Hello everybody, today our guest is Misha Chellam, the founder of Tradecraft, which is a full-time, in-person, immersive training program—sales, marketing, growth marketing and design—for people who want to break into the startup community.
Today we’re talking about how what Misha learned from launching a rock band, a commercial real estate company, and a medtech startup, how they acquired their first 100 members through word of mouth, and why grads from 2 years ago are still getting value from the Tradecraft relationship.
Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How Tradecraft Produces World Class Tech Talent For Growing Companies In Just 12 Weeks TRANSCRIPT
Episode highlights:
- [4:16] – Misha feels his adaptability has been a great value for him and his business ventures
- [4:39] – Tradecraft wants to partner with smart people throughout their tech careers
- [4:59] – They want to get into the early stages of these people’s careers, but work with them for years down the line
- [5:56] – Education is a piece of Tradecraft, but their objective is to increase the quality of their network
- [7:11] – They help people in a very concrete way, but they want to keep the relationship open so they will want to be involved with Tradecraft at some point in the future
- [9:42] – Growth and tactics are changing, but the underlying concepts are similar, people come to Tradecraft to orient thinking and navigate the startup world
- [10:21] – They have had 320 grads and it costs 14K for twelve weeks, plus you have to quit your job and live in San Francisco
- [11:03] – Grads from 2 years ago are still getting value from the Tradecraft relationship
- [12:05] – They acquired their first 100 members by asking mentors if they would like hires to have a skillset on day one, the idea of raising the bar was appealing in the valley, so they got clients from word of mouth
- [13:37] – Vetting quality candidates is probably what they struggle with the most
- [14:57] – They usually bring in 12 to 13 people a month, the idea is to have a human relationship with the students
- [16:06] – Don’t hold back, put everything on the line, if you fail it is a learning experience
- [17:48] – Set a high bar for success and take all the help you can to get there
Resources from this interview:
- Tradecraft
- Twitter @MishaChellam
- Growth Mindset
- Reinventing Organizations
- Exponential Organization
- Misha@tradecrafted.com
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