Lessons from Successful Tech Entrepreneur Xenia Muntean

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker, and today I have with me Xenia Muntean, the CEO and co-founder of Planable, a social media management and collaboration tool. Her platform serves over 800 brands, including Jaguar, Land Rover, Viber, Siemens, and the United Nations. In today’s episode, we’ll find out more about her tech entrepreneurship journey and the advice she gives to others looking to start something on their own. However, before we get started, I want you to know that you can always contact my team to boost your brand’s visibility online. We offer services such as content marketing, influencer marketing, online PR, and more. For details, check out my website shanebarker.com—that’s S, H, A, N, E, B, A, R, K, E, R.com. And now, back to the episode.

Hey guys, we’re super excited today. We’ve got the CEO and founder of Planable, Xenia, and I’ve already apologized to her ahead of time because my pronunciation for anything outside of extremely simple vowels and phrases is extremely difficult for me. But we’re super excited to have you on the podcast today. How you doing?

Absolutely, absolutely. So I think we just jump right into this. You have a very interesting history, and that’s the reason we wanted to have you on the podcast, because you’ve done some really big things in the startup space and have been around for a long time. But I wanted to set the table for anybody who hasn’t heard of your company or you as an individual. Can you give us a little history, a little foundation? So, where did you grow up?

And we’re definitely going to touch on that because I love that. I mean, the unfortunate part is that most people still don’t do content the right way when it comes to creation and stuff like that. That’s the reason Planable was created, and that’s why it’s helping such big companies these days. So, tell us a little bit about your family—how big was your family growing up?

I love that. I love him. As a kid, you’re thinking, “God, why do we have to do all this stuff?” And then later on, you’re like, “Thanks, Mom, for forcing me to jump in and do things that might have been outside your comfort zone.” I love that your mom said, “No, we’re going to steer you. We’re going to give you more opportunities than we had.” That’s all we can really ask of our parents—to just send us in the right direction. We’ll still kick and scream along the way, but later on, there’ll be a time when we thank you. And obviously, this probably isn’t the first time you’ve thanked your mom, but I’m sure there have been other times. That’s awesome. I love that your mom was trying to steer the ship. And obviously, she did a phenomenal job. Shout out to your dad too—I’m sure he did a good part as well—but Mom sounds a little more active on a day-to-day basis. So, any interesting facts about when you were growing up? Is there anything interesting that maybe people might not have realized, or just a fun fact?

I love that. Was the lady president that was elected? It wasn’t your mom, was it? It sounds like we should have voted for your mom. That’s awesome. That is so cool.

Okay, all right, maybe next time, or the next time, but that’s awesome. All joking aside, I think that is so cool because even the US hasn’t elected a female president yet. I think we’re hopefully in the next few years, because I think it’d be nice to shake it up a little bit. So your country was one of the first— that’s awesome. Congratulations. That brings a lot of pride to the area, and especially for you as well. So, where do you currently live? I know the company is in the UK, but are you there? Is the company currently in the UK?

Gotcha. Good, good, be safe. That’s good—keep safe there. I know it’s a crazy world out there right now, but we’ll get through it. So, did you attend college? Where did you go to college?

That’s awesome. So this was deep in your roots—you wanted to do this from a little girl, and it sounds like nobody got in your way. I love that. So, what was your first job out of college?

I heard of them!

So, let me get this straight. Your first client, when you started your agency, was the biggest brand in the world. You literally started from the top and now you’re working your way down to other brands. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that. You’re like, “Yeah, my first client was Coca-Cola, maybe one of the biggest brands in the world.”

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s—I don’t know if it gets any bigger than that from the US perspective. And I think Coca-Cola is everywhere. So congratulations on that. The unfortunate part is you can only go down from there—the brands only get smaller, right? I mean, you started, so what do you go from there? But awesome. I do get that it’s a smaller market, but still a big brand to take on and a big responsibility. So, I want to talk a little bit about your tech entrepreneurship—the things you’ve done that have been interesting. You’ve touched on it a little bit, but when did you realize that entrepreneurship was right for you? Because obviously, you talked about how you might have wanted to work for another agency, and then all of a sudden this brand called Coca-Cola came along. So when did you realize, like, “Wow, entrepreneurship is the right path for me?”

I would say it is. The awesome part is that maybe there weren’t many female role models when you wanted to become an entrepreneur, but now you’re one of them. You’re paving the way for the next generation. Not only does your country have a female president, but now you’re out there running a successful startup. That’s awesome. Somebody else is going to have a podcast in 20 years and talk about who motivated them, and they’ll say, “I had a female president, and then I had the CEO and founder of Planable. That helped me get to where I needed to be.” Once again, it’s not an easy task because being an entrepreneur is already hard, and being a female entrepreneur has more challenges than being a male entrepreneur, unfortunately. You’re breaking through those barriers, and that’s awesome. I was actually one of the reasons why I was excited about talking with you because your journey is very interesting. But tell us about how you came up with the idea of Planable. At what point did you say, “Hey, listen, there’s a problem here, and I have a solution?”

It’s a huge problem. I mean, I know that personally because, having an agency, we experienced that back and forth. In fact, I’ll be honest—it was such a headache for us that we don’t do it anymore, because we didn’t before we knew about Planable. But I’m just saying, for us, it was all about the ROI and the constant back and forth. You spend 20 hours on something, they say, “No, we don’t like it,” and you’re like, “Okay, I guess we start back at square one.”

Yeah, we had a really large insurance agent—one of the top producers—and this was many moons ago, but it was an absolute nightmare between legal and all that. They would take the sizzle out of anything we wanted to put out, even though we weren’t doing anything crazy or racy. It was simple stuff, but by the time we could post it, it would be 20 days later. And I’m like, “Yeah, but we missed the point of social—it’s supposed to be timely and engaging.” They just took the sizzle out of everything. The issue was we didn’t have a creation process or something like Planable in the middle to help us avoid spending 20 hours on something only to get it denied at the end. Collaboration is so important.

Anyway, I’m mad I didn’t find out about you guys eight years ago, but you weren’t around then, so I would have just Googled and not found you. I’m excited that you’re here to help agencies moving forward.

Now, tell us a little bit about TechStars, because you guys were part of the accelerator program in London in 2017, right? I know that’s not an easy accelerator—they’re huge, worldwide. What was the process like for that?

I love that. I mean, that’s really what it comes down to. And here’s an interesting analogy: I remember when I wanted to be a flight attendant. I won’t even say how long ago—back when they probably didn’t even know there were planes. But I actually went for it; it was for United—they flew me out to Illinois. Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is because I was talking to the flight attendants, and they said, “I can guarantee on your first time, you’re not going to get the job.” I asked, “Why is that?” They said, “Because everyone says they want to be a flight attendant, but only those who truly love to travel really enjoy it.” And so they said you’ll be denied. I did get denied, and I never applied again because I thought, “I really have to consider this. This isn’t just about free flights; I need to decide if it’s something I really want to do.” I was always in the service industry, so maybe I should have applied again—maybe I wouldn’t have a podcast and I’d be on a flight, or maybe not on a flight because of COVID. But anyway, we’re here today.

It’s interesting because with TechStars, it obviously takes that grit. As an entrepreneur, I always say you get punched in the face, you get kicked, you get stabbed, you get shot. It’s not an easy journey, and they want people who say, “I understand you said no, but I’m not taking that as an answer.” I’m not taking no as an answer, and neither is the CEO of this company, and even my mom would come to your door and not take no for an answer—she’s the one who brought me here and made me do this kind of stuff. That’s what I think is awesome: they’re looking for people who keep pushing through the hard times. A lot of people might say, “Oh, this would be great if I get in,” but it’s another thing to kick the door down and say, “I’m not taking no.” That’s what they want—people who show that perseverance, which is awesome. I’m glad you didn’t have to get your mom involved to kick down the door for TechStars and that nobody got hurt.

So, what advice would you give to anyone looking to enter the tech industry—whether you’re a founder, an entrepreneur, or coming from a female perspective?

Yeah, I think the thing is, because you read this stuff about disruption—you got to disrupt—and that becomes the mindset. People think we have to go in and disrupt immediately. Disruption is great, but you have to realize there are a thousand tiny steps before you actually disrupt anything. There are certain things that need to happen. That’s why I love programs like TechStars. They come in and say, “Listen, I love the big dream and what you want to do, but let’s talk about the foundational stuff you need to do before you’re looking for funding or anything like that.” Accelerator programs really help bring you down to earth and make you understand the thousand things you need to do before you change the world. It’s a lot of work, but it’s all foundational. Of course, it’s a lot of perspiration getting stuff done, and then there’s some luck involved—right place, right time, and people. But that’s awesome. It takes baby steps before you change the world, so make sure you take care of the foundational stuff that will get you to the next step.

Thanks, Xenia, it’s been an intriguing conversation for all my listeners. I have a special offer: if you want to try Planable, use the code marketinggrowth30 to get a 30% discount off your first three months of Planable. To make it easier for you, my team will add a link to it in the show notes below. Check it out. I still have more questions about Planable and its incredible growth. We’ll touch upon that and more on our next episode of The Marketing Growth Podcast. Stay tuned.