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Jeremy Tan Urges Us to Listen from First Principles
Listen from first principles, not just work from them - finding the core truths behind advice to apply lessons
Jeremy Tan
December 14, 2023
This is a guest post by Jeremy Tan who is Co-founder and Partner at Tin Man Capital, which targets B2B companies at pre-A or Series A stage. Previously Jeremy spent time as Head of M&A at Puma Energy for Asia & Middle East and was a VP at Morgan Stanley.
Most people will tell you to WORK from first principles.
I believe it’s more important to LISTEN from first principles.
I’ve met plenty of founders at events looking for ONE silver-bullet answer.
Most times, they end up feeling disappointed when they find out there is none.
E.g. Oliver Jay recently generously shared his experience building at Asana as former CRO at our Tin Men Capital Founders School event.
(Specifically in Latin America where the product’s ACV sits at 1000s a year.)
Super useful and insightful. But, some founders in SEA will find the context quite different.
Different market. Different products.
Here’s how to apply First-Principles thinking in this context:
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➡️ Anecdote: Asana ran a product-led playbook when scaling. Eventually pivoting to sales-led growth.
💎 Principle: B2B SaaS founders need to pick one strategy to start:
Product-led growth (PLG) or Sales-led growth (SLG). To reach > $1B in revenue, PLG-only tends to fall short and you need sales.
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➡️ Advice: Sales leaders should be hired only after PMF is found. Any earlier, you do it yourself.
💎 Principle: You need remain on the ground keeping in touch with customers. Only then can you optimise the offer and product quickly before finding a winner.
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➡️ Anecdote: Asana hires sales pros not just solely focused on their work experiences at major names.
💎 Principle: Look beyond the surface to find good candidates - Question experience: Did they build teams from scratch or inherit them?
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➡️ Advice: Cold outreach has lost efficiency significantly in recent years.
💎 Principle: Cold outreach is one channel of many available. Explore and test what works for you.
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You can learn a lot from someone’s perspective and anecdotes,
But you need to see how it applies to you and what you’re doing.
It’s crucial to listen to why something works for that situation,
And the underlying principle that dictates the solutions.
Taking inspiration at face value might mean you miss out on the real lesson.
P.S. Admet Akhter is the source of the compilation of learnings from the session with Oliver. I repeat some of his findings here.
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