We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show, behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to Episode 43 and this week on The Therapy Show with myself, Jackie Jones and Bob Cook. We're going to be looking at working with frightened clients. Everybody's frightened when they come for the first time, aren't they, Bob? Well, I think as with most of these podcasts, I'm talking about continuums. Yes. So on one side, majority of people come for therapy are apprehensive. Yes. We call that scare. That's fine. So yes, there's a natural apprehension for most people come to therapy. And then on the other end of the continuum, we have petrification. In other words, people are really petrified. Generally not so much. Well, no, no. No, I wasn't thinking about generally, I was thinking about trauma. Okay. So that's what I'm saying. In terms of a continuum, when people come to therapy, they are somewhere in between normal apprehension and petrification, which is usually come from some type of trauma. Yeah. And then according to where they are in terms of their script and life positions will be where they are in that continuum. And of course, once you've got a treatment contract, and once you start working with the therapeutic issues, and you're often dealing with aggression, then you get to different places on that continuum. Yeah. So it's working back to where the trauma is. Yeah, because if you're talking about frightened, I think, and we go past normal apprehension, then most of what people bring usually have a traumatic part to it. And often from that place, you'll find the levels of scare. Yeah. Now, you're right, of course, people have a level of apprehension when they're coming to therapy. And they may go up the continuum to quite a high level of scare if they have issues about being visible or high levels of issues about being exposed, for example, like I was thinking of the withdrawn part we talked about in a podcast some time ago, where people often withdraw because of levels of trauma. So whatever's uncovered in the therapy will often determine the level of fear. Yeah. Yeah, because like you've said in the past, it's about bringing the past into the here and now and the present. And if somebody is regressing back to that trauma, it's going to play out in the therapy room. Yeah. So the contract for the treatment in the first place will determine a therapeutic process. Yeah. Because sometimes therapy goes to a place that neither one of us expect. Yeah, absolutely. Now for me, I can talk about, you know, with some clients talk about a particular subject and it just kind of winds down to something else and they'll drop a bombshell in the middle of a conversation. Yeah, you can have different types of regression. I mean, usually of course, if you've got a contract then you know the sort of, you might have some idea of the type of trauma. Yeah. But you might, people can spontaneously regress. Yeah. In place. I think what's very important at another level completely though, away from past the traumatic progressive process we're talking about here is how we make the therapy room a safe and secure place for people to feel able to do their therapy in. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a really important thing. I think we've touched on it in past podcasts where we don't, as therapists, I don't think we know what necessarily triggers other people. What might be, you know, kind of like a normal thing for us to have or be or do in the therapy room can be a trigger point for somebody else. You know, sometimes with people, they felt uncomfortable with the back to a door. Yeah, but I'll go back to the contract and I know you have a history in transaction analysis. So when I use the word script analysis, which is looking at a person's history in terms of injunctions, drivers and early decisions. Yeah. What a fairly good idea. Especially we've done a lot of work in the contract processes, talking about the trauma, talking about person's trauma and history. You can have a fairly good idea of the healing that needs to be done. Yeah. I mean, right, of course, certain things can trigger people in the therapy room. If the client comes with something and they don't mention the trauma, if the trauma comes up further down the line, if they come for something, obviously they know that there's been a trauma, but they're not divulging it till six months in and then suddenly they talk about it. Yeah. I think what's even more common, though, is minimisation. In other words, well, you and I might call traumatic, they minimise. Yeah. Therefore, oh, I didn't think that was us. That was important. So I didn't mention it in the contract process. Yeah. And then suddenly when you're working with the therapeutic issue, then there may be a regression to the traumatic process in terms of their developmental level. So you're correct. You might, and like going down through an onion, you might come across trauma, which the client has either denied or minimised and you haven't, it hasn't been discovered in the script analysis or the inquiry about someone's history. Yeah. Minimised it or denied the process. And that's when you may find trauma out. You might understand things as differently as a therapist, which you knew nothing about. Yeah. But what sits in all this thought is how the therapist makes the therapeutic room, the place where the therapy happens, a safe and a secure person, in terms of the environment, so they can feel safe enough psychologically with you to be able to do the work they need to do from as relaxed or, you know, less frightening place as possible. Yeah. Yeah. Non-judgmental non-judgmental and those sorts of things. That's it. But I was also thinking of the environment, you know, that is the physical environment. Yeah. You've got nice seats, you've got maybe, you know, it's a tea, nice cushions, making a cup of tea, you may have soothing music on, depends how you are as a psychiatrist, how you see it. But in terms of making the place a sort of relaxing environment, I think it's really important. Yeah, me too. Yeah. I always have a snuggly blanket as well. I don't know why, but I always used to get cold in therapy. It didn't matter how warm the temperature of the room was, I always used to feel cold.  Yeah. And people who are frightened, or let's put it another way, they're in a child is fine, or their younger self is frightened, rarely gets to the right body temperature in the therapy process. And you usually report feeling cold. And it's to do with something in that past history that needs healing, not the temperature of the room. Yeah. In the therapy centre. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. But because of that, I always have at least two blankets over the back of my couch so that they can pull them off and snuggle up or wrap themselves up or whatever in the process. Yeah. Yeah. And deep, deep aggressive work, of course, where you know there's a lot of trauma, you might even have a hot water bottle. Yeah. See, I think this is what I like about the therapy, the therapy room is there aren't really any, well, there are rules, obviously, in the therapy room, but how you set up your room is down to you, really, and your clients and what you feel their need. Like you say, a cup of tea. It's one of the first things that I do when my clients come in. Yeah. And about colours. So, for example, if you want to promote a safe, secure, relational space, I think soothing colours are not colours like red, which is often designated to the expression of anger. Yeah. Very dark black colours I keep away from. I think the soothing of colours are really important. Yeah. I do believe the importance of an environment being secure and welcoming and soothing is really important. Yeah. They colour the lights, for example. So, for example, you know, I wouldn't think of doing regressive work or even healing at a traumatic level with fluorescent lights on. I'll probably get nice soothing, dimmer, softer lighting. Yeah. And I think thinking of these things are really important. You know, if you're going to do that type of work, you wouldn't want to be in an office room, for example, or you might. A clinical-looking room. Not, yeah. I think it helps if you're going to do that type of work, especially somebody who's petrified or frightened due to trauma in their history. Yeah. So, I think the environment is very important when we're talking about soothing somebody's fear from their traumatic history. Yeah. Yeah. And it being a confidential space as well. So, you know, there's no outside noise or distractions and things like that, which sometimes can be difficult, but yeah. I think what you just said there is very important about, you know, you say confidentiality. Yeah. I, in TIA, they talk about three parts of the ego. The younger part of the ego, often called as the child. The adult here and now part of the ego, probably to what age you are.  And I think that confidentiality needs to be heard from all ego states. And sometimes people hear confidentiality from their parent and it's different. They hear confidentiality from their adult. It's different. But it's the child that needs to hear the word confidentiality and what it means, I think. Yeah. So, I think it's crucial to helping somebody who's dealing with frightening history to know that they've there's this safe place, a secure place.  I think one of the techniques that I've found useful on occasion where I have needed it, you know, if a client's become really overwhelmed with fear and literally having a panic attack in the session, is being able to ground them again, being able to stop and just take stock and bring them back into the present moment, particularly if it's been a heavy session. Absolutely. I agree with that. And for the listeners then, perhaps you could illustrate how you do that. Well, for me, I'm thinking about one particular client. It was literally I went and sat next to them. Obviously, I asked permission first and sat next to them. And I got them to change position. I got them to get open to move position. And then I was using their senses, you know, tell me what you can see in the room. And she couldn't get the words out to start off with. But it was just me, you know, using a calm voice and bringing her down and saying it's safe. It's fine. There's nothing going on. We're in the here and now. Tell me what you can see, you know, tell me what you can hear and just bringing her back down. And it took her a while. Yeah. So you're doing that from the adult state or even perhaps the controlling, nurturing power to your state. Yeah, I did feel like I needed to take control in quite a I don't know whether powerful is the way. But yeah, I needed to take control of the situation and make her feel safe in the room again. Yeah. I think that's really important. I think I mean, TA comes from TA again. But the theory of theory about permissions, protection, potency by Pat Crossman is really important here. The therapists give the right sorts of permissions to the frightened client. The things will be okay. You can be who you want to be here, you know, to help them have the permissions to go to where they need to go to. Yes. Yeah. Because that is scary in itself. That is frightening. Do you know what I mean? That sentence go to where they need to go to because often it's not where they want to go to. No, no. And protection is another sort of really big important word here. Yeah. But there you are. That is their protected space. Yeah. 100%. In that session that I was talking about, it kind of had a knock-on effect or a follow-through effect into the next session. They came in being quite closed after having had that session, whether it was shame or guilt or embarrassment or whatever it was. We needed to do some work on getting back to the relationship that we had after that particular session.  Yeah. I think a therapist wouldn't go back to that session and probably inquire about what was happening for them. Yeah. And see where it fits into their past history. Yeah. Because I think it is important to bring everything back into the therapy room if there's something hanging over for the client or for us. Then like you said, to check in and make sure that everything's okay. That's right. And in the end, you need to be a secure, safe object person for the other person. Yeah. So permissions are really important. Protection is really important. And the client needs, the therapist needs to provide those. Importancy as well. I can remember in my training because I think it can be interpreted or explained in different ways, you know, but one of the things that stuck out for me in my training was that sometimes the therapist or all the time the therapist needs to be more potent than the parent ego state. Yeah. Because you see, if you're doing deep therapeutic work, the fear doesn't actually come from the therapist in the room. It comes from their own internal dynamics. And it usually comes from an internalised, scary parent. Yeah. And the therapist needs to be more powerful, certainly through permissions. Yes. Than that scary parent, which is saying scary things, you know, that narrative that's going on in their heads. Yeah. The therapist needs to be more powerful. I just remember that. That really hit me and it made perfect sense to me as well. But it is, it's that internalised parent that is, you know, part of the descriptive stuff. And I was subconscious that's always, well, not always, no, but berates us and, you know, talks down to us. We need to be more powerful. That's right. And if we think of the concept of transference, and what might sometimes happen, which is called negative transfers, is when the client projects onto the therapist, a negative, a negative object or a negative parent that perhaps might have been there, father, grandfather, brother, or yeah, anyway, want to look at that. And the therapist needs to be aware of that. And they can actually work, they could work with negative transference, but I would suggest they, in terms of what we're talking about here, they need to be a positive object, not a negative object. Yeah. And they could even say things, well, I'm not your parent. I'm not your abuser. I am myself and I'd like you to recognise that or whatever, but they need to work in the therapy so that the client sees them as a real person in a different way. Yes. Yeah.  There's a lot of energy and a lot of emotion sometimes in the therapy room. And even as a therapist, sometimes I question, is this my feeling or is this somebody else's feeling? Well, I think it's important to do that almost as a matter of course. Yeah. I can remember when I was doing my training, I felt really unsure of whether I could do the job because I'd seem to, sometimes it felt like I had a bit of an antenna on my head and I was just pulling in everybody else's feelings and it was, it was a bit intense. Yeah. So no, because you're in training to be a therapist, you go to therapy or you do within supervision. But these things are all very important. I think it's always important to ask whose feelings are they? Yeah. Now, a petrified, scared, frightened client won't want to feel that.  They will withdraw internally, might go passive internally and do many things to protect their younger fight itself. And that is normal. And they also may project onto the therapist and want to get rid of those feelings. Yeah. So that's where the therapist might feel suddenly scared, frightened and capacitated. And they need to ask themselves, when I wasn't scared and capacitated frightened a moment ago, whose feelings could they be? Yeah. This is a powerful thing about therapy, Bob. I think that unless you're involved in it, witnessed it or been part of it, it's really hard to explain to people how it works. Well, I hope I'm not doing too much of a bad job. Not at all. Not at all. I know what you mean. It's very, very hard. And it's a very important question for any therapist listening or anybody who's interested in the therapy world that therapist needs to understand that the feelings that are around in the room are often not theirs. And it's a really, really important question to ask whose feelings are they? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure the listeners who are listening to this either experienced it or they're interested in it.  They look at you as if I don't understand what you mean. It's... Well, you could say to them, well, have you been around angry, frightened people and when you are, what do you feel? Yeah. You know, as I said, you could say to anybody in the street, have you spent any time with a depressed person? And they'll say, yes, well, actually, my brother's quite depressed. Okay. And how did you feel after you had to chat with them? And usually, I'll often say I felt laid down as well. Yeah. So I think if you can use, as I was that to explain, I know where you're coming from with this, it's very hard to explain a person's own therapy to somebody who's not been in that relationship. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I had somebody in today, I was doing the assessments. Oh, I just think of other occasions as well, where people say, shall I share this with my partner or whoever? And I said, well, that's really up to you. But, you know, be prepared that they may not understand what you're talking about, because it's a very internal process where it's quite often hard to explain. Yeah. It may be useful sometimes. And sometimes it may be very unuseful. And then you feel misheard and not understood. And things can get worse. So you are, I think you're correct. It's hard to explain, you know, therapy processes. But I do think I want to go back to the beginning where we started. I think it's very, very natural for anyone coming to therapy, especially at the beginning to have a level of apprehension, which we might all scare. I think it's very, very normal. That'd be very astonished if people didn't. Yeah. And there's a whole continuum. So when we talk about petrification of frightened clients, I'm thinking about that more in treatment rather than the beginning. Because at the beginning, it's much more about apprehension and anxiety. And if you've got a safe, secure place, you've got a welcoming environment, they start talking to you for a while. Then things, they can't, people calm down. But once you start doing the therapy after therapy contracts, so you both know what you're talking about, where you're going. Yeah. Then we may go to a different developmental age, where that younger self was actually frightened. Yeah. Yeah. And then to a different level of fear. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.  It's ridiculous that I feel this way. I'm a grown man or I'm a grown woman.  And they come out with all this stuff.  And explaining about the ego states and how it all works. And in that moment, it's survival. And that's what we do to survive. Oh, that's what I'm saying. People who for very good reasons, when they're different developmental histories, feel scared. It's always for very good reasons. Yeah. And if they're visiting those scary times, it's really important that they have a therapeutic relationship with a therapist who they feel safe and secure with to be able to go to those places to describe what's happening in that scary place. Yeah. Yeah. I had one client explain it once. And I thought it was, it was lovely the way he was explained that I was like a rope for her to hang on to when she was going to those places. Kind of like I could pull her back if I needed to. And that obviously gave them some comfort, but it made me feel comfortable in the situation as well. Yeah, because she knew that at least one of them, one of you was grounded. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it was her metaphor and the way that she visualized it in the room or whatever. And metaphors are so powerful in the therapy room. It allows us to explain something without actually explaining it, if that makes sense. Yeah. So it would be very odd for a therapy treatment or therapy process without going to places where people get in touch with their younger scare. Yeah. However, if the therapists they respect, they trust is with them in these levels of protection I'm talking about. In my experience, they're able to do that. And they're also able to come back to their own age. Yeah. Be who they are and come back next session. Yeah. Which again, I think is a really important thing, Bob, to make sure that the, you know, the client is grounded and back in the here and now before they leave. And that can, you know, if you are doing some hefty work, it's going to take 10 or 15 minutes to get them back into the here and now grounded, relaxed and able to carry on, you know. That's a really good thing to think of. Yeah. Thank you. That was wonderful. So what we're going to be talking about in the next episode is working with the delusional clients. I'll be very interested. Yes. I'll be very interested in that one. As always, until the next time, Bob, thank you. Welcome. Bye. Bye. You've been listening to The Therapy Show behind closed doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back next week with another episode.


Hi, I am Dolores Sanchez, principal of Alexander-Dembo in Pemberton Township Browns Mills, New Jersey. I am joined by a group of students and soldiers from the 99th Regional Support Command and 244th Aviation Brigade. We would like to wish the brave men and women of the United States Army Reserve a very happy 104th birthday.


Kia ora kato, mā maia harimai. Welcome, everybody, and welcome to this month's EHF Live Investor Session.  This informal session, just to clarify, Aaron is actually a hybrid. He is actually an entrepreneur and an investor fellow, so it's great that we've actually got an investor that has actually been out there and done it. It's really awesome. So the interview today is done in a way that you should be able to leave the 60 minutes and know a little bit about Aaron as a person, as opposed to just what he wants to invest in and do, and also feel connected enough that you can actually contact him directly and he will respond back to you. So it's a warm informal session and that you can take this information out to the people that you actually work with directly. So Aaron Bird, he is from Penza. It's a little organisation. I'll let him explain what it does, but they only kind of invest in a three organisations at a time and they build them up. But I'll let Aaron talk about that. But firstly, we're obviously recording. So if you don't want your face on the screen, then just put your beautiful avatar up instead and stay muted unless you're going to ask a question. There'll be heaps of time for Q&A and because it's a small group, you can unmute and ask those questions. Or if you want to, you can just pop them in the chat and I can ask those on your behalf. But first off, Aaron, just tell us a little about who you are as a person and what makes you sort of join EHF? Yeah, maybe I'll start with me a little bit and then I'll talk about the New Zealand connection on EHF. I kind of know when I was going to be an entrepreneur in my whole life, when I was... My parents have like bunny stories when I was a little kid. Like when I was an eighth grade, I used to order pizza to our school and sell slices of pizza. And so I would come home with like, you know, with my bag lunch and my mom packed having not eaten anything because I'd eaten pizza and then I had like money in my pocket selling slices and went to Mexico and I was like 14 with my family for two weeks and like traded jewelry amongst the merchants and stuff. So anyway, I've kind of always known that I was going to be an entrepreneur and started my career as like a peer scientist and software developer and then eventually started my first company about 10 years ago. And on the personal side, I've got a family, two of sons, a two-year-old and a five-year-old. And my wife actually has a lot of connectivity to New Zealand, which is kind of how we first started, you know, the EHF process. My wife visited New Zealand when she was a kid and her best friend moved to New Zealand and so she went and visited her and so had this like strong connection and her parents actually, my wife's parents lived in Australia for a little while as well. And so my first trip to New Zealand was about a year and a half ago. So actually right before COVID hit, we went to New Zealand for two months. So we went starting December of, was it 2019 through the end of January 2020. And my wife had obviously been a lot, but it was my first trip and we just really liked it and we were kind of a phase in our life where we had been talking about maybe living abroad for a while and we had done a lot of traveling in 2019. And so, you know, as part of that, we like New Zealand so much that I started looking into like, what are the options of spending more time there, getting a visa or permit residency and found EHF and it happened to be aligned with kind of right when the COVID-19 7 and 8 applications were happening. So I applied and so that was kind of the genesis of the connection and we're obviously in the US right now and excited to get back into New Zealand and spend some time there with the borders and everything. But ironically, we left in January, January 28. So like COVID had hit and we knew it was in Wuhan and it was actually in the US, but I think it hadn't been reported yet or something. But we left New Zealand, we left, you know, the best country in the world to be in for COVID came to arguably the worst, although maybe there's some newer countries that are worse, but definitely a top three worst countries. Anyway, we've lamented about that a lot of the last year and a half. Maybe we should have just stayed in New Zealand. Yeah, right. You cannot look backwards, can you? But you can look forward. And the thing is, you'll be doing so much work with the SAS community and New Zealand companies from afar. It's been amazing what you've actually done without having to come back into the country. So three areas that we're going to look at with Aaron today. Obviously, he's a SAS guru, right? So we can have lots of questions. You can ask him as much as you want there. And he's really willing to, a lot of value and connections and help you out in that way. That's his kind of big offer at the end of this session. He's willing to help as many companies and that is sort of in his well-health. Another area that he's in is crypto. So this is an area that he's exploring and then also carbon. So he's got Tim on the call here from Energy Bank that he is working with as well. So those are three of his hot areas. So tell us a little about your SAS experience so that people who don't know, you can actually get the full breadth of, where your skills lie in that area. Yeah, so I've been building software in the cloud for whatever, the last 20 years or so. I was a developer for a while and managed development teams and actually switched over to the product side of the world when I took a job at Microsoft in 2007 and which was what moved me to Seattle. And I left Microsoft in 2011 to start a company called Visible. And so we did marketing attribution. So again, it was a SAS product for marketing teams to measure the efficacy of their marketing. And so I started that company and ran it for about eight years and then sold it to Marketo. And then I spent about a year and a half at Marketo running global products there. So basically I've been in the SAS world for a long time and I've been building in the cloud for a long time. And I think the big takeaway for me, particularly coming out of an engineering background, is that in B2B it's really, the main thing is about go-to-market. So I think there's a lot of great products out there, but I think the winners end up being the ones that win at the go-to-market side. And as an engineer and a product person at heart, that hurts me to say because I always feel the best product should always win. And that's what I believe should be the case, but it ends up not necessarily being the case at the marketplace. So anyway, that's something I quickly learned running Visible. And so spent probably the last 10 or 15 years really going deep on the go-to-market side. And how do companies go-to-market? What are the different models and how can you win there? I was also really fortunate at Visible and at Marketto. We worked with one of the world's best B2B marketers because we were selling into them. We helped them do marketing at Marketto and help them measure marketing at Visible. And so not only did I learn a lot from the experience of running Visible, but also got to networked with just some amazing go-to-market folks and got to see what works, whether you're selling to the enterprise or SMB or different motions. And so I think that that's the area where I think I can help the most. And I think it's the area where early stage software companies need the most help is around go-to-market and distribution and how do you scale. Because again, most of them, most of the founders have that kind of product DNA and they know what they need to build. But how do they distribute that and get it out there cost-effectively? And so that's where I've done about 70 or so angel investments over the last 10 years. And that's what I've found is, especially in early stage companies, the place I can help the most is just go-to-market, both the strategy and even also recruiting and how do you hire great people? Cool. Anna's just put a question here. What was your biggest challenge? It was a ball. And then she's got a bracket. I love a good funnier story. Yeah, wow. Yeah, I think I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot from them. I think that I stumbled a lot hiring the right sales leader. I actually hired and had to let go two different sales leaders and the third one was the right one at it. But that took, I mean, honestly, it was a span of three or four years. And I think if you... I came again out of an engineering background.  But as an engineer, I did not. And this was the first time that I had really interacted much with sales and marketing was running visible. And so I think it took me a while to figure out that profile. Even mediocre salespeople are still good at selling themselves. And so it's hard to kind of sift through the noise and do that recruiting, or at least it really was for me. And so that was a challenging area. And quite honestly, it affected the business. We ended up doing well and got growth back on track after I got the right leader, but there was kind of this middle part of the company where we were growth started to slow and it was all because we didn't have the right leadership in place on the sales side. And I think that was something that was really hard. And I see other early stage companies struggle with this, particularly when the founders come out of a product or engineering background because it's hard. And I definitely, hopefully not everybody stumbles twice like I did in the road, but that was tough. Thank you. That's really good to hear actually. And it is something that does happen a lot with the New Zealand sales companies. And I think it's sometimes it's almost like lack of people in the market or lots of people are recommending people and it's not necessarily the right fit. So tell us a little bit more about Penza. What's your intention with that firm? Because it's a really different model that you've got going on there. Yeah, like you said, it's kind of a hybrid between investor and entrepreneur. And so I've raised a little bit of capital and the plan is to be very focused and do maybe three companies over the next five years and not just invest, but also spend a lot of time obviously with each of them. So we started our first company at the end of last year called Inflection. And so I'm spending a lot of time right now on that. And we'll start probably one more company in the next year or two. And we can either get involved with founders or a very, very early stage where we can actually start the company as well. So it's kind of like just my time in capital with a very, very concentrated approach. It's very different than kind of the venture model of making lots of bets. So describe some characteristics theme of what kind of founder you'd be looking for, because it's obviously a deep commitment that in the risk as shared is quite high. So what are you looking for then in the type of company or founder that you'd take into this program? Yeah, I think so very early stage where I think I can help the most. And then something most likely be to be SaaS is going to be the area that PMs is going to have at the most value. And going after a big market, I think is the other one. That's kind of the criteria. But I personally can engage with folks in lots of different ways. So I can write angel checks too or I can just help. And so my model with New Zealand so far has been just to meet with as many people as possible and see where I can be helpful. And so I've done lots of calls and I'm getting close to maybe joining the board of advisors for a company. But I think when I've written some checks in fact investing in Tim's company, Energy Bank, I'm not at all an expert in ocean energy storage but excited to be on the ride and hopefully could help Tim a little bit with fundraisers like that. So, but yeah, I think the, you know, pianda because you're doing so few, like the engagement is very selective and it's got to be kind of a perfect fit. But I think the best way to engage with me is just to reach out and I'm happy to meet with folks and see where I could be helpful and maybe that's a small angel check or maybe that's something, you know, more kind of a deeper engagement with pianda but would love to talk to early stage folks in New Zealand. So just going to go deeper on that. I just want a little bit more detail on is it, are there verticals that you wouldn't go down or are there particular verticals that pianda would be really interested in?  Yeah, I think B2B SaaS and then like crypto NFTs, those would be the two areas that that I'm the most engaged in. I have a passion for kind of carbon stuff, which, you know, so I've written a few angel checks there, but I think that if, you know, to kind of think about two verticals, I think B2B SaaS and then kind of things around crypto or NFTs are the areas that I can probably, you know, I'm the most interested in talking to folks. Cool. Do we have any questions from the floor if you want to start thinking of some or if you want to put your hands up? We can go, we can start doing that now. So with the, you've already spent quite a bit of time looking at the New Zealand SaaS market with Callahan. So you participated in a couple of the workshops there. So the actual founder one and I think all the investor one and the director one. So just sort of give us a little bit of a feedback on how you felt that process went and what learnings that came out of it for you about the New Zealand SaaS market? Yeah, well, I think first of all, kind of that thing we were talking about while people were gathering, you know, coming from the U.S. just as really refreshing how much the government in New Zealand is actively helping, right? So with Callahan and all this other stuff, I just think it's great. So I think one takeaway for me was just that there's a lot of there's a lot of effort and resources to and genuine interest to help companies, especially early stage companies, which is great. I think the biggest challenge, you know, New Zealand like any ecosystem. So I live in Seattle, for example, and so I've watched the Seattle ecosystem start up ecosystem grow over the last 15 years. And it's kind of an extension of Silicon Valley, but it's still, you know, in and of itself, its own physical ecosystem. And I think New Zealand is a lot like Seattle kind of a few years ago or something right where it's still growing. And I think most I think there's a kind of a playbook and I think Brad Feld and the Foundry folks have written a lot about this. But, you know, there's a few kind of key pieces that you need for an ecosystem to grow. And and one of the biggest ones is talent, right? And just and not just lots of developers and lots of technical talent, but but also senior talent. Like, you know, we talked about hiring the wrong VP of sales, right? And so how do you how do you know what the right one looks like and how many are there and how many of them are recruitable and stuff like that. So I think that's, you know, and that there's nothing new there that's not that's not that insightful. Like, hey, we need more great talent and more great senior talent. But I think the more New Zealand can do to track those folks and, you know, the faster that will help kind of snowball the ecosystem. So Dave has asked this sort of question, which I was hoping to sort of get more from you as well, actually, Erin is on the B2B says because it's pretty broad, right? Are there any particular areas that are of interest to you? Honestly, I mean, I think any I'm spending a lot of time on companies that that are leveraging product-led growth as a motion. So companies, for example, that have a free trial or a free version of their product where the product itself is a important part of the funnel or an important part of their go-to-market strategy. I'm spending a lot of time there, but I think I can be helpful for any any SaaS company that's selling to a business because in the end, there's only a few go-to-market motions or ways to go to market that can work.  And so I think I can be helpful. If you're selling to a consumer, it's a little bit different.  So, yeah, I think anything really, any B2B SaaS, like I can be helpful in regardless of kind of the industry or the target customer. OK, so that kind of answers those question-gone issues like how tolerant are you of any B2C aspects of a B2B gig? Yeah, I think as long as most B2C ends up being not as monetised, right? So if you're selling a product or if you're going to market and advertising is your business model, then it's, I'm probably not a good fit. Or at least I'm, you know, I'm going to be less helpful. If in the case of like, drop-backs you're selling a service, right, that someone pays for to a consumer, I guess that's where it gets a little blurry. But if you're selling SaaS on a subscription basis, which ends up being mostly B2B, I think that's a really good bet for me. Good. I like it how you are very clear about what you can and cannot do.  So it's great. So Anna has got a question here. You talked about helping companies hire good people. So what are the top tips for hiring well, especially sales folk that's top of mind for Anna at the moment? Yeah. I think one thing that really helped me was this idea of kind of building a prototype in your mind of going and talking to a bunch of people that are the right fit, but maybe even if you can't recruit them, right? So I think like one thing I did with the sales hire, I leveraged my network through investors I had and more senior folks to just have conversations with great VPs of sales, even though, you know, I knew I wasn't going to be able to recruit them at the time, but the more you kind of talk to those folks and I would ask them questions like, how should I hire a VP of sales?  And the more you meet and talk to people that are the right fit, even if you're not going to be able to get them yet, the more you'll start to be able to kind of picture who the right person is and do a better job interviewing. So I think that's one thing. I think for sales specifically, the stage of the company and the complexity of the deal are two really important kind of metrics when hiring a sales leader or even a salesperson. As a specific example, one mistake I made is I thought, I wanted the VP of sales or the head of sales at Salesforce, right? Like that person knows how to do sales. The reality is at a seed stage or a series A stage company, that person actually would not be a good head of sales. They would fail miserably because they're used to having a ton of support. Like they've got a whole product marketing team that's going to give them content and sales decks and they're used to being able to go higher sales people and pay them the highest market rate and all this kind of stuff that you can't do at an early stage company. And so I think for a sales leader, finding somebody who's gone through like whatever you're going to go do for the next 24 months, find someone that that is in a recent review here, right? That they just went from half a million of revenue to 20 million of revenue at some company that looks similar to you. And now they want to go do it again. Because what you also find is that those sales leaders, they know what they're good at too, right? And so they typically, they'll get to a point and they'll want to go do that same thing again. And that next phase is likely not going to be the right phase for them. And so you can find those people, when they're ready to leave and you might think, oh, well, why would they leave this company that's doing 20 million a year to come to my seed stage company? Well, they might do that because they want to go, they figured out they're good at that and they want to go do it again. So the stage of the company matters a lot because the amount of resources available and not really having product market fit yet and a sales leader that can navigate those waters, I think is really important. And then the deal size and deal complexity is really important. So if you're selling a deal that's $20,000 a year and it takes on average 90 days to close the sale, you want to get both salespeople and sales leaders that have done something similar. So if they were a sales leader selling 200k deals that was a nine month sale cycle, it's going to be hard for them to adjust to that faster sale cycle and smaller deals. And then also the other extreme, if they were working on like a boiler room of one call closes of 1k deals, it's going to be hard for them to stretch up to your 10k deal size. So I think that's important. And I think that's even more important than the industry. So this is again another mistake I made where I was like, oh, I need a sales leader and salespeople that really understand MarTech because that's what we're selling, smart dance technology. And the reality is that didn't matter what the deal size and the stage of the company and repeating those profile kind of fits for salespeople ended up working a lot better than knowing MarTech. A good salesperson can sell just about anything. It won't take them long to at least come up to speed enough on the domain to go sell it. So those are two things that again, I've got a starch issue for the wounds on figuring that out, but that's something that I would focus on. So Erin, just to expand on that just a little bit. One thing we have obviously is New Zealand companies often hiring the person in the US.  What is the sort of package that a lead US salesperson would want? What would they be looking for? So it does depend on the stage too, but let's assume you're generating revenue, but you're still south of five million of air hours and doing that. So you're kind of like seed stage or A-stage. The problem is they make a lot of money, first of all, and there's just not a lot around that. It's hard to get around that. I think you can get sales leaders for, call it 250,000 to 300,000 US all in. And that's usually 50-50 base and variable. So if they're making 300,000, it's a 150 base and a 150 variable, and the variable is tied to obviously the sales results. And this is a VP of sales that could get you to 10 or 20 million of ARR. And then hopefully they keep going from there, but if not, then I think it's done well and it was worth it. And they're usually getting about 1% in equity. It could be, depending on the stage, it could be a little more or a little less. Like I could see three quarters of a point up to like 2%, something like that, depending on the stage. And one thing I always like to do, anyone I hire, whether it's a leader, individual contributor, whatever, I have a sliding scale of one side there's cash comp and on the other side there's equity. And you tell me where you want to fit. You can trade off cash comp for equity. And I think, so maybe you get a sales leader that's 200,000 all in and you give them a little bit more equity if you can't afford it. So I think you've got to be at the right stage to do that, obviously. Like I think most SaaS companies or the CEO has been doing sales. They've hired maybe one or two account executives, like individual contributor salespeople that are doing well. And I think that's a good time to bring in like a VP of sales. So obviously you can't afford 300,000 and there's just five of you kind of figuring it out. Like the CEO has got to be doing the selling at that point. Really interesting. And I can say, when music she said that number, so a lot of people's faces go ouch because that's way more than everyone else would be earning. So yeah, it's like, you know, like that's it, right? The salespeople are doing more than the CEOs. So, sir. I mean, I think one thing to look at that person that you're paying 300,000, they could get a job making 600 at, you know, a serious C company.  And so that's the tradeoff. But great salespeople can make a lot.  So, you have to pay up to get great folks. And sales is probably the most extreme example of that. So just want to go back to Nina's question. So what's the biggest problem issue or mistake you see with the go-to-market strategies in New Zealand's SaaS companies? I don't... How about this? I would say that I don't think there's anything in the go-to-market strategy to tell you about what's unique. I think one hard thing about New Zealand, it's like everything, it's a pro and a con, right? So one thing that's great about being in a market of 5 million people is that you quickly start thinking about how do I scale, right? How do I leave New Zealand in my go-to-market? In the US, companies get to like 100 million a year and don't even think about international, right? And so I think that's a good thing because you get this scale mindset early in New Zealand and thinking about other markets. I think the challenge is that it can also mean that you get a little distracted. So I think focus is so important in early stage companies. And so I think like going New Zealand, Australia, a couple of countries in Europe and looking at the US, all of a sudden you're in five, eight markets with each is going to need their own go-to-market resources and stuff. So I think that can be challenging. And so I think thinking early about what is your strategy around markets and are you just going to jump to the US and it's like New Zealand, US and that's it? Or are you going to go kind of New Zealand, Australia gets a five or 10 million there and then kind of go further out? But I think I've seen some companies get a little distracted early. And so I think that's, you know, and again, the benefit is that you think about scaling and you think about localization and currencies and all these things a lot earlier, but it also means that maybe you can get distracted and end up in too many markets too fast. Oh, so one here from Neville Aaron. So what does early stage mean to you because is it going to be sort of go-to-market model and scale or because most of the New Zealand companies is trying to get the product market fit nailed? And obviously with your engineering background, is there a preference? I think it can be helpful for both, but probably if you've got some good early signs of product market fit, you don't have to have that much revenue, but I think having a strong thesis about the product and the market and why it's unique and who the customer is. Because again, I think earlier than that, it's really a, you know, the help needed is around product and, you know, I'm not a product expert in all of the industries and verticals, right? So I think my help there can get a lot more, I guess, more narrow focus. So I think having a good thesis around product market fit and some early customers and then, you know, early stage, I'd say goes up all the way to like $5 million, something like that of ARR. So kind of, you know, $1 up to $5 million, maybe is the range. I love this question. What's the weirdest company you've invested in or worked with? This is definitely going to be a story there. Yeah, I don't know. What's the weirdest? I mean, like I wouldn't, so Tim's on the call from Energy Bank. I wouldn't describe it as weird. So I don't want to like go across this, I don't call Energy Bank weird, but it's definitely the most unusual, you know, it's a team of less than 10 taking on the energy storage market, you know, through deep ocean energy storage.  So I think I might have to go with it. Although I'll go on record, it's not calling it weird, but just calling it maybe unusual or kind of far out there. Absolutely, if anyone wants to unmute and ask questions, please do as well. Don't feel you need to put them in the chat. Lily. Kia ora koutou. Hopefully you can hear me because I've just had my teeth at the dentist done. So hopefully I don't lisp too much. Kia ora, Aaron. Just a quick question. Look, I work with many Māori businesses where we're building tēnō rangatiratanga, self-empowerment through enterprise, through creating our own businesses. One of the dilemmas and I'll be really upfront with you here and to see what your thoughts might be, many of our, in particular, Māori businesses almost have a fear for the VC's investors at the moment because what tends to happen is that it's almost like an extraction mentality that the investors are coming to the Garden of Eden now, you know, New Zealand is a good place to be, but it's almost like grabbing the allblicks, grabbing the ones that have already made it through, taking them out to scale. Which, yes, that's a good thing. We need that. But where the dilemma lies is at the beginning stages. There are many marvellous grassroots businesses, great, more and more software developers, and so how we operate is more in the relationship building mentality initially. So in other words, you've got to create the juniors first, help nurture the juniors, get the water bottle past the oranges before they help work for them to get to that allblick status because then the trust is built so that you're not just about extraction scaling and it's not all about the bottom line, it's also about the impact that those investments create. So have you had any issues with that or is there, how much I quote our people to show that it's not just about extraction? Yeah, I think the... So is it about how to kind of attract investors and help or maybe help me understand a little bit more about the... So, Erin, a little bit more about the giving. So what is it that you, rather than traditional VCs that are coming in and they want that exit pretty quickly and taking a lot of stuff off the table with them so that they are maximising the benefit as opposed to the actual founders and the community that have come around, the Māori businesses or the community? And so it's what in your realm in New Zealand would you be doing to help out? And yeah, what's your sort of intention there? Yeah, I think I always come from all these things that's just like a help first, you know? So I think anybody I talk to, any entrepreneur I meet with, it's always just like, let's have a couple of conversations and let me see if I can be helpful. I think that's the right first stop for anything. So, I mean, I think there, and I think a lot of folks in EHF and a lot of mentors and investors come from that too. So I think maybe leveraging that and just trying to get as much help from different folks as possible might be, I don't know if that's the answer, if that answers your question or not, but Lily's a fellow, Erin, I should have said that at the very beginning. Yeah, Lily's a fellow from, might even be your cohort. Yeah. Sex, cohort sex. Yeah. Any other questions? Any other points, Erin, that you want to get across to the room? No, I think I'm excited to meet with as many kind of early stage entrepreneurs as possible. And so, particularly in like SaaS and crypto like we talked about. So I think that I've been doing as much as I can from afar and trying to like network with smart folks and connected folks. And so, hopefully what comes out of this is like, I get to chat with more entrepreneurs and see where I can be helpful. I think that's probably my, the biggest takeaway is just, I think one thing that's been really cool that I didn't know coming into EHF and everything is just that there's a hotbed of vertical SaaS in New Zealand. There's like a lot of, for whatever reason, there's a lot of SaaS companies focused on different verticals. And so, I've been meeting with a lot of those companies and there's probably a lot more that I haven't talked to yet. So maybe that's the biggest takeaway is to just, if you have people in your network where you think of folks, like feel free to reach out to me and do as many Zoom calls and hopefully get a beer at some point here in New Zealand with people in person. So do you want to put your email in the chat then for people? If that's the easiest way to get in touch through or whether you prefer any other social media, the ways where I think email is probably the best because this group gets to know you now. And then, and has also asked any other ways that we can help you, that the people here in New Zealand can help you for a far to make it easier for you? Yeah, I think that's it. I've been trying to network with angel groups and folks like that. So, like you and I talked about Serge earlier, I met with him and he was really helpful and I met with Richard Coon and the Marlboro angels. So, if you have other folks like that that maybe are not SaaS entrepreneurs but are well connected to SaaS entrepreneurs, I'm happy to meet with folks like that too. But just trying to get as connected as possible and learn about the cool stuff that people are doing. And so, I think that's probably my biggest ask and my only ask. That's good. Aaron, did everyone else, did your email address come through? Did anyone, did it come through to everyone else? Oh, sorry, hold on. I sent it. Yeah, and another question from Seuss is what's your favourite blog post or book at the moment? I just read Sapiens and I really liked Sapiens. I really liked that a lot. It's like the history of humankind, I guess. And I thought it was really enlightening. Yeah, so that's probably my most recent book that I was excited about reading. No, that's good. And just so, a lot of these people on this call are actually either investors or they are connectors into and work with a lot of those companies. So like Anna, for example, Ken, I know that's sitting there. Dave, who's also an investor and a connector and Seuss, obviously the chair of the Angel Association, got Nina up there, CEO of the Todonga Angel Group. So there's a huge group of people that connect you into those other SaaS companies in New Zealand. So that would be, I think the ask for Aaron is to connect him with some great people that he can have good conversations with and you yourselves feel free to ask Aaron any questions yourselves afterwards and connect with him. He's actually been very, very open and spent a lot of time with New Zealand companies from afar. So we can't actually wait for him to get in and so that he can have a beer or a wine. And yeah, it's good.  So it's great. So thank you, everyone, for the time and thank you, Aaron, for sharing your stories. It's great and it's hard when you first meet people to share from the heart, but it's great. It's good to know who you are. So thank you for everyone. And next week, we have Craig McGrale, who's going to talk about a fund for woman-led founders and companies. So that is next week on the 18th. But thanks, team. Thank you for coming. Thanks, Aaron. Thank you. Bye. Bye, Aaron. Bye. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.