“So first and foremost, it's understanding what the partner needs and wants and meeting them where they are but then doing a really good job with regard to whether it's the speaking engagement, virtually or in person, where the audience is engaged, and really thinking about it from the perspective of what's going to drive returns or benefits for the partner.” - Cherian Koshy

Navigating a 7-Figure Exit Plan with Cherian Koshy

Let’s consider this – if you're immersed in the nonprofit consulting world, the constant hustle to provide affordable, effective solutions can feel like an uphill battle. But our guest on the Confessions podcast, Cherian Koshy, has masterfully tackled this challenge, not only by creating an innovative AI resource but also by navigating the intricate process of nurturing and then selling this brainchild in a multi-seven-figure deal.

Get ready for some raw, honest insight into the journey from concept to creation to cashing out. Cherian spills the details on the necessary grind, the mindset shift involved in scaling a product, and the secrets to sealing a lucrative tech sale. 

Key Highlights:

• Delivering Indispensable Solutions to Nonprofits: The secret sauce Cherian brought to the table is simple yet profound: zero in on the pain points, then tailor a solution that nonprofits can't imagine going without. He walked us through captivating product demonstrations and authentic testimonials that are driving a stake into the heart of nonprofit inefficiencies. It’s about commitment to their cause, wrapped up with a bow of strategic thinking.

• Striking a Balance: Free Content and Fiscal Wisdom: One of the big questions we get asked is how to stay true to our giving nature while still making a living. Cherian's strategy of providing free value up front, with upscaling to paid services, is a golden nugget for all of us. It's not about selling out; it's about smartly selling your services in a way that's as viable financially as it is invaluable to your clients.

• Masterful Partnerships for Amplified Results: Cherian's storytelling of his partnership experience, especially with the iWave deal, serves as a masterclass in aligning with the right partners for a mutually beneficial outcome. His insights show us that valuing our expertise is key to forging alliances that extend our reach and deepen our impact.

• Confessions from the Front Lines of Success: Cherian's tale is more than just an account of winning; it's evidence that aligning profits with non-profit missions is not just possible but necessary for sustainable success. His journey underscores a core truth — recognizing your worth and the value of your contributions is as paramount as any work you do for the cause.

  For those looking to empower their journey in nonprofit consulting or curious about tech-philanthropy intersections, Cherian’s story is not just inspiring but laden with concrete advice. Chirin's open discussion about his sale, including the negotiation process and the value of consulting with industry veterans, is surely a treasure trove for anyone contemplating similar ventures.

Find Us Online:  https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com/

Connect with Cherian Koshy: 

Cherian Koshy (Website): https://www.cheriankoshy.com/

Cherian Koshy (Linkedin): https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheriankoshy/

Connect with Cindy:

Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com

Fractional Fundraising Network https://www.fractionalfundraising.co/

LinkedIn:  https://ca.linkedin.com/in/cindywagman

Connect with Jess: 

Out In the Boons: https://www.outintheboons.me

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-campbell-outintheboons/ 

Transcript:

00:00:00 Cindy: Hey everyone. It's Cindy, and before we get into today's episode, I wanted to come and share with you something. Jess doesn't even know I'm doing this, but she is hosting a conference for consultants this February in California called Make It Happen Live. I'm so excited to be there. I can't wait to meet everyone who's going to go, and so I thought you know what? Jess is so busy with work these days, I would take this opportunity to let you know about it. February 28th and 29th although come early on February 27th there's some fun stuff happening too. So if you haven't already signed up to Make It Happen, join us. It is going to be so much fun and transformative for your business. Seriously, every time I get together with other consultants, I feel like things just get elevated to a whole new level. So the link is in the show notes and I hope to see you there.

00:01:00 Cindy: Welcome to the Confessions podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman.

00:01:03 Jess: And I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house nonprofit pros turned coaches and consultants to purpose-driven organizations.

00:01:11 Cindy: After years of building up our separate six-figure businesses from scratch. We've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and have lived to see what sticks.

00:01:19 Jess: We're on a mission to help other nonprofit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale their own businesses past the six-figure mark by pulling back the curtain.

00:01:30 Cindy: Whether you're still working inside a nonprofit and thinking of one day going out on your own, or you've been running your consulting business for years, you understand that working with nonprofits is just different. We're giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients. You know, the people who truly get it.

00:01:51 Jess: No, more gatekeeping, no more secrets. This podcast is going to give you an inside look at what running a successful nonprofit coaching and consulting business looks like. Basically, we're asking people how much money they make, how they get paid and what has and hasn't worked in their businesses.

00:02:11 Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers and the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business. We're going to empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.

00:02:27 Jess: You ready? Let's go.

00:02:31 Cindy: Hey, Jess.

00:02:32 Jess: We're back.

00:02:33 Cindy: We're back, we're recording this. It's a New Year, but when this airs, it's not the New Year anymore. We're full into 2024. But today we have such a great case study. This is a very unique interview, I think, because I can't think of anyone else who's had this journey in our sector. It's going to be--

00:02:57 Jess: It's going to be fun.

00:03:01 Cindy: So fun. Our guest today is Cherian Koshy, who is currently or now the VP of Product Strategy at iWave. His journey to that position is super unique and awesome. So, buckle up, oh my goodness, we are going into a really great interview about creating and selling something to big tech. So let's go, Cherian, Welcome.

00:03:28 Cherian: Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to talk to both of you again, but I'm excited to be on the podcast.

00:03:35 Cindy: We're so excited to have you. So, before we dive into all the nitty gritty, can you give us a little bit of your journey to where you are now? You have a nine to five, you had a nine to five, but you also do some consulting and you created something that you sold. So take us back a little bit.

00:03:57 Cherian: So I was actually talking to a couple of coaches of mine about this last week and the thing that I want to reiterate is a lot of people see the outcome of the work that you've done and they're like, "Oh, it must have been super planned and super linear," and it really is just this hot, massive thing. So I fell completely backwards into fundraising, did not think that that's where I was going to spend most of my life and worked in small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations for most of my 25-year career in the space. I took a little dabble into a for-profit space.

00:04:33 Cherian: I got some certification in a financial tool or financial products and thought that maybe that would be the path that I would go. That really wasn't the right fit. It wasn't the right direction, at least at the time. And so ended up working at a large nonprofit and in the midst of all of this, the pandemic was happening, I was trying to figure out my own space, but figure out what would really be helpful to the nonprofits I was speaking to and to the teams that I was working with, and built an AI tool to, honestly, to help me, in particular, to help do the work inside of the nonprofit.

00:05:14 Cherian: And then people said, hey, this might be of interest to me as well. Can you make this available? And so I built it out. And then the end of the story at least the end of this part of the chapter is in 2023, I reached out and said, "Hey, we'd like to talk about what it would look like to acquire your products." And I was like, "Okay, sure, let's talk about that." And honestly, at the time, I didn't necessarily think it was going to end up that way. I figured lots of other things could come into play, but we closed the deal in October and they brought me on full time so super thrilled. That's the TLDR version of that story.

00:05:56 Jess: You're amazing. Congratulations.

00:05:58 Cindy: Okay, I have like a list of questions here and--

00:06:02 Jess: Cindy and I are going to be fighting over this one. Hopefully the course overlap.

00:06:05 Cindy: Okay, let's start with you built an AI tool before AI was the thing that everyone's using. Tell just me a little bit more background around like how did you get into that and when was this? Because this was re... when everyone was like ChatGPT and all that kind of stuff.

00:06:25 Cherian: Yeah, it was definitely before ChatGPT and you know nowadays like any kid with a computer can build an AI tool. So what's unique about my journey if there is anything really unique about my journey is that I had spent all this time in fundraising and then the AI has been around for really long time. AI has been around since the '50s. There's Star Trek movies and TV shows about AI. But what really became available in 2019, 2020 was the ability to access some of these large language models. That also happened to be the time when all of us were spending a lot of time at home.

00:07:05 Cherian: I spent my time poorly during that time. I watched everything on Netflix. I had too many open bottles of wine. It was like this is not good. I was still working a nonprofit job, too, and we were trying... We had lost staff trying to figure out how to do more with less, how to stay engaged with donors, and we were left with Zoom calls and phone calls and I was like this, "There's got to be something else that I can do." I started watching YouTube videos about AI and the potential of AI and I just started playing around to see if it could create something that you know mimicked some of the work that we would normally do as consultants or nonprofit professionals.

00:07:43 Cherian: And it started to work and I was like, "Oh my gosh," I find this useful as a fundraiser. It worked for me and I started using it regularly in my own work and then shared it internally with our team and they started using it and it was super helpful to them and that's sort of how it snowballed.

00:08:02 Jess: Okay. So what I love about for everyone listening, what I am fascinated by, inspired by like, so impressed by, is how you listened or observed or witnessed a problem, a loud problem, and you solved that problem. I feel like there's a lot of consultants out there that they choose their path because it's what they like to do, or it's what they see other people doing, or I don't even know. People pay money to solve pain, to solve problems, and you took a direct path to doing that. I'm wondering if it would be helpful for you to talk through that thought process. I see a problem, I want to fix it. I'm going to build something at mass scale. What was that or did you? Maybe your answer is like I didn't do that, I got lucky. I don't know what were those steps.

00:09:01 Cherian: To be honest, Jess, just to capture that point. There is a tremendous amount of luck that's involved in this particular journey, in my particular journey. It was right time, right place, right product and all of those types of things for that particular sale. I don't want to steal my confession for the end of the podcast, but I do want to talk through.

00:09:27 Cherian: When the pandemic happened, I had the time on my hands because we weren't doing all of these meetings and all of these other things that suck up your day, and so that lent itself to too much an out plugs. But it also meant that I was speaking a lot. I was interacting particularly with small and mid-sized nonprofits who are all saying we don't know what to do, we don't know how to handle this, what can happen, and so we talked about, we talked about how to budget during that time. We talked about how to stay in front of donors.

00:09:56 Cherian: And so yes, it absolutely was hearing from colleagues in the space who were really struggling and at that point they couldn't afford a consultant. They didn't have budget to be able to afford anything that would be a reasonable amount of money for me to charge to do work for them if I were going to do that. And so really, my thought process is how can I serve these people? How can I help them? But, hearing what they're saying, they can't pay a lot for what they need.

00:10:26 Cherian: I needed to find this space where the product that I was creating had recurring revenue, that it was digital in nature, that it was something that was truly scalable, that didn't require my time or input on a regular basis, or at least at the core part of the product, and then something that was evergreen. I didn't need to worry about does it need to be updated for 2020 at the time, versus 2021?

00:10:58 Cherian: So this particular product or tool really clicked on all of those pieces to be able to offer something at a reasonable cost, a relatively low cost, be able to access it at the top. We were at two, three hundred customers globally at the time of the sale. It didn't require any more of my time or input and it was something that people could get what they needed out of it. So it really had that flexibility and that's what I think excited those customers. Excited then the buyer, but also really excited me because, honestly, I felt like I was helping organizations that I really wanted to help that really needed this help in order to make a difference in their communities. So it was that concentration of all of those factors, if that makes sense.

00:11:52 Jess: That does so. One of the things we hear a lot in this business world is, if you build it, they will come and Cindy, I see smiling. My personal experience is that that couldn't be further from the truth. So I'm curious is, after you had the idea and you start building this product, what were some of the first initial steps you started to get all these speaking gigs and start talking about this at like a mass scale, because I bet right now there are like a gajillion, really good quality products sitting on nonprofit consultant shelves that just no one knows about.

00:12:33 Cherian: Absolutely.

00:12:35 Jess: There is a distance between those two things. I'm just curious how you problem solve for that.

00:12:40 Cherian: So I think the first key is to really identify is this a pain point? Is this something that is Tylenol versus a vitamin? If it's Tylenol, if it's actually curing an issue, that's the thing that you need to talk about when you're out there speaking, when you're talking to prospective customer. Everyone's potentially a prospective customer, but then really niching down into who is that ideal customer profile for you that you can say, "I know you, I know that you have this problem does that resonate."

00:13:17 Cherian: And honestly, the thing that I did early on that first step was to say, in terms of validation, what are the words that they're using, what are the ways in which they are describing their problem, and then translating that into my outbound marketing. So the biggest problem and this was all over the website and the marketing materials early on was blank screen syndrome, and that's something that I felt, right. I totally had the experience of sitting in front of a Word document and having to start a fundraising appeal or a thank you note.

00:13:52 Cherian: And I would literally have my colleague, Anna, knocking on the door saying, "Hey, where's the appeal?" And then the appeal is done and she's like, "Where's the thank you note that goes with this?" And so I could talk about that in terms of this is what's happening to you on a regular basis. What if we can get that part done faster for you? So you just have to edit the appeal or edit the thank you note versus drafting it from the beginning. And the other kind of corollary to that was running out of templates.

00:14:24 Cherian: So I made the joke about in speaking in particular, I made the joke about using like a Tom or Herne, Google fundraising letter or a Gail Perry thank you note, and I had done that for multiple organizations. I knew once you do it, once, you can't use it again. Right, like there's nothing more there. So how do you then do the second appeal, how do you do the next round of your campaign and whatnot. So I use that in sort of validating both where they were in terms of the pain point, but then using that in marketing that resonated with customers.

00:14:58 Cherian: I did a whole bunch of demos. They saw what it was like and they said this is something that I want. And actually mentioned this to Rachel as well. In terms of the product I focused on, what my coaches said was the I want this test or I need this test, right? It can't just be like that's nice to have, it's I must have this, I need to have this. So, as you're thinking through your speaking, your product pitch, whatever you know, whatever's on your website or in your collateral, does it translate into, obviously, in that ICP and your customer avatar, does it speak to their pain points and does it ultimately conclude with I got to have it. I got to have it, I can't do my work without it. And to this day, the marketing materials you like, the testimonials, are people saying I don't know how to do my job without this. And that's really where I think the kind of those first steps are, if that makes sense.

00:15:53 Cindy: So obviously it's how you talk and how you communicate and saying their words. Did you find where you said those words made a difference, like on stages, in email? Where else did you try to find connecting with people?

00:16:10 Cherian: So most of the time, I mean, I would love to say that I thought through that process and I didn't really. I wanted to, I had a thought process, but I did not nuance it to say like I'm going to say this differently in a one to many setting versus a one to small group versus to a one on one. I really just kept identifying where, at least in the one to many scenarios, I would have sort of an overarching message. When it came down to one on one, I spent more time, rather than trying to like sell a product, to really understand what were their pain points, what were their concerns.

00:16:48 Cherian: And if they didn't have a concern, if they were super good at writing I didn't this product isn't good for them. So I'd say you know, is there some other thing that I can point you to, some resource that I can help you with, because this isn't going to be something that's useful to you. So at least on the one on one piece, it was very, very different and I would adapt the message based upon really what their experience was, their unique circumstances.

00:17:15 Cindy: Okay let's get into some of the nitty gritty... Because, again, I think this, your experience is so unique. So tell us about how many users, how you monetized how many users, the kind of like data kind of things that would probably start to inform, thinking about selling or being acquired.

00:17:37 Cherian: Two things on that. First, I'm happy to go through the details of why I did what I did. But then, in terms of selling, I want to modify those answers because I probably would have done things very differently had I had a vision towards selling as quickly as this happened. At the beginning... I really thought about the way that I thought about this product was first of all, this is a hobby that pays me money. I like building this, I like problem solving this.

00:18:06 Cherian: I like talking to other nonprofits and seeing if they would say, "Hey, I need something for press releases. We write a lot of press releases. Can you build something for that?" Sure, absolutely. That ended up in the product. That was fun for me. That was enjoyable. I said some people like to make sourdough, some people like to whatever. It was like that cost money, this one especially early on. It didn't pay well, but I thought if it paid it for a nice dinner sometime, great, that's lovely.

00:18:40 Cherian: And then, in thinking through the process of that, I wanted to make it as accessible as possible, particularly to small and mid-sized nonprofits. I looked at what would approval levels be where someone could say, yep, I can buy that without asking someone across the board. I wanted to make sure that it was self-serve, so it was easy for someone to just go on the website and purchase and make those decisions. That's how we came up with the original price point.

00:19:09 Cherian: I did offer some discounts or free trials for folks to get that base and get the process moving. I didn't offer a lot in terms of free just because it costs money. You could do quite a bit in a very short amount of time. You could build out all of your content for a year in a day. I didn't want people to do that for free and then not end up paying for it or whatever. I still don't know if that was the right answer per se, but that model served well over 2021 through early 2023.

00:19:46 Cherian: It was slow in growth. It was always lovely. Basically every day we grew by another user and so I would see that come through on my email and that was really neat to see. I implemented a referral program in 2022, so users could get additional access or actually cash for referring, and that was a really good decision at the time. Those were some of the pieces that I created as part of that.

00:20:13 Cherian: And somewhere in 2022, the exciting piece was that it grew to a point where I was like, "Oh, this could be a pretty nice little side hustle, it could be a nice little chunk of change." Still did not have sale on my radar, but at that point then I was looking at what are some of the other features that I can bring into the product to make it even bigger or better.

00:20:38 Cherian: Then, thinking through that part, it was then at that point where I was like, "Oh, how do I continue to monetize this and are there other ways to build upon it?" I didn't get too much further into that before the sale conversation came in, but I was thinking that about integrations and other ways of monetizing at that point. So those were the general ideas.

00:21:08 Jess: Thank you for that. I'd love for you to talk to us about your decision to monetize the mindset. Just yesterday I was going through emails in my inbox and I'm on a list of a different nonprofit consultant and they were talking about a community they run and they were boasting no paywall. I immediately was like why is there this yucky thing around paying for content or paying for access or paying for a product?

00:21:47 Jess: It really was like ew to me because I know as someone that makes products and content, how expensive it is in terms of my time. You just said that your product is like someone could create their content for a year in a day. I understand why that's valuable, but I could see 101 other nonprofit consultants being like, "I'm going to do this for the world and not charge." I'm not saying necessarily that one is right or one is wrong, but I am curious about what your mindset was. The process was for you to say, no, this is super valuable and I'm going to charge for it.

00:22:29 Cherian: I don't think I'm in the minority in this virtual room, but I think the idea of creating content for free has some place. But in terms of a business model, it's not a business model, that's a hobby, that's something you want to get back to the community. That's great. I think there's a place for that in terms of blog writing or something else like that, where you provide some information out there. When you're talking about actually creating a business model, my thought process once it got to that point where it looked like there was consistent revenue I had monthly recurring revenue that I could see from the data.

00:23:06 Cherian: The piece that I was really interested in at that point was using this as a funnel. At the top of the funnel there's three content that I would put out with webinars or speaking and other places in person blog content, those types of things at the top of the funnel to get people into this low-cost platform. Then, once they're in that low-cost platform, they probably need organization or strategy or some other needs that I can then use to identify. I had other consultants who were interested in doing things that I don't know how to do.

00:23:41 Cherian: I was like now I can connect the dots, I can say top of the funnel is free, low cost for the second tier and then the higher price as people raise their hand and say I need more, I can get them into a consulting agreement with me or with someone in my network and move into that process. That was my thought process, but I think the key to answer your question, Jess, is that I shouldn't say no one. But it's really hard just like it is in fundraising to go from zero to a major gift.

00:24:13 Cherian: It's really hard to go from free to paying what you, as a consultant, deserve to get paid. It's really hard and there's so much, there's so much lack of transparency when it comes to all kinds of things in our sector, like speaking fees and consulting fees and whatnot. It could be that, you know, for example, a capital campaign could cost a million dollars or it could cost 50,000 dollars. And so unless you have a sense of what your budget is and what you're willing to pay and you have that kind of trust stack underlying those costs, it's really really hard to go from free blog posts or free content that you downloaded whatever into even a you know 500 or a thousand dollar consulting something that's I mean, that's relatively small as well.

00:25:03 Cherian: But you know, if you're talking about a few thousand dollars or a few thousand dollars a month, that's a big gap. So how do we close that gap and kind of get them on the continuum, where they're like, "Oh, I'm paying this person money, I feel like I'm getting value out of it, I'm really ready, willing to give, to pay more to this person."

00:25:23 Cindy: Awesome, and obviously the universe had some other plans for you, yeah, so tell us a little bit about how this came about. Who initiated this conversation? Walk us through the details. Like I said, I don't think anyone talks about. I want to know how you figured out how to price it, or you know, negotiation, all that kind of stuff. It's so fascinating. So take us into the journey that followed. Took you away from your path.

00:25:59 Cherian: So 2023, I am. I'm happy working at a large nonprofit as the VP of development and excited about that, and I was at continuing to go to conferences. I also wanted to see, like, where can I take this in terms of partnerships and integrations, as I mentioned before. So started talking to everybody at AFP ICON, just went around quite literally to all the booths and said, hey, what are some options for us to work together? What does it look like to maybe have an integration or a partnership in some way?

00:26:35 Cherian: Everyone, as you can imagine, super lovely, like we can figure out how to do some thought leadership or, you know, and you can talk about the platform that way. Some discussions about, like technical integration. And I remember going up to the iWave wave booth and saying, "Hey," I was actually an iWave customer at the time, and so I said, "Hey, I use iWave. I have a couple of questions about this. I also wanted to show you this is what I've been working on. Here's how I think this dovetails really nicely with this product."

00:27:06 Cherian: Really looking for an integration to say, hey, how can we put some API together to build this into your product? And I think that's where everybody's head was back in April at ICON and so we started. So there was an initial discussion around like let's do a demo with our team, let's see what this looks like, and I started sharing particularly use cases that that really were iWave specific. Again because I was in the headspace of I want an integration, I want this to you know, every iWave customer to have access to this. And then you know, then that'd be great.

00:27:43 Cherian: And then they came back and they said what, what would it take for you to sell this to us? And I was like listen, I'm feeling it's not like, you know, sit on a beach money, but it's paying me a reasonable amount of money. We're up to 200 some customers at that point, paying me a reasonable amount of money. I think there's growth here. You know, if you're going to do a standard SaaS multiplier on annual recurring revenue, probably I'm not going to get super excited about that, just because I know my numbers and where that number would be and my price point, where my price point was.

00:28:17 Cherian: And so they took it back and they said here's what we can do and here's the number that we're comfortable with. Is that something that you would be okay with? And the number that they came up with was more than fair from my perspective. It, you know, to get super technical. It didn't involve equity, which is great. It was essentially all cash and that it was... there are obviously like handcuffs involved in some of the things that I can do afterwards and and all of those types of things which are really, really standard. But there wasn't much in terms of negotiation.

00:28:54 Cherian: I looked at the deal. I got a very, very expensive attorney, which is super helpful. Someone from our community helped. Several people from the community helped kind of navigate the deal because they had been through it before. That's one of my biggest recommendations, if you're ever kind of thinking through this, is you have to find people who have gone through this and know enough and have the legal expertise or can connect you to the right legal expertise in this space.

00:29:18 Cherian: And so did have those conversations and the attorney was like, yeah, there's there, there are negotiations on some of the finer points of these deals, but this is pretty straightforward in terms of the offer and whatnot. So went back and forth on paperwork for a few months and then, as I said, closed in October and and so, in some cases founders tend to exit after their period is over. I don't really see that being the case for me. I like continuing to steward the product and going out and talking to folks and helping the product improve. So we'll see what the future holds, but for right now this has been really, really positive for me.

00:30:01 Cindy: Amazing, and I know we're not going to get specific, specific numbers, but you will give us a bit of a range. So can you tell us how much it's sold for? And I also want to know those two double barrel question. Who are those people that you talk to to help you understand, aside from like lawyers and stuff? Because I don't, I can't think of any people in the sector as role models for this. So where did you find them? But first tell us approximately how much you earned.

00:30:30 Cherian: So it feels really gauche to talk about actual numbers, especially on a podcast.

00:30:36 Cindy: Own it, own it. This is what this podcast is about. You don't have to give us actuals, but don't feel bad about being successful.

00:30:43 Cherian: Thank you for saying that and for providing that space. It still feels very nervous, nerve wracking to me to say out loud that it was a multiple seven figure deal, especially because that has not been my experience in the past. As I've told my partner and my family, this is also not like we're never going to work again kind of situation. So there's still work to do and they're still like you know, it's a long way off from retirement or anything like that but very much appreciating the kind of flexibility that this affords.

00:21:15 Cherian: My deal is structured in a kind of unique way where it's multiple. There's multiple calendar years because we closed in 2023. But the people that I spoke to are people who are CEOs of companies. I don't know that it makes sense to say their names out loud. I don't know that it makes sense for people to reach out to them. But you know, having been in the sector for a long time, you know people who have either worked with venture capital or private equity, who lead like CRM or other vendors in the space.

00:31:48 Cherian: And there are also people who I had those initial conversations with around partnerships. So one of them was a CEO of a CRM who I talked to initially about an integration and they said, "Oh, this is great for you, let's talk about what that looks like." Actually, the two people who were really really involved like I was texting throughout the deal were people who I had spoken to about integrations and were CEOs of those companies.

00:32:13 Cherian: I think also we tend to super focus on people inside of the industry, but there are good, you know, there's good advice outside of the sector. I mentioned before I'm part of a coaching group that isn't nonprofit professionals. That isn't folks in the space and so that was a huge network of other people that I could rely upon for bits of advice and connections to things like attorneys and tax advisors and all those types of things.

00:32:42 Jess: I'm just so pumped for you. Congratulations again. Cindy and I are very, very, very big fans.

00:32:53 Jess: Okay, we are back with another round of rapid-fire questions with Jess and Cindy. Ready to play?

00:32:59 Cherian: Absolutely.

00:33:00 Jess: Okay, for the first question. What is one way you celebrated your sale or one fun purchase you made? Give us a scoop.

00:33:09 Cherian: That's so funny. Someone asked that question. I was at a dinner in Denver and another startup founder was like so you sold, you know, did you buy a watch or a car or something like that? And I was like I absolutely did not. I treated myself to a $100 first-class upgrade because I had him to be flying from AFP League to Denver back to Pittsburgh to do a keynote and I was like I just want to sleep, that's all I want to do. So my big purchase was a $100 American Airlines flight upgrade.

00:33:42 Jess: Wow, okay. Well, you might need to do some bigger celebrating in 2024. I'm just saying that does lean nicely into my next question. Since you went to so many conferences in 2023. What are some you really recommend for nonprofit consultants to attend in 2024?

00:34:00 Cherian: Oh, for consultants. So I mean I'm on the AFP board, so I'm going to start by saying AFP ICON, it has the virtue of being really big. Everyone's there. It's just, you know we talk about it as like fundraising summer camp, but it does. I will say it was very instrumental to me in terms of the product and the sale. I got to talk to a bunch of different vendors for integrations. I got to talk to product leaders and nonprofit leaders and test out the product and do demos and things like that. Even without an exhibit booth, I was just able to say, hey, you know, let's talk about this.

00:34:33 Cherian: So I think in terms of volume, it doesn't get much bigger than AFP ICON. So that's and it's in Toronto this year. So if you haven't registered, that's a good one and Toronto is really fun city, so do that. I had a really lovely Indian takeout meal a couple months ago there. The other one that I would highly highly recommend is the Neo Summit by Next After. I love that summit conference, primarily if you're a nonprofit, it has really great content.

00:35:04 Cherian: But I love it because it has people who are outside of the sector who talk to the audience about science and data and technology and things like that that I'm like, oh, this is really fascinating. This can help me kind of connect the dots. So those are the two for me that are really tops in terms of things that I learned, things that I take away, people that I meet, those types of things.

00:35:26 Jess: Awesome, Very helpful. And then for my last question, as someone that has what sounds to be really strong kind of nonprofit consultant tech partner relationships for any nonprofit consultants that are listening into this and they're like, I want that and maybe it's not to demo a product, but maybe it's to be on webinars or be an affiliate or something like that what do you think is some of the key qualifying connection points that make those relationships viable and strong, not just superficial or not just benefiting one party over the other?

00:36:03 Cherian: Yeah, absolutely. So one piece of that is sort of being and there are different schools of thought in terms of building your brand, especially in this sector. One school of thought is like go deep with one partner and really enhance that relationship to where it's really super mutually beneficial. That's obviously not the path that I have taken and it's really around like I'm happy to say yes, and my coach at the beginning has been all about you speak for free as many times as you can.

00:36:33 Cherian: You get in front of those audiences, you build those relationships with the audience and with the partner. So first and foremost, it's understanding what the partner needs and wants and meeting them where they are but then doing a really good job with regard to whether it's the speaking engagement, virtually or in person, where the audience is engaged, and really thinking about it from the perspective of what's going to drive returns or benefits for the partner.

00:37:03 Cherian: But the other piece that I would sort of recommend is a lot of people think about the audience in a webinar or the audience in a live session as the end audience and my recommendation is to think about the audience, of your audience. So most of the work that I get now in terms of speaking is because someone has seen me speak, and so what I want to leave by audiences with is not literally by any means, but the willingness to have a talk track with someone who's a decision maker at an AFP chapter or at another conference and say, hey, I would like to recommend this guy to come speak because I heard him speak.

00:37:45 Cherian: I did a session yesterday because someone else said, hey, I saw this talk about AI, I would love to have them talk to this group as well. So think about the audience to your audience, and that's what really creates multiplication.

00:37:59 Jess: I love it. Thank you so much for playing.

00:38:01 Cherian: My pleasure.

38:07 Jess: I'm curious now what is this next phase like for you? So you are working in-house and you just say things that the word stewarding the product forward. So what does life post sale look like?

00:38:25 Cherian: It's honestly not that different, and so it's really weird to talk about how much it sold for and that it sold because, besides not working directly in a nonprofit, a lot of my conversations, a lot of my work day is very, very similar. I continue to... I mean, now I get paid to work for the product, so I have a salary and I'm responsible for work things around the integration with NOS and iWave and making sure that the product continues to evolve to meet nonprofit needs.

00:39:00 Cherian: So part of that is going to conferences and talking to nonprofits in the same way, one to many or one to one and finding out what are the things that you were looking for, not just from the platform of the product that I created, but now from an ecosystem perspective. How does that look and what are some ways that I can envision some of those pieces connecting?

00:39:23 Cherian: And then the other piece which is really fascinating is I have quite a bit of subject matter expertise not because I'm brilliant, but because I just have time on the field of working in different sized nonprofits. So I now have an opportunity to work with some of the people in sales and account management and talk to them who are not necessarily front-facing in the sector; they don't necessarily know all the things that are happening in the sector. And talk to them about what are the challenges that I'm hearing from nonprofits or that I experienced in the nonprofits that I worked at, and help them connect the dots, as they're having some of those conversations which is a really neat space that I had not been in around sales enablements, so that's really cool.

00:40:05 Cindy: Love it. Okay, I have one more question before we get to confessions and I think these are important questions is another mining question, but this is what our podcast is based. So you went from a VP position to VP position, obviously with an inflow of personal capital when you sold, but did you find your salary rate, your market rate, changed because you had that success of selling a product?

00:40:31 Cherian: Well, not exactly just because the move was from the organization into a full-time role. So my salary is pretty comparable to where it was. I had been pretty well compensated at my previous job, so it was a nice like. I wasn't keen on the idea of losing money by moving in the house somewhere else. So that would have been probably a deal breaker or at least a significant modifier to the situation. But that was not the case.

00:41:03 Cherian: So I was able to basically keep my salary and benefits in the transition but then also, as you mentioned, like the influx of cash kind of sweetens that deal, of course. That was a tough conversation in the switch as well. I'm glad they're in a great spot and they're doing really well. The nonprofit is doing really well, so I'm excited for them.

00:41:26 Cindy: All right. Everyone's favorite question is share with us a confession. What's something that you haven't talked about or might be reluctant to talk about when it comes to nonprofit consulting or your experience doing this awesome sale?

00:41:44 Cherian: Yeah, there's quite a bit there to unpack even further than we already have, but I would say there is a whole space of things that I did not know or have exposure to. My true confession, going back to what Jess mentioned, there's a whole bunch of luck that went into this because I feel like I run the gamut in nonprofit fundraising. I have been in those different roles, I've done that work. There's not a lot that surprises me. In my last role I was like, oh, I did not realize there was this network of high-network philanthropists that were doing this type of thing.

00:42:21 Cherian: There's a little bit of exposure there, but I was like that was really small and nuanced. Getting into this world of a tech sale, there's a whole lot of things that I just had not known about or participated in or had exposure or conversations where I was like I don't even know the words that you're using right now. They drastically affect my life in this moment. There was a whole lot of Googling on the side or whatnot.

00:42:47 Cherian: I think from your listener's perspective people who are consultants or would be interested in being consultants or selling in this regard. The first thing that I would say is the vast majority of nonprofits in the US and Canada make less than a million dollars a year in revenue. Most of the organizations that we desperately want to serve, that we can help tremendously, are not really able to pay for the services that we know that they need and can help them grow as much.

00:43:23 Cherian: I think the confession or hot take that I would have is that we've got to figure out a way in the consultant space to address that gap, to figure out how do we serve the organizations that need to be served without and we still need to get paid we all need to feed our families and things like that and put a roof over our heads. So how do we navigate that space and don't make nonprofit consulting an opportunity for just the well-healed organizations? That, I think, just weighs heavily on me and will continue to weigh heavily on me in the future.

00:44:02 Cherian: And then, if you are thinking about a sale what I would say I'm happy, feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin or something like that. I'm happy to have this conversation, whether you're in the sector or not. I've had people from my coaching group reach out. My biggest piece of advice is, if you are even contemplating a sale, make sure that you have the pieces in place that you need to be able to leverage the sale. Things like a data room, having all of your contracts in one place and updated.

00:44:29 Cherian: Anyone who's ever touched any of your IP needs to have an NDA from the beginning. Do not talk about your product, do not demo it with anybody who could be doing anything internally to it without a very clear and ironclad NDA in place. But I spent a bunch of time putting together a lot of those pieces afterwards because I had not planned in advance for some of those pieces.

00:44:56 Jess: So helpful. Thank you so much, Cherian. Where can people find you? Be in touch with you? Congratulate you.

00:45:05 Cherian: Well, congratulations, not with standing. I am on LinkedIn and somehow just today got put into the LinkedIn Top Voices program, so I'm the one that's me. My name is pretty unique. That's the best place to reach out to me. I've got a website that I'm continuing to work on, but feel free to reach out on LinkedIn and ask any questions, especially of a private nature, that you don't want to post on a forum somewhere.

00:45:32 Jess: And what's your website?

00:45:33 Cherian: It's cheriankoshy.com Thank you.

00:45:36 Jess: Thank you so much. This was really interesting, thank you.

00:45:41 Cherian: My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for doing this podcast too. It's really helpful to the sector and the community.

00:45:48 Cindy: Thank you again for listening to the Confessions podcast for nonprofit coaches and consultants. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I sure hope you did, you can join your support in one of three ways.

00:46:00 Jess: Number one post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and us so we can repost you.

00:46:08 Cindy: Number two share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit coach or consultant.

00:46:12 Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple podcasts so we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.

00:46:19 Cindy: And, of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.

00:46:26 Jess: And to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember we're an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.

00:46:33 Cindy: See you next time.