00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hi everyone, I'm Rose Marie Miller
00:04 and we are backstage at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit.
00:08 And I have the pleasure of speaking with the CEO
00:10 and founder of Retool, David Su.
00:13 David, thank you so much for joining me.
00:15 - Excited to be here.
00:16 - Are there any other titles you'd like to add to that
00:18 before we keep going?
00:19 - Oh no, let's go.
00:20 - Let's go.
00:21 So David, what's your background
00:23 and also tell me the inspiration for Retool.
00:26 - Yeah, so Retool is sort of enterprise software company.
00:30 We started actually because we had a lot of problems
00:33 as developers ourselves, engineers ourselves,
00:35 building sort of internal software.
00:37 And so we're like, maybe there could be a faster way
00:39 of building all the software.
00:40 So that's how we first got started.
00:42 - So how is AI kind of affecting Retool?
00:45 - Yeah, it's actually sort of a really big tailwind for us
00:48 in the sense that I think a lot of people now are looking,
00:50 a lot of enterprises especially,
00:52 are looking to how can I sort of incorporate AI?
00:54 How do I build more apps that use AI, et cetera?
00:56 So it's a real tailwind for us, which is pretty exciting.
00:58 - I love how you're just like,
00:59 "And I'm just gonna like build Retool."
01:01 No, David, no, that's just not how things work.
01:03 - A lot of things went wrong along the way.
01:04 I have to talk about it.
01:05 - Tell me about some of those things that went wrong.
01:07 I'm sure someone would appreciate it.
01:10 - Yeah, well, let me think.
01:12 What's a stressful moment?
01:14 So we went through this accelerator called White Combinator
01:17 and White Combinator happens twice a year.
01:20 And at the end of every batch,
01:23 there's something called a demo day,
01:24 which is sort of where everyone goes and presents
01:26 sort of your idea and what you worked on
01:28 for the past few months.
01:30 And the idea that we initially worked on actually
01:33 was so bad, we didn't even wanna present it.
01:35 And so it was actually kind of embarrassing to some extent,
01:38 because all of our friends that we were in the batch with
01:40 were going up and presenting and raising money
01:42 and we felt so proud of them.
01:44 And we felt so ashamed of ourselves.
01:46 We were like, "Wow, we have nothing going on.
01:47 "We have nothing to present.
01:48 "We really wanna come back in three, four months."
01:50 So that I think was sort of a pretty low moment,
01:54 if you will, where we were really doubting like,
01:56 "Hey, are we starting the right company?
01:58 "Are we doing the right thing?"
02:00 - So how did you overcome that?
02:01 - It was hard, to be honest.
02:05 I think we were really lucky to have
02:07 sort of a bunch of advisors around us.
02:09 So for example, White Combinator,
02:11 sort of some of the group partners were very supportive.
02:13 And they were like, "Hey, look, a lot of startup ideas
02:15 "don't work out the first time, actually.
02:17 "We funded you guys not because we thought the idea was great.
02:19 "In fact, we thought the idea was bad,
02:21 "but we really believed in you."
02:23 And I think hearing someone sort of say
02:25 such supportive things, obviously, was very helpful
02:28 in getting through some of that.
02:29 - They really believed in you.
02:31 What was it about you that they believed in?
02:34 - Oh, you should ask them.
02:35 If I had to guess, it was probably something
02:38 along the lines of, I think, probably one of the most
02:41 useful skill sets of starting a company
02:43 is we will learn very quickly.
02:45 And so sort of approaching company building
02:47 and sort of a, "I have some ideas about the world,
02:49 "but look, I'm probably wrong."
02:51 Some percent of the time, we learn about
02:53 which areas are wrong.
02:54 And being sort of open-minded and sort of low ego,
02:56 I think, is a quality I hope to have.
02:59 - Did you feel lucky to know that, like,
03:01 "Wow, they believed in me,
03:02 "they didn't really believe in my company."
03:04 Because think of all the pitches people must hear
03:07 and all the no's they give out.
03:09 Did you feel lucky?
03:12 - Oh yeah, definitely.
03:13 I mean, I think, just to give you a sense,
03:15 like, when we were raising our seat round,
03:17 this was five, six years ago,
03:19 I think it was sort of like every story you hear, basically.
03:22 You end up getting something like 100 no's, basically,
03:24 and three yes's.
03:25 And of course, three yes's are what matter.
03:27 And you feel great about that.
03:28 But you do go through, like, 100 no's.
03:30 And so the three yes's, to some extent, are lucky.
03:32 But it's certainly, there's certainly a lot of luck,
03:35 and I'm fortunate to have benefited from some things.
03:38 - So when you hear those no's, do you think,
03:40 "Okay, we need to fix something after each no,"
03:45 or do you just think, "They weren't for us."
03:47 - It's mostly the latter,
03:49 but it's probably somewhere in the middle.
03:51 I think that if you wanna start a successful company,
03:54 you do have to be open-minded.
03:55 Like, you're probably gonna be wrong about things.
03:57 And so, you know, behind, let's say, 100 no's,
04:00 probably, like, 90 of them,
04:01 it's, you know, just not a good fit, for example.
04:04 But behind 10 of them,
04:05 there maybe is sort of some learnings you should take away.
04:08 Like, "Oh, maybe I, like, presented or pitched this
04:10 "in sort of the wrong angle or wrong way,
04:12 "and that triggered something in that other person,
04:14 "and so they said no for that reason,
04:15 "so I should try not to do that in the future."
04:17 So I certainly think no's are useful for learning,
04:20 but I don't think you should sort of over-rotate
04:21 on every no you get either.
04:22 So it's kind of a fun balance.
04:24 - So as an entrepreneur,
04:26 let's say someone has a job that they don't really like,
04:28 and they're thinking, "I'm gonna quit tomorrow
04:30 "to pursue my passion."
04:32 Would you say, "Go ahead and do that,
04:34 "and, I don't know, pray that you're gonna stay afloat,"
04:36 or, you know, "Stay in your current position and wait?"
04:40 - So I think this is a great sort of 30 under 30 thing, too,
04:43 which is the best time to start a company, if you can,
04:46 is when you're young,
04:47 when you're in school, actually, ideally.
04:49 Because at that point, it's sort of,
04:51 you have a lot more free time, if you will.
04:54 Whereas if you're working, let's say, like, I don't know,
04:57 nine to seven at a company,
04:58 it's gonna be hard to find the free time
04:59 or the energy, really, to go start a different company
05:02 and start a new idea, which takes a lot of energy.
05:04 And so I've always,
05:06 I think we were just really lucky
05:07 that sort of the idea for Reach Orderly
05:09 came from us having worked on a bunch of side projects
05:12 when we were actually at school.
05:13 And that was really helpful,
05:14 'cause during school you can work on so many things, right?
05:16 So I think starting young is ideal, if you can.
05:20 Otherwise, I would say, I think it is risky.
05:22 I have a lot of friends now who are starting companies
05:24 without any idea, just quit their job,
05:26 they're like, "Let's see what happens."
05:28 That I think is really dangerous.
05:29 I think you really wanna have an idea, at least,
05:31 and maybe ideally have proven it out a little bit
05:33 before you leave your job.
05:34 But I think it's a balance, too.
05:36 - It was dangerous, but did it work out in the end?
05:39 - It did.
05:40 For me, it did, but I don't,
05:43 like you said, I was lucky, right?
05:46 And so I think if I were to flip this coin 100 times,
05:49 for example, is it gonna look like this 100 times?
05:51 Certainly not.
05:52 - So what advice do you have
05:54 for those who wanna become an entrepreneur?
05:56 - I think the entrepreneurial skill set, actually,
06:02 is a pretty distinct one.
06:03 It's one where, like aforementioned,
06:07 you have to be open-minded, be low-ego,
06:09 be open to learning, stuff like that.
06:11 But you also have to have conviction in your beliefs,
06:12 for example.
06:14 Maybe one thing I would challenge people to think,
06:17 I think starting a startup now
06:18 has become this exciting thing
06:20 that a lot of people want to go and do.
06:22 I'm actually not sure everyone
06:23 should be starting a startup, actually.
06:24 - Really, why?
06:26 - Well, you may not have the personality for it.
06:27 For example, if you are, let's say, too open-minded,
06:31 I think that's probably bad,
06:32 'cause you don't have enough conviction
06:34 in your own idea, for example.
06:35 If you're too, let's say, closed-minded,
06:37 it also doesn't work either,
06:38 because you're gonna be wrong
06:39 about some large percent of things, actually.
06:41 And so, I think having sort of that low-ego,
06:44 willingness to learn, openness to learn,
06:46 openness to feedback, stuff like that,
06:47 is actually a pretty sort of critical skill set,
06:49 I think, for starting a company.
06:50 And all the skillful founders I know have that.
06:52 And so, if you don't have that,
06:53 maybe you should think about that for a second
06:55 before starting a company.
06:56 - Absolutely.
06:57 Well, David, before I let you go,
06:59 I'm curious, what is one thing you do every single day
07:02 that you believe contributes to your success?
07:05 - I read quite a bit.
07:07 So reading is a lot of fun.
07:09 I think it, sort of different books,
07:12 serve different purposes for me.
07:13 I really like fiction, for example.
07:15 Fiction, I think, is sort of great for building empathy,
07:16 seeing the perspective of others.
07:18 Nonfiction, different purpose.
07:20 - Yeah.
07:21 Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
07:22 - Thank you.
07:23 - Absolutely.
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