Nate: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll edit, yeah.
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Di: It just means more work for Nate, but I'm fine with.
Armaan Kapadia: Perfect.
Armaan Kapadia: I'll do my best to keep those at a minimum.
Di: Hi, everyone.
Di: Today we're sitting down with our mom, Kapadia, founder of six table.
Di: We first met our mom at E.T.L. West at a storm king consulting dinner.
Di: Usually, brand leaders spend half their time dodging vendor sales pitches,
Armaan Kapadia: OK.
Di: but our mom was the rare person who made us stop hang out and turn into lifelong friends
Di: and dinner buddies in New York City.
Di: Today, we're unpacking how he went from the frontline BDR grind to launching his own
Di: mark matchmaking blip grind to launching his own matchmaking venture.
Di: And the last start of building a network that actually means something.
Di: Armand, welcome.
Di: Thanks for joining us.
Armaan Kapadia: Thank you so much for your kind words. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm God where we're
Armaan Kapadia: finally doing this. Yeah, so I, um, I guess my name is Armaan Kupadia as I mentioned. I've been in
Di: Yeah.
Di: Why don't you start off by just like telling everybody a bit about yourself and your own words.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: tech sales or more specifically marketing technology sales for a while about four years
Armaan Kapadia: and I'm now the founder of a company called Six Table, which is a platform that's trying to change
Armaan Kapadia: how vendors and buyers find each other in this very, very noisy and saturated time.
Di: Awesome.
Di: I think everybody can relate to that.
Di: The emails no longer work.
Nate: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah, yeah. There's a lot that doesn't work as well as it did a few years ago for sure.
Di: Yeah.
Nate: And I think, I think everything is just so noisy, too, right?
Nate: Like, we're all overstimulated with notifications, emails,
Nate: IMs, DMs, everythings.
Nate: Have you seen those memes where like, there's like 3000 people at your window
Nate: trying to like say hello and knock on it?
Di: I think that's why I used it out to when we first met you at E.T.L. West is you were not like,
Di: here's what I do.
Di: Here's what we do.
Di: What are your problems?
Di: How do I solve them?
Di: Which is great.
Di: But also, you go through that over and over again to the point that like,
Di: I know Nate and I had trade shows would both be starting to say the same thing at the same time.
Di: It's like, Nope, you go.
Di: Nope, you go.
Di: Like it's just, it becomes like the response to the pitch becomes automatic too at some point.
Nate: Yeah.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, sorry, God. Which, yeah, you know like as a salesperson, it's
Di: And you were very much like not even talking about that.
Di: It's just like, how's it going?
Di: What are you into?
Di: Like you started building the relationship right away versus like,
Di: can I take a picture of your badge?
Armaan Kapadia: so important to do those things that take in the picture, the badge and getting that information.
Armaan Kapadia: I think one of the things I also have just realized, which you really touched on was as much as it's so
Armaan Kapadia: repetitive to repeat my pitch, which so repetitive as well is a buyer repeating their context and what
Armaan Kapadia: their text like is, what their solution, like what challenges they have, what problems they have,
Armaan Kapadia: what their goals are. It is the first question that I'm assuming every salesperson asks and it's,
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: it is the main thing that we want to know. And I think we think a lot about our repetition and our
Armaan Kapadia: day-to-day lives, but it's the same on the other side. And that can be very annoying and frustrating,
Nate: And I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when you meet,
Nate: I would say, you know, like 80% of the time, it's like you meet a vendor,
Nate: like, hi, I'm Arman, please sign this blood contract for our service.
Nate: And it's like, whoa, whoa.
Di: What's it like, Nate?
Di: Whoa.
Nate: You know, it's like, whoa, calm down.
Di: So what's your mindset then?
Di: I mind like going into those rooms or being at a booth that has allowed you to make friends
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah, I think in a weird way,
Di: and these like genuine building of partnerships rather than just like the collection of leads.
Armaan Kapadia: my answer to this is like, I think I have just a very genuine curiosity to know what people are
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: doing. And I think one of the things that we've talked about is how, you know, I meet with a lot of
Armaan Kapadia: senior leaders who are wealth much farther than their careers than I am. And I always
Armaan Kapadia: position this as such an asset that I have, because I'm so interested in what they have to tell me,
Armaan Kapadia: because these are things I don't know already. And I'm lucky to be in a place where there's so much I
Di: You
Armaan Kapadia: have to learn. And I think a lot of it just comes from a very honestly genuine desire to build an
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: authentic connection with someone that I look up to and respect. I think in an unfortunate thing,
Armaan Kapadia: but I don't think that can be faked much. And unfortunately, that also means that there are some
Di: You
Armaan Kapadia: people who I won't have maybe that much interest or curiosity into talking to. And I've tried
Di: Sure.
Armaan Kapadia: to fake it. And I think I've noticed that it's just, I think people see right through that. And
Armaan Kapadia: that's one of the biggest things I've noticed in the last, I think, year or two is you cannot fake
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: genuine curiosity. Maybe some people can and I've fallen for it. But I think it's very easy to tell
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: when someone has an ulterior motive. Unfortunately, the ulterior motive happens to be the job that we
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: with trust that may come back to be something that you need later on. So I think my approach has always been
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: on the long-term relationship instead of trying to get a quick win and get my services into your
Armaan Kapadia: tech stack when they might not necessarily need to be there. I hope is that everything that I say to you
Armaan Kapadia: is is genuine authentic advice that reflects my understanding of your problem. And I think that is
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: something that people value from the other side is someone who will tell them what they actually
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: believe and understands what they need. And then when I do tell you that I think whatever I'm trying
Armaan Kapadia: to sell at that time or whatever company I work with is what you need now, I think that comes with a
Armaan Kapadia: lot more credibility because when it wasn't, I was honest about it.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: Yeah, that makes so much sense.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: And when I think back to when we met you, it was that storm king dinner that's hosted by a few different vendors.
Di: And then we went to the pit for the after party where you introduced introduced us to even more people and continued like,
Armaan Kapadia: Of course.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: it wasn't just about developing a relationship with us.
Di: It was like, hey, here's some other cool people.
Di: Let's just hang out and get to know each other.
Di: I don't think you actually talked to me about the product, which I was already familiar with.
Di: But you didn't, you didn't even bring it up until the following day when we happened to see you because we were like,
Di: let's grab a snack because we have an hour before or over to the airport.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: And then you, yeah.
Nate: And we walked right past the booth.
Di: And then you're like, eh, I got to go to the airport around the same time anyway.
Di: We just hanging out the rest of the day together.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: Yeah, it wasn't, it felt genuine to you.
Di: It didn't feel like, oh my god, he's going to follow up with an email and LinkedIn.
Di: Like, like, notice and, you know, like kind of thing.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Nate: And that builds rapport, right?
Di: Yeah.
Nate: Like, I mean, more than just for that company, like think about those connections
Nate: And you're able to kind of, that network follows you, I guess, which is that bears fruit.
Armaan Kapadia: 100%.
Armaan Kapadia: I think that was one of the main things that I think led me to start
Armaan Kapadia: six table, which was when I when I switched to another vendor,
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: I remember, you know, I reached out to my network as that was the easiest way
Armaan Kapadia: that I could, you know, get started and get hit the ground running earlier than
Armaan Kapadia: than the normal and I was so, so pleasantly shocked at how much of my network
Armaan Kapadia: was willing to hear me out here about the company I was at.
Armaan Kapadia: And I was obviously very flattered by their words, but I realized that the value
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: of those authentic connections was so much more than just what I was doing at my
Armaan Kapadia: first role. It was creating a trusted relationship where my authentic
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: advice was something that they'd listened to and trusted, which I guess
Armaan Kapadia: by extension is what I'm trying to build here.
Di: Yeah. Genius. Brilliant. More people should do that. Like you're interested in actually
Di: helping everybody. It's great.
Nate: Okay.
Nate: So you've spent over three years climbing from lots of acronyms here.
Nate: So watch out from BDR to senior BDR to BDM at Ometria.
Nate: What I want to ask is the tech SDR seat is famously high or highly known for burnout.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah, yeah,
Nate: And I was curious, like, how did grinding through the thousands of cold touchpoints
Nate: shape your philosophy on, like, what builds real trust.
Armaan Kapadia: it's interesting because as much as my roles changed, I'm actually like the titles that I had,
Armaan Kapadia: my goal was always to generate new business and building relationships.
Armaan Kapadia: But as I moved on it, it's slightly morphed in a way that when I started,
Armaan Kapadia: I think the philosophy was like, find us the best leads right now.
Armaan Kapadia: It turned into me being kind of a maintainer of how many relationships I can build.
Armaan Kapadia: My goal ultimately was never to find, to close the most business or to bring the most,
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: I guess, like high intent leads in.
Armaan Kapadia: My goal was to bring relationships into our ecosystem that could be a lead
Armaan Kapadia: when they were in need of something. I think it's very rare that a vendor can
Armaan Kapadia: convince a buyer that they need something if they don't believe that themselves,
Armaan Kapadia: So my goal was always just to build my network of relevant buyers in that space.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: And I think what led to my success was a lot of obviously there are tons of
Armaan Kapadia: old or nothing approach with personalization.
Armaan Kapadia: Like when someone sends you a cold email, how much do they know about you?
Armaan Kapadia: And I think it's easy to infer or deduce or maybe assume that the most
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: personalized email is the best.
Armaan Kapadia: I think the noise has gone to such a high level that that just doesn't even work anymore.
Armaan Kapadia: And it doesn't work at the level that it takes in terms of effort.
Armaan Kapadia: So I took a completely opposite approach, which was to be very vague,
Armaan Kapadia: but so vague to the point that I'm not pretending to know anything about your business.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: And I switched to the completely opposite end where I was like, Hey,
Armaan Kapadia: we're kicking ass right now and things are going incredibly well here are recent wins.
Armaan Kapadia: I think this is worth 30 minutes of your time in case you need something like this in the future.
Armaan Kapadia: And there was no part of that was like, Oh, I, I wonder if your brand could benefit from this.
Armaan Kapadia: I wouldn't even do those and all of our tools have the ability to add personalization now,
Armaan Kapadia: but I intentionally would keep that out because I, when I took the calls with them,
Armaan Kapadia: So instead of trying to convince people that I'm the right fit for what they need,
Armaan Kapadia: when I really can't know that without speaking to them,
Armaan Kapadia: I was just trying to put myself on the map and be like, Hey,
Armaan Kapadia: I think it's worth your time to just know who we are.
Armaan Kapadia: And from there, we can see where this relationship goes.
Nate: Did you bring that back?
Armaan Kapadia: And I think absolutely, absolutely.
Nate: Like, did that shape kind of help others operate at Ometria?
Armaan Kapadia: I think that is the, that's the, I think what I focused on was the right people
Armaan Kapadia: instead of the right message.
Di: Yeah. Yeah. I will say I've definitely
Di: gotten those hyper personalized messages before where I'm like, this feels borderline stalker.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: Like you had to dive deep into my LinkedIn profile to find that. And now with people
Armaan Kapadia: So,
Nate: Yeah.
Di: utilizing AI to do a lot of that stuff, it's just like you're not even trying. So it's
Nate: Yeah.
Di: still, you grew ahead of your time. I mean, it's almost like you knew where that was going.
Armaan Kapadia: and I,
Armaan Kapadia: yeah, and I also feel like the personalization that is doable isn't even that relevant.
Armaan Kapadia: Like knowing where you went to college or where you spoke or like the conference you just went to.
Armaan Kapadia: It's not relevant to why you should purchase a, like, a marketing tool.
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: It's not something that is, is in the same category of things.
Di: Right. Yeah.
Nate: And I personally love the flip of that when you get a hyper personalized email and they
Nate: left one square bracket in there unfilled in and it's like oh insert promo code here or whatever it's
Armaan Kapadia: Of course, of course.
Armaan Kapadia: And honestly, it happens, it happens, and I've done it. And it's, it's rough, but it, it, it does happen.
Armaan Kapadia: But, you know, I, I always respond to them with weight. I'm so sorry. I just realized that was wrong.
Armaan Kapadia: Um, I think people, I think that also made me a little bit more human in certain scenarios.
Nate: like oh man and it's been for a while
Di: Yeah.
Di: I had one of those recently where they, they said something about 2025. I'm like, it's 2026.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: They're like, oh, sorry. I have somebody else manage this for me. I'm like, okay.
Di: Right. Okay. Switching gears a little bit here. I think this could be interesting. So kind of like
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: you're global perspective that you have around. So looking at your trajectory from where you went to grammar school to the American school of Dubai to UC Davis. And now you're in the New York tech ecosystem.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Nate: you're agent
Di: You've had to operate in like completely different cultures and markets. And I'm wondering like how much of that ability do you feel like has given you that like
Di: innate sense to connect with people from like a brand VP to a junior or dev, you know.
Armaan Kapadia: I think, I think a lot, I think, uh, a ton, I have, you know, rebuilt my network of, and I'm calling it a network is applicable here, but my social circles, my friends, and, and the people that I know, and the teachers that I know, um, you know, three or three times, I guess.
Armaan Kapadia: Um, I do attribute a lot of that skill to moving so much. And what you said about like VPs and versus like, you know, someone at the coordinator level, I think one of my other philosophies is just I, I treat people as people first before I try to, to get to know more.
Nate: You
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Obviously, there's an element of this relationship from a business perspective might be more valuable than this relationship, but I try to be agnostic of that as I build a relationship now.
Di: Yeah.
Nate: You
Armaan Kapadia: Does that mean I'm going out of my way to meet every single person? No, I'm obviously selective in, in who I try to speak to when I'm working, but when I speak to someone, I, I don't think about that as actively as I think maybe some other salespeople do.
Armaan Kapadia: I think I'm like, let me get to know also sometimes you never know, like you, you never know who's going to be the next CMO, you never know who has more influence than you thought they did.
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Obviously, making some, you know, decision making or, or I guess like, making some inferences about someone's decision making level is important in a sales role, but I try to leave that up the door when I, when I say hello and when I get to know them.
Di: I think I was kind of laughing and smiling because I don't know how many times that like thinking back to my job at fun if I was with
Di: us. I think I'm going to stop now.
Di: I think I'm going to just mark somewhere. He's the CMO. I'm a director. The second day here his title versus my title focus shifts to him. And then they talk for a little bit. And then he's like, yeah, well, the person you really have to commence his die. Cause her and her teams are using it. So she's making the decision.
Nate: You
Di: And then they're like, Oh shit. Because they just ruined it completely ignored me. And then I have those moments too. I think it's such a valuable lesson for sales reps in general.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: not related to brand and e-commerce at all is my husband and I will often take a trip
Di: and sometimes we'll say yeah we'll listen to your one hour like hay by a condo here
Di: or pitch to get whatever several hundred dollars off or a discount or whatever and every
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: single time the sales rep almost always a guy is pitching to him and talking to him and
Di: getting to know him before even before the pitch they do like a breakfast thing usually and
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: then they're like what do you do like what do you like to do and then they talk soccer and stuff
Di: like that and they kind of forget about me and then we get in there and he's like well she makes all
Nate: You
Di: the money so uh kind of talk to her and they just like oh crap it's it's so easy to just treat like
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: And, you know, I think sometimes, yeah.
Di: you said treat people as people right because you never know and not just because you never know
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah, and I, yeah, exactly, exactly. And I, I agree, not, yeah, not because you never know, but I think, I think I, I always left the filtering before I met someone and then once I did.
Di: yes they're people
Nate: You
Armaan Kapadia: It's where people let's just get to know each other, if this leads to something it does, if it doesn't, it doesn't.
Di: yeah
Nate: You
Nate: You
Armaan Kapadia: 100%
Nate: You
Nate: although they're not the decision maker,
Nate: they're probably at like 90 plus percent weight
Nate: on helping make that decision.
Nate: If they're like the vendors stock,
Nate: they didn't even let me ask questions
Nate: on how the tools gonna work.
Nate: I have concerns over this.
Nate: The decision maker is still not gonna pull the trigger, right?
Di: Uh-huh.
Nate: So I do think it's important
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Nate: to like recognize the whole group regardless.
Di: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah, absolutely.
Nate: Okay, so I think we mentioned earlier
Nate: in the personalized emails, the LinkedIn stocking.
Nate: I did a little of this earlier
Nate: and I learned something new about you, Armand.
Armaan Kapadia: Okay.
Nate: You used to do a little synth with Apple in college.
Armaan Kapadia: I did, I did. Yes.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah, that was an interesting time. So when I, when I grew up, I was extremely math and science focused.
Armaan Kapadia: It was, it was at a point where when I meet people from back home today and I tell them, I'm in tech sales or anything not to do with engineering, they're genuinely just like, I literally like what happened? How did this happen?
Di: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: I think in college, I jumped around stuff a lot, but yeah, at one point, I was working at a company called Fresh Prince and that was much more of an entrepreneurly world that, that, you know, I was having a really, really fun time at.
Armaan Kapadia: And Apple has just had just, you know, as a child, who's a math and science kid, Apple was my dream job, my whole life.
Armaan Kapadia: And when I started working there, I was, I was working on automating the test and process for car play so that car manufacturers wouldn't need an Apple employee present to, you know, run testing to make sure that they could be certified and instead we were building a tool that could make that automated.
Armaan Kapadia: What was interesting about my role there was I spent so much time probably more than half the time there trying to prove to the seniority that this was worth investing in.
Di: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: It was like my main project was selling the idea. And then I spent maybe 30 or 40% of my time actually doing it. And it was just like, I'm still selling here, I guess, you know, I'm just being a sales person, just for an idea. And in a weird way, like, I don't think the person who is the best executor of the idea is also the best sales person at the idea or the spokesperson for the idea.
Di: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: And I liked one way more than the other, obviously. And I was doing, like, I was very much able to fulfill my requirements, I think, I hope they're great, but yeah, I just, that job was, I think, something I had to take just so that I didn't live the rest of my life wondering what it would be like to work at Apple.
Di: Uh-huh.
Nate: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Armaan Kapadia: And at a great time there, it was really interesting. I just think I enjoyed building relationships with people way more and just doing this.
Nate: I was literally going to follow up and ask, like, do you think that role having to deal
Nate: with customers and having, like, you know, the technical knowledge and rigor there helped you transition to B2B software sales and you literally answered. So nice job.
Di: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: I'm glad I'm glad. Yeah, I think I think the most valuable thing about that role, which I'm weirdly going to connect to six table right now is when you try more things in life, you'll be more sure about the one that you picked.
Armaan Kapadia: And sometimes just making the wrong decision to know is way more valuable. A lot of people will call that a waste of time, but I truly believe that any situation that you look back on that you think I did that kind of didn't help me or I did it for too long or I was in this relationship too long or as a job too long.
Di: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: That was information that you needed to make the decisions that you do today. And I think that is sometimes really undervalued. So obviously it wasn't for me. I don't think it was a job. When I was younger, I did like an astrophysics course at Columbia at some point, because I thought and I came back and I remember telling my parents, like, yeah, don't like that.
Di: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: And they're like, well, that's valuable, right? Because maybe you would have gone to college for that and then wasted four more years. So there's there's so much value in finding what you don't like. And it makes you way more certain in what you end up choosing.
Di: Absolutely.
Di: Yup.
Nate: So this is going to be super lame, but have you seen the first Transformers movie?
Armaan Kapadia: I have, of course.
Nate: So there's a quote in there that has just stuck with me forever, and I think about it in these scenarios all the time and it's 50 years from now when you're looking back at your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car.
Nate: Right. And that's kind of how I approach scenarios like this. Like, am I going to regretslater 10 years or even 10 days from now? Am I going to be thinking about, man, what if? And if so, then I need to find a way to kind of like test into that, you know what I mean?
Di: Uh-huh.
Di: Uh-huh.
Armaan Kapadia: 100% 100% 100%
Nate: Even if it's the wrong choice because I'm going to waste brain power later wondering, and that's not fun.
Di: That's absolutely my philosophy, too, Nate, and I never realized that that's literally
Armaan Kapadia: 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Di: like from that Transformers movie.
Di: I'm always like, get out of my comfort zone.
Di: Just do the thing.
Nate: It's.
Di: Like, you're terrified of snorkeling with whale sharks and drowning in general.
Di: Do it anyway, because in five years, if you're over it, you're going to wish you had,
Di: because you won't have the opportunity again or whatever.
Armaan Kapadia: Who says that in Transformers?
Armaan Kapadia: I forgot.
Di: Uh-huh.
Nate: Shia, right. He's telling Megan to get in the car. Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Shides of Megan Fox, right?
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah, yeah, yeah, elite, elite.
Di: Uh-huh.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: All right.
Di: Um, let's just gears a little bit here.
Di: Let's talk about it.
Di: Our mom, you're pretty young.
Di: Comparative to me, anyway.
Di: Okay.
Di: Um, so you're not in your forties.
Armaan Kapadia: Sure, yes.
Di: You don't have mirrors.
Di: Uh-huh.
Di: The life experience, as far as time goes, I should say.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.
Di: But your network is packed.
Armaan Kapadia: Right.
Di: Uh-huh.
Di: It's packed with season BPs, director, seasweet leaders who all like genuinely respect your opinion.
Di: Did you ever deal with like imposter syndrome stepping into those rooms?
Di: And like, how did you earn that real authority so early in your career, do you think?
Armaan Kapadia: I definitely did and I definitely started with that impostor syndrome pretty heavy and this was before I was anything close to a good sales person.
Armaan Kapadia: I was very lucky because I was so casually introduced to just some of the most incredibly talented and successful people.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: And I think there was like a moment where I was just like they don't want to talk about work with me, they like want to know about my like I'd be talking to them about my my you know work and be telling them like I'll hear these new features and they'd have no interest and they'd be like oh you grew up in Dubai oh you play guitar oh like you have all these other interesting things about you here the things I want to talk about I think you just hit me like we're all just people like it's just a person making a connection with another person I think
Di: Uh-huh.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: similar to what I was saying earlier I learned to just see people as people I learned to also just recognize that if you spent all day working on a specific problem and now we're at a Charlie XCX concert the last thing you want to do is have me interrupt that by asking you questions about B2B SaaS or your retention rate or anything relating to what you spent the day doing.
Di: Um-huh.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: I think I just tried to relate to them and thanks to you know the amazing experience I had in you know meeting I'm actually as like advisory board and just like the really senior people that they introduced me to with no ulterior motives I just learned that that just goes so much farther and these relationships are so much more valuable.
Di: Well said. I always thought you were older than you really are. And every time we talk about
Nate: Yeah.
Di: it, I'm like, oh yeah, I was like surprised, right? You're wise beyond your ears.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah yeah and also all these people tell me things that I've never heard like I'm still young to the point where they know so much more than me and so I do still have just an incredible curiosity to learn from from them and I think something
Nate: Yeah.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah yeah.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Absolutely actually I think so I had very little experience with agencies when I when I moved to IDHL and I think I was I was just generally unfamiliar with the concept and truly it was just a lack of research on my part of understanding just the market of solutions but the primary thing that I think I've taken from that is there just way more ways to solve a problem.
Armaan Kapadia: Then I think not buyers know but buyers are told I think when I worked when you when you work at a tech company for example you have to you have to make the argument sometimes that all right a buyer has this problem sorry a buyer has a problem let's say they're wanting to increase their retention rate.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: I can name six types of technologies that will say they can help you do that and within every technology I can name like five and each one of those salesperson people each one of those salespeople is trying to make the argument that not only is hiring or is buying technology the best against maybe an agency or a higher.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: This type of technology is also the best and not only is that technology the best the type it's also the specific one that is best for your needs and it's it's pigeonholing a very specific solution to probably a broad problem and I think in an agency most agencies solve a variety of things and it came from my much more consultive approach where like tell me about what you're doing and I'll tell you out of the many many things that I can do or that we can do is an agency where to where to where to
Di: Hmm.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: approach this problem from and I think with six table the idea here is that it's impossible to to evaluate every option it's just not it's not it's not sustainable to maintain relationships with five salespeople across the 10 decisions that a VP of marketing makes it's just not real it's not an idea that I mean that would be a full time job which I guess is what I'm trying to do right so I think we need to come back to a place
Di: Right.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: All right.
Di: Yeah, let's keep digging into six tables. So you had kind of this tipping point in
Di: in July, you decided I'm taking that leap. No regrets. You got to try it, right? Just
Di: like Apple and go full-time founder with six table. Most people stay on that
Armaan Kapadia: Now regrets at all.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: comfortable enterprise sales track. What was the exact moment or frustration that
Di: made you say my network and my ability way to match people's needs needs to be
Di: a standalone business.
Armaan Kapadia: I think it was two things I think one I've always grown up believing that as soon as I find a problem that I believe I can fix where I believe is a real issue I will quit my job and do it and that is obviously part of what happened I also I think I had a moment
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: where I realized that my relationships with people and the authentic advice I give them is extremely valuable in a in a time where there's so much noise and I wanted to commit fully to being as authentic as I could which means not choosing any one solution in particular to be the answer to someone's question I think as a salesperson my whole career I've done a great job of
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: speaking to buyers or leaders or decision makers and understanding their problems but what I want to be able to do way more is give them the absolute entirety of authenticity when I give them the answer and I think this business is a good business to build off of that mission and that mindset and I think one of the like main objections I think I could get or people in my
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: people trying to do what I'm doing would get is that I am not an expert in any way on what is the best decision for a brand when they're making a decision on solving their problems and I'm not positioning myself in any way to do that I think I am filtering options that ultimately lead buyers to have their time used most efficiently to make the best decision by both
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: consolidating a short list of options but then also every one of the first meetings that six table sets will be extremely focused they'll be pre-checked for integrations requirements if there's a size requirement or client number requirement or GDPR requirement whatever requirements they may have and they'll be pre-checked for the integrations and everything and the budget this is all done and now if there's an NDA that needs to be signed done before the call.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: And now the call has an agenda it's like here are the use cases that you we know are important to you thanks to six table and here are the competitors that we know you're competing against if the brands are okay with that being disclosed so we can give we can genuinely put our best fit forward we know exactly what's important to you we know who we're up against and we can put we can
Armaan Kapadia: salespeople are in the best position that they possibly could be because they have every piece of context is important and give the best argument and ultimately the buyer will make that decision and I will never position six table as the genius who can tell you what's best for your team but I do think we are
Armaan Kapadia: a weird analogy that I thought of recently was it's like we had hinge and tinder where tinder is very photo focus and hinge obviously has photos but there's a lot more depth to that with the answers I guess I don't know about a lot more but there's more depth to that and on on tinder if you have like 100 matches and you have five dates to go on or five slots to go on a date and everyone's just really attractive every email is saying the same thing and touching on your issue
Armaan Kapadia: like you're going to make five choices and there's no reason to say that any of them will be the best fit for you I think I'm building the hinge where you can see so much more about a person hopefully more than what hinge says but but so much more about an offering from a vendor before choosing to meet with them and you're able to evaluate a lot more about how good of a fit they will be for you before taking a meeting
Nate: Yeah.
Di: Yeah, I got to say two.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: Being on the vendor side now, although I'm not in sales.
Di: I'm in product.
Di: I will say that I think some of the things that you're going to be asking them are amazing qualifiers that by the time they get to an onboarding standpoint and me and my CSM team are working with them.
Di: There's, there's things that come up that it's like, oh, we actually can't integrate with that small, like you have this customization over here.
Di: You're treating meta objects for your filters differently. You're using a text string. So now we have to actually develop something and that's going to take another day. And so then we're spending time not that we can't or won't.
Armaan Kapadia: yeah
Armaan Kapadia: yeah
Armaan Kapadia: yeah
Di: But just for them to know it up front and for us to know it up front. So we're giving them an accurate timeline.
Nate: Yeah.
Di: And we know how much additional effort it will be on our side too. So I think it doesn't just help the brands, but it's also going to help some of the vendors too.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: 100%
Armaan Kapadia: 100% and just on that point with the vendors I think I was going to make this analogy early but I did but when you evaluate all the options and you feel like you've given
Nate: So my, my real quick follow-up question, we talk a lot on this show about AI and how our typical stance is AI is the intern, not the specialist.
Nate: And so I was curious in all of this that you've talked about, are you using AI to help with any of this behind the scenes?
Nate: And what's your philosophy? Is it a specialist or is it an intern?
Armaan Kapadia: yeah
Armaan Kapadia: I definitely think it's an intern again the ultimate decision making will be done by the buyer
Armaan Kapadia: I will be using it absolutely and I think what AI will help me do is summarize the conversations that are had between buyers and vendors and give
Armaan Kapadia: AI will be able to give you that option and just very clearly point out which what they've mentioned what features they've touched on what specialties they've touched on what they're you know use cases they've touched on our case studies
Di: You
Armaan Kapadia: that point to those problems that you have so AI will absolutely use as an in yeah just like tell me where in this call they mentioned that they're going to help my repeat rate increase
Nate: That's my favorite use case for AI, like a quick hit list.
Di: You
Di: You
Di: All right, Nate, given the time, should we move on to our rapid fire around?
Nate: I'm down. Yes.
Di: Rapid fire.
Di: So basically, we're going to ask you this or that, which do you relate most to?
Di: All right.
Di: We'll start with an easy one, which do you subscribe to inbox zero or inbox 10,000?
Armaan Kapadia: And box zero 100% I'm I'm I'm a serial I'm a serial unsubscriber like it is my I hate having anything there have been moments in my life where and this is so frustrating
Di: Really?
Di: Oh, my gosh.
Di: Oh, my gosh.
Nate: I bet I bet.
Nate: I feel the same way except for when it comes to email. I'm like, that's a lost cause, like everyone on the planet is emailing my junk mail.
Di: Wow.
Di: Game up.
Nate: Yeah, done.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah yeah.
Nate: Okay.
Nate: So trade show playbook, floor walker, roaming the booths or bar camper waiting for the crowd to come to you.
Di: Oh.
Di: Oh.
Armaan Kapadia: 100% bar camper waiting for the crowd I feel like this one is like I feel like this one is not even a controversial one I think almost like probably 95% of my business is done at the bar.
Di: Oh.
Di: Oh.
Di: Oh.
Armaan Kapadia: I was speaking with a founder at e-tail one night this was like way late in the night and everyone was gone and he was like to I walked around all day I spent like $5,000 on this conference I have no idea I haven't met anyone I'm like dude just don't even get the conference just sit at the pit this is the most concentrated bar in any conference in the entire like year there's no conference that has the concentration of the pit at e-tail west at least not one that I've been to.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Because some of them are much bigger and there's too many bars but the pit is just even if you have another party that you're going to go to you're going to end up at the pit and if you're if you're a fun person which hopefully you are you should be able to connect with other fun people and that if that's your only goal you'll do very very well 100% yeah yeah 100%
Di: Yeah.
Di: Yep.
Nate: It's like a pre rack of eTel West. Are you going to go to the pit? Okay. You're approved.
Nate: Right.
Di: Okay.
Armaan Kapadia: I just I just have to I have to defer to it incredibly depends on on the situation I think there's some very very great text acts with a lot of tools that work really well I think there's some situations where it creates a lot of friction for certain people but I think it's extremely case dependent I wish I could give you a one answer but again I guess that's the that's the whole idea I'm trying to promote.
Di: Okay.
Armaan Kapadia: But which is that there's no one best solution for everyone.
Di: I was just going to say so perfectly said by the founder of six table.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah yeah.
Nate: Okay.
Nate: Okay. Last one for you here.
Nate: The dinner move, would you prefer loud trendy reservation where you can barely hear each other talk or a hole in the wall spot with elite food and plastic chairs?
Armaan Kapadia: So I don't want to give you another it depends answer so I'll give you what I prefer which is the hole in the wall spot and the reason for that is I think I just think the people who are at the hole in the wall spot are there for the food which I can relate to more.
Di: Yeah.
Di: All right.
Di: Well, we should probably wrap things up.
Di: It's been super fun talking with you.
Nate: Yeah.
Armaan Kapadia: Yes, thank you so much.
Di: To recap it a little bit for folks who've been listening.
Di: Keep in mind if your entire strategy is just collecting counts on LinkedIn
Di: or blasting people with automated sales sequences.
Di: You're missing the point.
Di: The strongest relationships aren't built on transactions.
Di: They're built on showing up as a genuine human staying curious
Di: and doing the unglamorous work of staying in touch,
Di: which Armand checks all of those boxes, which is why you're on today.
Nate: Exactly.
Nate: Okay.
Armaan Kapadia: Thank you so much.
Nate: He's literally approved that whether you're grinding through cold calls or navigating the floor of a conference authenticity and trust scale faster than anything else.
Di: Yep.
Armaan Kapadia: You guys said it's so much better than I could have.
Di: All right.
Di: So check out Armand at six table.
Di: Make sure you subscribe to the show on Spotify or Apple.
Di: And until next time, stay Taipei.
Nate: And a little unhinged.
Armaan Kapadia: Yeah.