The Influence Economy Podcast with Shayna Davis

Shayna Rattler Davis
  • 5.0 (44)
  • Technology
  • Updated Weekly

Where technical leaders master the external signals that build trust, win markets, and make their credibility impossible to ignore.

  1. Aug 17

    Borrow A Region's Playbook To Build Your Own Credibility w/ Eric Moore of BioNTX

    Let's keep it real. Great tech doesn't close rounds. Great tech doesn't win categories. And great tech definitely doesn't stop a competitor with a weaker product from eating your lunch. What closes the gap is credibility, and this week's guest has spent years building it for an entire region. I sat down with Eric Moore, Chief Development Officer at Bio North Texas, to talk about what it actually takes to get investors, partners, and stakeholders to buy into your story. Eric leads strategic communications, partnerships, and marketing for one of the fastest growing biotech and lifesciences ecosystems in the country, and he's spent his career convening the founders, scientists, and investors who make that ecosystem credible. This conversation gets into why VCs are betting on the founder more than the tech, why your internal messaging is quietly killing your external credibility, and why "what is your why" might be the most important question you're not asking yourself. What You'll Learn: Why investors say they're almost never pitched a bad tech idea, and what they're actually evaluating insteadThe difference between talking to your team and talking to the market, and why founders confuse the twoHow to build one credible narrative that holds up across investors, customers, media, and your boardWhy proximity and community, not just product, are part of your credibility equation Resources Mentioned: Bio North Texas: https://biontx.orgEric Moore on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-b-moore-mba-0b076215/BioNTX's podcast featuring interviews with BioNTX's Rising Stars: https://youtu.be/CXfKks7tOmM?is=421YfCXtfBUGgYpm Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.usFollow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

  2. Jul 15

    How Investors Decide If You're Worth the Risk w/ Jason Kraus

    Why the best tech doesn't always win, and what actually gets founders funded Here's something I say often on this show: the best tech doesn't always win. What wins is the founder and the leadership team that can actually show up with credibility outside the four walls of the company. And nobody sees that pattern play out more than the person deciding whether to write the check. That's why I brought Jason Kraus on the show. Jason is the founder and CEO of Prepare 4 VC, an investor readiness firm that has helped early stage founders raise more than $480 million in capital. He's also a venture investor through EQX Fund and Equity Venture Partners, chapter lead of Startup Grind Boston, and author of Win Forward: Lessons from Leaders. Jason sits on both sides of the table, as an entrepreneur and as an investor, which means he's seen exactly what separates the founders who get funded from the ones who don't. We got into what it actually means to "bet on the jockey," why investors say there are no more bad ideas but plenty of founders who can't tell a good story, and why Jason's own firm puts more weight on soft skills like adaptability and coachability than almost anything else. We also got real about financial projections, why some of them are, in Jason's words, close to fiction, and what to focus on instead when you're building your pitch. Let's keep it real: if you've ever wondered why a competitor with weaker tech keeps out-raising you, this episode is going to explain a lot. What you'll learn: What "betting on the jockey" actually means and how investors evaluate a founder they've never metThe real reason investors say they're rejecting founders right now, and it's rarely the techHow the story you need to tell shifts depending on your sector, whether that's consumer, marketing-heavy, or med deviceWhat separates a founder who gets funded in a downturn from one who doesn't Resources and Links: Prepare for VC's Compass assessment and roadmap tool: Prepare4VC.com Connect with Jason on LinkedIn Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/ Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

  3. Jun 15

    Why Tech Startups Lose to Competitors With Weaker Products

    Your technical advantage has an expiration date. And most founders aren’t doing the math on how soon it hits. I’ve been in conversations with founders lately who are still building their entire competitive strategy around their tech. And I get it. You’ve poured real time, real ingenuity, and real money into what you’ve built. But here’s what I keep watching happen: the market isn’t waiting for founders to feel ready to compete on something other than the product. AI didn’t just change how fast you can build. It changed how fast everyone else can catch up. What used to take a competitor eighteen to twenty-four months now takes months. Sometimes weeks. Which means the moat you’ve been counting on isn’t buying you the time you think it is. And the founders who figure that out now, while they still have a head start, are the ones who’ll have something to stand on when a bigger, better-funded player walks into their category. In this episode, I’m making the case for why credibility is the only competitive advantage AI cannot replicate, and why the founders building it now are quietly banking something that will matter when everything else looks the same. What you’ll learn: Why AI has collapsed the technical moat and what that actually means for your competitive timeline What company two has that company one doesn’t when a bigger player enters the category Why a real, recognizable point of view is getting rarer and more valuable at the exact same time The question every founder needs to answer honestly before their next funding conversation Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/ Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

  4. Jun 8

    The Trust Ledger Most Tech Founders Never Audit

    A few weeks ago, I was in a room with 5,000 builders, enterprise leaders, and investors at Human+Tech Week in San Francisco. I went expecting to spend five days deep in conversations about AI, the future of work, and where technology is headed. And those conversations happened. But that’s not what I kept noticing. What I kept noticing — what nobody was naming out loud — was a live credibility audit happening in real time. Founders pitching. Leaders taking the stage. People walking into investor conversations and networking rooms full of people who could change the trajectory of their companies. And almost none of them realized they weren’t being evaluated on their technology. They were being evaluated on their ability to signal that their technology is worth betting on. Those are two very different things. Let’s fix that. The gap I watched play out in San Francisco isn’t a pitch problem or a product problem. It’s a credibility signal problem. And most founders won’t see it until a round takes longer than expected, a key hire chooses a competitor, or a category conversation happens in the press and their company isn’t mentioned. By then, the trust ledger has already been overdrawn for months. Let’s keep it real — you can’t sprint your way back to credibility. You build it consistently, or you lose it quietly. What you’ll learn in this episode: Why “what that really means is…” is a credibility signal you can’t afford to keep sending How to audit your trust ledger before something breaks — not after What founders who stood out at Human+Tech Week were doing differently The 90-day external signal audit that reveals exactly how investors, hires, and the market see you right now Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/ Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

  5. May 25

    What Separates Founders Who Raise From Founders Who Don’t

    Your deck is not the problem. I know that’s not what you want to hear when you’re three weeks out from investor meetings and you’re still tweaking your competitive slide. But let’s keep it real: the deck is the last ten percent. What happens in the ninety percent before it is what actually determines whether you walk out of that room with a term sheet or a polite pass. In this solo episode, I’m breaking down the credibility gap that’s quietly killing funding conversations for early-stage founders — and why the investors you’re trying to impress have already started making a decision before you say a single word. I’ve watched this play out inside boardrooms and pitch meetings at the moments where everything is on the line. Two founders. Same stage. Same market. Same technology. Completely different outcomes. The difference wasn’t the deck. It was the signal one of them sent before the meeting ever started. What you’ll learn in this episode: Why investors are betting on the founder, not the technology, and what that actually means for how you show up before a pitch The three credibility signals that determine whether you walk into a room with authority or spend the meeting earning it How to audit your own external presence the way an investor does before they ever take your call Why the founders who raise fastest are not the ones with the best tech, and what they’re doing differently Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/ Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

  6. May 18

    What Every Tech Founder’s Pitch Is Missing

    Most founders walk into high-stakes rooms — investor meetings, client pitches, panel stages — and lead with the wrong thing. They lead with the product. The features. The data. The roadmap. And the room stays flat. Let’s keep it real: that’s not a pitch problem. That’s a story problem. And in this episode, I’m breaking down exactly why technical founders default to product-first communication, what it costs them, and how to fix it with a framework that’s straightforward but most founders never fully execute. This isn’t about being charismatic. It’s not about having some emotional origin story that makes investors cry. It’s about closing the gap between what you say and what actually moves people — and understanding that data is evidence, not a story. Evidence only lands when someone already cares. The story is what makes them care first. What you’ll learn in this episode: Why brilliant founders lose the room — and what’s actually going wrong when the pitch falls flat The three questions that form the foundation of a founder’s real story (and why most can only answer the first one) How to shift your listeners from evaluators to believers — and why that distinction determines whether you close The pressure test you can run today on your pitch, bio, and LinkedIn to find your story gap Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/ Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

  7. May 10

    The Leadership Skill AI Will Never Replace

    There’s a question I don’t think enough leaders are asking themselves — and it’s not about strategy, headcount, or even product roadmap. It’s simpler than that, and it’s also more urgent than most leadership teams realize: If someone went looking for you right now, what would they find? That question is the heart of this episode. Because we are in the middle of one of the most significant shifts in the history of leadership — and it has nothing to do with the next product release or the next funding round. AI is absorbing the execution layer. The tasks, the analysis, the operational workflows that leaders have spent entire careers mastering — technology is coming for all of it. And that leaves one question on the table that most senior leaders haven’t answered: if what you do can eventually be automated, what’s left that only you can do? The answer is representation. And let’s keep it real — most leadership teams have never been told that showing up externally was part of the job. It’s not in the job description. It’s not in the performance review. And so leaders default to what they know: execution. Which is internal. Which is invisible to the market. In this solo episode, I break down exactly why the shift from execution to representation is no longer optional — and what it actually looks like in practice. What you’ll learn: Why AI is making human presence the most undervalued — and soon most valuable — asset on any leadership team The critical difference between execution and representation, and where senior leaders get stuck without knowing it How your Leadership Identity, Branding, and Messaging determine whether the market trusts you before you ever walk into the room The one honest question every leader needs to answer about their external visibility — right now Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/ Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

  8. May 4

    What Leaders Get Wrong About External Pushback w/ Jeff Wetherhold

    Most leaders walk into high-stakes external conversations thinking the goal is to win the argument. It’s not. And if that’s your approach, you’re already losing. In this episode, I sit down with Jeff Wetherhold — a behavioral science researcher, change management expert, and faculty member with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement — to break down what’s actually happening when leaders face pushback from external audiences. Jeff holds a master’s in education from Harvard University and brings over twenty years of experience training leaders to navigate the high-pressure conversations that determine whether trust is built or broken. His approach is grounded in motivational interviewing, adapted specifically for the moments that matter most — media interviews, investor conversations, client engagements, and public-facing leadership. Let’s keep it real: the stakes for leaders communicating outside their organizations have never been higher. And most of them are not prepared. Not because they don’t know their product or their company — but because they don’t know how to listen, how to respond to skepticism without amplifying it, and how to help someone talk themselves into believing what they’re saying is worth listening to. Let’s fix that. What you’ll learn in this episode: Why “resistance” is the wrong word — and what leaders should be listening for instead when external audiences push back The motivational interviewing framework that teaches leaders to amplify change talk and neutralize skepticism without getting defensive Why regurgitating company talking points is the fastest way to lose a skeptic — and what to do instead How storytelling and a distinct point of view are the most underused tools a leader has in any external-facing moment Resources Mentioned: Jeff’s website: https://jeffwetherhold.com Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffweatherhold Your Next Steps: Access the white paper: External Influence: The Currency Every Leader Must Carry. https://externalinfluence.us Follow Shayna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynarattler/ Visit our website: https://executivesignalsgroup.com

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Where technical leaders master the external signals that build trust, win markets, and make their credibility impossible to ignore.

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