Your Product Won't Speak for Itself — Why Technical Founders Get Overlooked | Shayna Davis

About this episode

Shayna Rattler-Davis discusses the importance of leadership and credibility for technical founders in representing their companies effectively.

Most technical founders think their product will do the talking. It won't. Shayna Rattler-Davis has spent 15+ years helping leaders at companies like IBM, L'Oréal, and dozens of STEM startups learn how to show up with credibility in high-stakes environments. She hosts The Influence Economy Podcast (top 3% globally) and works with technical founders who are brilliant at building but struggle the moment they have to represent their company externally. In this conversation, we dig into: The competency gap most technical founders don't realize they have Why investors bet on leaders, not products — and what they're actually looking for How to develop your leadership identity before you start raising The difference between thought leadership and just reciting your feature list Where to start if you have zero public presence and a fundraise on the horizon The mistakes founders make when trying to project credibility they haven't built yet A dead simple weekly exercise your whole founding team can start today Shayna drops a story about watching 24 people on tech panels in a single day and only ONE who didn't need help. If that doesn't make you question how you're showing up externally…

People in this episode

Guest: Shayna Rattler-Davis

Topics covered

• technical founders
• leadership
• investor relations
• credibility
• public presence

Keywords

• competency gap
• thought leadership
• fundraising
• public presence
• credibility mistakes

Mentioned in this episode

Products: IBM, L'Oréal

Books & works: The Influence Economy Podcast

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