Joshua Burgin's Linkedin Analytics

I'll be at the Clay competition tomorrow 🚀 Pull through if you want to learn how to supercharge your go to market/sales ;)

Eitans a killer 🚀

Attention finance bros Want a 25% boost in AI performance ? Steal my chatgpt prompt template that is backed by Arxiv research papers My template: #Role [Who is the best person for the job and what traits do they have] #Task [Goal + detailed steps] #Context [Background information] #Notes ”This task is vital to the success of this company” Banking/lending example: #Role You are an expert credit analyst with strong analytical and financial modeling skills. You have deep knowledge of accounting principles, financial statement analysis, and risk assessment methodologies. You possess excellent attention to detail, critical thinking abilities, and can identify potential red flags in financial data. #Task Analyze a commercial loan application to assess the borrower's creditworthiness and provide a recommendation on loan approval, terms, and risk mitigation measures. 1. Review the complete loan application package including business plan, financial statements (3 years), tax returns, bank statements, and collateral documentation 2. Verify the accuracy and completeness of all submitted financial information 3. Analyze financial statements to assess profitability, liquidity, leverage, and cash flow trends 4. Calculate key financial ratios including debt-to-income, debt service coverage ratio, current ratio, quick ratio, and industry-specific metrics 5. Evaluate the borrower's credit history, payment patterns, and existing debt obligations 6. Assess the quality and value of proposed collateral through appraisals and market analysis 7. Research industry conditions, market trends, and competitive landscape affecting the borrower's business 8. Identify and quantify specific risk factors that could impact repayment ability 9. Determine appropriate loan structure, interest rate, and covenant requirements based on risk assessment 10. Prepare a comprehensive credit memo documenting analysis, findings, and loan recommendation with supporting rationale #Context This credit analysis directly impacts the bank's loan portfolio quality, regulatory compliance, and profitability. Poor credit decisions can result in significant loan losses, regulatory penalties, and damage to the bank's reputation. Conversely, thorough and accurate credit analysis enables the bank to price loans appropriately, minimize defaults, and grow a profitable loan portfolio while serving creditworthy customers. The analysis must comply with banking regulations and internal risk management policies while supporting sound lending decisions that balance risk and return. #Notes "This task is vital to the success of this company" Comment "prompt" if you want me to make you a custom finance prompt for free.

🤯 How I built a voice agent that knows my shopping preferences better than I do (and why Amazon should be worried).

I built this voice agent demo but they never became a client. You are the output of your work not the monetary outcome As long as you are building skills; all you need is patience.

I added $2k in monthly recurring revenue for my 1st client this month because of online mentors & courses. My first few jobs out of uni have not been easy as I never had the luxury of learning niche sales skills from my bosses. When you work at a startup, there are limited resources which means your superior might not have time to coach you. Additionally, maybe you’re the first sales person in that company and no one is even there to teach you. Therefore, you need to look outwards because its sink or swim. Youtube was my saving grace…. The online world has been a gift to me. Through my online mentors which consistently push out golden nuggets through their free content on linkedin/youtube & paid courses; my journey has been a rocket ship. Alex Hormozi for entrepreneurship 🦾Eric Nowoslawski for lead generation Jeremy Miner for sales Y Combinator for tech startups & software development They taught me the skills to deliver value on the job and eventually to my first clients. It’s crazy to think that strangers on the internet from the other side of the world have set me up with a killer foundation in business! They gave me the conviction to carve out my own path. P.S. that photo is with my first clients Daniel Mirkin & Jonathan Ostrofsky. Absolute legends. So grateful to have met them.

How I turned my biggest professional rejection into a series B Sequoia Capital investment opportunity. I was on the traditional path coming out of university where I was going to work a normal corporate job. However, I had a gut feeling that I wanted more than just a 9-5. Therefore, this lead to me finding a startup I wanted to work for but they wouldn't take me as I was too much risk to them (fresh out of university without much skills). I was determined that the startup path was for me. Therefore, I had to figure out a way to bring value to the company. Through 🦾Eric Nowoslawski incredible Linkedin & youtube content I stumbled upon Clay and realised this might be my golden ticket. After working for free for this startup, using clay; I was able to get hired and generate 59 meetings in 3 months. Clay felt like magic for me. So when Clay launched their community equity raise which gave the opportunity for early adopters of their software to invest at their series B valuation. It was a no brainer for me ;)

I built a chrome extension in a day using Cursor. and I don't even know javascript 🤯

Your competitors are building data pipelines while you're still copying and pasting between spreadsheets. History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes. So, here are a few historical tech disruptions to contextualise the problem: 1. Computers eg Macintosh 2. Software eg Excel 3. Mobile apps eg Uber 4. Social media eg Facebook 5. AI eg Chatgpt What happened to businesses who strictly used billboards and laughed at social media as a serious client acquisition channel? They lost … They simply could not compete with businesses that were using Facebook to target customers like snipers based on age, gender, country, and niche interests. Don’t even get me started on retargeting based on customer website cookies. Social media disrupted advertising because it was a better product. The same disruption is happening to the world of finance. Many businesses are operating on legacy dinosaur softwares. Data is siloed either stuck in that one spreadsheet or in that 1 software. Therefore, there is no automatic communication for the data which means .. 1. Humans have to copy and paste data which increase mistakes. 2. Humans are not working on highest leverage activities (the income producing tasks). 3. Data pipelines cannot be created which means businesses cannot enrich their own data using machine learning predictive models. There will be business owners who are comfortably laughing laggards who will not change and lose their competitive edge. There will be business owners who are the early adopters and want to implement modern softwares with APIs and AI models to create rich data pipelines. What type of business owner are you?

Last year, I got rejected from around 70 sales job applications. Did not even make it to the first 1 round interview 🤣 Here is one of those applications:

We built a custom software to save our client 4 hours per month on annoying sales tax (VAT) & taxable income calculation.

How one conversation of tears with my dad changed from "You're throwing your life away" to him being my biggest supporter It was January 2024, I was about to begin my last year of university the accounting honours (PGDA) which would set me up for articles and strengthen my path on becoming a charted accountant CA(SA). but something felt wrong I had that feeling for 2 years now. I felt like I wasn’t doing this degree for me. I was doing it under the misconception that in order to become successful in business; this was my only ticket. But I had a different idea. The previous 6 months, I had started to play around with the latest artificial intelligent (AI) softwares like chatgpt API, voiceflow, make(dot).com. I had discovered the tech startup life. I realised we were in the golden age of AI: a new tech opportunity. Therefore I confronted my dad and told him ”I am not doing my PGDA accounting honours anymore” He went silent Then angry “What do you mean?” ”I will not allow you to do this” ”You are throwing your life away” I fought back with tears. ”this is not my dream” I then listed out all the reasons why the accountant path was not right for me 1. I had done my research 2. Talked to many accountants 3. Done the internships 4. Found an alternative tech path After listening to me strongly holding my ground on my position; he realised I was no longer a child making a rash decision. He realised I had a plan to justify the extra risk I was taking on. If you have a life altering decision to make. Trust that feeling Trust your intuition Have the conviction to go after it P.S. my dad is one of my biggest supporters on my entrepreneurial journey

How a sticky note about my Gran became more powerful than any business coach, motivation book or success story. The infamous ‘why’ questions. Why are you studying this degree? Why are you dating this girl? Why are you doing this career? Why are you building this business? I have been obsessed with this since the age of 16 I cannot simply be a NPC and listen to memetic instructions of the general society. I have to know my why to lock in. So why build this business … Sure, freedom of money, location and time all do sound attractive. However, are those reasons really going to motivate you when 1. its 7pm on a sunday night and you have client deliverables due on Monday. 2. working 7x days a week. 3. getting rejected multiple times a week on sales calls. In my case, not really. I needed a deeper why. I took my ‘why’ - the reason I was building my business and made it larger than myself. I framed it in a way that took responsibility for the loved ones in my life. This meant if I failed at my goal, I was disappointing the people close to my heart. Therefore, next to my working desk there is a sign that says: “What happens if Gran dies before you get to spoil her with a Cape Town trip” If I don’t succeed at my business then I am unable to afford to take my Gran are a fun Cape Town trip. This emotional drive is like no other. My advice is take your goals and come up with ways as to how it effects the loved ones around you. Your drive will be off the charts ;)

90% of South African students are missing out on the ultimate career accelerator. I was on the path of the quintessential finance bro. Back in 3rd year of uni, I wanted to get ahead of the curve and understand what skills I could translate from the classroom into the working world. Therefore, I set up a internship where I would visit an alternative investment & advisory firm. I was entering into the high stakes world of private equity and debt. I have a visceral memory of sitting down with the person I was shadowing where he showed me the cashflows in a successful leveraged buy out (LBO) on a whiteboard. My eyes lit up like I was finally seeing through the matrix of the finance world. “getting hammered by my management accounting courses.” Worth it! There was beauty in the numbers, if you could understand a companies cash flows through accounting you could lever your position in crazy ways like buying a company for cents by using their debt to do it. By doing this internship, it contextualised the reason as to why I was studying a lot of accounting courses. It gave more clarity for how I can apply my knowledge. This gave me more strength later on in university as I had a stronger why. It’s not too late to set up an internship for the holidays ;)