we could go off on this tangent, but like, you know, I think the VC industry is a sickness. There's a very sick, sick culture there that chews people up and spits them out. And nobody talks about it. It's like they just talk about the success stories.

But then you see people, situations like Theranos or there was a couple other recently, I think it was Citicorp or somebody got scammed by a founder. She falsified, yeah.

Francie Jain (30:42.646)
Yeah, yeah, was was JP. Wasn't that I think that was JP Morgan and it was the Frank. It was that woman who started Frank, right? Yeah, yeah, that was a story.

Christian Brim (30:50.39)
Yes, falsified data, right? And it's like, well, you know what? They just play, I'm not dismissing their behavior, but I'm just like, they played the same game and the VC lost. It's not, I don't feel sorry for the banks. I don't feel sorry for the VC companies because they created this monster that does not care about the individuals.

And so it's just a very toxic thing. I look at, yeah, there are success stories for sure, but they don't talk about the 80 % of the companies that failed and there's just a wasteland of people.

Francie Jain (31:36.213)
Yeah, so what I'll say to that is, I haven't thought a lot about this. I think what happens in venture is that they really want to invest in viral companies, right? Who doesn't? The problem is, even if you work 24-7 for 10 years, it's hard. You cannot create necessarily a viral company. I mean, some people may be able to, but the point is that

Virality is its own thing. It's not how much time you put in the office, right? It's like they're separate things. And so I think that, and that's kind of what I was thinking about when I was saying I'd really try to have a North Star because if you really care only about dollars and the impact and like what's on the spreadsheet, then you, you're kind of missing the secret sauce to creating the situation for virality. Because, you know, for instance, like the thing with our coaches is it is semi-viral.

They just come to us through referral from other coaches. And like that was not intended. I just was trying to like set up a relationship with them that I felt good about and that felt fair. And, and like as a result, then they were like, this doesn't exist. And I'm like, that's crazy. You know what I mean? But like, okay, so that's like a semi-viral thing that we've got going on. that's what I'm trying to do on the other side as well. As I think the more that you're kind of tapping into either what's not there, what people crave or something, that's like an insight.

And that's not a question of like hours worked or how much you sacrificed your life for it. And I think that's why I sometimes worry about with this venture thing is that they're sort of desperate for virality to kick in, but it doesn't necessarily happen. And you can't necessarily create it by just killing yourself. I mean, literally, or figuratively killing yourself.

Christian Brim (32:59.052)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (33:23.894)
Yeah, and there's no formula. Like, you're dealing with humans and you don't have any idea what they're going to do.

Francie Jain (33:27.691)
Yeah, no.

A hundred percent. And actually, like you said, I mean, I was laughing when you're like founders are a different kind of person. Like I long ago figured out like I'm not the average B2C customer. Like the way I, how I look at stuff is not how mostly people do, you know, it's not the average way. And so I just, and that's one of the reasons we're in B2B right now is because I just prefer to like have that kind of like

gatekeeper sale or speaking to somebody who can make a difference as opposed to like trying to talk to people on Instagram and get a thousand people to do one thing. so, but that's something else, you know, I think it's just, hard to people do what you want. You just have to find a connection point where like what you're trying to do matches with what they're trying to do. And, and, and that stuff that that can be hard, but it also can be really fun. Like if you're really going with your gut and like,

trying to bring your vision into the world, then that can be really powerful if it's not already there or it's rare to find.

Christian Brim (34:35.724)
I just had this interesting analogy pop into my head as you were talking. So I have another podcast for my business and it's called the Profitable Creative and we talk about, we talk with creative industry entrepreneurs and how they make money in their business. I, my daughter, who is a figurative oil painter, went to Hollywood.

Francie Jain (35:01.89)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (35:05.294)
to, you know, she wanted to be in a better market. And she found out real quickly the machine that is Hollywood that takes creatives and chews them up and spits them out. She had a gallery owner say, well, yeah, we'll put your stuff in our gallery, but you have to reduce your prices.

And she's like, well, let me get this straight. You're going to reduce my prices and then take half. She goes, no, I'm not going to do that. But the reason that that studio could do that, that gallery could do that is because there's a line behind my daughter of creatives that are willing to, you know, come in and get paid in experience bucks. Right. And

I just had this analogy that VCs and founders are similar dynamic. It's like, you know, that founder will come in and sacrifice everything and the VC is happy to take it because, you know, I mean, they know that if they fail, there's somebody behind them that is going to, you know, fill in the gap. And it's not an exact analogy.

because obviously the VC's putting money in, but I think it goes back to the human element. I think it's the same dynamic in that, and I don't know how we got off talking about VCs, but maybe I can reel it back in and tie it back to what we were talking about, but it's just this lack of human empathy. like it is about the dollars.

Francie Jain (36:50.364)
Hahaha.

Christian Brim (37:00.274)
And as I'm saying this, I'm reminded of a scripture that says, love of man has grown cold. And that's what it feels like.

Francie Jain (37:11.126)
Mmm.

Francie Jain (37:15.746)
Yeah, wow, interesting. I mean, think that and these are really honest about they're like, listen, we make 10 investments with the hopefully one one succeeds and because the one investment succeeds goes 100 times. And so. Yeah, so I think.

Christian Brim (37:33.036)
And dumb ass founders think that they're all gonna be the one, right?

Francie Jain (37:37.247)
Yeah. I think that's, well, one, is one thing I'll say is like, everyone who is a founder is highly confident, like you said, and maybe there's a sense of overconfidence. I think for me, like what I've just sort of kept doing is like, listen, like, yeah, this didn't go viral, like from the minute I decided to do this, but I'm trying to figure out how to make a nice business out of this. And it's not going to be like a get rich quick scheme. It's going to be like building something that really works for people. And then one day they'll be like nice value. And

And I think that like, when actually I used to live in Silicon Valley, but I used to live in San Mateo County in California. And we used to always laugh about my husband and I because it's everyone there really, there's a very lottery ticket mentality. Cause no one's really making that much money, but tomorrow your company might be bought for a thousand times revenue or whatever the thing is. And everyone gets really rich. so.

Christian Brim (38:22.797)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Francie Jain (38:36.45)
That's a different way of being and I think that that also means you can be making short-term decisions about business and relationships and contracts and stuff. so that's the kind of thing I really tried not to do because I'm just so, like actually there's another thing that like I'm just highly motivated by relationships.

And so for me, like I want to keep all my relationships. I don't want to kind of burn people. It's not about the numbers. And, that's actually something I would say for like the mental health of founders is actually, suspect that having like a personal assessment, like whichever one you want to do there, like a thousand, but like disc or a neogram or I did Myers-Briggs in business school. And even that was really, really valuable because there's some more that you understand what drives you. And you just start to like, like, like you say, it was less on a hamster wheel.

What's that expression you just said, like you can run as fast. forget what the expression was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And the more that you kind of like know yourself and you understand your relationship to other people or like what motivates you, it just changes your relationship to the world. I think it also like reduces anxiety because you're sort of like, you kind of get yourself a little bit and you understand how you behave in different circumstances. so, but I, I do think that like having,

Christian Brim (39:30.86)
You can run all your life and go nowhere and not go anywhere. Yeah.

Francie Jain (39:57.781)
a coach or somebody who just understands you or your brain to speak to is probably like a really, really valuable thing for founders.

Christian Brim (40:07.246)
It's valuable for everybody and why I would recommend that you hire a coach, Francie, but I think that, you know, it's different. So like you have intimate relationships in your life, you know, your spouse, obviously, you know, and a few others that truly know you and truly care about you. And those people...

Francie Jain (40:10.722)
Yeah, true.

Christian Brim (40:35.832)
can speak into your life in a way that others can't because they know you and they care about you. Now, I can hire a coach and I've been working with one for several years and I pay him and I understand the dynamic. like, do I think he cares about me? Yes, but it's a business relationship at its core.

Francie Jain (40:47.49)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (41:04.782)
If I stop paying him, he's going to stop coaching me, right? so, right? Um, but it still gives me insight into myself, which, know, I, ideally if you know, you had someone that truly cared about you, that could give you insight, but those relationships don't always lend themselves like, you know, I don't want my wife as my coach, right? Like that, right. Um, it gets messy.

Francie Jain (41:15.627)
Francie Jain (41:29.57)
Wait wait

Christian Brim (41:32.994)
And I wouldn't want to coach her like that. That doesn't work, right? mean, there's too many other factors that overlap and you don't get that clarity. But to me, a coach, the best coach is not one that teaches you skills, although that's certainly important. And I guess that would be my distinction to...

what you do versus an executive coach is primarily your guys, your coaches are coaching skills, right?

Francie Jain (42:06.634)
So it's a whole, it's a whole range. and, and like, this comes up all the time with the coaches because we have a bunch of like ICF certified coaches and they don't want us using the word coaching when it's training. And so we have to be like really specific when we actually get down to like what we're actually providing, but mostly it really comes down to what the buyer is solving for and what they're picking from the person they're hiring. So like, for instance, we have one,

coach who's also a professor of negotiation at university. So she might be hired for like training negotiation or she might be hired to be a coach. She sort of brings herself wherever she goes, right? So you'll probably get a little bit of both, but in different situations, she's doing training versus, you know, versus coaches.

Christian Brim (42:53.57)
I'm thinking of a woman and I cannot recall her name. Is she a professor at Northwestern?

Francie Jain (43:01.404)
No, she's at, what's her name, Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt. Yeah. But I bet there are a lot of people.

Christian Brim (43:05.304)
Okay. can't Medvik, Victoria Medvik. Sorry.

Francie Jain (43:10.722)
also a woman. Interesting. No, this is a different person. yeah, mean, I think so. It really kind of depends. But the other thing I would just say is like a lot of times people say training. That's really kind it is probably what's happening. But I hate the word training because to me that always feels so black and white. It's like you're going to training. You're an alerting cell or you're going to training. You're going to learn, you know, sexual harassment training. But what we're trying to do is have sort of interactive

discussions, you're learning, you're reflecting kind of like adult pedagogy inspired stuff. you, the people actually learn and practice and use their skills and learn from others and their peers. And so have it be much more engaging and like needy than kind of someone standing up with a pointer and telling you the 10 things you need to memorize.

Christian Brim (44:01.933)
Yeah.

Francie Jain (44:04.084)
And so it kind of just depends. mean, one thing is for sure the case, this used to happen more. get it less now, but like, if you're thinking about like one-on-one executive coaching, that's like kind of almost, I mean, it's not therapy, but it has that similar dynamic where it's like, mono, mono, you're talking about me, I'm paying you, you fix me or whatever the thing is making me better. That's not what's happening group, obviously, because that dynamic can't happen when you have 10, five, 20 people. So you lose some intimacy.

And you lose something like attention when you switch to the group. But the, what you gain is learning from other people, hearing them talk about a similar thing. It's a little bit more goal oriented, less sort of reflective or, maybe not, not the word selfish, but, self focused. and so those are going to be trade-offs. and that for sure happens, but.

You know, like one of the things I always think is so funny is like I can see this much more as like a financial play. You're like, you're saving money. You know, more people can do it. It's all within your organization. So you're all learning the same thing. It's great. But actually what happens is a lot of the benefit too is like learning from peers and learning how to connect more with peers learning. And I remember I had this incredible therapist and she, you know, we did one-on-one therapy stuff, but she also had the side, like a group session.

Christian Brim (45:16.578)
Yeah.

Francie Jain (45:29.184)
And I remember asking her about that and she was like, well, it's really helpful for people to realize that the thoughts in their heads are so common and that other people have the same thoughts. And I think about that a lot with the group, which is that sometimes you think, I've got this really hard problem and maybe you're not sharing with other people and you learn in the group that like everyone has that same problem and like, okay, let's work on that together and find a solution. And I just think there a lot of epiphanies that come from hearing other people.

Christian Brim (45:49.602)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (45:58.646)
Absolutely. Yeah. I remember talking to my coach and I'm like, surely I'm one of your most screwed up clients. he, he proceeded to tell me about another of his clients anonymously, of course. And I'm like, okay. Well, maybe I'm not, you know, but no, the, the, the, peer dynamic is important. And, and you said you didn't like the word training. I don't know where

Francie Jain (45:58.997)
So.

Francie Jain (46:09.736)
Hahaha!

Christian Brim (46:28.106)
I was inspired, it was not my inspiration, but we eliminated the word training from our organization several years ago and now it's education. And the phrase was, you train dogs, we don't train people. And again, I don't know who said that, but it really resonated with me and I'm like, so we don't train anything.

Francie Jain (46:46.498)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I totally agree. Yeah, think that like, and really, the, I mean, the, so I, the other thing I was thinking when you were speaking is there's this hysterical article in the New York Times about like a hundred year old psychologist, like a therapist, and she's still seeing clients. And the journalist said, what, what's the hardest?

kind of person to deal with, like who's the hardest to be a therapist for? just said, there's just no getting over like low IQ. Which I thought was so funny. And so that's what happened. that's no filter, you get it, a hundred year old therapist. I think that like, yeah, I just think, you know, the whole thing in life is like, what our coaches are often teaching people is like flexibility and growth, personal growth.

Christian Brim (47:32.056)
Well, yeah, she has nothing to lose now.

Francie Jain (47:44.265)
and trying to learn and do more and find processes and like, and that's the secret sauce for all these things is just to like get out of the whole, you know, this is what is that thing like, get your hand off my stapler, who moved my to move the cheese or all these things where everyone's like worried about like their little ownership and just and move to like a rising tide rises all boats and let's all like have a focus on like one thing that we're solving for and like

let the other stuff go, it means easier said than done. But like, the more that everyone just can do that, like that just solves so many things in the process.

Christian Brim (48:22.05)
Francie, how can people learn more about Terawatt if they want to know more or work with you?

Francie Jain (48:28.642)
Well, the best place is just our website. We have a Get In Touch page, so it's terawatt.co.getintouch. That's the best way. If they like social media, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

Probably the best ways.

Christian Brim (48:47.022)
Perfect, we'll have those links in the show note listeners. If you like what you heard, please share the podcast, rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. Until next time, remember you are not alone.