Chapter 03Nobody cares about Sunny

Put the relationship first and the transaction second, and keep giving until the other person wants to give back. That's the only engine I've found that compounds. Everything else in this book, the show, the cold email, the debrief, runs on it.

It starts with a hard truth about yourself, and I'll go first. I say this on calls all the time, and people laugh, and then they go quiet:

The truth is, is that nobody gives a shit about Sunny, even if I've done the most impressive things, but everybody cares about one thing, which is themselves.

A stranger opening my email doesn't care about my bitcoin story or the court case or any of the twenty years. They care about their business, their team, their next quarter, their own story. So do you. So do I.

That sounds bleak until you flip it over. If everybody cares about themselves, then the fastest way into anyone's attention is to make it about them.

The story nobody wanted

I learned this the hard way, and the lesson is where my show came from.

Years ago my company won the biggest fight of its life. We'd been through hell to get there, and the win felt like the story of a lifetime, right up until the pandemic hit about a week later and buried it. Nobody had room in their head for a founder in India and his court case. On a call this month I described how that felt:

And so, I was dying to tell our own story. And you know, they say like, whatever you want most, you give. Type of thing. Have you ever heard that? So, so I just thought, well, wow, I want to tell my story so badly and nobody cares about me.

Whatever you want most, give it. I didn't have a strategy. I had an itch and an old saying. And then a thought that changed everything:

if I want to tell my story that badly, maybe there's other people out there who want to tell their story just as badly.

So I started handing out the thing I wanted. On a pre-interview with a founder in October I told the rest of it:

So I just started telling, you know, friends, people who I know, I just started telling their story on, on, you know, live streams, on interviews, and then it just became really fun.

It became fun before it became anything else, and I think that order matters. I didn't start a show to sell. I started it because I wanted to be heard, and nobody was listening, so I listened to other people instead. The selling came later, as a side effect of hundreds of people feeling heard.

Nobody owes you anything

Here's how I explain why asking fails. Think of a bank.

Every relationship is an account. When you meet a stranger, the balance is zero. You've never done anything for them, and they've never done anything for you. Then you send the email from the last chapter, the one that asks for time or money. You're trying to withdraw from an account you never funded:

the reason asking doesn't work is because you haven't paid anything into the account with that person. So you're just like asking for someone with something that, you know, they don't owe you anything, so why would they reply?

Why would they reply? I can't think of a good reason, and neither can they. The ask bounces like a cheque written on an empty account.

The fix is boring and old. Make deposits first. Make enough of them that the balance is lopsided in the other person's favour. Then, when you do ask, you're drawing on something real.

None of this is my invention. When founders push back, I tell them where I got it:

And our thesis, and it's also the thesis of the Bible and the bhagavad-gita and my mom and my wife, which is you should give, you just give.

The Bible, the Gita, my mom and my wife all agree on this. When that many sources line up, I stop arguing with the idea and start running it as a system.

What giving looks like on a Tuesday

Giving sounds soft until you see it on a calendar. Here's what it looks like for a guest who comes on my show.

There's a short pre-interview where I learn about them and say almost nothing about myself. Next comes the interview itself, where for an hour the whole conversation is about their story. Then a debrief, where the first thing I do is thank them. In between, the episode goes up on my website and everywhere else, and short clips go out after that. I describe the run to founders like this:

People need to see you 11 times before they see you for the first time. Well, this method, we have a pre-interview we have the interview, we have a debrief, and every piece of content

And then the emails that come after, each one another small deposit:

and then I'm sending them an email three days later with like, hey, I put it on my website. Hey, I did this. Hey, I did that. [By] a week later, they're just like, thank you. Like, thank you. Like, this is insane. And so the idea to just give, give, give, give, give so much that at one point, you know, they, they have no choice but help

No choice but help. That's the part people underestimate. You don't have to ask for the favour. After enough deposits, people go looking for a way to return it.

Sometimes the most useful gift has nothing to do with my show. It's a connection. I'll talk to someone, hear who they're trying to reach, and keep it in mind for weeks. Then I come back:

here's 3 of them that I actually talked to. They came on my show. Okay, I'll connect you to them.

That message costs me two minutes. To the person getting it, it can save a quarter of work.

The credit builds while you're not asking

The part that surprised me most is how much it changes the way I walk into a room.

I used to pitch investors I'd never met and hated how it felt. Now I meet a lot of investors, and most weeks I don't pitch any of them:

So even when I meet a VC, I'm probably going to talk to 10 VCs this week. I might not pitch a single one

Ten conversations, zero pitches. Some founders hear that and think I'm wasting meetings. I think of it as making deposits. On the same call I said what I believe happens next:

And you do that enough times. Guess what? It comes back, like pouring back.

It comes back pouring. And it comes back in a strange direction. When you stop asking, the asking starts coming toward you. I told a guest on a debrief about a call I'd just finished that morning:

The guy was like begging me. He's like, can we please talk about your solution? I need this. I need this. And I'm like, okay, let's talk in 2 weeks.

A few years ago that would have been me, begging someone for a meeting. Now the person across the table is the one leaning in. Nothing about my product changed in between. The order changed. I gave first and kept giving until the balance flipped.

There's no magic in it. It's one of the oldest rules in human behaviour, and I said as much on that same call:

So it definitely works, and in my view, it works because it's just like the rule of reciprocity, right?

Reciprocity. Do something for someone, and they feel a pull to do something back. Every culture has it. Most founders ignore it the moment they open their laptop to do outreach.

Maybe they don't

There's one more piece, and it's the hardest one to live by.

When you give, you have to let go of the outcome. If you give with one hand while the other is held out behind your back, people feel it. The gift turns into a bribe. So I hold the relationship and loosen my grip on the deal. Back to that September call:

So, our approach is stop caring about me, start caring about my ICP and start putting a spotlight on them and start doing the research and start listening and start giving and start creating and Start building with them, and then at one point they maybe become a customer. Maybe they don't. Maybe they become an investor. Maybe they don't. But put the relationship first, not the transaction.

Maybe they don't. I mean it. Most people I put a spotlight on never buy anything from me. A few of them send me someone who does. Others become friends, and plenty I never hear from again, and that's fine, because the deposit still happened and the work still went out into the world with their name on it.

This is where I see people trip. They give, but they keep score. They host the interview, but they pitch before the interview is even over because they can't stand to leave the account full. I get it. I've felt that itch. But the whole engine depends on the other person feeling the balance is in their favour, and you can't fake that.

Nobody cares about Sunny. Once I accepted that, it set me free. I stopped trying to be interesting and started being interested. That turned out to be the better trade.

Try this week

Take out a blank page and draw two columns.

In the left column, list the last ten people you asked for something. Investors you pitched, buyers you emailed, partners you wanted, people you asked for an intro. Use your sent folder if your memory is fuzzy.

In the right column, next to each name, write what you gave that person before you asked. Be strict. A compliment in the first line of the ask doesn't count. A link to your own deck doesn't count. Count only things that were for them: an intro, a public thank you, a piece of their work shared with your audience, real help on their problem, time spent learning their story.

Most founders I've watched do this end up with a right column that's mostly blank. That's your balance sheet. It tells you why the asks bounced.

Now pick three names from the list. This week, give each of them something with no ask attached. Introduce them to someone they'd want to meet. Share something they built and say why you like it. Ask them a real question about their work and listen to the answer. Don't mention your company. Don't add a P.S.

Then watch what happens over the next month, and write it down when it does.

Here's the question I'd leave you with. If the people you need most opened their own balance sheet with you today, what would they find in your column?