Stop Broadcasting, Start Focusing - Interview with Brennan Dunn, CEO & Founder, RightMessage

WEBVTT
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We're all like adults here, right? Like I'm not
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trying to build another family. I've got a family.
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I've got a wife and kids. Like I don't need a
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new family. What I'm trying to do here is I just
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want to get the right people for the right, for
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the job. And they can build their own business
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and they can scale up their client count and
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everything like that. But I just want to be able
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to say, look, we've got, I have an idea thing
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right now where we're revamping our life cycle
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emails. I'm bandwidth constrained. I hired Mark
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to do this. Mark's working on it now. He gets...
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He's not an employee, but he's doing it on a
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project basis and that's exactly what I need.
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I much prefer the transactionalness, if you will,
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of that. I'm your host Ron Schmelzer, and on
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today's episode, we're talking with Brennan Dunn,
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who is the co -founder of Right Message. Hi,
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Brennan. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank
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you, Ron, for having me. I'm so excited to have
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Brennan. We were having a little conversation
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before we started, and so many of the things
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that he's working on, he's doing himself for
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his business, but also a lot of the conversations
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are the same conversations we're having over
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and over again in this probably new era of how
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organizations are being built and how companies
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are being able to gain leverage. And one of the
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interesting things is there's like a little dirty
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secret that many founders never want to admit.
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And that is that they're doing so much that a
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lot of times they're spending their time juggling
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all these hats, sales, marketing, finance, operations.
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The website goes down. Something's happening
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in your house and all of a sudden you can't even
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respond to anything in daily life. And I think
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the secret to all of that in this new era is
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to try to get as much leverage as you can from
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other things. The other thing that we're starting
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to see is that a lot of Companies and especially
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there are one or two founders have to do the
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sales and marketing thing Many people aren't
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necessarily the greatest at sales and marketing
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They're doing things like blasting the same exact
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email to their entire list and calling it sales
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17 ,000 subscribers and every single one of them
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is getting the exact same subject line the same
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identical pitch the same call to action whether
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they've been on the list for six years or six
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minutes and whether they bought even three times
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before or never have clicked a thing, and that's
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not sales or even marketing, that's broadcasting.
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And it's the only thing that is personalized
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is the founder's own laziness. So now before
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you get defensive, I totally get it. Behavioral
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personalization, some term you may or may not
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have ever heard of, may sound like the kind of
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thing that requires a dedicated growth team,
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a data engineering organization, a six -figure
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MarTech stack, and someone whose entire job title
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is email automation architect. But this is not
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a big company's game. And this is the lever that
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leverage -first scalers have learned to use.
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And the right message to the right person at
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the right moment delivered automatically based
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on what they've actually done and who they actually
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are. This is not a head count problem. This is
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an architecture and design problem. And when
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you solve that problem once, your email list
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starts working like a 24 -hour sales team. And
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that's what scale maxing looks like in marketing.
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Building a system that compounds the more you
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feed it with without adding a single person.
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So my guest today has been building this exact
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kind of system and he's been doing it rigorously
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in public. And while everyone else is still treating
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email as one size fits all broadcast, he's the
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proof that the right message to the right person
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is not a vendor pitch. It's an operating philosophy.
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So let's get right into it. If you haven't heard
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of Brennan Dunn, he is the co -founder of Right
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Message, a SaaS product that does something most
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marketing teams spend hundreds of thousands of
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dollars. trying to do manually. It lets you show
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different website copy. different calls to action
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and different offers to different visitors automatically
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based on who they are and what they've done.
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Right Message runs at roughly a million dollars
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in annual recurring revenue with a team of just
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Brennan and a few freelancers and others who
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are helping and contracting and providing additional
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value. And that's really a leverage benchmark.
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Before Right Message, Brennan built W Freelancing,
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a course and community business that helped tens
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of thousands of freelancers find better clients
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and charge better rates. And before that, in
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2008, founded We Are Titans, a web -based agency
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based in Norfolk, Virginia that scaled to 11
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employees. exited to focus on SaaS, and in 2011,
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Bootstrapped PlanScope, a project management
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platform for freelancers and agencies that was
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acquired in 2016. So if you've listened to podcasts
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about bootstrapping, email marking, or the indie
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maker world, there's a solid chance you've heard
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Brennan before. He has been on a lot of shows
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over the years, Indie Hackers, Microcompt Talks,
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countless marketing podcasts. And so what we're
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going to do today is go deeper than that origin
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story. We're going to go to the actual systems,
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the architecture, the decision. that make his
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team punch like a 30 person marketing department.
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So Brennan, thank you so much and welcome to
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The Exponential Scale. Thank you, Ron. You really
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are. You really went back in time. Most people
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just kind of scratch the surface of the origin
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story or something of right now since you don't
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go back to the 2008. But no, yeah, thanks for
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having me. I'm really, really excited to chat.
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Yeah, great. Oh, I think this background is perfect
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because it gives you not only the credibility,
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but just that you've been there before. You've
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done this before. So maybe talk a little bit
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about that. Introduce yourself to the exponential
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scale audience and tell us a bit about what you're
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working on now and kind of where you see things
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going. OK, so my day job, if you will, is I run
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and own Right Message. So we've been around since
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2018. You mentioned you introduced me as the
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co -founder of Right Message, which is technically
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correct. But two years back, I actually bought
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out my business partner. So now I am the soul
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benevolent dictator of the company. And yeah,
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it's been an interesting ride because we've kind
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of been in this weird position where we've been
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trying to convince the average small business
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that they should be personalizing or marketing.
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And I think, you know, if you, if you do anything
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with marketing, you read the like prediction
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posts that are, you know, show up every January
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about what's going to change this year with marketing.
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And since we launched, I mean, people have been
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talking about personalization, personalization,
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personalizations, the next thing, right message,
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right person, right time, like you were saying,
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Ron. But so few companies do that. I think like
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you look at the enterprise, you look at the Amazons
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of the world, Netflix, you go to Amazon, it's
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your Amazon's homepage, right? Like it's personalized
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to you. But the average company that's selling
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say, I don't know, consumer products in line,
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like smaller, smaller companies like DTC or software
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companies or course graders or coaches or whatever
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else. Most of us are effectively treating marketing
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like we're printing brochures where everyone's
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getting the same, you know, the same leaflet.
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Right. So what we've been trying to do is, you
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know, my background, like you mentioned, was
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I started in consulting and when I sell, when
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I sold big agency projects, I talked to a client,
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usually at a table kind of thing at our office.
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And then we'd write a custom proposal that would
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align our team's abilities with their unique
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problem. And that's kind of what happens when
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you do high touch sales is you listen and you
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adapt and you refine what you have to offer to
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fit somebody's needs. So the thinking that we
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had going into rate message was could this happen
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at scale? and automatically. So could we find
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out, oh, Ron, Ron came from a certain channel.
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He clicked on a certain ad. Maybe we surveyed
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Ron and he told us that his challenge is X. So
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could we make it so when we try to convince Ron
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to do business with us, that it's focused on,
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just like I would in person, right? Just like
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I would if we got on a Zoom call to try to, you
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know, explain, write message to you. So anyway,
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that's what we've been doing for the last, God,
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eight years. crazy saying that, but it's it's
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interesting. Like we're finally, I think, getting
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to the point where people are. Taking it seriously
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in a way that they never really did before. Yeah,
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it's very interesting because, you know, as a
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solo founder myself and having run small teams
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myself, I think a lot of it is that well. maybe
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I'm good at what I'm good at. If I've built a
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site or a technology or I'm doing training, I
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did training on AI training methodology, I wasn't
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necessarily a marketing expert or a sales expert
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and you get to this perspective where it's like,
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well, I just got to get a website up. I have
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to sell email. So I think for you, not just the
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origin of how did Right Message get started,
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what was that spark that said, hey, This is important
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for even small companies. Where did that come
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from? And how are you delivering that message
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to folks who may think that they probably need
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it, but just don't have the expertise to figure
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it out? Yeah, good question. So I remember exactly
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where it came from. And this was back when I
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was running Delaware Freelancing. So Delaware
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Freelancing, I sold courses on pricing and proposal
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writing and sales and everything to freelancers.
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So freelancers though, you've got web designers,
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you have software developers, you have marketing
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freelancers, copyright. There's a bunch of different
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types of freelancers. And the problem that I
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had going into it was most of the people who
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bought my courses early on were people like me.
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So they were developers doing freelance web development.
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And I remember getting an email from somebody
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who said she had been recommended my course.
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She was reading over the sales page. She saw
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the testimonials. She saw the copy. And she's
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like, this looks like it's for techies, like
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developers. Can this help me? And it was a course
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on pricing. So I replied to her saying, yeah,
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you know, we don't actually care what type of
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work you do. Technically, this is about how do
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you uncover the value of the project and get
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into your client's head and blah, blah, blah,
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blah, blah. So I was able to I was able to convince
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her to buy. But then I. I started thinking, like,
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how many other people didn't bother emailing
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me, right? Like, they went to the website. They
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saw people who were not like them. They saw language
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that did not use the worldview that they have,
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right, about whatever, and just got turned off
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and didn't bother buying, even though we could
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have helped them. So that got me thinking, like,
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the developer in me thought, well, OK, it's a
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web page. Is there any way that I could do, like,
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if they're a copywriter? Show this heading. If
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they're a web developer, show that heading. And
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I knew that was feasible because building software
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like web apps, that's what you do, right? Like,
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you know, you're the dashboard says, you know,
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good morning, Ron. And we do that because if
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morning say good morning, if evening say good
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evening. So that's, that was the start of it
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was I did that for my own business. It worked.
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pretty well. It got me on the radar of a few
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big companies, notably Teachable. So Teachable
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reached out and said, hey, can you do this for
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us? Because basically they were saying, our business
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is exponentially larger than yours. So if you
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could even deliver some of the results that you
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got in your own business to us, like that would
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be big. So did that, and then Ankur, who at the
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time was the CEO of Teachable, basically said,
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can I throw money at you and you make what you
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just did for us as SaaS or a software company?
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So that was the origin of Right Message was CEO
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of Teachable reached out saying, can I basically
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fund you? And him, a few of his friends and some
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of my friends, people like Rob Walling of Microconf,
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Nathan Berry of ConvertKit and others put money
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into the company, built Right Message. And that
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was kind of the origin story, was did it for
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myself, did it kind of on a consulting basis
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for others, and then compartmentalized all that
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into software. Yeah, that's really very interesting
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story because that rings true for a lot of folks
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who are, sometimes I do go to a site, I'm like,
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I'm not sure if that's for me or not, and a little
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bit of customization would go a long way. Of
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course, it's all data -based, right? So I'm sure
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the first question you get is like, well, where
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does that data come from? How do you know the
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knobs that you have access to tweak that personalization?
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And do people get creeped out by it sometimes
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as well? Yeah. So when we launched, the mistake
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we made is we didn't do any, we had no segmentation
00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:01.980
abilities. So what that means is that we had
00:13:01.980 --> 00:13:05.360
no way of saying, oh, this person is behaving
00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:08.480
in a certain way or has gone through a quiz funnel
00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:12.399
and answered that they have this issue or something.
00:13:12.740 --> 00:13:15.039
We didn't do any of that. All we did was we responded
00:13:15.039 --> 00:13:17.779
to data that we expected you to have in your
00:13:17.779 --> 00:13:20.919
CRM. So we expected you to say, okay, Brennan
00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:23.710
in his record, his industry is software. So if
00:13:23.710 --> 00:13:26.549
he's on the website, change the feature testimonial
00:13:26.549 --> 00:13:29.830
to be a software company. And that was a mistake
00:13:29.830 --> 00:13:32.049
we made early on was expecting that companies
00:13:32.049 --> 00:13:34.909
would have segmentation data, but very few companies
00:13:34.909 --> 00:13:37.629
do this. Very few companies do anything beyond
00:13:37.629 --> 00:13:39.789
first name and email address in their email platform.
00:13:40.509 --> 00:13:44.389
So over the years, we've kind of adopted building
00:13:44.389 --> 00:13:48.250
or we've built segmentation tooling, specifically
00:13:48.250 --> 00:13:52.940
quiz funnels are something we. Our customers
00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:56.179
do a lot of new subscriber onboarding surveys.
00:13:56.940 --> 00:13:58.639
So somebody becomes a lead, you do a deep dive
00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:00.220
into why are you here? What do you need from
00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:04.100
us? What are your goals? And also behavior. So
00:14:04.100 --> 00:14:07.240
they click on an ad. This ad is targeting a certain
00:14:07.240 --> 00:14:09.700
type of person or with a certain pain point.
00:14:10.139 --> 00:14:13.259
So just carry that context onto the website and
00:14:13.259 --> 00:14:15.720
then use that to change stuff. So that's kind
00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:18.860
of what we've done. Over the years as we realized
00:14:18.860 --> 00:14:22.200
we only when we launched we started with the
00:14:22.200 --> 00:14:25.559
assumption that people had data. But then we
00:14:25.559 --> 00:14:27.779
realized very quickly that even big companies
00:14:27.779 --> 00:14:30.600
like teachable gumroad and others we've worked
00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:35.220
with. They didn't have a lot of data so we've
00:14:35.220 --> 00:14:37.580
had to become kind of this two sided platform
00:14:37.580 --> 00:14:41.179
where we help you get data through surveys and
00:14:41.179 --> 00:14:43.179
quizzes and behavior and all that kind of stuff.
00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:46.960
And also use that data. So OK, they come back
00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:49.200
to your website a week later. You know X, Y,
00:14:49.220 --> 00:14:52.519
and Z about them. So then use that to change
00:14:52.519 --> 00:14:54.399
the home page or change your product page or
00:14:54.399 --> 00:14:56.919
something. Yeah, that's really very interesting.
00:14:57.159 --> 00:14:59.080
That makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of signals.
00:14:59.259 --> 00:15:02.639
There's a lot of directionality that people are
00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:04.700
taking on websites or wherever the source data.
00:15:04.899 --> 00:15:07.399
And that provides enough information to at least
00:15:07.399 --> 00:15:11.519
provide some good level of personalization. To
00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:14.799
what extent are you helping your customers just
00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:17.100
gain an understanding? To what extent are you
00:15:17.100 --> 00:15:19.059
doing education? It's ironic, you're helping
00:15:19.059 --> 00:15:21.259
educational companies improve their funnels,
00:15:21.299 --> 00:15:22.740
but to what extent do you need to actually do
00:15:22.740 --> 00:15:26.379
education to give your customers an understanding
00:15:26.379 --> 00:15:30.500
of all the capabilities? So this has been the
00:15:30.500 --> 00:15:33.440
hard thing as a bootstrapper. I mean, we raised
00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:35.700
some money, but we raised about $600 ,000, so
00:15:35.700 --> 00:15:38.639
it wasn't meaningful amounts or anything like
00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:40.860
that. But I think the biggest challenge we've
00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:44.120
had is we needed to both educate and sell. So
00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:45.759
we need to convince somebody first off that they
00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:48.159
should do this, then teach them the strategy
00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:50.740
behind, OK, what are the segments we want to
00:15:50.740 --> 00:15:54.539
track? How do we track it? What copy variants
00:15:54.539 --> 00:15:57.740
do we need? You kind of need to rewire your brain
00:15:57.740 --> 00:16:01.120
to think like, instead of a one size fits all
00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:04.100
headline, how does this segment see a different
00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:08.860
headline versus that segment? Funny enough, like
00:16:08.860 --> 00:16:12.940
when we early on, our main ICP were creators.
00:16:13.220 --> 00:16:15.080
So these are people selling courses and coaching
00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:17.860
and so on. Over the last year or two, this has
00:16:17.860 --> 00:16:20.299
shifted away from creators to be more focused
00:16:20.299 --> 00:16:24.320
on in -house marketers. So people who really,
00:16:24.580 --> 00:16:26.460
because the issue we've had with creators is
00:16:26.460 --> 00:16:28.840
they juggle a lot. You know, they're like me
00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:32.120
as a solo kind of founder is I might be doing
00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:33.960
product in the morning and then I switched to
00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:35.919
marketing and then I switched to this and that.
00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:39.840
We've actually found our best luck with people
00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:45.039
who their job is just KPIs and you know marketing
00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:48.580
like conversion KPIs and stuff, right? So You've
00:16:48.580 --> 00:16:50.879
got somebody like in a department a marketing
00:16:50.879 --> 00:16:53.059
department whose job is right message. They go
00:16:53.059 --> 00:16:55.279
in and they work with our tool every single day
00:16:55.279 --> 00:16:59.279
We love that because you know, they they're not
00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:01.539
they can really focus on this and they understand
00:17:01.539 --> 00:17:04.170
experimentation they understand the importance
00:17:04.170 --> 00:17:06.150
of running tests and doing this and doing that,
00:17:06.190 --> 00:17:08.309
where a lot of creators don't really do that.
00:17:09.230 --> 00:17:12.829
But more recently, we've actually switched, not
00:17:12.829 --> 00:17:15.730
switched, but really tried to focus on agencies.
00:17:16.609 --> 00:17:19.130
So if we can teach an agency once, like a marketing
00:17:19.130 --> 00:17:21.130
agency, how to use our product and how to use
00:17:21.130 --> 00:17:24.730
it well, they do all the sales for us. They get
00:17:24.730 --> 00:17:27.990
clients the way they usually do. And as part
00:17:27.990 --> 00:17:30.289
of their normal way of selling, they sell them
00:17:30.289 --> 00:17:32.130
also on rate message because they manage the
00:17:32.130 --> 00:17:34.250
account for them. which is nice because it reduces
00:17:34.250 --> 00:17:36.609
support on our end. We don't support the customer
00:17:36.609 --> 00:17:39.170
necessarily. The agency supports customer because
00:17:39.170 --> 00:17:42.549
they do the work for the customer. And yeah,
00:17:42.690 --> 00:17:45.269
so that's been kind of an interesting shift we've
00:17:45.269 --> 00:17:47.670
realized over the last few years is getting away
00:17:47.670 --> 00:17:51.369
from like the jack -of -all -trades creator who
00:17:51.369 --> 00:17:53.849
we were trying to convince to use us to instead
00:17:53.849 --> 00:17:57.009
go after more kind of mid -market organizations
00:17:57.009 --> 00:17:59.930
along with agencies. Yeah, that makes a lot of
00:17:59.930 --> 00:18:03.049
sense. We had a podcast not too long ago about
00:18:03.049 --> 00:18:06.230
the ICP, the ideal customer persona, ideal customer
00:18:06.230 --> 00:18:11.230
profile, and that really is a helpful way of
00:18:11.230 --> 00:18:14.349
thinking about narrowing your client audience
00:18:14.349 --> 00:18:17.549
in order to optimize your value. People think
00:18:17.549 --> 00:18:19.750
that when you start narrowing down and you're
00:18:19.750 --> 00:18:21.349
saying, well, I don't want to focus on everybody,
00:18:21.450 --> 00:18:24.250
I just want to focus on. even just one person
00:18:24.250 --> 00:18:26.609
or two people and then expand from there, people
00:18:26.609 --> 00:18:28.990
feel like it's limiting, but it actually is empowering
00:18:28.990 --> 00:18:31.250
because you're going to people who understand
00:18:31.250 --> 00:18:34.210
your value proposition more clearly and more
00:18:34.210 --> 00:18:36.769
cleanly. It might be interesting for you to actually
00:18:36.769 --> 00:18:39.029
connect with one of the other podcast interviewers
00:18:39.029 --> 00:18:41.390
we had. We interviewed the folks from Datocms,
00:18:41.930 --> 00:18:45.430
which is a programmatic headless CMS system.
00:18:45.509 --> 00:18:48.049
I've seen them. Yeah. I've looked at them to
00:18:48.049 --> 00:18:50.369
be honest. Yeah. Well, you might be interested
00:18:50.369 --> 00:18:51.769
to know that there are six and a half million
00:18:51.769 --> 00:18:54.890
dollar AR company with just 13 people and they
00:18:54.890 --> 00:18:57.309
have like this friend. They're following the
00:18:57.309 --> 00:18:59.869
whole scale maxing paradigm. It was a fantastic
00:18:59.869 --> 00:19:02.289
interview and I think a lot of this is in sync
00:19:02.289 --> 00:19:04.250
because they spend most of their time talking
00:19:04.250 --> 00:19:08.029
to that same ICP, which is the marketing agencies.
00:19:08.089 --> 00:19:10.569
They realize the same thing very quickly. Well,
00:19:10.710 --> 00:19:11.970
one of the things they brought up actually I'll
00:19:11.970 --> 00:19:14.109
bring up here is the competitive dynamics. You
00:19:14.109 --> 00:19:17.990
know as a small. organization, you know, you
00:19:17.990 --> 00:19:20.650
may have power and leverage, but one of the advantages
00:19:20.650 --> 00:19:23.170
that large companies have is money and people
00:19:23.170 --> 00:19:26.509
and locations and brand and reach and all that
00:19:26.509 --> 00:19:29.470
sort of stuff. So how are you sort of navigating
00:19:29.470 --> 00:19:31.829
the competitive dynamics? Do you feel competitive
00:19:31.829 --> 00:19:34.710
pressure from any of the big guys or girls in
00:19:34.710 --> 00:19:39.349
the space? Yeah, I mean, we were our biggest
00:19:39.349 --> 00:19:42.549
competitor right now is probably Optimizely.
00:19:42.920 --> 00:19:47.539
which is a very big MarTech platform with, you
00:19:47.539 --> 00:19:51.220
know, massive account management teams and sales
00:19:51.220 --> 00:19:53.660
teams and this, just infrastructure we don't
00:19:53.660 --> 00:19:57.579
have at all. But we, we look at that as a advantage
00:19:57.579 --> 00:19:59.940
in the sense that we can do, like one of the
00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:01.819
things we make very clear is that when you write
00:20:01.819 --> 00:20:04.339
into support, you're probably going to get a
00:20:04.339 --> 00:20:06.180
loom video back. You're not going to get back
00:20:06.180 --> 00:20:10.000
a stock reply, you know, that somebody, some
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:12.369
outsource team wrote. like you're actually going
00:20:12.369 --> 00:20:15.210
to get strategic help and so on and so forth.
00:20:15.250 --> 00:20:17.329
So we tried to lean into that. Like we've really
00:20:17.329 --> 00:20:21.690
tried to think, OK, we can't compete on having
00:20:21.690 --> 00:20:27.210
the like team that Optimizely has. I have no
00:20:27.210 --> 00:20:30.710
idea how many people they have. So not only are
00:20:30.710 --> 00:20:33.190
we more affordable, Optimizely is $2 ,000 plus
00:20:33.190 --> 00:20:36.509
a month. We're $179 a month for the same kind
00:20:36.509 --> 00:20:40.410
of thing. So we're more affordable. We like to
00:20:40.410 --> 00:20:43.289
think that we're more approachable, if that makes
00:20:43.289 --> 00:20:46.089
sense. So we've realized that this is one thing
00:20:46.089 --> 00:20:50.549
that, as a small team, where usually if you're
00:20:50.549 --> 00:20:51.910
right into support, you're probably going to
00:20:51.910 --> 00:20:56.309
hear from me, that's a good thing. That's a good
00:20:56.309 --> 00:20:57.730
thing for our customers, because they're going
00:20:57.730 --> 00:21:01.049
to get the kind of handholding, especially since
00:21:01.049 --> 00:21:02.910
a lot of our customers are not switching from
00:21:02.910 --> 00:21:05.809
a competitor. They're using us to do this stuff
00:21:05.809 --> 00:21:07.789
for the very first time. They saw a case study.
00:21:08.750 --> 00:21:10.470
some results a customer has gotten and they're
00:21:10.470 --> 00:21:13.509
like, I want that. So they seek us out and they
00:21:13.509 --> 00:21:17.430
need some help, you know, frankly. So the challenge
00:21:17.430 --> 00:21:20.950
has been how do we like right now we have 350
00:21:20.950 --> 00:21:23.309
customers, which is not huge, but it's not it's
00:21:23.309 --> 00:21:28.089
not tiny. But I'm impressed. Yeah, well, it's
00:21:28.089 --> 00:21:30.670
still one of these things like how do we how
00:21:30.670 --> 00:21:34.509
do we actually how do we get to 700 or 1000 customers
00:21:34.509 --> 00:21:37.210
while still maintaining what we have now? And
00:21:37.210 --> 00:21:38.670
the interesting thing that I've really tried
00:21:38.670 --> 00:21:41.109
to lean into is that I think people are fine
00:21:41.109 --> 00:21:44.670
with, for example, AI support. If they're looking
00:21:44.670 --> 00:21:47.670
for like, I want to do X, how do I do it? And
00:21:47.670 --> 00:21:50.009
it's really just a matter of the AI is going
00:21:50.009 --> 00:21:51.450
through the code base or going through the product
00:21:51.450 --> 00:21:53.450
or going through the help docs and pointing them
00:21:53.450 --> 00:21:56.009
to the right thing. I think people are fine with
00:21:56.009 --> 00:21:58.730
that. I actually is a customer preferred because
00:21:58.730 --> 00:22:00.650
the support team might take a few hours to get
00:22:00.650 --> 00:22:04.569
back to me. AI gets back in a minute. So that's
00:22:04.569 --> 00:22:08.029
fine. But. when it comes to bigger things like,
00:22:08.430 --> 00:22:12.269
hey, here's my company. What should I be doing?
00:22:13.710 --> 00:22:16.609
That's something that we want to keep owning.
00:22:16.789 --> 00:22:18.710
We don't want to delegate that out to like AI
00:22:18.710 --> 00:22:20.630
or anything like that. So we're in this position
00:22:20.630 --> 00:22:23.250
where we're thinking every time somebody reaches
00:22:23.250 --> 00:22:27.430
out to support, how do we first off make it so
00:22:27.430 --> 00:22:30.829
if it's something technical or, you know, how
00:22:30.829 --> 00:22:33.359
do I do X? that they didn't need to reach out
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:35.019
to support. That means improving the product
00:22:35.019 --> 00:22:38.700
or having a way to get more rapid feedback, but
00:22:38.700 --> 00:22:40.279
then making it so the only things that hit our
00:22:40.279 --> 00:22:43.140
support inbox are those big, hairy strategic
00:22:43.140 --> 00:22:47.000
questions that we could scale, that we could
00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:49.940
keep doing and kind of building up. So it's interesting.
00:22:50.059 --> 00:22:52.680
We're at the point now where we've got 350 customers.
00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:54.920
Support maybe takes five, 10 minutes a day at
00:22:54.920 --> 00:22:56.700
this point, because we've really tried to make
00:22:56.700 --> 00:23:00.559
it so the product is good. and the way that first
00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.759
tier of support, which is largely automated for
00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:06.819
certain things that people are looking for, is
00:23:06.819 --> 00:23:11.440
basically handled, right? So that's our challenge
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:15.240
is, how do we get to two, three million a year
00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:20.740
while still keeping the internal way we do things
00:23:20.740 --> 00:23:23.220
largely the same? And we'll see if we can do
00:23:23.220 --> 00:23:26.250
it, but that's what I'm trying to do. I have
00:23:26.250 --> 00:23:29.589
confidence I am sure that you'll find a way and
00:23:29.589 --> 00:23:31.329
I think that's one of the greatest things that
00:23:31.329 --> 00:23:33.369
that we cover here in this podcast is leverage
00:23:33.369 --> 00:23:35.769
first scaling which is first find the leverage.
00:23:36.200 --> 00:23:38.619
Then if you have to add to the team, you add
00:23:38.619 --> 00:23:40.740
to the team, but at least you've applied the
00:23:40.740 --> 00:23:42.980
leverage first. The only insights I can provide
00:23:42.980 --> 00:23:46.640
you, because I'm not in your market and with
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:48.740
your customers and with their product, is that
00:23:48.740 --> 00:23:51.119
what we've heard from others who are in that
00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:53.880
same position, who are trying to build the high
00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:56.940
scale, but with the same levels of touch. Because
00:23:56.940 --> 00:23:59.059
that is one of the advantages of being a small
00:23:59.059 --> 00:24:02.000
firm, is that you're reaching the people who
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:03.839
are in charge of the product, who understand
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:06.279
the customers, who know your pain point. There's
00:24:06.279 --> 00:24:09.579
very little levels of hierarchy between them.
00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:11.599
One of those leverage points that they're talking
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:14.380
about is giving more choice actually to the customer.
00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:17.839
I think DataCMS says, you want help? Great. Actually,
00:24:17.880 --> 00:24:20.400
here's two choices. One, I need help right now.
00:24:20.500 --> 00:24:22.819
What I'm asking for is pretty basic. give me
00:24:22.819 --> 00:24:25.319
the AI bot or whatever it is, let me help myself.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:27.799
The second one is like, I need more help. And
00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:31.119
the customer basically kind of opts into the
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:32.539
higher touch. And this is like, you know, may
00:24:32.539 --> 00:24:34.519
take like a little bit longer, but you're going
00:24:34.519 --> 00:24:36.700
to get, you know, you're going to get the team
00:24:36.700 --> 00:24:39.839
and hopefully that makes them happier. And, you
00:24:39.839 --> 00:24:42.680
know, over time, of course, as the product becomes
00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:45.880
more, you know, fully featured or whatever it
00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:49.440
is, hopefully the support issues become less
00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:51.799
needed. And actually that's sort of the brings
00:24:51.799 --> 00:24:54.539
me to the next question here. This is some tips
00:24:54.539 --> 00:24:56.500
you might have for organizations because I know
00:24:56.500 --> 00:24:59.380
you've written a lot about email automation sequences
00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:01.920
that run on things like behavior triggers rather
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:05.599
than just time delays. For a founder who's still
00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:08.200
sending, who's still small, they're still sending.
00:25:09.579 --> 00:25:12.559
email broadcasts, what is the single highest
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:14.859
leverage thing that they could really start doing?
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:17.299
What's a good place for them to start? What is
00:25:17.299 --> 00:25:20.099
this one area that they can really focus on doing
00:25:20.099 --> 00:25:22.279
things right to say, I can't really do all of
00:25:22.279 --> 00:25:24.839
this, but maybe there's some guidance you can
00:25:24.839 --> 00:25:28.000
provide on a good path that they should follow?
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:29.880
I think you hit the nail on the head with the
00:25:29.880 --> 00:25:32.460
broadcast thing. So broadcast newsletters, for
00:25:32.460 --> 00:25:36.140
example, would be OK. Today's Tuesday. I'm going
00:25:36.140 --> 00:25:39.880
to send a email to my list, right? This could
00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:43.240
be a product update email. It could be a educational
00:25:43.240 --> 00:25:45.200
email. It could be a video we just published
00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:47.039
on YouTube. It could be something, right? With
00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:49.960
the idea of keeping the list warm, because every
00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:53.339
marketer knows you can't let the list go cold.
00:25:53.559 --> 00:25:55.180
You've got a list of people who are interested
00:25:55.180 --> 00:25:58.000
in your product. Send them good stuff again and
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:00.819
again and again. keep yourself top of mind and
00:26:00.819 --> 00:26:03.140
all that kind of stuff, right? So you see these
00:26:03.140 --> 00:26:05.519
companies that they'll put together these elaborate
00:26:05.519 --> 00:26:07.480
content calendars, and they'll put together,
00:26:07.779 --> 00:26:09.539
OK, every Wednesday at the clock work, we're
00:26:09.539 --> 00:26:12.059
going to send an email, which means every week
00:26:12.059 --> 00:26:13.900
we're planning the next week's email, and we're
00:26:13.900 --> 00:26:15.200
writing it, and we're drafting it, and we're
00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:17.460
doing all that kind of work. The mistake, though,
00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:20.259
that I see constantly made is that thinking,
00:26:20.519 --> 00:26:23.079
first off, that most of what we're sending is
00:26:23.079 --> 00:26:27.109
not timely. And by that, I mean We're not sharing
00:26:27.109 --> 00:26:29.589
stock updates. We're not sharing world news events
00:26:29.589 --> 00:26:32.430
or anything like that. We're sharing stuff that
00:26:32.430 --> 00:26:34.769
whether they got this year ago or today probably
00:26:34.769 --> 00:26:37.930
doesn't matter, right? It's like general business
00:26:37.930 --> 00:26:41.150
stuff if you're in B2B or whatever else. So one
00:26:41.150 --> 00:26:42.650
thing you could do is if you've been emailing
00:26:42.650 --> 00:26:45.670
your list for say the last few years, go back
00:26:45.670 --> 00:26:48.089
and make it an automation. So when somebody joins
00:26:48.089 --> 00:26:51.430
your list, they get an email automatically every
00:26:51.430 --> 00:26:54.490
week, which is your best stuff, right? You just.
00:26:54.589 --> 00:26:57.769
OK, we've sent 100 broadcast emails. Let's go.
00:26:57.849 --> 00:27:00.230
Let's curate it and let's organize it in such
00:27:00.230 --> 00:27:02.750
a way that it makes more logical sense. Because
00:27:02.750 --> 00:27:06.029
I think one issue with newsletters is if I join
00:27:06.029 --> 00:27:08.130
your list today and I get an email from you tomorrow,
00:27:08.670 --> 00:27:11.049
I'm thrown head first into the stream of content.
00:27:11.369 --> 00:27:14.529
Like what you send me tomorrow might not be relevant
00:27:14.529 --> 00:27:17.009
to me, might not make sense. So one of the things
00:27:17.009 --> 00:27:18.670
we do and what we encourage our customers to
00:27:18.670 --> 00:27:20.670
do is when people join your list, you find out
00:27:20.670 --> 00:27:23.390
a bit about why they're here. So in our case,
00:27:23.630 --> 00:27:25.849
What's your experience of marketing personization?
00:27:26.069 --> 00:27:27.609
What email platform do you use? What kind of
00:27:27.609 --> 00:27:29.150
business are you in? And so on and so forth.
00:27:29.690 --> 00:27:32.349
And then what we've done is we've looked at what
00:27:32.349 --> 00:27:34.269
we've sent over a second. We've been doing this
00:27:34.269 --> 00:27:37.150
since 2018, so we have a lot of content. And
00:27:37.150 --> 00:27:40.490
we've basically put together these tracks of
00:27:40.490 --> 00:27:43.950
content where it's say we have 100 emails to
00:27:43.950 --> 00:27:46.470
work with. We'll say, OK, if you're a beginner,
00:27:46.990 --> 00:27:48.650
you get on this track, which is going to start
00:27:48.650 --> 00:27:51.450
with foundational elementary stuff. Like first
00:27:51.450 --> 00:27:54.160
week is. setting the scene the next week kind
00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:56.480
of builds on that and so on and so forth. But
00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:58.299
if you're more advanced, maybe you get into the
00:27:58.299 --> 00:28:00.980
more technical, more advanced kind of stuff we've
00:28:00.980 --> 00:28:03.579
sent over the years with the idea that you join
00:28:03.579 --> 00:28:05.240
the list, you share X, Y, and Z about yourself.
00:28:05.400 --> 00:28:07.980
And now you're getting basically a custom newsletter,
00:28:08.779 --> 00:28:11.539
which is relevant or which is based on you and
00:28:11.539 --> 00:28:14.900
your situation so that the signal to noise ratio
00:28:14.900 --> 00:28:16.940
from what you're getting from us is through the
00:28:16.940 --> 00:28:18.960
roof because you're like, wow, I joined the right
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:22.049
message list. And, you know, I'm a, I'm a software
00:28:22.049 --> 00:28:24.769
company and we're pretty advanced and we're getting
00:28:24.769 --> 00:28:27.269
like, we're not getting this like, you know,
00:28:27.569 --> 00:28:30.349
beginner stuff. Like we're getting very specific
00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:33.730
stuff to us. And the magic there is just thinking
00:28:33.730 --> 00:28:36.950
like, okay, go through what we've done produced,
00:28:37.809 --> 00:28:40.049
curate it and put people on a curated tracks.
00:28:40.410 --> 00:28:42.609
And the benefit is we're not on this hook of
00:28:42.609 --> 00:28:45.569
needing to churn out content every week to keep
00:28:45.569 --> 00:28:48.089
the furnace, you know, on fire kind of thing.
00:28:48.089 --> 00:28:50.309
Right. So that's one thing I think a lot of us
00:28:50.309 --> 00:28:52.750
could do is like, you've been producing content,
00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:55.990
you have stuff you've sent, but it's kind of
00:28:55.990 --> 00:28:58.730
been sent and then just like, it disappears effectively.
00:28:58.849 --> 00:29:00.549
Like you send off the newsletter for the week
00:29:00.549 --> 00:29:03.410
and that's it. It just kind of goes away. So
00:29:03.410 --> 00:29:05.549
find ways that you can repurpose that. I think
00:29:05.549 --> 00:29:10.549
as a bandwidth constrained small team, this is
00:29:10.549 --> 00:29:13.849
one of those things where you want, I genuinely
00:29:13.849 --> 00:29:16.680
think that like, If you're a small company, your
00:29:16.680 --> 00:29:18.880
focus should be on acquisitions, the top of funnel
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:22.259
stuff, partnerships, managing ads, like getting
00:29:22.259 --> 00:29:25.940
people into the door and also fulfillment. So
00:29:25.940 --> 00:29:28.599
supporting, making your customers really successful
00:29:28.599 --> 00:29:31.579
so you can create case studies that then becomes
00:29:31.579 --> 00:29:32.960
top of funnel material that you can get more
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:34.799
people in from. But all the stuff in the middle,
00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:37.460
which is meant to find out about them and their
00:29:37.460 --> 00:29:40.000
needs and then onboard them in such a way that
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:42.759
ultimately connects their needs with your product.
00:29:43.480 --> 00:29:46.500
Ideally, that should be done on a more life cycle
00:29:46.500 --> 00:29:50.079
basis where it's them, their challenges, their
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:53.420
timeline, rather than like a top -down content
00:29:53.420 --> 00:29:55.740
marketing calendar kind of thing. So I think
00:29:55.740 --> 00:29:57.880
that's the thing. Like it's not something you
00:29:57.880 --> 00:29:59.740
build overnight, but I think that's the direction
00:29:59.740 --> 00:30:03.619
that most small teams especially should be focused
00:30:03.619 --> 00:30:05.799
on is how do we get the middle stuff to be more
00:30:05.799 --> 00:30:09.039
automated and leave the acquisition and fulfillment
00:30:09.039 --> 00:30:11.400
stuff to be the, where we're spending our time.
00:30:12.289 --> 00:30:15.730
There's so much gold in what you just said. There's
00:30:15.730 --> 00:30:17.930
a lot of articles on that. There's so much to
00:30:17.930 --> 00:30:20.609
dig into. I love it. It reminds me almost of
00:30:20.609 --> 00:30:23.769
the auto responder campaigns when you join a
00:30:23.769 --> 00:30:26.650
list. This also brings up an interesting conversation
00:30:26.650 --> 00:30:29.589
we had recently with Gina Bianchini, who is the
00:30:29.589 --> 00:30:32.190
CEO of Mighty Networks. She was talking about
00:30:32.190 --> 00:30:34.289
the power of community. When you're providing
00:30:34.289 --> 00:30:37.829
these insights and tips, you're almost inviting
00:30:37.829 --> 00:30:42.829
your customers into your company. as a community
00:30:42.829 --> 00:30:45.009
and saying, well, I understand you're here to
00:30:45.009 --> 00:30:47.750
buy a product, but really we're helping you achieve
00:30:47.750 --> 00:30:50.029
some sort of goal, some sort of transformation.
00:30:51.009 --> 00:30:54.450
And there's some power in that. Have you thought
00:30:54.450 --> 00:30:57.250
about, or where are you in the process of maybe
00:30:57.250 --> 00:31:00.910
even bringing your customers together to sort
00:31:00.910 --> 00:31:03.089
of help share and reinforce what they're doing,
00:31:03.430 --> 00:31:06.329
which may in turn lead to greater satisfaction
00:31:06.329 --> 00:31:08.410
with the product, more word of mouth, all that
00:31:08.410 --> 00:31:11.470
sort of benefit. Yeah, no, good question. So
00:31:11.470 --> 00:31:13.170
I mentioned before we hit record, I've got a
00:31:13.170 --> 00:31:15.329
friend who runs an email platform called Bento.
00:31:15.549 --> 00:31:18.230
His name is Jesse. And one thing that he does,
00:31:18.450 --> 00:31:22.329
which I find you might take this as risky, but
00:31:22.329 --> 00:31:25.809
I think it works well for them, is they have
00:31:25.809 --> 00:31:30.170
a free Discord server for customers and non -customers
00:31:30.170 --> 00:31:33.369
alike. All support is done through Discord. So
00:31:33.369 --> 00:31:36.390
you'd go into the support channel and say, hey,
00:31:36.490 --> 00:31:39.200
I'm struggling with X, Y, and Z. and they jump
00:31:39.200 --> 00:31:40.960
in and create a thread and it's all public. So
00:31:40.960 --> 00:31:42.859
I can go in and I can see how he's supporting
00:31:42.859 --> 00:31:46.000
his customers, right? And they do really well.
00:31:46.099 --> 00:31:47.539
I mean, they have, I don't know their exact customer
00:31:47.539 --> 00:31:49.160
count, but they're doing a few million a year.
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:54.519
And it's effectively just Jesse and a few freelancers.
00:31:54.539 --> 00:31:57.000
So it's again, kind of similar to the direction
00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:00.079
that we've been moving. And what I love about
00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:04.079
it is you go in there, you're able to see when
00:32:04.079 --> 00:32:06.920
their team is supporting somebody through a strategic
00:32:06.920 --> 00:32:09.900
question, Like, I learned from that, right? I
00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:12.220
see, oh, wow, like, that's a good idea. I haven't
00:32:12.220 --> 00:32:14.960
even thought about using Bento to do that. So
00:32:14.960 --> 00:32:18.000
it's kind of the age -old thing of, like, most
00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:19.759
support discussions, especially when they're
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:22.039
strategic, should be turned into, like, a blog
00:32:22.039 --> 00:32:24.039
post, should be turned into an email. But this
00:32:24.039 --> 00:32:27.539
is that, but in a way that's peer -to -peer instead
00:32:27.539 --> 00:32:29.500
of it just being top -down. Because I can go
00:32:29.500 --> 00:32:32.599
in there and I can jump in and say, hey, can
00:32:32.599 --> 00:32:34.420
you, like, tell me more about what you've done
00:32:34.420 --> 00:32:37.880
here to either... you know, the bento team or
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:40.599
to the person who raised the thing to begin with.
00:32:41.339 --> 00:32:43.380
But it's, it's a really interesting thing because
00:32:43.380 --> 00:32:45.000
like that's, that's one of their main called
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:48.099
actions on their site is the discord link. And
00:32:48.099 --> 00:32:50.259
they really push you when you join up, you sign
00:32:50.259 --> 00:32:52.400
up for trial. It's like, Hey, jump into the discord.
00:32:53.779 --> 00:32:56.279
And it's nice because like, as a potential customer,
00:32:56.420 --> 00:32:59.059
you go in, you see people happily using the product,
00:32:59.259 --> 00:33:01.400
getting good support. They're not just being
00:33:01.400 --> 00:33:04.740
fobbed off with like, you know, automated. canned
00:33:04.740 --> 00:33:07.420
replies or anything like that. Like, you want
00:33:07.420 --> 00:33:10.839
to be a part of that. And for the target customer
00:33:10.839 --> 00:33:13.720
they're going after, which tend to be like technical
00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:17.059
marketers, I probably describe them as, it works
00:33:17.059 --> 00:33:19.599
out really well. It works because even things
00:33:19.599 --> 00:33:23.420
like new features, even if it's a small little
00:33:23.420 --> 00:33:26.579
thing, like they make one improvement to the
00:33:26.579 --> 00:33:29.039
interface in some way, that just gets opposed
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:32.190
by Jesse in the thing and everyone can see like
00:33:32.190 --> 00:33:34.269
that momentum of their product and it's like
00:33:34.269 --> 00:33:36.210
how many people look at change logs or something
00:33:36.210 --> 00:33:38.730
about software like very few so it's a way to
00:33:38.730 --> 00:33:42.049
kind of you feel like you're a part of that bento
00:33:42.049 --> 00:33:45.349
community in a way that isn't artificial or isn't
00:33:45.349 --> 00:33:48.109
you know I kind of hate it when companies like
00:33:48.109 --> 00:33:50.750
talk about like you're joining whatever family
00:33:50.750 --> 00:33:53.490
or something it's a little weird but in this
00:33:53.490 --> 00:33:56.490
case it does feel very genuine because you get
00:33:56.490 --> 00:33:59.259
in and There's the founder, there's the other
00:33:59.259 --> 00:34:01.460
people on the team, and there's all the customers
00:34:01.460 --> 00:34:05.259
and one big watering hole. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with
00:34:05.259 --> 00:34:07.119
you on that. I actually am a pretty heavy Discord
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:09.619
user myself. It's funny, I used to be a heavy
00:34:09.619 --> 00:34:12.480
Slack user, and I don't know, something happened
00:34:12.480 --> 00:34:15.440
with our organization in Slack. It might have
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:18.400
been the message history. Anyway, moved to Discord.
00:34:18.559 --> 00:34:20.380
I've been on Discord quite a bit, but even I
00:34:20.380 --> 00:34:21.679
have a bit of a mixed feeling. You're right,
00:34:21.699 --> 00:34:24.599
I have a mixed feeling about that. One, because...
00:34:24.599 --> 00:34:26.159
You're hoping that the people in the discord
00:34:26.159 --> 00:34:28.880
community behave themselves, which is a good
00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:31.579
hope. Hopefully, so you have a good curated audience.
00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:34.699
But the second one is I have a little bit of
00:34:34.699 --> 00:34:37.940
a sort of channel fatigue sometimes where I'm
00:34:37.940 --> 00:34:39.900
like, I'm not sure, you know, if you don't pay
00:34:39.900 --> 00:34:41.940
attention to it, it becomes like the stream and
00:34:41.940 --> 00:34:43.840
then you've missed it. And now you feel like
00:34:43.840 --> 00:34:46.840
you have to catch up with messages. And so maybe
00:34:46.840 --> 00:34:48.739
that's just me, you know, as it's sort of like
00:34:48.739 --> 00:34:51.739
I have to. I mean, I think we're all and I mean,
00:34:51.800 --> 00:34:53.960
especially when when everyone had a slot community.
00:34:54.360 --> 00:34:57.320
Right. And you just I remember the left side
00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:00.000
of my slack thing would just have like a wall
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.500
of like little things that I'm supposed to switch
00:35:02.500 --> 00:35:04.940
between. And it all be lit up green like there's
00:35:04.940 --> 00:35:07.440
new notifications or whatever. And yeah, I mean,
00:35:08.119 --> 00:35:10.139
I need to get work done, right? Like, I don't
00:35:10.139 --> 00:35:12.639
have time to sit in a million communities. So
00:35:12.639 --> 00:35:14.639
I think there's a middle ground, though, of like,
00:35:14.860 --> 00:35:17.099
it's nice that I can jump into Discord and say,
00:35:17.380 --> 00:35:20.320
hey, I'm running into this issue. Like even if
00:35:20.320 --> 00:35:23.909
Jesse, because he's in Japan, so that's. not
00:35:23.909 --> 00:35:26.969
most of his customers time zone. He's asleep
00:35:26.969 --> 00:35:30.610
and other customers are supporting his own customers
00:35:30.610 --> 00:35:33.969
with stuff, which is kind of cool. But I do think
00:35:33.969 --> 00:35:35.429
there's that middle ground of like, you should
00:35:35.429 --> 00:35:38.050
still be using like email to send out maybe a
00:35:38.050 --> 00:35:39.969
monthly product update email. Like for the people
00:35:39.969 --> 00:35:42.750
who are not paying attention to what's going
00:35:42.750 --> 00:35:45.130
on in there and stuff like that. So yeah, I mean,
00:35:45.269 --> 00:35:47.710
there's definitely kind of multiple ways of doing
00:35:47.710 --> 00:35:49.210
it, but I think that's an interesting model.
00:35:50.179 --> 00:35:52.599
There's, there are risks. I could, the paranoid
00:35:52.599 --> 00:35:54.440
person to me would be, what if a competitor went
00:35:54.440 --> 00:35:56.659
in and started DMing everyone being like, Hey,
00:35:56.780 --> 00:35:58.719
write message sucks. Use us instead of here's
00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:01.000
a discount. Like, you know, kind of thing. Like,
00:36:01.480 --> 00:36:04.519
but realistically you build up enough goodwill
00:36:04.519 --> 00:36:06.840
with your people and they're going to call them
00:36:06.840 --> 00:36:08.880
out and they're going to put publicly like, Hey,
00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:11.940
this person's in here doing this. Like ban them,
00:36:12.079 --> 00:36:15.059
kick them out. That's a funny thing. They may
00:36:15.059 --> 00:36:17.599
end up doing some of that work for you. If they're
00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:19.539
reasonably satisfied with their customer and
00:36:19.539 --> 00:36:20.960
their product, they don't gang up against you.
00:36:21.039 --> 00:36:23.559
I think that's a good thing. It's actually a
00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:26.400
nice transition into tools and technology a little
00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:28.719
bit. One of the great things I loved about your
00:36:28.719 --> 00:36:31.139
LinkedIn post very recently, if you don't mind
00:36:31.139 --> 00:36:34.800
me sharing about it, is you posted that you're
00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:37.440
a solo founder. You, of course, have other people
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:40.000
working with you, but that was the post and you
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.079
said, we're growing fast and it's feel like it's
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:44.199
time to hire again, but he's struggling with,
00:36:44.500 --> 00:36:46.559
you're struggling with to convince yourself why
00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:49.320
you should hire. And in the context of all of
00:36:49.320 --> 00:36:51.300
that, there was an interesting post that, photo
00:36:51.300 --> 00:36:54.199
that you shared, screenshot you shared of Animus,
00:36:54.300 --> 00:36:57.300
who is your bot. So maybe talk a little bit about
00:36:57.300 --> 00:37:00.019
the tools and technology you're using. Is Animus,
00:37:00.019 --> 00:37:02.340
is it an open claw or is it something else? Yeah,
00:37:02.340 --> 00:37:03.980
I'm just kind of curious about all that, yeah.
00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:09.119
Animus predates open claw. Animus is a, it's
00:37:09.119 --> 00:37:13.309
a web app and a WhatsApp interface. to a few
00:37:13.309 --> 00:37:16.630
things. So it has full access to every support
00:37:16.630 --> 00:37:18.730
email we've ever sent. It has access to our code
00:37:18.730 --> 00:37:22.849
base. It has access to our help docs. It has
00:37:22.849 --> 00:37:26.150
access to our post -hoc, which has event data
00:37:26.150 --> 00:37:28.429
about what people are doing in our product. And
00:37:28.429 --> 00:37:32.030
what's cool about that is let's say you write
00:37:32.030 --> 00:37:36.510
into support. Most support tools have an AI element
00:37:36.510 --> 00:37:38.929
that they'll include. But the problem with that
00:37:38.929 --> 00:37:41.460
is they just tend to look at what they have access
00:37:41.460 --> 00:37:43.599
to, which is their own what you've done in support
00:37:43.599 --> 00:37:46.300
before. They don't know your code. They don't
00:37:46.300 --> 00:37:48.159
know they can't go in and say, actually, I'm
00:37:48.159 --> 00:37:50.059
going to go look at and see what the button label
00:37:50.059 --> 00:37:52.340
says in the code base. Right. Like they don't
00:37:52.340 --> 00:37:54.719
have access to that. Likewise, they don't have
00:37:54.719 --> 00:37:57.380
access to what people are doing in the product.
00:37:57.400 --> 00:38:00.920
So like what we have in postdoc. So my my theory
00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:03.019
with Animus was I want to make it so when people
00:38:03.019 --> 00:38:06.360
when people, for example, book a sales call with
00:38:06.360 --> 00:38:10.360
us. If they've already had a trial. I want to
00:38:10.360 --> 00:38:13.760
go in and have Animus, this AI bot, go through
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:16.199
and look at every email they've ever sent us.
00:38:16.619 --> 00:38:18.679
First off, what they've done on the site, which
00:38:18.679 --> 00:38:20.380
we know through WriteMessage, because WriteMessage
00:38:20.380 --> 00:38:22.860
also has an MCP, which we can pull data from.
00:38:23.460 --> 00:38:25.500
It goes to the postdoc MCP and finds out, OK,
00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:26.900
they have a trial. Here's what they've done.
00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:28.840
They've set this up. They've used these features.
00:38:29.659 --> 00:38:32.699
And then it also then web searches them, so it
00:38:32.699 --> 00:38:34.219
finds your LinkedIn, their website, all that
00:38:34.219 --> 00:38:37.539
kind of stuff. And I get this nice report. that
00:38:37.539 --> 00:38:41.400
I read 10 minutes, I got one for you, that I
00:38:41.400 --> 00:38:44.519
read 10 minutes before I get on a demo or something,
00:38:45.059 --> 00:38:47.920
and I know everything they've done with the product,
00:38:48.219 --> 00:38:51.039
if they've done anything, everything they might
00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:53.340
have even wanted us six months ago as a reply
00:38:53.340 --> 00:38:55.739
to a newsletter that we sent, and now they're
00:38:55.739 --> 00:38:58.019
finally booking a demo. All that context is there.
00:38:58.380 --> 00:39:01.599
So what I wanted was one thing that had access
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:04.309
to... everything about the business, including
00:39:04.309 --> 00:39:07.409
even revenue stuff. So it attaches to profit
00:39:07.409 --> 00:39:10.530
well, which is what we're using for MRR and churn
00:39:10.530 --> 00:39:12.989
and all that kind of stuff calculations. So it's
00:39:12.989 --> 00:39:16.250
like this hub where I can go, I can message Animas.
00:39:17.150 --> 00:39:18.750
I do this a lot, like when driving to the gym,
00:39:18.869 --> 00:39:22.210
I'll just like voice memo it because it can convert
00:39:22.210 --> 00:39:25.929
voice to text. And I'll say like, hey, I've been
00:39:25.929 --> 00:39:29.750
thinking about this thing I want to do. And then
00:39:29.750 --> 00:39:32.190
also, it'll look at it against the code base.
00:39:32.230 --> 00:39:36.030
And it can even start building it against our
00:39:36.030 --> 00:39:37.769
code base and start using Cloud Code to actually
00:39:37.769 --> 00:39:40.090
build the thing and send up a pull request to
00:39:40.090 --> 00:39:42.769
GitHub so I can test it and see if it built it
00:39:42.769 --> 00:39:45.610
fine. But I just wanted something where a lot
00:39:45.610 --> 00:39:48.050
of teams have Cloud Code doing coding, and then
00:39:48.050 --> 00:39:51.130
they have an AI thing that comes with their Help
00:39:51.130 --> 00:39:52.789
Scout account or whatever they're using for email.
00:39:53.530 --> 00:39:56.610
And I wanted something that had full access to
00:39:56.610 --> 00:39:59.340
everything. And that was the goal. And I didn't
00:39:59.340 --> 00:40:01.619
want to deal with, even though when OpenClaw
00:40:01.619 --> 00:40:03.260
came out, it kind of tempted me to just ditch
00:40:03.260 --> 00:40:06.900
what we built and kind of move to it. But this
00:40:06.900 --> 00:40:10.119
works well. It's all local. It's all secure.
00:40:10.380 --> 00:40:13.059
It's all like, it's actually funny enough, Animus
00:40:13.059 --> 00:40:16.840
runs in my seller on a server. So it's not even
00:40:16.840 --> 00:40:19.500
cloud based or anything like that. And yeah,
00:40:19.500 --> 00:40:24.360
it's great. It's been like, even things like
00:40:24.360 --> 00:40:26.920
email, like twice a day goes through and it Drafts
00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:29.880
replies to my emails. It doesn't send them, but
00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:31.960
my job is I just go through and I just tweak
00:40:31.960 --> 00:40:34.239
it and make it, make it mine. But it writes it
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:36.000
like me because it knows how I write because
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:38.019
it it's seen everything I've written in it. It
00:40:38.019 --> 00:40:39.619
has a memory system and all this kind of stuff.
00:40:39.940 --> 00:40:41.719
So yeah, it's been, it's been pretty cool to
00:40:41.719 --> 00:40:43.880
build. I mean, it's one of these things that
00:40:43.880 --> 00:40:46.000
you need to always ask yourself, is this like
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:50.960
a toy or is it a real thing? But what I put in
00:40:50.960 --> 00:40:54.519
that post is most of my days are spent selling
00:40:54.519 --> 00:40:57.639
at this point. The support is mostly handled
00:40:57.639 --> 00:41:01.500
for me. The development most like right now while
00:41:01.500 --> 00:41:03.880
we're talking, I mean, Cloud Code is building
00:41:03.880 --> 00:41:06.199
a feature that I wanted to build for read on
00:41:06.199 --> 00:41:08.679
report page. So it's doing that now. Like, I
00:41:08.679 --> 00:41:11.320
mean, that's the kind of thing that I, I want
00:41:11.320 --> 00:41:13.420
to, historically, I would have thought, okay,
00:41:13.440 --> 00:41:14.880
I need to get a developer to do that. I need
00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:16.739
to get a support person to the support email,
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:20.619
but I just want to, I want to find a way to.
00:41:20.940 --> 00:41:23.039
For better or worse not need to do that. Yeah,
00:41:23.039 --> 00:41:26.840
just to cut so animus. That's your sort of assistant
00:41:26.840 --> 00:41:28.840
personal assistant, but it's not is not exposed
00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:32.900
to the general public or is it OK? That's important.
00:41:34.059 --> 00:41:36.820
Access to your code base and your finances that
00:41:36.820 --> 00:41:39.099
that could be tricky. I mean, if you stole my
00:41:39.099 --> 00:41:42.480
phone and could log in through biometrics and
00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:44.619
got into my WhatsApp, you could technically get
00:41:44.619 --> 00:41:46.920
that data, but that's pretty much the only way.
00:41:46.920 --> 00:41:49.179
Or if you broke into my house and stole. the
00:41:49.179 --> 00:41:51.079
thing in the cellar. And also this is something
00:41:51.079 --> 00:41:53.039
you've built yourself. This is something that
00:41:53.039 --> 00:41:54.900
you've been building. Sounds like iteratively
00:41:54.900 --> 00:41:58.619
over some period of time. What started out, to
00:41:58.619 --> 00:42:00.679
be honest, is a Cloud Code project with a bunch
00:42:00.679 --> 00:42:02.960
of markdown files in a directory. And then it's
00:42:02.960 --> 00:42:05.639
kind of evolved into having a front end and a
00:42:05.639 --> 00:42:08.480
WhatsApp gateway for it. And I didn't write the
00:42:08.480 --> 00:42:11.860
code. It's all Cloud Code wrote itself there.
00:42:12.820 --> 00:42:16.400
So yeah, I mean, it's nice because Animus can
00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:20.000
build itself. So I can tell Animus, like, hey,
00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:23.719
I need a new, like, change the dashboard to have
00:42:23.719 --> 00:42:26.460
this instead of that. And it'll just update its
00:42:26.460 --> 00:42:30.519
own code. And then, yeah. Sounds great. Yeah,
00:42:30.519 --> 00:42:32.300
it sounds interesting. You know, I know I've
00:42:32.300 --> 00:42:33.920
been building something similar, but actually
00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:37.920
based on Obsidian. That's right. Yeah, it's basically
00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:40.239
an Obsidian Vault. where it stores everything.
00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:44.179
We gotta compare notes. This is fantastic. Yeah,
00:42:44.340 --> 00:42:46.199
I've been this. I think it's that's the right
00:42:46.199 --> 00:42:48.539
way to go because because it's also you know
00:42:48.539 --> 00:42:51.679
human navigable and it has access to stuff. Cross
00:42:51.679 --> 00:42:54.940
references from documents with the Wiki links
00:42:54.940 --> 00:42:56.889
and stuff. Yeah. You're doing the right thing.
00:42:57.070 --> 00:42:59.210
That's great. Fantastic. I thought I was nuts
00:42:59.210 --> 00:43:02.849
using Obsidian. Okay, fantastic. Well, as obviously
00:43:02.849 --> 00:43:04.710
we could talk about this for hours, but we have
00:43:04.710 --> 00:43:07.210
listeners here. We have podcast viewers as well.
00:43:07.230 --> 00:43:09.550
We got to keep them in mind. So maybe a couple
00:43:09.550 --> 00:43:11.789
more questions than I got are rapid fire that
00:43:11.789 --> 00:43:15.050
we always ask all of our guests. So let's think
00:43:15.050 --> 00:43:17.289
about the businesses that you've built because
00:43:17.289 --> 00:43:19.989
you've built multiple businesses. You did take
00:43:19.989 --> 00:43:21.710
a little bit of investment for this last one.
00:43:21.750 --> 00:43:23.349
I think for the other ones, it sounds like those
00:43:23.349 --> 00:43:27.880
were pure. So as you're thinking, because you
00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:29.599
talked a little about your thinking about growth,
00:43:29.739 --> 00:43:31.420
and I think you're thinking about things in a
00:43:31.420 --> 00:43:33.820
very modern way. This is what we talk about,
00:43:33.880 --> 00:43:36.639
which is the old way would have been either you
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:39.199
just bootstrap and you just keep hiring and you
00:43:39.199 --> 00:43:41.480
operate out of your profits and your cash flow,
00:43:41.699 --> 00:43:43.739
which is challenging and restricting, and that's
00:43:43.739 --> 00:43:45.679
why people have always called them lifestyle
00:43:45.679 --> 00:43:48.559
businesses, which I feel is mildly derogatory.
00:43:49.900 --> 00:43:51.880
They're not meant to mean what if you want to
00:43:51.880 --> 00:43:54.019
grow like a HubSpot, but you just don't want
00:43:54.019 --> 00:43:59.059
to be as many people as HubSpot. So I know you're
00:43:59.059 --> 00:44:00.619
still thinking this through. This is part of
00:44:00.619 --> 00:44:02.380
what, and I think we're all working on this right
00:44:02.380 --> 00:44:05.159
now at this moment, but where are you thinking
00:44:05.159 --> 00:44:07.840
about in terms of your constraints? You shared
00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:10.460
a little bit about that. And maybe now that you
00:44:10.460 --> 00:44:14.239
have, has the funding sort of changed any dynamics
00:44:14.239 --> 00:44:16.719
for you at all versus the way that you've run
00:44:16.719 --> 00:44:19.420
your businesses in the past? Well, bear in mind,
00:44:19.500 --> 00:44:22.699
that funding came in 2018 and it's long gone.
00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:25.489
So we didn't really dig into this, We raised
00:44:25.489 --> 00:44:28.530
funding and I built a team. We had, we had five
00:44:28.530 --> 00:44:31.210
people and along with my co -founder, we had
00:44:31.210 --> 00:44:34.389
a person doing full time marketing, three developers
00:44:34.389 --> 00:44:37.829
and yeah, and, and it, and a support person.
00:44:38.190 --> 00:44:40.210
So we, we did the proper kind of SaaS thing there.
00:44:40.349 --> 00:44:44.769
You know, you get money, you hire. We effectively
00:44:44.769 --> 00:44:46.550
started operating these bootstrappers because
00:44:46.550 --> 00:44:48.690
the money ran out and we didn't make enough to,
00:44:48.829 --> 00:44:50.869
you know, we had to basically leg up a lot of
00:44:50.869 --> 00:44:53.730
the team. I like to say we built a rocket ship.
00:44:54.039 --> 00:44:57.059
point into the wrong direction and build it fast
00:44:57.059 --> 00:44:59.840
and expensively. So we had to kind of revisit
00:44:59.840 --> 00:45:01.960
that. And then again, like two years back, I
00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:04.800
mentioned I bought it my co -founder. And then
00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:07.280
it was kind of a reinvention moment really for
00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:08.800
the company. So technically we've been around
00:45:08.800 --> 00:45:11.099
since 2018, but really the new product has been
00:45:11.099 --> 00:45:14.559
in existence for a little over a year. So it's
00:45:14.559 --> 00:45:19.320
very new in that sense. But yeah, I mean, my
00:45:19.320 --> 00:45:26.300
thinking now is that There's always times where
00:45:26.300 --> 00:45:28.199
I thought, okay, when I hit a certain revenue
00:45:28.199 --> 00:45:30.719
goal, like that's when I'll bring on this position.
00:45:32.219 --> 00:45:35.559
But I've been in this position before where I've
00:45:35.559 --> 00:45:38.500
struggled to, when you have somebody full -time,
00:45:38.599 --> 00:45:41.300
unless you have really full -time work for them
00:45:41.300 --> 00:45:44.139
and they can be self -directed and kind of manage
00:45:44.139 --> 00:45:47.559
their own thing. I think I'm just, I'm a bad
00:45:47.559 --> 00:45:49.440
boss in the sense that I've never been really
00:45:49.440 --> 00:45:53.900
good at like. at that thing. Like I'm much happier
00:45:53.900 --> 00:45:56.159
doing things like what my friend Laura Roeder
00:45:56.159 --> 00:45:57.940
does, where she's like, look, I need somebody
00:45:57.940 --> 00:46:00.380
who's an expert at Google ads. I'm not gonna
00:46:00.380 --> 00:46:01.699
get a full -time Google ads person. I'm just
00:46:01.699 --> 00:46:03.960
gonna get on retainer, like a partial person
00:46:03.960 --> 00:46:05.900
who can just manage this for a few days a month.
00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:08.460
Same with like operations. Like I have a lot
00:46:08.460 --> 00:46:11.079
of friends who they just get a fractional COO
00:46:11.079 --> 00:46:13.659
just to kind of do all that stuff for like a
00:46:13.659 --> 00:46:18.650
day a week. And I really like... that mode better.
00:46:18.730 --> 00:46:21.030
So instead of having like the full -time team
00:46:21.030 --> 00:46:23.289
where you do these big team retreats and stuff,
00:46:23.449 --> 00:46:26.309
instead to treat it like, look, we're all like
00:46:26.309 --> 00:46:28.670
adults here, right? Like I'm not trying to build
00:46:28.670 --> 00:46:30.010
another family. I've got a family. I've got a
00:46:30.010 --> 00:46:32.150
wife and kids. Like I don't need a new family.
00:46:32.670 --> 00:46:34.309
What I'm trying to do here is I just want to
00:46:34.309 --> 00:46:38.469
get the right people for the job and they can
00:46:38.469 --> 00:46:39.869
build their own business and they can scale up
00:46:39.869 --> 00:46:41.309
their client count and everything like that.
00:46:41.309 --> 00:46:43.460
But I just want to be able to say, look, We've
00:46:43.460 --> 00:46:45.500
got, I have an idea thing right now where we're
00:46:45.500 --> 00:46:48.139
revamping our lifecycle emails. I'm bandwidth
00:46:48.139 --> 00:46:50.659
constrained. I hired Mark to do this. Mark's
00:46:50.659 --> 00:46:53.360
working on it now. He gets, it's, he's not an
00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:55.380
employee, but he's doing it on a project basis.
00:46:55.380 --> 00:46:59.500
And that's exactly what I need. And I much prefer
00:46:59.500 --> 00:47:02.320
the transactionalness, if you will, of that.
00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:05.340
And yeah, there might be time where we get bigger
00:47:05.340 --> 00:47:07.500
and bigger and bigger, and we need somebody to
00:47:07.500 --> 00:47:11.179
just kind of be permanently a part of what we're
00:47:11.179 --> 00:47:14.840
doing. but we're not there yet, and I'm actively
00:47:14.840 --> 00:47:17.519
trying to keep us from getting there, I think.
00:47:18.280 --> 00:47:22.860
Yeah, I love that. I think we're birds of a feather,
00:47:22.980 --> 00:47:25.780
and maybe even I think our audience is. There's
00:47:25.780 --> 00:47:27.320
nothing really wrong with that. I think it's
00:47:27.320 --> 00:47:29.780
actually a very responsible way of looking at
00:47:29.780 --> 00:47:33.159
hiring. We talk about the fact that a lot of
00:47:33.159 --> 00:47:35.500
these venture -funded companies that hire fast
00:47:35.500 --> 00:47:38.699
also fire fast, and that to a certain extent
00:47:38.699 --> 00:47:40.599
that you might think like, oh, they're doing
00:47:40.599 --> 00:47:43.539
this great economic thing where they're employing
00:47:43.539 --> 00:47:45.079
people it's like well they're probably treating
00:47:45.079 --> 00:47:47.400
those employees more as disposable resources
00:47:47.400 --> 00:47:50.820
than if you were truly part of a team where everybody
00:47:50.820 --> 00:47:54.659
was Adding significant leverage where one if
00:47:54.659 --> 00:47:57.099
one person was gone. It would have a detrimental
00:47:57.099 --> 00:48:00.199
impact You're much more valued in that organization
00:48:00.199 --> 00:48:03.840
and I do like the idea of independence working
00:48:03.840 --> 00:48:07.179
with independence I don't really know the exact
00:48:07.179 --> 00:48:10.519
economics of how film studios work. But my understanding
00:48:10.519 --> 00:48:13.840
is that films are basically like entrepreneurial
00:48:13.840 --> 00:48:16.300
endeavors where everybody's an independent, everybody's
00:48:16.300 --> 00:48:18.599
on contractors. Just get together and do your
00:48:18.599 --> 00:48:20.699
film. Yeah. Accomplish something, we deliver
00:48:20.699 --> 00:48:23.079
that thing and then it has a life and everybody
00:48:23.079 --> 00:48:26.079
kind of moves on to their next thing. Not everybody
00:48:26.079 --> 00:48:29.440
hires gardeners, we have landscapers, nobody
00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:33.239
needs to have a whole. So, I think it's a very
00:48:33.239 --> 00:48:36.380
modern way of looking at things and Our personal
00:48:36.380 --> 00:48:39.079
belief is that economically, I think it's much
00:48:39.079 --> 00:48:41.940
bigger economic impact for the world if we had
00:48:41.940 --> 00:48:44.960
a lot of people who are able to sustain themselves
00:48:44.960 --> 00:48:48.619
and grow and scale independently instead of being
00:48:48.619 --> 00:48:52.239
so dependent on employers' goodwill, which...
00:48:52.239 --> 00:48:54.880
I think it's better for them. I mean, I go back
00:48:54.880 --> 00:48:56.460
to Mark, who's helping me with lifecycle emails.
00:48:57.139 --> 00:48:58.679
I don't know how many clients he has, but probably,
00:48:58.719 --> 00:49:01.679
let's say, five at a time. I'm one of them. If
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:04.519
he and I were to part ways, what, he has a 20
00:49:04.519 --> 00:49:07.789
%? impact on his revenue potentially. Whereas
00:49:07.789 --> 00:49:09.409
if he was a full -time employee and I had to
00:49:09.409 --> 00:49:12.809
fire him, that's a big upset. That's 100 % of
00:49:12.809 --> 00:49:15.969
his revenue is gone overnight, right? So it's
00:49:15.969 --> 00:49:18.409
better in a way for them, which is why I always
00:49:18.409 --> 00:49:20.269
find it, not to go into tangent, but like when
00:49:20.269 --> 00:49:22.469
mortgage underwriters find like a freelancer
00:49:22.469 --> 00:49:25.449
who has a dozen clients at a time or a software
00:49:25.449 --> 00:49:27.590
company that has hundreds of customers paying
00:49:27.590 --> 00:49:30.710
a little bit a month, we're riskier than the
00:49:30.710 --> 00:49:33.420
person with. one income source, it's binary.
00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:38.599
It's like, yeah, I mean, so. Yeah, it's sort
00:49:38.599 --> 00:49:42.019
of legacy thinking. Yeah, exactly. If they're
00:49:42.019 --> 00:49:43.780
underwriters, it should be underwriting for risk.
00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:48.099
I think now it's riskier to be an employee than
00:49:48.099 --> 00:49:51.539
to be self -employed from my perspective. This
00:49:51.539 --> 00:49:54.880
is great. This is going to be part of that ongoing
00:49:54.880 --> 00:49:56.840
that we need to keep having this conversation
00:49:56.840 --> 00:49:59.980
and hopefully we'll keep you in our network and
00:49:59.980 --> 00:50:01.719
connect all the rest of us who are thinking in
00:50:01.719 --> 00:50:04.300
this in the same way. Yeah. So to be mindful,
00:50:04.440 --> 00:50:06.500
got three rapid fire takeaways here. I think
00:50:06.500 --> 00:50:08.300
I may know the answer to the first one. So the
00:50:08.300 --> 00:50:11.039
first one's always about tools. So what is one
00:50:11.039 --> 00:50:13.960
tool or automation you absolutely can't run your
00:50:13.960 --> 00:50:15.719
business without? The one that gives you and
00:50:15.719 --> 00:50:18.800
your team the 10x leverage every single week.
00:50:19.130 --> 00:50:21.110
It would be animus, which is our front end wrapper
00:50:21.110 --> 00:50:23.949
to cloud code. There you go. And we got a good
00:50:23.949 --> 00:50:26.639
detail on that. I'm very understandable. Okay,
00:50:26.659 --> 00:50:28.760
so the next one is about process and method.
00:50:29.139 --> 00:50:32.639
So what is one system or process or approach
00:50:32.639 --> 00:50:35.460
or thing that people should be doing that every
00:50:35.460 --> 00:50:38.320
lean leverage first team should have in place
00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:41.179
by the time they hit about $1 million in revenue
00:50:41.179 --> 00:50:44.239
that you see that separates the scalers, the
00:50:44.239 --> 00:50:46.079
ones who are truly getting leverage from the
00:50:46.079 --> 00:50:48.559
grinders, the ones who basically, well, they
00:50:48.559 --> 00:50:50.650
made their first million at took this much effort,
00:50:50.829 --> 00:50:52.590
it will take the same amount of effort or even
00:50:52.590 --> 00:50:55.469
more to make the second million. So scale obviously
00:50:55.469 --> 00:50:57.829
doesn't work that way. So maybe what's one thing
00:50:57.829 --> 00:51:00.530
you might tell people to stop doing that you've
00:51:00.530 --> 00:51:02.190
discovered in your process you should stop doing
00:51:02.190 --> 00:51:06.050
or start doing today? I think for me, I know
00:51:06.050 --> 00:51:10.329
I'm shiny objects appeal to me. So the thing
00:51:10.329 --> 00:51:12.030
that I had to really get good at, which I think
00:51:12.030 --> 00:51:14.570
has helped us tremendously with growth has been
00:51:14.570 --> 00:51:17.880
I've got a plan. detail out a six week sprint,
00:51:17.880 --> 00:51:19.840
and I stick to it. And every little thing I do
00:51:19.840 --> 00:51:22.420
every single day is getting us closer to finishing
00:51:22.420 --> 00:51:25.480
up that sprint, that plan. I think it's very
00:51:25.480 --> 00:51:27.400
easy to get caught in the inertia of supporting
00:51:27.400 --> 00:51:30.219
your customers and reacting to bug fixes and
00:51:30.219 --> 00:51:32.320
this and that. You never actually grow because
00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:35.000
you're just always like putting out fires or
00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:37.500
whatever else. You never actually step back and
00:51:37.500 --> 00:51:39.360
plan out, okay, how do we get from here to there?
00:51:40.059 --> 00:51:43.119
So for me, what's helped, and this is where Animus
00:51:43.119 --> 00:51:45.760
ties in again. is I don't I don't figure out
00:51:45.760 --> 00:51:48.639
what I do every day. I load in every six weeks
00:51:48.639 --> 00:51:52.519
a sprint and Animus figures out what I should
00:51:52.519 --> 00:51:56.000
be doing every day to complete it. So for me,
00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:58.300
that's how we've been able to grow. And I think
00:51:58.300 --> 00:52:01.500
that, you know, getting those kind of that systems
00:52:01.500 --> 00:52:03.760
level thing where you're not just kind of reacting
00:52:03.760 --> 00:52:07.159
to whatever hit the inbox that day is a big big
00:52:07.159 --> 00:52:09.719
step forward, I think, for getting out of that
00:52:09.719 --> 00:52:12.619
kind of grinding perpetual loop that a lot of
00:52:12.619 --> 00:52:15.159
companies get in. When you so animus is doing
00:52:15.159 --> 00:52:18.039
the the task prioritization for you and all that
00:52:18.039 --> 00:52:20.900
sort of stuff. Did you have animus use any particular
00:52:20.900 --> 00:52:23.739
methodology or approach or or just just said,
00:52:23.739 --> 00:52:25.780
you know, use your judgment to figure out like
00:52:25.780 --> 00:52:28.400
how is it figuring out how to surface the things
00:52:28.400 --> 00:52:30.400
to the time? Yeah, so I have a I have a thing
00:52:30.400 --> 00:52:32.940
where you know we have our annual goals and then
00:52:32.940 --> 00:52:35.380
they get broken down into these six week sprints
00:52:35.380 --> 00:52:38.880
and every six weeks. Well, a little before the
00:52:38.880 --> 00:52:41.920
sprint. I'll just do spend about an hour doing
00:52:41.920 --> 00:52:45.320
back and forth with the AI planning out like
00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:47.320
deconstructing. Okay. Here's our lofty goal.
00:52:47.800 --> 00:52:50.360
Let's break down into smaller projects and then
00:52:50.360 --> 00:52:52.300
let's based on what I've done historically, let's
00:52:52.300 --> 00:52:55.380
fit it into six weeks. And obviously there's
00:52:55.380 --> 00:52:57.559
buffer put in for things like unexpected things.
00:52:57.599 --> 00:53:00.599
Like we just got our SOC 2 certification, which
00:53:00.599 --> 00:53:03.460
wasn't in the cards, but we had a few big enterprise
00:53:03.460 --> 00:53:06.159
customers who demanded it. So we had to kind
00:53:06.159 --> 00:53:08.670
of figure that out. Right. So. There's always
00:53:08.670 --> 00:53:10.289
going to be kind of these curve balls, especially
00:53:10.289 --> 00:53:13.329
for like bugs and bigger issues or you get sick
00:53:13.329 --> 00:53:17.909
or whatever. So it helps me plan it out in terms
00:53:17.909 --> 00:53:19.829
of methodology. Not really. It's just a matter
00:53:19.829 --> 00:53:22.869
of like, it knows my velocity is kind of how
00:53:22.869 --> 00:53:26.510
I put it. It knows what we've got done. It knows
00:53:26.510 --> 00:53:29.010
where we have auxiliary help, like, you know,
00:53:29.070 --> 00:53:31.130
people like Mark and others who can step in and
00:53:31.130 --> 00:53:34.670
help push projects forward. And then it's just
00:53:34.670 --> 00:53:37.369
a matter of like, okay, budgeting that out. things
00:53:37.369 --> 00:53:40.409
we need to spend, budgeting my time, fitting
00:53:40.409 --> 00:53:42.530
it into six weeks, coming up with effectively
00:53:42.530 --> 00:53:44.489
treating it like a proposal as a one -off six
00:53:44.489 --> 00:53:48.230
-week project. And then, yeah, basically just
00:53:48.230 --> 00:53:50.469
executing on that. And then that's all kept in
00:53:50.469 --> 00:53:53.409
Linear, which is our kind of repository for the
00:53:53.409 --> 00:53:56.170
task management stuff. And then it reports off
00:53:56.170 --> 00:53:58.570
that and it figures out our cadence, velocity
00:53:58.570 --> 00:54:01.230
from that. Linear's up to GitHub. It's hooked
00:54:01.230 --> 00:54:04.070
up to a lot of other things too. And yeah, it's
00:54:04.070 --> 00:54:06.309
just this nice well -oiled machine at this point
00:54:06.309 --> 00:54:08.409
that, you know, I'm trying to always improve,
00:54:08.409 --> 00:54:11.849
but it does the job now. And I think before I
00:54:11.849 --> 00:54:14.570
used to, it's funny, I'd wake up, start the day
00:54:14.570 --> 00:54:16.610
and my wife would ask, it's like, what are you
00:54:16.610 --> 00:54:19.690
doing today? And I know I'd be like, well, I'm
00:54:19.690 --> 00:54:23.030
going to see what's in the inbox, see what, you
00:54:23.030 --> 00:54:24.610
know, if there's anything people need to do,
00:54:24.690 --> 00:54:26.690
maybe I'll do a scroll on Twitter and then I'll
00:54:26.690 --> 00:54:29.929
get inspired to do this crazy project. Cause
00:54:29.929 --> 00:54:34.329
somebody else posted about it and. Why not? And
00:54:34.329 --> 00:54:36.429
I used to be very, I hate saying it, but very
00:54:36.429 --> 00:54:39.510
reactive, very much like whatever the way the
00:54:39.510 --> 00:54:42.210
wind pushes me. So this has been helpful because
00:54:42.210 --> 00:54:44.909
since I don't have a boss, I treat animus as
00:54:44.909 --> 00:54:47.650
my boss in the sense that it tells me like, based
00:54:47.650 --> 00:54:51.010
on what I put together in this very nicely defined
00:54:51.010 --> 00:54:53.469
sprint, like it tells me, okay, Brennan, you're
00:54:53.469 --> 00:54:54.789
doing this, this and this today. You're doing
00:54:54.789 --> 00:54:56.190
a post on LinkedIn this morning. You told me
00:54:56.190 --> 00:54:59.250
to do that. I did it. And then like it looks,
00:54:59.369 --> 00:55:01.210
my inbox, it sees, okay, these are the things
00:55:01.210 --> 00:55:03.710
that came in overnight. You've got probably about
00:55:03.710 --> 00:55:05.869
a few bug fixes that need to get done. So you'll
00:55:05.869 --> 00:55:08.090
do those, but then you're going to be heads down
00:55:08.090 --> 00:55:10.710
for a few hours working on this big push forward.
00:55:11.090 --> 00:55:14.349
And I find that really strangely freeing. It
00:55:14.349 --> 00:55:17.800
is. Yeah, I like to refer to my obsidian -based,
00:55:17.900 --> 00:55:21.119
not the bosses, like my chief of staff or my
00:55:21.119 --> 00:55:23.780
orchestrator. It's like your job is to orchestrate.
00:55:24.059 --> 00:55:26.719
This is fantastic. We'll dig more into that maybe
00:55:26.719 --> 00:55:29.480
on a future percent. Then the final rapid fire
00:55:29.480 --> 00:55:32.480
here is any sort of tip. If you can give one
00:55:32.480 --> 00:55:34.920
piece of advice or a tip to a founder who's running
00:55:34.920 --> 00:55:37.099
a dinner table size team right now who wants
00:55:37.099 --> 00:55:39.659
to scale, and I know you've given a lot so far,
00:55:39.739 --> 00:55:41.719
but maybe what's an additional piece of advice
00:55:41.719 --> 00:55:45.639
you might say, hey, do this, this will help you
00:55:45.639 --> 00:55:50.159
quite a bit. I think from, just because my area
00:55:50.159 --> 00:55:51.940
of expertise is probably in the marketing side,
00:55:52.460 --> 00:55:57.079
I think the more you can automate that middle
00:55:57.079 --> 00:55:59.699
stuff we were talking about, like the actual
00:55:59.699 --> 00:56:03.159
connecting the dots from email subscriber slash
00:56:03.159 --> 00:56:06.480
lead to customer of yours, the more you can kind
00:56:06.480 --> 00:56:10.360
of treat it as something that you're not automating
00:56:10.360 --> 00:56:12.239
for the sake of automating instead what you're
00:56:12.170 --> 00:56:14.329
really doing is you're trying to get people better
00:56:14.329 --> 00:56:17.309
user experience by giving them the right content
00:56:17.309 --> 00:56:19.170
at the right time, you know, right person, right,
00:56:19.170 --> 00:56:22.750
right message, right time. That's, that should
00:56:22.750 --> 00:56:24.909
be something that you want to invest in. And
00:56:24.909 --> 00:56:27.449
it's one of these things that so few, I've, we
00:56:27.449 --> 00:56:29.369
have a lot of big companies, I won't name names.
00:56:29.670 --> 00:56:32.510
So it's got a, a fortune 500 who just signed
00:56:32.510 --> 00:56:36.929
up for us kind of in December and big company,
00:56:37.250 --> 00:56:41.320
tons of people, but my God, just not like, It's
00:56:41.320 --> 00:56:45.519
just amazing how few organizations do this right.
00:56:46.800 --> 00:56:50.239
And I think if you can just try to think like,
00:56:50.880 --> 00:56:55.320
where do we, what is our advantage or not advantage,
00:56:55.420 --> 00:56:57.059
but like, what do we do best? We're really good
00:56:57.059 --> 00:56:59.059
at getting the word out there, connecting with
00:56:59.059 --> 00:57:01.739
new people, getting them in the door and then
00:57:01.739 --> 00:57:05.340
giving them an incredible outcome, right? Like
00:57:05.340 --> 00:57:07.679
building great software, delivering great coaching,
00:57:07.820 --> 00:57:10.300
whatever it is you do. The middle stuff, if you
00:57:10.300 --> 00:57:13.599
can try to think through like, let's make this
00:57:13.599 --> 00:57:17.360
almost like a touring complete machine. That's
00:57:17.360 --> 00:57:19.340
to me is the thing that I think a lot of companies
00:57:19.340 --> 00:57:23.199
do not do that. I would highly encourage, like
00:57:23.199 --> 00:57:25.739
you said, this dinner table size teams to think
00:57:25.739 --> 00:57:28.519
that through and think like, it doesn't need
00:57:28.519 --> 00:57:31.780
to be a binary thing. It's not done or not done.
00:57:32.019 --> 00:57:35.679
It's how do we start incrementally moving toward
00:57:35.679 --> 00:57:40.389
that outcome? Fantastic. Well, this has been
00:57:40.389 --> 00:57:42.349
a great podcast, Brendan. I really want to thank
00:57:42.349 --> 00:57:44.550
you so much for sharing these great insights.
00:57:45.210 --> 00:57:47.050
As I mentioned, there's a lot of folks who are
00:57:47.050 --> 00:57:49.230
thinking along the same line, so it's always
00:57:49.230 --> 00:57:51.349
good to hear from folks like you, and that's
00:57:51.349 --> 00:57:53.929
what this podcast is all about. Amazing. Well,
00:57:54.010 --> 00:57:55.570
thank you so much, Ron. I really appreciate you
00:57:55.570 --> 00:57:57.730
helping me. Thank you. And I want to leave you
00:57:57.730 --> 00:57:59.690
all with this weekly mantra, as we always say,
00:57:59.809 --> 00:58:01.590
the thing that you should be thinking about this
00:58:01.590 --> 00:58:05.210
week. And that's automation is a leverage move.
00:58:05.449 --> 00:58:08.110
It's a scale -maxing move. Build once, compound
00:58:08.110 --> 00:58:11.210
indefinitely, and make the most of what's becoming.
00:58:11.210 --> 00:58:13.349
Tools are just getting more and more capable,
00:58:13.570 --> 00:58:16.590
more and more powerful every day. So if you loved
00:58:16.590 --> 00:58:18.170
this interview with Brendan Dunn, I want you
00:58:18.170 --> 00:58:20.510
to hit that subscribe button, leave a review,
00:58:20.929 --> 00:58:22.570
share it with that founder friend who's still
00:58:22.570 --> 00:58:24.510
blasting the same email to their entire list
00:58:24.510 --> 00:58:26.619
and wondering why they converted. is flatlining
00:58:26.619 --> 00:58:29.300
because after this episode they really have no
00:58:29.300 --> 00:58:31.880
excuse not to do better. So I want you to think
00:58:31.880 --> 00:58:36.360
big, stay lean, and scale smarter. Microteams
00:58:36.360 --> 00:58:39.420
aren't the future, they're the now. If this episode
00:58:39.420 --> 00:58:41.960
got you fired up, hit that subscribe button,
00:58:42.380 --> 00:58:44.760
share it with your crew, and join the movement
00:58:44.760 --> 00:58:49.340
over at Scalabrate .com. That's S -C -A -L -E
00:58:49.340 --> 00:58:53.880
-B -R -A -T -E .com. Till next time, think big,
00:58:54.320 --> 00:58:57.489
stay lean, and scale smarter because you're not
00:58:57.489 --> 00:59:00.949
a tiny team. You're a micro team with mega potential.
00:59:01.269 --> 00:59:04.010
So get exponential. And thanks for tuning in
00:59:04.010 --> 00:59:05.869
to the exponential scale podcast.