- ex-vicarious
- Posts
- 42 | Dreamaking in Public: James Wu – Founder of Intellex
42 | Dreamaking in Public: James Wu – Founder of Intellex
Hey, quick note before we get to the Q&A – I’ve launched a podcast!
Every Q&A (including this one) now comes with a podcast episode, where you can watch and listen to the guest yourself.
This ep is the 2nd instalment of “Dreamaking in Public”.
(Think “Building in Public”, but not just with companies. It’s building your life toward your biggest dreams).
Every fortnight, you’ll hear from a dreamaker around their early 20s, who is building anything from tech startups, streaming services, branding agencies, podcasts, & better systems and habits for their life.
BUT, they’ll be back on the show every few months so we can follow up on their progress, mindset shifts, setbacks and new goals.
If you’re on the journey turning your dreams into reality – or just looking to see how people similar to you are getting started…
This series is for you.
If you want to skip straight to the podcast, here’s the link: https://linktr.ee/ex.vicarious
Otherwise, back to the Q&A! (est. 4 minute read).
James Wu dropped exercise physio studies to land a 6-figure tech sales role at 20.
After accelerating his sales career at Ignition, Veeam Software, ParaFlare/Deloitte and Blackhawk Alert, he’s now building Intellex Academy.
It’s a mentoring platform for ambitious professionals.
In this second instalment of “Dreamaking in Public” I spoke to James about
Consistently achieving evolving goals
Juggling full-time sales with founder life
Learning Linux to automate light and temperature control at home
James is a Day One of mine, so it was great to go back to Day One of his dreams in this episode.
Enjoy.
Q&A
You’ve dabbled in real estate, crypto, tech sales, and then founding Intellex. Moving forward, how does your time and energy look when thinking about how much you’ll spend on each? And how are you balancing them?
“Great question. To be honest, I’m not the best at balancing time. Crypto is a lost game for me—I exited that a long time ago. In terms of the other two, Intellex is a startup, and that’s my own thing, my baby. I’ve always wanted to own a startup, and now that I do, I’m passionate about making it a bigger part of my life down the track.
As of August 2024, in my tech sales role as a Business Development Manager at Blackhawk, which is a cybersecurity startup, I’m passionate about the space and my co-founders. They’re good leaders, and I feel I have a lot to learn from them. I work full-time, four days a week, which is a blessing. The other three days, and outside of business hours, I spend on Intellex.
So, the split is four days a week on Blackhawk and three days on Intellex. But that has slowed the velocity of how fast I can grow Intellex, which I’m still juggling. We’ll see how that goes.”
What can someone do, in terms of upskilling, habits, disciplines, or mindset, to be on the side of closing big deals quickly and having more time to relax?
“The key is to learn from the top performers. No one starts off as the person who smashes out deals and is drinking a margarita by the beach by 3pm.. They all start as SDRs,getting rejected 99% of the time.
The difference is that some people are able to grow much faster by seeking out sales mentors, talking to sales leaders, and connecting with other successful salespeople.
You need to learn their mindsets, communication styles, and how they demonstrate product value to accelerate the sales process. If you’re a bottom performer, simply learn from the top performers – there’s no reason you can’t replicate their success.”
If you had to live your life following the words of one single quote, what would it be?
“The quote that resonates with me most is “The only way to do great work is to love what you do” by Steve Jobs. I’ve experienced burnout before, and it always comes from not enjoying what I’m doing.
So I try to make decisions in my career and daily life that align with this principle – to do what I love, and the results will follow.”
Thanks for reading my Q&A with James Wu.
You can connect with James here:
You can check out Intellex here:
But if you want to experience the full podcast with James, listen here:
And as always,
Keep dreamaking.