My Journey with Alex Levin: From Product Manager to CEO

Intro VO  00:05

Welcome to revenue rehab, your one stop destination for collective solutions to the biggest challenges faced by marketing leaders today. Now head on over to the couch, make yourself comfortable and get ready to change the way you approach revenue. Leading your recovery is modern marketer, author, speaker and Chief Operating Officer at Tegrita

Brandi Starr  00:34

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of revenue rehab. I am your host Brandi Starr and we have another amazing episode for you today, I am joined by Alex Levin. Alex is the co founder and CEO of regal voice where he leads the go to Marketing teams. Prior to regal voice. Alex was a product manager at personal and Thomson Reuters and then joined Tandy as an early employee, Alex grew up in New York and received his BA from Harvard. Alex, welcome to revenue rehab, your session begins now.

Alex Levin  01:14

Thank you, thank you for having me. I am

Brandi Starr  01:16

excited to talk to you. I always love to hear about those journeys and how everyone progresses through their careers. But before we jump into that, I like to break the ice with a little Gusau moment that I call buzzword. banishment. So tell me, what buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Alex Levin  01:40

So I actually I was asking my wife about this, and she gave me a bunch but so she has even a stronger opinion. But there's there's one that's always bothered me. If for some reason, I hate being called a millennial. So I know it's you know, anybody who was born sort of post 1982 83, which includes me through whatever was 90s At some point, but for some reason, like there's this generational idea of like, oh, millennials all behave like this millennials do that millennials in the workforce want this thing? And I guess it's like any of these sort of fake made up groups that really are not connected to anything are obviously going to be incorrect. But you know, as a marketer, I try not to make that mistake. And like I always sort of, I don't know, I get a little annoyed whenever people start talking about oh, as a millennial, I must believe X y&z

Brandi Starr  02:30

Yeah, I am with you on that one. And I think my biggest issue with the term millennial is it has grown to just be used to reference young people. And it's like, technically, millennials are like, close to 40. Now, so it's not the 20 Something just entering the workforce. So it's like, you know, people aren't even using it accurately, like they're really referring to like Gen Z and Gen a, when they're saying millennials, so I'm with you there, in terms of it's a really misleading term. So I will not refer to you as a millennial during this conversation. And we will put millennials in the box and not talk about it, at least for the next half hour or so. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, you are here on the couch as a part of the my journey series. And for those who have not listened to any of the my journey episodes, this is an opportunity for me to talk to senior leaders who have taken a less than traditional path through their careers. Because I think something that each of us as we take a role, you know, each role really shapes you and you learn different things about yourself and your talent, and what you like and what you never want to do again. And so sometimes it sends us in interesting directions. And so that is one reason why I started this series. After you listen to my conversation with Alex, feel free to go back to episodes 3537 and 41, where I talk to others about their journey. But Alex, I want to start with a really simple question, which is when you were a kid, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?

Alex Levin  04:32

Oh, it's a great question. I guess from a relatively young age, I understood I'd been somewhere in the business world. I had a my father ran a small business and, you know, it's not that he brought everything to the dinner table. We kind of understood that, like there was something happening where, you know, he had had the complexities and highs and lows of business. There was sort of no specifics within that. So it wasn't like I understood anything what business meant at that age, but I think I kind of got that. When I went to college, I went to a liberal arts school. And I studied philosophy and psychology. And for a while I thought about going into academia. And I just found it was so isolating. And it just wasn't something I was really not interested in doing for years and not engaging with other human beings at all. And so eventually came back to the idea of going into more sort of some kind of business role.

Brandi Starr  05:29

Okay, yeah, it's really interesting. I also thought that I wanted to teach in a college setting, I got my undergrad in marketing and my graduate degree in adult education with the intent of teaching marketing in a college setting. And after I got the degree, much like you started looking at it, and it was like, this is not actually the life I want to live. And so I jumped the fence and went with consulting, because it's kind of teaching adults but without the traditional academia. So I definitely can relate there. And I know for you, you started in product, and then have progressed to being a CEO. So kind of talk about, you know, some of your career project progression, and how you've navigated that give us the big picture of your overall career history.

Alex Levin  06:22

Yes, sir. So, you know, when I was in undergrad, a lot of the recruiting for sort of business type roles was from banks and consulting companies. That was really all that was offered. And I actually look back at it. And I think it's something that some of the sort of big liberal arts schools do very badly, is that they don't present the full swath of what of the kind of business roles that really exist, because they're bringing onto campus, you know, Goldman Sachs. And, you know, they're bringing McKinsey, but they're not bringing everything else. So, you know, I applied to a bunch of those sorts of roles and actually worked for investment bank awhile ago, and I thought that work was fascinating, actually. But in my case, there were a lot of people in the teams that I work for, that didn't like the work, and it wasn't what they wanted to be doing, they were only there for the money. And I thought, This is not a great place to work, because people are not having fun, they're not doing what they want to be doing. They're doing this only for one reason, it was initially the wrong reason there, it just, I wanted to make sure I was somewhere with people that actually enjoyed their work. So you know, as part of that realization, you know, I started looking at other business roles myself, you know, without ruining the career recruiting, and found that, you know, what really interested me the most was always technology businesses, and I've read some of this, there was an article back in sort of hammer exactly around that time period, where Marc Andreessen said, Software is eating the world, every business would become a software business. And I intrinsically just understood that that was to be the case that if you want it to be an exact kind of company in the future, you have to understand how software is built what software did, because every business was going to be a software business. So relatively early in my career, I started working for to your point, you know, roles where I could be in technology companies where I could learn how product was built as a product manager. Turns out, I'm not a great product manager, you know, I'm OK, product manager, I'm fine on it. But we're much better product managers. So I switched more to commercial roles, which was much better, where, you know, I understood the economics of different parts of businesses, you know, how to go to market how to, you know, make customers successful. And so ultimately, I switch more into those kinds of roles. But I think, you know, all whenever people, you know, tell me, they want to eventually be an executive at a large monitoring company, I make the same point of, you know, they're not going to allow you to, you know, run the company, whatever, drive the car, unless you are a technologist, because that is the core piece of every company in the future. So earlier career, go learn that stuff. You didn't go to undergrad for engineering, go get roles where you can learn how to build product.

Brandi Starr  09:04

I really liked that. Because, you know, that is one of those things when you're for someone who's starting out in their career, if they know their ultimate goal is to reach the C suite. A lot of people don't really think about the variety of experience that you really need to be effective in that like, no matter what you know, that line is, it's not a direct, like, oh, I want to head marketing one day. So the only thing I've ever done is marketing or I want to be the CEO. So I've only really got to be good at finance or you know, strategy. Like there are so many of those different experiences that lend well to it. And I like what you said around the importance for you of actually enjoying the work and working with people that enjoy the work and having the self awareness to recognize that like I'm getting this job done, but I'm not that good. worried at it, let me figure out how to pivot. And so I'd like to dig into that first pivot a little bit in, how did you recognize that? That was just kind of a mid roll for you? Like, what were some of those self awareness, things that made you understand that there wasn't that it was a time for a shift?

Alex Levin  10:23

Yeah, it sort of happened naturally for me. But, you know, the reason I wanted to become a product manager was to learn, you know, how you how you wrote product specs, how engineering teams figured out what to build, you know, how the thing was actually built from the inside. And, you know, it gave me a front row seat to that, and it was fantastic. And, you know, I did a lot of my own sort of research and learning outside of work, but it got me to a place where, you know, I, I'm not saying I'm an engineer, I'm not, but I could certainly sort of speak up if something was, you know, going in the wrong direction, I understood enough to kind of right or wrong or different directions. I think what I also came to understand is, to be a great product manager requires, you know, just deep, deep desire to spend time, you know, diagramming out all the different possible ways in which the product could work or not work. And, you know, writing these specs, wasn't that exciting to me, what was more exciting to me was, how customers were going to use it, and how we were going to commercialize what customers are doing with that. And so I find myself being, you know, pulled more in that direction and conversation, and less than the other, and, you know, different auras call these things, different things. But I eventually knew that I didn't want to be the one writing all the technical documents doing all that piece, because it wasn't what I was most passionate about. And I wanted to find a way more into commercial side. And so it was, you know, again, little bit unusual, I wasn't sure what kinds of roles I should take, but eventually found roles more on the commercial side, and business development and general management and, you know, being a p&l owner, and eventually, like running marketing and growth teams, where, you know, even though let's say I wasn't an expert in any one of those topics, you know, by sort of playing those different roles, over time, I gain the expertise necessary to, you know, be somebody running a bigger part of a business. And so by the time at Ng, you know, I was running hundreds of millions of dollars in p&l, where we had, you know, all these different teams working on the projects that I was in charge of, I had a much better insight into what each team was doing. And so it definitely, you know, at the time, felt a bit haphazard, the different roles I was playing, you know, I learned a lot.

Brandi Starr  12:39

Yeah, and I think that is also something key as you navigate your career, and I know, something that I struggled with early on in my career is being okay with that haphazard progression, you know, like, in some cases, at least, I know, growing up, I was always taught about very linear progressions, that was a time in life when people would, you know, work for one company their whole career, and it was like, you do this, and then you move to that role. And then, you know, it's like this incremental, very linear career approach. And it took me some time to really actually get comfortable with like, you know, I can make these weird zigzags and, you know, hop on this different path and hop back and that these aren't, aren't bad things. So what were some of the because, you know, there's the obviously the business learnings, but going through having all those different commercial roles, what were some of the personal learnings and takeaways that you were able to gain?

Alex Levin  13:45

You know, a lot of different companies, I mean, a couple of stories that I often tell. So one, I worked for a much larger technology company called Thomson Reuters at one point, and I was going to leave and go to a smaller startup, and I went to person who had been my boss for a while, and I said, you know, look, I'm gonna go to this small company, and he takes me aside because you know, what, like, Yes, I understand. We're bigger technology company, like, feel like big ship, you know, in turning a big ship takes a lot of effort. But when you do, it impacts a lot of people, you're gonna go to this little startup and, you know, it's gonna feel like you're moving things really fast. But the reality is, you're not impacting anybody. And I actually thought it was the quintessential misunderstanding of technology companies. The promise of technology is that a very small company, very few people can both move fast and impact a lot of people. And so it only sort of redoubled my desire to get out of this larger organization somewhere where I thought you can do both the speed and the impact. So that's one sort of thought I give people I think another one that I learned throughout is your taught, you know, maybe from movies or books or just popular culture that, you know, the more senior person, you know, has a lot a lot of organism He reporting to them, many people work for them. And that's what makes them important or like, senior an organization. And at some point, I worked for somebody who I think made a good point that I believe in strongly now, which is, that shouldn't be the goal. The goal shouldn't be how many people work for you, it shouldn't be empire building, that's actually like a sign of failing. In some cases, the most successful people in organizations are able to take a challenging problem. So the problem might be paying, we need to enter a new market, or it might be, hey, we need to improve our marketing or it might be, let's go and figure out how to build a new product. But they can take that challenge. And within my come, some people that report to them when they come to old people, but structure the problem, figure out the levers move in the direction that you want to go in, and then extricate themselves. And actually the most successful people are the ones who can, whether the team reports to them or not make it so that that you no longer needs them at all. Right? Make it so that if I were hit by a bus, so to speak, that team could completely run on its own. Why is that important? Well, that means that you've actually enabled yourself to go do the next thing. So what would happen often I'd see in sort of friends careers is they go to some company, and they make themselves completely indispensable in a role, and then then ask for promotion. And guess what? Well, they don't want to promote you when you're indispensable in a role, because they can't take you out of the role that you're in and make it harder for themselves to get promoted. So the trick is to both solve the problem and create a system such that it can be repeated without you with either technology, you know, some process or other people, ideally, who are going to be paid less than you, let's say, because you've not made the problem easier, and they don't need to hire as talented a person, and you can go on to the next. So that shifted mentality from empire building to making yourself redundant is actually a critical one, I think, to being successful in modern workforce today.

Brandi Starr  16:57

I love that because I do think that there is this mentality of, I need to like create, it's almost like creating job security. If no one can do what I do, then that means they've got to retain me, they've got to, you know, value me and all these sorts of things, which, as an individual contributor, like I kind of get it, not necessarily that I agree, but I at least get it. But you're right, when you are in a leadership role. Success is having people whether they report to you directly or you know, indirectly be able to deliver in your absence, because I see so many executives that get bogged down too much in the weeds, that they can actually be effective at what they need to be effective in, because they don't have that well oiled machine or those people that, you know, that that make you redundant. So that is really, really sound advice there.

Alex Levin  18:05

And there's phases to it. Like, you know, I'm not suggesting you make yourself, you know, redundant day one, you know, it's important, they want to dig in, understand all the details, figure out what the levers are, and then do it yourself and proving it can be done. And then once people start believing, you know, hand that off to other people. You know, I think the other thing that we believe in a lot, you know, my co founder, and I is, even when you're a manager, you should be taking 20% of your time and doing the IC job that works for you. Why? Well, a lot of you know, one, by doing the work that you're assigning basically, you can see what stupid things you're assigning, because often, like, you're asking people to do silly things you don't realize unless you do it yourself to by doing it, you're continuing to get the feedback much faster about what's happening from a customer, if it's a customer thing, or from the code base, if it's a code base, you know, there's nothing that's going to get you feedback as fast as you doing. And, you know, if you have other people do it, sure, they'll eventually tell you but much slower. And then last, you know, it brings a lot of respect from your team, if they see that you're also doing the same thing you're pulling in or or you're doing it perhaps even better than the rest so that they have somebody to go and look at. So it's not that you have to be better than the people that work for you. But it I think goes a long way to show that you can actually do it yourself and you care enough to do it yourself. So even in a world where you become you know, make yourself redundant, you should still be doing some of it just to stay, you know, very connected to it. And then you know, make a decision about where your time is best spent. You know, if you're a small business owner, and the most important thing for your business, if these five accounts, even if created a good process, you're going to spend a lot of your time on those five accounts. You know, if you're a founder, you know the great part about having a founder and a business that there's going to be nobody ever who's as crazy detail oriented as a founder who's going to be obsessed with like all these little things as a founder. To your point sometimes it can slow things down but A lot of times, like, that's what keeps businesses alive is somebody who's so insane that they're going to like focus on every little detail.

Brandi Starr  20:08

Which is a good segue, because I want to talk about you, being the founder of regal voice, talk about how that came to be, how did you move from, you know, working in a corporate or small business setting, to actually founding your company.

Alex Levin  20:25

So both my co founder and I had worked for technology companies. And, you know, we've known each other a long time, but on our own, and we've come to the realization, we wanted to be entrepreneurs, and not everybody does, you have to be a little bit insane to be an entrepreneur, you know, you're going off completely on your own. And you know, you're no, there's going to be roller coaster up and downs, but you know, you believe in something enough that you want to go and do it. So we come to that realization, and then realize you wanted to do it together, which is a very important, you know, step like find a co founder, and not just somebody you meet on Reddit, like for five minutes, like, truly find somebody that you're going to work with for years. And that's very complementary to your skill set. And then, you know, as we started going through the different businesses that we we, you know, liked, we found one the both of us are very interested in and, you know, dug into that one. And so I think that's a very typical set of steps that people should go through, at least as they get into it. The next thing I recommend to people is, is don't just go and try to raise money, whether it's debt or equity, whatever it is, you know, spend some time proving to yourself that this is a business that you want to spend 10 years in, and you know, what's going to prove that to you, well prove that it's a viable business economically, that's important, you know, prove that it's like you're gonna stay interested in for 10 years, because whether you know it or not, now, you're gonna have to say exactly the same thing for the next 10 years of your life. Repeat. So like, if you don't like it, then that's not a good sign, you know, so prove that, and then, you know, spend some time understanding the kind of people that you're going to work with, if this succeeds, I think that last one is something that people don't think about enough. You can have a very successful, you know, trucking business or you know, logistics business, where you do very well. And maybe you're very interested in it, but maybe you know, the type of people, you can hire very different, you're not going to get the x McKinsey and BCG consultants necessarily working for you. On the other hand, in a business like ours, which is a, you know, VC backed high growth technology company, we can attract, you know, the top, you know, X, whatever, you know, best schools, best work environment, folks, who are, you know, very high horsepower and excited to work on this project with us. So, I think you decide what matters to you, for us, ultimately, what mattered is, you know, obviously, we wanted an economically viable business. So we found one, we realized that it was something we were passionate about and could spend time with, because not only were we selling the product to companies, but it ultimately massively impacted their end user. So we sell software that these big organizations use to help their end customers, you know, buy their products, so So phi, for instance, uses us to also talk to their customers and get them to refinance their student loans as an example. And then on the last one, we it was very clear, we'd be able to track very high in talent, which was important to us, because we wanted to work with that kind of person every day, because we wanted to have a company that, you know, really cared about the thing we were doing and move forward very quickly. And so we started the business. And, you know, now we're three years in, we've been very lucky, you know, on all accounts that it's gotten more or less the plan.

Brandi Starr  23:38

Okay, yeah, the one thing that I hear in that in taking away what you want your business environment to be, and understanding that, like, attracting top talent is a thing that's important. I think that's a really key thing, whether someone is pursuing entrepreneurship, or even just choosing your next role in you know, where you want to lead, like, what is that environment that you want to be in? Do you want to work for a company where you know, you are attracting the best of the best? Do you want to work in an environment where, you know, that startup environment where everybody's got that entrepreneurial mindset, but they may not be as, you know, top tier talent by all the standards? You know, it's like, all those sorts of things I do think is important. When you are crafting that career journey, not just when starting a business, I definitely think it's way more important when you're starting a business, but just for those that are not, you know, those listening that are not in that mindset as well. I think that is a takeaway that is important also. And so my last question that I always like to ask, although the majority of our listeners are already senior leaders, I do always like to get some advice. Are those early in their career? So for those who are kind of in those early roles, figuring out where they want to go, what advice would you offer them?

Alex Levin  25:10

Yeah, so a couple things. I saw an interview from Obama recently, where somebody was asking him like what, you know, when you're hiring all these people like what matters most. And I loved his answer, he was a little more circuitous than I'm going to be, but basically said, there's lots of very talented people who came to work for me. But the ones that ultimately were the best were the ones that could get things done. And that there's a big difference between a very talented person and somebody who get things done. Because if I hand them a project, very talented person does a ton of work and comes back with what kind of work? Do you want me to get things done comes back with up here, it's all and he could go think about the next thing. So as a person, you know, earlier career, you know, think about that, in terms of what's, you know, what's the difference between, you know, just doing the work versus like, just making it very easy for the company you're working for? Because you've solved the problem for them. The other one is, you know, I'd say, depends on what you want as a career. But in general, when people ask me like how to make a decision in terms of their next role, I suggest looking at basically, that how fast the company is growing, because that's a sign that there's going to be new opportunities, new roles, things are changing, there's room for you to progress, and you know who your boss is, you know, are they the type of person that's going to look out for you and get you the opportunities you need? If those things are true, look, don't go somewhere that's going to pay, you suddenly can't pay your rent. That's a bad situation. But as long as you can pay your rent, and your basic expenses, earlier career, I think those are the things that are going to give you the most learnings as fast as possible and set you up for a role that's much bigger later, potentially. So you know, sure, you know, sometimes you have to make a decision for salary only because there's a reason you need to pay back your student loans or whatever it may be. But as much as possible, I'd say try to early in your career, try to take that out of it. Because what ultimately sort of leads to the big differences in financial outcomes and in success is not you know, whether you made an extra few $1,000 in one role or another earlier career, it's you know, did you were you at the right type of company, where you got the learnings, did you have the right type of boss who helped you out?

Brandi Starr  27:20

Yeah, I think that is incredible advice. And one thing that I don't, you know, the the current generation entering the marketplace, because salaries are so much more public, I think there is this mentality of really just trying to go after whatever is the largest salary, which of course, has its short term benefits, but I do agree with you in that, trying to, you know, make sure that you make enough to survive. Like, that's, that's a given. But beyond that, really choosing a company that's going to give you the experience, the exposure, working for, you know, someone who's really going to help you thrive is so, so much more valuable than what the number is and opens you up to much bigger numbers later in the career, when, you know, also from a life perspective, you typically need that larger salary with, you know, kids and houses and all those sorts of things that generally happen when you're a bit later in your career, you know, if you follow up more air quotes, traditional path. So I think that that is really, really helpful. And so my last question is along the same lines, you know, we always talk about, nothing changes, if nothing changes, and I always like, people to walk away from each conversation at revenue rehab, with the takeaway. And so for those that are further in their career, and you know, are thinking about what their next progression is, whether that's out of corporate and being a founder, or, you know, into some other role, what would be your one thing? How do you, you know, how do you self evaluate? Or how do you figure out what that next right move any advice for those that are further along in their career?

Alex Levin  29:21

Yeah, I mean, and this is going to be obvious, but I'll say it anyway, you know, be very intellectually honest with you know, what you want, what you don't want, what you're good at what you're not, you know, the people get themselves into trouble are the ones that are kind of lying to themselves about what they want or what they can do. And then they end up in a bad situation, you know, if you sort of are see all your friends get this thing and you fool yourself into believing that you want the same thing your friends wobbles not gonna go well, so you know, on the other hand, if you really realize that what you're most, you know, interested in doing next is you know, x size company, you know, customer facing certain types of roles, certain industries like now you're zeroing in, you know, a play, you know, if you if you care about having an office culture, you care about having, you know, a place where you have a lot of autonomy, like those are the types of attributes you should be thinking about not is it the same thing all your friends are doing, like, doesn't matter. So as long as you're being very intellectually honest, I think you can get yourself in a very good situation. Again, and again, though, like, I'll come back to, you know, the people who I've seen just have really incredible career outcomes are the ones who, you know, pick or happen to go to very high growth companies. It's hard to find those for sure, but it's not entirely unknown. The story I usually tell people is, you know, when I left college, I had the opportunity to join, you know, let's say, one of them was Google. So I got offered a job at Google. And I said, Oh, Google, you know, Google's not growing anymore. They're so big, they're so big, you know, they're 20,000 people, they're so big. And, you know, I look back at that now. And I think what a boneheaded was the right place for me to go, I don't know. But it was silly to think Google is so big, they're not going to keep growing. Like they're now 200,000 people or something, don't quote me on that number, but they, you know, certainly 10x Since then, same with, you know, Facebook, and Apple and Netflix, and whatever. So I guess what my point is that it's not unknown, who are the very high growth exciting companies. So if you really want that sort of biggest step up, go to those ones that are known. And they might be Series C, series D, or maybe even a little later, but still growing, you know, 60 to 100%, a year where you're gonna get enormous amounts of learning. You don't have to go and find the unknown startup that no one's ever heard of, and no one knows if it's going to work or not to get that experience. Certainly you can. And there can be even more learnings. But I'd say if you go too early, it's hard to know whether to succeed or not. And so it's a bit of a less certain bet. But so I guess, you know, there's a lot of very clear winners that you can go work for a little get you a lot of good experience.

Brandi Starr  32:09

Awesome. I appreciate that. And Alex, I have enjoyed our discussion. But that's our time for today. But before we go, how can our audience connect with you, and I know you also have a podcast. So I'd love the shameless plug for that as well,

Alex Levin  32:27

you did promise me I could make a shameless plug. So you're coming through. So you know, feel free to go to our site@regal.io or email me at hello@regal.io to learn more about how to use our software for these high velocity b2c sales teams. And then yeah, separate from that we do run a podcast and please follow me on LinkedIn. And you'll learn more about the podcast.

Brandi Starr  32:49

Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link both to regal and to your LinkedIn, so that anyone that is interested can stay connected. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, take a look at the show notes so that you can stay connected with Alex and also for other stories, pop back to episodes 3537 and 41. Well, Alex, thank you so so much for joining me today. Yeah, thank you for having me. Awesome. Well, thanks, everyone for joining us. I can't believe we're at the end. We'll see you next time.

Outro VO  33:31

You've been listening to revenue rehab with your host Brandi Starr. Your session is now over but the learning is just begun. join our mailing list and catch up on all our shows at revenue we have dot live. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at revenue rehab. This concludes this week's session. We'll see you next week.