Emotional Intelligence for First Time Founders with Varun Puri
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My guest is Varun Puri, Co-founder and CEO of Yoodli, an experiential AI learning platform, helping enterprises turn AI investment into AI fluency. Before founding Yoodli, Varun worked at Google and met his co-founder Esha Joshi when they were both interns at Intuit. Yoodli's customers include Google Cloud, SAP, and some of the world's largest sales and enablement organizations. He's a TEDx speaker and a Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee.
Full disclosure: I played with Yoodli before this conversation, and my assignment was to sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves. I got her email address. I feel pretty good about that. It was actually fun and challenging to talk to an AI simulation and get feedback on my performance as a sales rep!
In this conversation, we get into the conversations founders actually struggle with, the practice of managing your own emotions in real time, how to fight well with a co-founder, and what a real apology sounds like. Varun also shares his theory of how people actually improve at communication — and it starts with cringe.
One of my favorite moments in this conversation was Varun’s estimate that 99% of a founder's conversations are the same. It's the pitch — to investors, to candidates, to customers. Most founders are good at it. That's part of why they got the job. And that he feels the high-stakes conversations, the angry investor, the make-or-break meeting aren’t really that hard since you can prepare for them.
The hard conversations are the small ones. The spur-of-the-moment feedback you give a team member when your emotions are heated. The first skip-level you've ever run. Those are the ones that build or erode a company culture, one conversation at a time.
Which raises the question Varun is actively working on: how do you prepare for the conversations you can't prepare for?
He gave me two frameworks he uses, and I love both of them.
The three-question filter. Before you jump in to say something: Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said by me right now? Varun's own scoring: usually yes, sometimes, and probably no, not by me.
The emotional scratchpad. In meetings, Varun keeps a notepad that doesn't have CONTENT notes on it. It has his EMOTIONS. "Oh my God, you're rambling, I'm losing it, this is going on forever." He writes his emotions down instead of letting them show on his face or come out of his mouth. And then he trashes the notes afterward. I've never heard anyone describe this before, and I think anyone could do it tomorrow. It’s a fascinating tool for emotional intelligence - recognizing, noticing and naming them, and then choosing to not express them in the moment. It’s the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence RULER model in a nutshell - a systematic approach to developing emotional intelligence through Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions.
There's an executive skill underneath these two habits: the ability to let a silence sit. The conversation research shows that generally, people treat a gap of a few milliseconds as an emergency that we personally have to solve. Varun's learning to let someone else fill it, to say only the things that only he can say, and say well.
The back half of this conversation is about his co-founder relationship with Esha, who he's known for ten years — they met as sophomores at an internship, became friends, and were part of the same group at the dinner where Yoodli got its name.
As many co-founders on this podcast have pointed out, the co-founder relationship can be a multiplier or a time bomb. Varun points out a key differentiator: Your ability to repair after a fight, which comes down to apologizing well.
He outlines a few key questions co-founders should answer together at the start, and the most essential is the trust test, the highest bar I've heard: would you start the company with all the equity in their name, and trust that the paperwork works itself out later? Check out the 9 questions Varun feels co-founders should answer early and often, as well as his scripts for repairing with your cofounder post-fight.
Key Moments
[00:28] "I say the same thing every day." Varun's running joke about founder life — nobody warns you how many times you'll repeat yourself over the next many years.
[01:51] Why he cares about this problem. It's unfair that smart people miss opportunities they deserve because they don't back themselves when speaking — the immigrant, the introvert, the non-native English speaker who gets talked over, the woman who misses the SVP promotion, the kid with the stutter. And most of us, the night before something that matters.
[03:34] 99% of my conversations are the same — and the 1% that aren't. The pitch is the easy part. The novel ones are the internal ones: the first skip-level, the system-level feedback he doesn't know how to deliver yet.
[06:17] The high-stakes conversations aren't the hard ones. A counterintuitive reversal — you've prepared for the angry investor. It's the small, heated, in-passing feedback that has cascading effects. "The big ones figure themselves out."
[07:30] Does it need to be said? By me? By me right now? The three-question filter Varun works on with his exec coach, and his honest scoring of each question.
[08:11] The emotional scratchpad. A notepad with no notes on it — just his emotions, written down so they don't show on his face. And then burned afterward.
[09:12] The silence gap. Why a pause of a few milliseconds can feel like an emergency, and the executive skill of letting someone else fill it.
[11:14] Cringe is the mechanism. The theory behind Yoodli: intentionality is the number one way to improve, and watching yourself back is how you get there, however much we all hate it.
[12:20] Yoodli as a smart mirror. The range of what people practice — a doctor delivering end-of-life news, a manager letting someone go, an employee asking for a promotion, a seller trying to land tomorrow's deal.
[14:37] Feedback on content, not just filler words. Mechanics are table stakes. What people actually want is feedback on structure and substance — measured against their own framework, which is why coaches white-label the product.
[17:19] "I don't know how solo founders do it." Y Combinator won't take solo applicants, most great companies come in pairs, and the solo founders who do make it are known for being a lot more intense.
[19:43] The trust test: Varun lays down the essential no-alternative quality you and your co-founder’s relationship must have - absolute trust. The test: “would you allow your co-founder to hold all the equity while the paperwork gets worked out?”
[23:41] Seven questions every co-founder pair should answer early. Values, unilateral vs. consensus decisions, gut vs. data, what happens when the team grows, public vs. private, and where the line is.
[26:06] Fighting well is really about repair. Varun admits that there is often no framework in the middle of a fight. What matters is how you show up the next day — and what a real apology actually sounds like.
Key Links
GROW Model: https://wp.nyu.edu/coaching/tools/grow-model/
the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence RULER model
Apologies and Repair in relationships: Oops, ouch, woah and the 4 steps to better apologies according to research
9 Questions Every Co-Founder Pair Should Answer Early and Often
Is this someone you truly trust? Would you start the company with all the equity in their name, and trust that the paperwork works itself out later?
Trust part two: Is this someone who can see the darkest, meanest parts of your personality and still want to work with you?
What are your values, and what are the company's values?
Do you share the same Why?
What happens when one of you has a strong gut feeling with no data to support it, and the other believes something else?
What decisions can one of you make unilaterally, and which ones need consensus?
What happens when it's not just the two of you anymore — when there's a leadership team of five, but you two have a very different dynamic?
How do you show up in public settings versus in private?
Where's the line? You know each other's weaknesses — what's below the belt and what's not okay?
On fighting well
I asked Varun for his framework for fighting well, and he refused to give me one. "All bets are off. you lose it, someone else loses it."
What matters isn't the fight. It's the repair. It's showing up the next day and saying "I'm sorry, I screwed up" — and meaning it. Not "I'm sorry you felt that way." Not a conditional apology with an escape hatch.
Varun's version is: "I botched it. End of conversation. Let's hug it out."
If you have real trust that this person will be there tomorrow and truly has your back, the fights figure themselves out.
Practicing your apologies is not a bad idea, by the way. Yoodli has a module for it and you can also check out the Greater Good In Action project at Berkeley’s research-backed four-part apology approach.
Some repair scripts from our conversation to try out:
“I'm sorry, I screwed up.”
Or:
“I'm sorry, I was a jerk yesterday”
Or:
"I'm sorry, I was a jerk yesterday and I screwed up majorly. I botched it. End of conversation. Let's hug it out."
Other times you need to lean into addressing the other person’s behavior while putting the relationship first:
"We both said terrible things. But we're still working together no matter what."
“Hey, not cool what you did yesterday — I think that came from a different place. It’s all water under the bridge.”
More about Varun
Varun Puri is the Co-founder and CEO of Yoodli, an AI experiential learning platform helping enterprises turn AI investment into AI fluency. Before founding Yoodli, Varun worked at Google and met his co-founder Esha Joshi as interns at Intuit. Yoodli's customers include Google Cloud, SAP, and some of the world's largest sales and enablement organizations. A TEDx Speaker and Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee, Varun is focused on helping organizations build confident, prepared teams through realistic AI-powered practice.
Transcript
Daniel Stillman (00:00)
Welcome aboard.
I'm really grateful for you fitting this in.
I feel like starting a company…we say when you write a book, you shouldn't write a book unless you wanna talk about it a lot forever. I don't know when you start a company, if you really think about the fact I don't know if anybody explains that to you.” By the way, building the brand, having conversations with the world, about who you are and what you do is part of… is part of the the deal”
Varun Puri (00:28)
Thank you, it is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. It's so funny you say that. My running joke is that I say the same thing every day. It's just maybe in a different setting. It's to candidates, here's why you should join Yoodli To customers or prospects, here's why you should work with us. To investors, it's here's why you should give us money. Nobody told me when I was starting the company how many times I would be saying the same thing over and over and over again for the next many years to follow.
Daniel Stillman (00:57)
Well, you know, it's funny. I always say that like our lives are built one built one conversation at a time. Conversation is the atomic unit of change. And you make a really good point, Varun the job of the CEO is a lot of conversations and it's conversations with the public, it's conversations with potential employees and actual employees. And you know, I think conversations with ourselves. And in a way I feel like your your software platform is a way of somebody to
develop that conversation with themselves to sort of practice and get some feedback and reflect on how they're approaching in their conversations. But before we get to that, I'm really curious, like, I don't wanna you know, there's that whole your founder origin story, but I I you had there's a TED talk. People should go listen to it. It's a great it's a great TED talk. But like why did you come to care about this problem? Like why is it important to you?
Varun Puri (01:51)
Yeah. The crux of it is, I just think it's unfair that so many smart people in the world miss out on opportunities that they deserve because they don't back themselves once speaking.
The kid in India who deserves to be on this podcast more than me. The immigrant, the introvert, the non-native English speaker who gets talked over. The woman in corporate America who maybe misses out on that SVP promotion. And the kid with the stutter. And to be honest, most of us, the night before a speech, an interview, a salary negotiation, any conversation of substance, as we are pacing back and forth, memorizing our talk track, looking at our slides, talking to
a mirror, a camera, a stopwatch. I grew up in India. We didn't learn public speaking and communication
Daniel Stillman (02:41)
Mm.
Varun Puri (02:42)
part of the game. So much of it was focused on math and science. And when I started working in the US, I realized, my God, yes, the math and science bit is helpful, but the number one determinant of success is how you show up.
And I want to build technology to help versions of me show up better and get these opportunities we talked about.
Daniel Stillman (03:07)
Yeah, so I'm I'm curious, like of the conversations that you're having, the copious numbers of them, which which feel the most challenging for you? Which are the ones that you feel like you need to to practice and reflect on and plan for the most?
Varun Puri (03:26)
It's interesting you ask 99 % of my conversations are the same. It's selling Yoodli and myself in some shape or form to investors,
Daniel Stillman (03:34)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (03:34)
to candidates, to prospects. The ones that are totally novel for me, and especially as a first time founder, a first time manager, are the tough internal ones with my team. we've convinced them to join Yoodli. They are here now. They've heard my pitch 200 million times and now we're
Daniel Stillman (03:52)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (03:53)
through the day to day and all of a sudden I have a skip level.
and I've never had a skip level conversation before and I'm frustrated and I say something
Daniel Stillman (03:59)
Mm.
Varun Puri (04:01)
or I don't know how best to give the system level feedback on the little demo flaw that I'm seeing across the organization. How do I do that?
I think it's because those are the collaborative day-to-day conversations that are beyond the sales pitch. So much of being a founder is the sales pitch. And I think
Daniel Stillman (04:23)
Mm-hmm.
Varun Puri (04:24)
most of us are good at that. It's why we get into the founder job. actually
Daniel Stillman (04:27)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (04:28)
building the company on the day-to-day is not as easy.
Daniel Stillman (04:31)
Yeah. It's really interesting 'cause like I I used the the product a little bit. I thought it was really I don't know who came up with this, but selling a a ketchup popsicle to a a woman wearing white gloves was a hilarious hilarious experience. I think I did pretty well. I got her to give me her email address. So I feel pretty proud of myself. I got decent feedback from from the system. I think there's one aspect of like
speaking in these situations, which is like clearly like some kind of like agility or nimbleness you've practiced enough and you have some of your, phrases or your positioning But there's this other part that you speak to, which is like managing yourself. Like we experience frustration. There's a moment in a conversation where we get lost in our own our own thoughts. And I I feel like
One reality that I've learned in my studies of conversations is that our internal speech is really fast. Like if you can clock it, and scientists have tried, it's like 4,000 words per minute. We can talk at like 100, 150. And so, like while you're talking to someone else, I think there's this whole other conversation that I don't know if you can necessarily model in this program, but we are coaching ourselves and thinking to ourselves, like, I didn't like that, or I didn't want to say that, or what if I say this?
I shouldn't say that. And so it sounds like the the conversations that are hardest for you are the ones where there's a lot at stake and you are in fact experiencing some like emotion that you have to work through, like and metabolize instantaneously in the moment while you're in the conversation.
Varun Puri (06:09)
Yeah, had you think that
Yes to "there's a part of it where there's an emotion" that I have to navigate, no, to "it has a lot at stake". The lot
Daniel Stillman (06:17)
Hm.
Varun Puri (06:17)
at stake ones, you know, are high stakes. You've gone in, you're prepared. Maybe it's an investor who's angry with you. You've thought about
Daniel Stillman (06:24)
Hm.
Varun Puri (06:25)
it a million times. You've role-played it a gazillion times. You know what the end outcome is.
Daniel Stillman (06:29)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (06:29)
Ones I find much harder are
day-to-day ones where in passing you're giving someone feedback in the spur of the moment when emotions are heightened and heated. Nobody means harm but that can have cascading effects. It's
Daniel Stillman (06:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Varun Puri (06:46)
the little one through the course of building the company. The big ones figure themselves out. They have to, otherwise you're dead.
Daniel Stillman (06:52)
It's so it's just
so interesting because Yoodli can help you plan and as you clearly do for yourself, rehearse, sketch, think about some of these high-stakes conversations. But the company's also built on these day-to-day conversations where it is actually hard to plan for all of those. So I'm I'm curious, how do you think about preparing yourself for the conversations that you can't prepare for that
I think as you're saying, your culture's kind of built on them.
Varun Puri (07:22)
It's a good question and it's something I'm learning as a first time founder. I'll give you examples of the kinds of things I work through with my exec coach and frameworks I have in place. Anytime
I'm jumping in to say something, my framework is does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said by me right now?
Does it need to be said in most cases? Yes. Does it need to be said by me in most cases? Maybe if he has the other person on the call, does it need to be said by me right now? 99 % of the time, no, it doesn't. Using that helps. Another framework I use is.
When I'm in meetings and I see emotions come up, I literally write them. This is my scratch pad, it doesn't have notes. It has my emotions so that it doesn't show on my face. I'm talking to someone, I'm like, oh my God, you're rambling, I'm losing it, this is going on forever, I'm really frustrated.
Daniel Stillman (08:10)
Uh-huh.
Varun Puri (08:11)
But instead, I'll just keep taking notes and then I'll burn my notes after the fact. And that way, I say show up present as opposed to say something silly in the moment.
Daniel Stillman (08:23)
That is amazing. I actually don't think I've ever heard this before. So you've got a scratch pad where you're just kind of tracking your emotions and you'll just write down frustrated, annoyed, impatient, what the hell are they talking about? When is this gonna be over?
Varun Puri (08:38)
It's
the worst idea I've ever heard. Varun, don't react. Let them finish their train of thought. Someone else will react. Literally, it's how I'm learning to have conversations because so much of the founder role is being in conversations where two minutes in, you're like, crap, I didn't need to be here. Or shoot, I already know the outcome
Daniel Stillman (08:56)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (08:56)
of this interview. What do we do for the next 28 minutes? We've got to be polite at least.
Daniel Stillman (09:00)
Yeah. You know, that is it that's an amazing tool. And I feel like that like anybody could literally just do that. It seems like the important step is burning it afterwards. That's super important.
Varun Puri (09:09)
Yeah, God forbid someone sees these.
Daniel Stillman (09:12)
There's another piece there, about the the mechanics of conversations in reality that I think is so interesting, which is we generally feel like when there's a gap, when someone finishes what they're saying, there's this universal expectation that we need to fill the silence. That gap
If it's longer than like two or three or four milliseconds, it feels like an uncomfortable silence and we feel like we have to fill it. And it sounds like you're learning the executive skill of letting there be a little bit more space, letting someone else fill that space and only saying the things that only you can say and really deciding whether or not that is true or not in every moment.
Varun Puri (09:53)
I think that's a very good summary of the dream state I aspire to get to and the theory behind it. Am I doing it? Absolutely not. I'm impatient. I have 20 meetings in the day. I want to get the decision done. I want to stop verbal brainstorming. I will
Daniel Stillman (10:06)
Mm-hmm.
Varun Puri (10:07)
be the person to jump in and be like, okay, cool. You said a bunch of things. What do you need from me? An intro,
Daniel Stillman (10:12)
Mm-hmm.
Varun Puri (10:12)
a follow up, a LinkedIn post. Okay, done. Let's move on. That's not how I want to show up.
Daniel Stillman (10:18)
Yeah, yeah. So I I feel like it's worth talking about why practice versus confidence is the important skill. Like I I agree one hundred percent that it's a way of in a way regulating ourselves, knowing what kind of emotions we might face in the moment, and because we've been through it before, we can lower our heart rate and our breathing rate and know where we're going instead of just like
Reacting in the moment. So I I feel like I would be remiss in inviting you on a podcast and not giving you any opportunity whatsoever to say like why it's important for someone to use a tool like this to practice for those high stake conversations that they have the opportunity to plan for and to get feedback on before the stakes are high.
Varun Puri (11:14)
Maybe
I'll talk a little bit about our theory on how people improve and then I can get into mini non-yoodli pitch. But at the core, the number one way to improve your communication skills is to be intentional. It's just if we can be deliberate about what we are saying and how we are saying, I think a lot of the world's problems would go away. Divorces and angry leaders and heads of state saying angry things to each other.
A way of being intentional is to record yourself and watch yourself and cringe. We all hate that process. I have a pimple, I sound like this, my god, my hair and whatever.
But when you watch yourself back, you realize, wow, I could have said this better, or here are three areas of improvement, or now I'll be really careful the next time I talk about that. And I was saying thank you, but my face was actually really, really intense. So that's the theory behind Yoodli. In practice, we started Yoodli as Grammarly for speech, Duolingo for speech, Strava, Peloton, Apple Health for speech, which is you have any conversation of substance.
Think of Yoodli as a smart mirror. Come to Yoodli role play that conversation, practice that speech, whatever it might be. And we have millions and millions of folks using us for, I'm a doctor, I need to give a patient difficult end of life news. That's literally life or death conversation. I'm an exec coach, I've got to practice with my client. I'm a manager, I need to let someone go, and I'm an employee. I want a promotion all the way to our biggest application. I'm a seller, I'm trying to land tomorrow's deal.
practice, get feedback in a private, judgment-free, real-time space and then improve. And that's how we started but what's been interesting is people just started talking to this coach to learn things, to ask them questions like, know, Yoodli might give you feedback like use the G.R.O.W. method or make sure you ask open-ended questions. You can now go to your Yoodli coach and the Yoodli coach might say here's what open-ended questions actually look like.
Let me give you more of the concept behind it. So now Yoodli is not just a practice and reinforcement tool, but also a learning tool to go and learn new skills and concepts.
Daniel Stillman (13:28)
Yeah, I think doing it in a really safe space. Look, I think even the best performers rarely have an opportunity to create space and time for practice in a safe space. It is really I think it's challenging to do. It's challenging to carve out that time. I think I agree one hundred percent. The ability to do it in your own time is transformative. And I love this phrasing of it is a smart mirror, I would make the argument to anybody, record yourself.
giving whatever speech you need to give, listen to the audio without the video, right? Just like purely listen to the audio. And then just watch the video without the audio. Just like get those two narratives about what's going on. Experiencing the cringe and developing your own point of view, I think is really important. But clearly having something else say, by the way, you have like 20% filler words
is information that you can maybe vibe out but I think it's it's feels like very helpful for people to get that kind of clear feedback 'cause a lot of people don't know what they don't know about public speaking or pitching or selling.
Varun Puri (14:37)
100%. Look,
you can us feedback on the mechanics of your speech.
Fill over spacing, all those basics for sure. And that's helpful. But the piece that folks find most interesting is feedback on your content. Did this really resonate?
Daniel Stillman (14:50)
Hm.
Varun Puri (14:50)
Here's where I was confused. Feedback on your structure. Varun, make sure to have your intro be clearer. And most, most, importantly, when you're working inside of an organization or with an executive coach, everyone has their own framework. Everyone has their own definition of what good looks like. Feedback relative to that person's IP and methodology, which is why.
many coaches take Yoodli, white label it, make it their own and then offer it as Cornferry AI, LHH AI, Right Management AI etc.
Daniel Stillman (15:19)
Mm hmm.
Yeah, 'cause you can go in there and also like design a difficult person for someone to talk to, which seems really, really fun and really useful.
Varun Puri (15:29)
Yep.
And you can on the enterprise version, completely customize it, upload your books, your methodology, what good looks
Daniel Stillman (15:35)
Mm-hmm.
Varun Puri (15:36)
like. And then the idea is as a human coach, you know, I do the, I do the initial training and then Yoodli's where they go and practice or Yoodli's how I stay on retainer. You'd leave is what they do between sessions or you'd leave what they do for that assessment before the fact with me. So I think the AI takes you from a zero to an eight and then the human in the loop takes me from an eight to a 10.
Daniel Stillman (15:58)
Well, speaking of the human in the loop, I feel like with the little bit of time we have left, it would I would be remiss if I didn't dig into my one of my favorite topics, which is the question of the co founder relationship. And I was really super pleased when I saw your response to my little form about what topics you want to talk about, where you were like, you know, the one person billion dollar company is sending founders the wrong message. I personally believe that.
Having a co-founder can be a multiplier if you build the foundation. You can obviously have AI as your co-founder, but I feel like you can close the laptop and walk away from AI anytime. I feel like having a person who owns a chunk of the company who disagrees with you and who literally won't let you off the hook until you are aligned is maybe the only real advantage.
In the world is someone who cares as much about this thing as you do and sees it slightly differently than you do. So I'm just so curious, like how you and your co-founder built your relationship, how you tend to it, how you are intentional about the conversations that you have together as you started and maintain your collaboration to do this thing that you're doing.
Varun Puri (17:19)
Yeah, first off, be clear, I don't know how solo founders do it. Starting a company is lonely,
Daniel Stillman (17:24)
Right.
Varun Puri (17:24)
it's dark, it's empty, you get ghosted, it's fulfilling, but a lot of it is lot of face punches. I think Y Combinator, for instance, doesn't even allow you to apply as a solo founder. It's when we think of most great founders, know, there's Gates and Wozniak, there's Sergey and Larry,
Most companies have pairs and I see why, otherwise you just lose it. keep yawing your own head and that's the only thing that feeds you. And it's also why when we think of a lot of successful solo founders, their personalities are known to be a lot more intense, a lot more erratic. won't name names,
Daniel Stillman (17:59)
Mm.
Varun Puri (18:00)
but think about folks you know.
Daniel Stillman (18:02)
Sure.
Varun Puri (18:03)
My relationship with Esha,
we were going to go back to college and party no matter what to college and party no matter what known Esha for 10 years now. We met at a college internship at Intuit and you know we were both sophomores at the time. Everyone else was a junior trying to land their full-time job. For us the internship was very low stakes because a full-time offer didn't matter.
We became friends there. We've been in the same friend group forever. At this point we've known each other for so long. We're like family. Our friends...
are literally the same. we have all the same inside jokes. There are stories about how we came up with the name Yoodli During COVID, Esha and I were traveling with a group of our friends. Over dinner, we all came up with the idea of Yoodli trying to convince all of them to join as well. They didn't. It was just Esha and me. We came to Seattle because one of the friends at that dinner is based out of Seattle, and that's what started Yoodli But a lot of our relationship is just based on trust.
and have known each other for so long. Esha is technical, she's an engineer. Her why behind Yoodli is help women speak with confidence. My why is help kids in India speak with confidence. So there's a lot of mission alignment as well.
Daniel Stillman (19:13)
Mm. Mm. So you think about the conversations that you need to be most intentional about together. with any kind of excellence. There's intentional excellence and then there's unintentional excellence. So it's it's hard to be clear about what you know and and why you know it. But I I'm wondering if you were coaching another set of co founders who were getting started, what do you feel like are some of the conversations that they
should be having that you guys had that you feel like got you off on the right foot.
Varun Puri (19:43)
Is this someone you trust? And when I say trust, it's would you start the company and have all the equity in their name as an example? And then whenever the paperwork, et cetera, figures it out, it'll come to you. Is this someone when your entire team quits and your investors goes to you or?
you know, a fundraise is about to come through and it all falls through. This is the person you want to go to and fight with and curse at and vent to and have them see the darkest, meanest parts of your personality and still want to work with you. I mean, someone once told me it is harder to separate with a co-founder than it is to have a divorce. with a company there is
so much intertwined Your board, your employees, your team, your product, the product is literally a manifestation, at least in the early days, of who you all are as people. And it's really, really important that you all share the same why.
Daniel Stillman (20:41)
Yeah. Yeah, how did you how do you feel like you got intentional about aligning on the why and the vision of where you wanted to take this company together?
Varun Puri (20:54)
It's interesting, we never had to align on the why. That was very clear, like all this while, this is something Esha's incredibly passionate about, this is something I'm really passionate about.
Daniel Stillman (21:01)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (21:02)
Let's go build something to solve that together. The stuff we've had to align on is what feature do we build, who do we hire, who do we take money from? But the why and the vision, I would hope this is case with most people. You don't need to have a sit down and say, are we aligned? If you even need to have that, my guess is...
You know, there are pieces to figure out. And now what do I know? I'm sure there are founders who don't know each other and meet up and then start a company. And it's a very different equation. In our case, a lot of that was absolute table stakes.
Daniel Stillman (21:33)
Mm. Yeah, I mean I I definitely agree with you. I I've it's it is surprising how many co founders wind up kind of getting thrown together and maybe they don't know everything about each other. It's a hundred percent best practice to know your co founder for ten years and to trust them completely. I gotta say, my my heart kind of leapt in my throat put all the equity in their name while you let all the paperwork work itself out. I know a hundred percent that they will do the the right thing and
do right by me is like that's a very high level of trust.
Varun Puri (22:04)
Yeah, I've got to be like that. Esha's engagement, my friends and I were hiding behind the bush when her fiance was proposing. We were
Daniel Stillman (22:13)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (22:13)
mates before this. Families know each other. When I go to India, my mom will obviously send gifts for Esha. We are in this thing together.
Daniel Stillman (22:23)
Yeah, yeah. There's a there's a there's another piece to that that's kind of like underneath the surface, which is the the idea that you two are both very open with each other. Right? That like because you are both open about your passion and you feel that they are both that your counterpart is being open, a trust that's built over time, you both have shared abundantly in your passions and know clearly why the other person
already has that shared passion. So you don't have to have that quote unquote official conversation because you've had it in lots of microscopic ways over time by being by being real with each other, which is extraordinary.
Varun Puri (23:04)
Yeah, 100%. I don't know how non-friends or non-siblings do it. You need to have that shared trust and you
Daniel Stillman (23:10)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (23:10)
should see people at their best and their worst before you start
Daniel Stillman (23:13)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (23:13)
working together.
Daniel Stillman (23:14)
Now that said, you still have hard conversations. And so I'm curious how you think about either preparing for or managing some of those conversations. And I'm wondering if you can just earmark for us potentially what you feel like co founders starting out might want to be thinking about in terms of these are some big conversations that we want to have sooner rather than later.
Varun Puri (23:41)
I mean, I'll give you 10, 15, just rapid fire examples. What are your values? The company's values. What happens if one of y'all has a very strong gut feeling but doesn't have data to support it and the other believes something else? What are decisions one of y'all can take unilaterally versus what are decisions you need to get the consensus on?
What happens when you get a broader leadership team and now it's not just the two of you, it's five of you, but the two of you have a very different dynamic. What are roles on how you'll engage in a public setting versus when you go for a walk and, you know, rip each other's hair out. You know each other's weaknesses, where do you get really personal and what's below the belt and what's not okay.
Daniel Stillman (24:19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Varun Puri (24:21)
I think that's with any...
strong relationship you have. In this case, it's with my co-founder, but with my girlfriend, we have similar rules as well on how we
Daniel Stillman (24:31)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (24:32)
show up for each other.
Daniel Stillman (24:33)
Yeah. so that's a great list. I love it. Thank you for that. Which one would you pick as one where you feel like you've got the best map for it, but it's still hard for you?
Varun Puri (24:47)
we show up in public settings? And when I say public, mean it's rooms that are not just the two of us. A
Daniel Stillman (24:52)
Mm.
Varun Puri (24:53)
boardroom, company-wide all hands where everyone's looking at us and we might have just had a massive fight. A leadership team meeting where we may disagree very deeply and we've had a separate conversation, but how do we
Daniel Stillman (25:05)
Hmm.
Varun Puri (25:06)
show up there?
Daniel Stillman (25:07)
Yeah. How did you come to an agreement about what those parameters look like?
Varun Puri (25:13)
I don't
think there's a hard and fast rule. There are a billion situations you can't have rules and human emotions are too heightened. It's more, is it trust? Right to
Daniel Stillman (25:24)
Mm.
Varun Puri (25:24)
me it's basics. No matter what we say in a one-on-one setting, in a team setting, you have each other's back. Simple. No question.
Daniel Stillman (25:28)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like the
the big rule is like when it's the two of us, we can be a hundred percent real. All bets are off.
Varun Puri (25:38)
Yeah, all bets are off.
One of our conversations goes out to the world where we've a fight.
Daniel Stillman (25:45)
Right,
right. But but when there's other people we say, okay, we leave that outside and we put the company first and, you know, courtesy first, which seems like a really good rule, but
Varun Puri (25:55)
No, just, I mean, we always
put the company first, there's no question, but when other people are around, the level of intensity, maybe, and the kinds of conversations you have change.
Daniel Stillman (26:06)
Yeah.
So Varun how do you guys fight well? Because I think fighting well is super important when you really disagree and you both believe in what you're doing and emotions may be high. How do you lead into that? What is your if you're you're the Yoodli for you, like what is your coaching to you about like remember this framework or make sure you're following
Couple of these steps.
Varun Puri (26:37)
I would like to say that our frameworks people apply in the middle of fights. All bets are off. Like you lose it, someone else loses it. There's all this cool stuff you can do. What's more important again is trust and how you show up after. I'm
Daniel Stillman (26:49)
Yeah. Yeah.
Varun Puri (26:51)
sorry, I screwed up. We both said terrible things. know, next day we're still working together no matter what.
Daniel Stillman (26:57)
Yeah.
Varun Puri (26:57)
Hey, not cool what you did yesterday. I think that came from a different place. You were frustrated about something happening in your personal life.
whatever it's water under the bridge.
Daniel Stillman (27:08)
Mm.
Varun Puri (27:08)
If you have trust that you are gonna work with this person tomorrow and they truly have your back, the fights figure themselves out.
Daniel Stillman (27:16)
Yeah. I think what you're pointing to is the ability to separate the person from the behavior and the also the ability to apologize well, which by the way is not uniformly
Varun Puri (27:27)
you
Daniel Stillman (27:28)
well known to say like it's not I'm sorry that you were upset or I'm sorry you feel that way. It's actually saying like, Hey, listen, this happened. I meant this. You heard that. I did not mean this.
It's it's really pulling the threads apart and being clear.
Varun Puri (27:48)
Or just, I mean,
take it on the chin a few times. I'm sorry, I was a jerk yesterday and I screwed up majorly. That's a best quality. Not just solve some hundred percent of
Daniel Stillman (27:55)
Yeah. That's a real apology, by the way, right? I'm sorry you Yeah.
Varun Puri (27:59)
problems. Not, you felt this way and these, I botched it. Lots were said, yeah, you said some, whatever, but I botched it. End of conversation. Like, let's hug it out.
Daniel Stillman (28:06)
Yeah. Well so but this is
important because there there will be moments where you need to repair. and I don't know if Yoodli has an apology module, but I think I think that might be a really useful one to have Yoodli. Yeah.
Varun Puri (28:20)
No, no, it absolutely does. You can go test it out. And by the way, you can create yourself
as well.
Daniel Stillman (28:25)
Because honestly, people should practice their apologies to make sure that it's really an apology. I've screwed that up in the past. I feel like there's one other thread I want to pull on, which is when you're having a conversation with your co-founder where you feel something in your gut, but you don't have the data for it. Now, in the past, I've coached people that I think what you feel in your gut is a type of data, but it's not the same thing as.
signal or or evidence. And so I'm curious how you to navigate that conversation because I think this is really real. We have to make a lot of decisions as founders in a situation where we can't have as much data as we'd like to. So I'm I'm curious how you think about leaning into those conversations.
Varun Puri (29:12)
Just be 100 % transparent. Here's what my gut says, I could be totally wrong, I don't know why. What do you think? I think after we've worked together for this long, our gut is the same most times.
Daniel Stillman (29:22)
Hmm.
Varun Puri (29:25)
But yeah, just be 1000%. I do this by the way in candidate debriefs as well. like, I know we have a rubric and I know we've got to follow it. My gut just says no. Maybe it's bias, maybe it's some trauma from the past that's haunting me. I want everyone
Daniel Stillman (29:38)
Mm.
Varun Puri (29:38)
to know that.
Daniel Stillman (29:39)
Yeah. I mean, Varun I gotta say, it's a high bar. I think being who you are all the time is a really great practice. What do you feel like you have been able to do for yourself to let you lean into that level of authenticity and openness and vulnerability?
Varun Puri (29:56)
I don't know if I've done anything special. My approach to friendships, relationships, work stuff is apologize, be honest, be authentic. Yeah, I think one of the things I take a lot of pride in is like, there's no games. It's, here's what's on my mind and I said it. It could be the stupidest idea. It could be the most impulsive argument, but at least people know that this is 100 % you.
And then therefore when you go and say sorry, they also like, yep, I get where you're coming from or a lot of people might be like, you know, they are one of the biggest jerks and we don't want to work with you. That happens as well.
Daniel Stillman (30:31)
Now now
I'm hearing like a little tension because I love your writing down the emotions and the pause and choosing not to say something. And on the flip side, it sounds like there are moments where you feel like you tap into something and you are a hundred percent clear that you need to say something. And I feel like that's a very important line to walk as as a leader of a rapidly growing company.
Varun Puri (30:56)
I think authenticity means don't lie and be true to other people. Writing down my emotions means don't say something stupid that I know I will regret. What I'm writing down is god damn it what are doing here that's the dumbest thing. Being authentic is listen man that call didn't go well.
Daniel Stillman (31:17)
Yeah, yeah. Yes. Being real with the people that matters is so important.
Varun Puri (31:23)
And people who don't, like one of the things I do at the end of candidate interviews is I'm just like, hey, here are my notes. Can I read them out to you? That way you can see exactly what I'm going to tell other people on the team. Here's
Daniel Stillman (31:35)
Mm-hmm.
Varun Puri (31:36)
what I thought went well. Here's what I have questions and nine times out of 10, they're like, wow.
I rarely ever leave the conversation knowing exactly how the other person is feeling. In some cases they say, wow, that's extremely unnerving or hey, this one thing you've identified as a yellow flag. Let me tell you why it's not. OK, great.
Daniel Stillman (31:55)
Honestly, that's an incredibly generous and cool move. I don't think many people do that. I think most people would prefer to kind of not have that hard conversation, which I really admire. I think a lot of people leave interviews and really just don't know exactly what happened. Yeah. Yeah.
Varun Puri (32:10)
I mean it's not even hard, it's literally facts. Here are my notes, here's what I liked,
here's what I didn't, here's where I'm leaning. It's not personal.
Daniel Stillman (32:18)
Yeah. That's super cool. So listen, we only got a couple minutes left. I you got a you've got a call coming up. So I wanna just take a deep breath and reflect and ask you if there's anything that we haven't talked about that you think is important for us to talk about, or if there's something that we've hit on that you feel like we could peel the onion on just a little bit more.
Varun Puri (32:41)
I mean, this is great. It's awesome being here. The crux of it is Yoodli was built as a coach for all of these conversations. Try it out. See what you think. Give me feedback. That's my one ask.
Daniel Stillman (32:57)
That's a good ask. That's very, very easy to do. Well, I think we can call scene, thank you very, much for your time and your generosity in sharing your spirit, your perspective, your way of thinking and being in some of these most difficult conversations,
Varun Puri (33:14)
Thank you so much, so nice to be here.
Daniel Stillman (33:17)
Yeah, okay, beautiful. Thank you so much.