When The Friday Nooner and National Donut Day fall on the same day, that means the GrepBeat office buys two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, causing Joe and Pete to start the episode fired up from a sugar high. That energy sustains through a thoughtful dialogue about the best business and entrepreneurial books, all the way to the end of the episode, when guest Chris Geiss joins the gang. Geiss is the CEO of Seguno, a Durham-based email marketing platform integrated into the Shopify platform. Geiss is a Bronto alum and Joe is an investor in Seguno, which used to share office space with GrepBeat.
Here are some of the highlights from today’s episode:
- GrepBeat’s new podcast hosted by Robbie Allen, For Starters, is now available on Apple Podcasts! Listen to the first two episodes now, and keep your eyes and ears peeled for the release of the next episode on Tuesday. (8:00)
- In a recent Q&A with TBJ, Ryan O’Donnell, the CEO of Cary-based employee referral software company EmployUs, recommends the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. Pete, who added the book to his reading list, then touted Drive by Daniel Pink, especially for managers, because it explores the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the best way to motivate employees. (20:00)
- Joe starts off his spiel of book recommendations with Beyond Entrepreneurship by Jim Collins. Calling it a handbook for scaling your business and growing your team, Joe said it touched on a lot of necessary elements that he used to help Bronto grow. (14:00)
- Geiss, who says Seguno actually has a book club (in addition to a Donut Day?), happily joins in on the book discussion at 32:00. Lately his team has read Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush, which he said is highly relevant to them because they don’t have a sales team and therefore rely heavily on the product itself to attract and retain customers. Past books the Seguno book club has read include The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, which explains why it’s important to think long-term and not focus on short-term gains. (32:00)
To hear all the book recommendations (and there are a lot), watch the full episode on YouTube: