#352: Julien Smith of Practice, on Optimizing for Long Value, Driving Emotion When Raising Venture Capital, and Inside Tips for Building a Better Business

Just Go Grind with Justin Gordon

Julien Smith is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Practice, a world class tool to help coaches build their businesses entirely on their own. He has started many companies, including Breather, for which he raised $150M and got to Series D before handing it to a hired CEO.

As a coach, he takes on a few select first time CEOs who he coaches on finding customers, building a team, running a business, and raising venture financing. He has coached founders who have been funded by the world's best venture firms, including A16Z, General Catalyst, Craft Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, and more.

Julien is also a New York Times bestselling author of business and marketing books. He and his co-author were among the first to write books about social media and how to use it for business purposes, and many of the best practices you see in the field were put on paper by them first.

The first book, Trust Agents, was written with Chris Brogan, and became instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, winning awards including Amazon and 800 CEO-READ's best books of the year. They also collaborated on another book, The Impact Equation, published in 2012. His second book, The Flinch, edited by Seth Godin, has remained one of the top downloaded and highlighted books on Kindle since the day it was published.

Website: Practice LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/juliensmith/ Twitter: @julien Second Time Founders podcast

Topics Covered by Julien Smith in this Episode

• The background behind Julien’s company Practice
• Why Julien decided to start Practice after his success starting Breather
• How Julien runs and structures his practice coaching founders
• How founders can build better businesses
• Julien’s tips for fundraising
• Driving emotion in fundraising pitches
• Identifying true value when building your cap table
• Julien’s big vision for growing Practice and what he’s doing differently from his first company
• How the Second Time Founders podcast was born

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Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212