Cold Star Project

In large organizations there are "gravity wells" of power bases...and different agendas being run by different departments. Cold Star Tech founder Jason Kanigan gives an example from his past work experience in leading an organization out of an unethical time and into one where standards were consistently upheld. On the way, friction between departments and agendas caused much difficulty. With thi...

Matt Kurleto has built a tech business of over 60 staff...and he has a lot to share about what to do at what stage in development of your organization. Join us on the Cold Star Project to hear inside info about the challenges of scaling that you won't hear anywhere else. More about Matt Kurleto at mattkurleto.com Get the help to scale--and find out what stage you're at--with a conversation with th...

CEO of $50 million software firm Datastorm and outsourced CMO Stephen Monaco joins us on the Cold Star Project to share his expertise on Voice of Customer programs. If you don't have a VoC program, you need to start working on yours right now. If you do have one, you should speak to Stephen to find out how you could be getting more impact with it. When it comes to knowing the right step in marketi...

Lior Ohayon, founder of ScopeLeads, is on the Cold Star Project to share his experience with founding a prospecting saas. Revenue generation requires active, consistent, focused activity, and Lior digs into how to: - know when somebody wants what you're thinking about making - keep focused on the actual prospecting time required - retain offer/solution focus as a product creator in the face of sup...

SaaS Sales Process Scaling consultant Patrick Lavergne joins us on the Cold Star Project to share his experiences in helping startups grow fast. Pat Lavergne concentrates on startup SaaS, which is a smaller size of firm than Cold Star Tech typically focuses upon. This is a powerful look into what it takes to burst out of the 'hustle and grind' mentality of startups and into a more formalized opera...

Channel strategist Stewart Townsend joins us on the Cold Star Project to share stories from both the low and the high perspective in scaling SaaS. As a front line salesperson with a well-known SaaS, and then as a strategic channel consultant, Stewart has much to tell us about the challenges of scaling tech firms. Want to find out what you've got? Get the Red Team Experience: https://www.coldstarte...

What's the problem with relying exclusively on walkthrough demonstrations of features for Software-as-a-Service? Cold Star Tech illuminates the number one SaaS demo sales-killer observed over the past decade. Then we look back at the mature SaaS VAR industry and what happened to it in the cataclysmic years of 2009-11 following the 2008 economic meltdown. Lessons from that period are applicable to...

Under-30 Ken Cesar describes the true challenges in scaling to seven figures, which he has achieved twice so far...first in a cash flow (agency) business and second in a wealth builder (ecommerce) business. While some people may brag and make a course about hitting say $30K in sales, Ken knows that is a tiny revenue amount in the real world. He's here to share the brutal truth about what's really...

The sales problems SaaS firms had in 2007 persist today! It's as if nobody has learned anything over the past decade. In this episode of the Cold Star Project, we investigate a fascinating example of marketing that resulted in significant operational change. Marketers and salespeople, in addition to SaaS and tech company founders, will find a unique point of view and great value in this discussion...

Ben Watkins of Intrinsic Executive Search is here to share the challenges of hiring as your tech firm is scaling fast. We discover just how quickly the job description you were hiring for becomes outdated if your business is growing fast...and what you must be doing as a founder or CEO to keep pace. Concentrating on the San Francisco area and Europe, Ben Watkins focuses on helping scale emerging H...

Brightmill founder Taz Lake specializes in identifying and fixing all the things that could go wrong with your website and data as you scale. In the rush to grow, tech pieces get left behind and quickly become outdated. Serious vulnerabilities and damaged capabilities ensue...only for the business to find out about it when something badly breaks. From website security problems exploited by hackers...

You have your blinders on when it comes to where you'd get your biggest bang for your buck in improvement projects! Sure, the bonfires are attention-getting and put off a lot of heat and smoke-- --but let me me make this crystal clear: You've been living with them all this time until now. No matter how bright, scary, and smoky they may be, the tire fires are not the biggest contributor to the succ...

The founder of Hello Process, Matt Daniell, is here not only to share his experience in the value of processes in scaling, but also a story of outright theft going on right under the nose of the accounting department of one of the biggest American railways. Humans Will Game, as I said in another podcast...and Matt has stories to share about what founders ought to be doing instead of fighting fires...

Convertri founder Andy Fletcher shares all the challenges of scaling a saas to $500K ARR...the lead generation, the payment processing, the operations, and more... If you see the need to get a leg up on this kind of stuff BEFORE you're immersed in the mire of scaling, get the Red Team Experience. Book a call to discuss your situation at https://www.coldstartech.com/red-team/

My previous co-founder, Jeremy Pope of The Closing Engine, joins me on this episode of the Cold Star Project for a fun and relaxed discussion. We dig into the critical importance of knowing your culture, and its impact on hiring decisions. You cannot hire willy-nilly...and you WILL make mistakes. The Closing Engine manages third party sales teams for offers of $6000 and up. And if you think that's...

What you think is a Tech problem is always a People problem. Companies with three letter initials have been around a long time, trying to create little clones of themselves with their technology--and yet the same problems they say they eradicate still exist! Why? Because they are not getting at the source of the issue. In fact, the technological "solutions" are often causing more people problems!...

Your business has weak points. One of them may be you. Remember the CEO of Uber? Jason Kanigan of the Cold Star Project takes you on a quick tour of leaders who appeared to be in unassailable positions...but were knocked down only a short time later. A warning for all founders: strong governments are inherently unstable.

In this episode of the Cold Star Project we dig into the fascinating lives of the Gilbreths. Together with Taylor they are the "parents" of scientific management and time & motion studies. If you're going to enhance your knowledge of operations improvement, ergonomics, and productivity, you need to know about Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.

Like electricity, television, and smart phones, people make use of their business without understanding it. How much do you really know about what goes on, and how you and your people accomplish it? Consistent results and fast scaling come from full understanding of how things are done in your company. In this episode of the Cold Star Project, we look at many examples of things commonly used by pe...

Create a scoring system for anything--production, sales, whatever--and people WILL game it so they are shown in the best possible light and given the most results. Jason Kanigan shares a deep level example of gaming piecework production and rewards in a factory to demonstrate. Do not think because you hired nice people that they aren't gaming the system. And don't blame them, either: you set the r...

As the founder of a fast-scaling business, you must make the highest best use of your time. But what does that even mean? Jason Kanigan, host of the Cold Star Project, gives several examples. Founders should not be doing front line, technical functions. You need to be focused on leading the team, developing strategic partnerships, and driving revenue. Executive time being badly used is one of the...

As you scale and your team grows, what unexpected challenges arise? We love online collaboration tools that allow instantaneous communication between remote team members, for instance...but what happens when you get four or more individuals in a Slack channel? Turns out you can't get anything important done. Listen to this episode of the Cold Star Project in which Jason Kanigan explains the Deep W...

You've got a startup, and need to drive revenue--but how long can you wait for SEO to kick in? You can't wait. You need leads NOW. And the topic of how to get them is what Competitors.app founder Razvan Girmacea discusses with Jason Kanigan in this episode of the Cold Star Project. No one can scale without leads.

Founder of The Coaching Jungle (group on Facebook) Marc Mawhinney grew a real estate agency to over 100 people...only to have it all blown away. What triggers, warning signs, events did he go through that you as a founder should know about so you can recognize when it's time to quit? Marc's story will tell you. And then his comeback tale will inspire you to keep taking action in scaling your busin...

CTO of Kyvio (know your visitors inside and out) Steven Peijl joins Jason Kanigan to share the power of processes in scaling from 7 to 8 figures. You can't simply be doing "double of the same" to make a leap like that: you must be doing different things and things differently. By recording your process steps, you achieve consistency...and there is a way to get conformity in results without killing...