Cem Garih

How to go from 0 to $1B in Sales w/out Sleaze When you think of sales, you picture The Wolf of Wall Street—slicked-back hair, cocaine confidence, ripping people off. This. Doesn't. Work. Sales = Problem Solving x Shamelessness x Clarity New model: 'Sales Engineer' The Sales Engineer doesn't rely on charm or manipulation. She doesn't memorize closing techniques. Instead, she obsesses over one thing: solving a painful problem so comprehensively that the product sells itself. The Wolf of Wall Street sells you something you don't need. The Sales Engineer builds something you can't live without. The first fundamental law of sales I used to sell scooters and ATVs at a flea market in Baltimore. I had just moved to America, was 16, and barely spoke English. I wasn't smooth enough to trick anyone. You might think selling motor vehicles with broken English at a flea market would be the hardest sale in the world. But it was actually simple. While everyone else was selling fruits and vegetables, we were the only ones selling motorcycles and ATVs. It was easy to start a conversation. We were selling a good product at a steep discount because we imported them from China. I didn't need smooth talk. I just needed to show them the product and the price. That experience taught me my first fundamental law of sales: If you have to use aggressive persuasion tactics, it means you are slinging a product that people don't want. I sold scooters and I didn't even know English! The product and the price did all the talking. This realization turned me from a reluctant seller into a Sales Engineer. I stopped viewing sales as an Art of Manipulation and started treating it as a Science of Alignment. When you think of sales from a product-first standpoint, the mystery disappears. It transforms into an engineering problem. Sales = Problem Solving × Shamelessness × Clarity Problem solving When the product is bad, the sales process becomes a game of manipulation. You have to trick people. You have to use psychological leverage to force a "yes." I’ll be honest—I am terrible at this. I don't know how to convince someone to buy something they don't want, and I never want to learn. As Alex and I built Deel, I learned that sales in the hyper-growth world of technology is completely different. Great sales begins with problem solving. When you have a great product, you don't have to trick anyone. You just have to shine a light on a Big Ugly Problem they are already facing and say, "I fixed this for you." Steve Jobs didn't have to trick anyone into buying an iPhone; he just showed us that mobile computing didn't have to be clunky. Instead of learning "persuasion" or "closing techniques," Jobs obsessed over identifying a painful friction and removing it. Getting rejected by the market just means you haven't solved a big enough problem. And the path to cracking that big problem is not linear. Toward the end of our time at Y-Combinator, I sent 100 cold emails every day. Only 2% of them responded. The problem was not my opener or the time that I sent the email. We just hadn't built the product people actually wanted. We hadn't solved the big problem yet. It took us lots of rejection, failure, and luck to finally stumble upon the big idea. One client came to us: "My Head of Engineering wants to move back to Croatia to be with his family, so can you help us?" This was when we realized that hiring international talent was a payroll, tax, and compliance nightmare. So we grinded away at building a slick solution and presented it. The "sale" happened automatically because the pain was real, and the medicine worked. We didn't build something and try to get people to buy it; we built the thing the customer asked for. We also use our own products at Deel; we eat our own cooking. This is the essence of sales: It is not about persuasion. It is about debugging a process for your customer. A sleazy salesman cannot do this. Only a Sales Engineer can. Shamelessness If problem-solving is the engine of the sales system, shamelessness is the turbocharger. It accelerated our growth during the early product iteration and selling phases. For most people, this is the hardest variable to solve for because of the fear of rejection. But to build product development and sales velocity, you have to decouple your ego from the outcome. I became numb to rejection at an early age. What's the absolute worst that could happen? They say no. So what? You're exactly where you were five seconds ago. But if they say "yes," great! Here's how shameless I am. At a conference, I spotted Ryan McInerney, the CEO of Visa. I didn't wait for a warm intro. I skipped the corporate courtship dance. I just walked up to him and said, "Hey Ryan, can I have your number?" He looked at me and said, "Sure." That interaction cut through months of red tape. That is the ROI of shamelessness. Clarity The last part that trips people up is communicating with clarity that you've solved this problem. This is especially hard for people with technical backgrounds. We fall into a trap of the "Engineer’s Curse." We are so proud of the difficult engineering or the intricate code we built, that we want to tell the customer all about it. We start explaining how it works. But the customer only cares that it works, not the process we took to built it. If you have a headache, you don’t want to hear about the chemical composition of aspirin or the manufacturing process of the pill. You just want to know: "Will this make the pain stop in 5 minutes?" Communicating your solution isn't about getting credit for working hard. It’s about clarity for the customer. You have to translate your complex solution into their simple reality. Bad Communication: "Our platform utilizes a multi-layered compliance engine to automate local tax withholdings across 150 jurisdictions." (Focuses on the how). Good Communication: "You can hire anyone, anywhere in the world, without worrying about getting fined." (Focuses on the solved problem). If you’ve truly solved the problem, you should be able to explain it simply. If you have to use jargon to explain why your solution matters, you haven't finished solving the problem yet. Sales is life Even if you've never had "Sales" in your job title, you are in the business of selling. A professor applying for grants is selling. An employee interviewing for a job is selling. A Hinge dating profile is selling. You must recognize the game and understand how to play it. If you view sales as manipulation, you will always be afraid of it. It will remain an ugly word and hold you back. You will hesitate to send that email or make that ask. But if you think of sales as Problem Solving × Shamelessness × Clarity, it will unlock doors you didn't know existed. If your product solves a problem, the sale is doing a favor to the customer. Don't be a slick salesman like the Wolf of Wall Street. Build a slick product like Steve Jobs instead.

Kalshi raised $1B at an $11B valuation. A decade ago, only a few thousand people knew what a prediction market was. Eighteen months ago, most prediction markets were banned - until we overcame the government to set them free. Over the past seven years, our community has opened up an entirely new category. Today, Kalshi is trusted, used, and loved by millions of people. It’s a part of everyday culture, and it’s driving one of the most important shifts in consumer behavior in recent history. The time has finally come for prediction markets to achieve their full potential and we are intent on making that happen. To all the believers and the early adopters: thank you.

Deel has raised $300M at a $17.3B valuation We started about 6 years ago, struggling to even make $10K. I've never shared this before because of how embarrassing our start was. The story of how we went from $1K to $1B and the advice I'd give to my younger self: