The Exchanges

Q Love it. How do you think about distribution? Are you sales focused, like code email, mainly marketing focus, both? So why do you, how do you think you're getting the initial customers?

A So marketing is, is mainly what I do. In the past, before AI, I'd always have a co-founder to build tech. Now, um, it's all distribution and marketing focused. So I don't build the product until we can crack distribution. Uh, so some of the experiments I'm running now, you know, I'm messing with some consumer stuff. Um, it's distribution first. And if it works, if it goes viral, if people are clicking pages, if people, the big thing, if people are spending money, even if they spend a dollar, that's better than 10,000 people signing up on a wait list and saying they're gonna spend a dollar, right? So we start there. And then from there, um, because when you start there, all you need is a website or a landing page or something to capture. And, uh, you can iterate that very quickly and drive traffic. So we do things on Instagram, TikTok, when it comes to consumer for LinkedIn, uh, for B to B, we go at LinkedIn, LinkedIn, like building in public, not even, you know, running ads. Um, and for B to B, uh, when it comes to paid advertising, we actually had a lot of success with meta, which a lot of people will get on LinkedIn to try to run ads for B to B. But they don't realize the entire, all the same people are on Facebook, and it's less competitive to get those people, um, on Meta than it is on LinkedIn. And, um, yeah, we, we, we use Cappy conversion API to target those, you know, B…

AI assessment note: “marketing is, is mainly what I do. In the past, before AI”

Q do you keep, like, all the businesses, they seem so different from, you know, packaged goods, to sales tech, to, you know, a Whoop competitor platform. Like, how do you get, how do you think through ideas? Do you have, like, a framework or things you look for? I noticed a few times you, you know, had experienced a problem at previous companies. Is that a way you get ideas?

A Yeah, that's usually how it goes in building one company. And, and a lot of the builders watching this will resonate. You see a lot of problems and you come across a lot of things that are tricky and difficult, and you are willing to pay money for, you know, a solution. And there wasn't one. That's usually how I go about it. As of recent, you know, I don't have any grandiose ideas. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, starting my, you know, agency came as a result of what we did to make that Kickstarter campaign. And then after that, the media company came as a result of all the influencer we work with at, at, at, uh, my marketing agency. Then after that, I had built a platform for those creators.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, that's usually how it goes in building one company.”

Q Nice. I love that. Damn. Um, you've been through six acquisitions. What do you think, like, the biggest learning has been? Like venture backed ones, bootstrap ones. Uh, like how do you think about acquisitions today compared to maybe your first acquisition too?

A That's, that's, that's a, there's a lot unpacked there. So one venture backed versus bootstrap. I've done both. Um, now certain businesses, I, this used to be, I feel like more true before certain businesses would require you raising money unless you had a lot of capital. Um, I don't think that's true anymore. Um, so because of that, And, and, and to even go deeper, I think people can solo build companies that make more money than they, they can probably, you know, spend in a lifetime. Um, so venture back versus bootstrap. Bootstrap, you need a smaller exit to make a life-changing amount. And I think that's what we're, that's what matters in acquisition. It's not the actual number. It's, is it a life-changing number for you? Um, and I think that's way more possible with bootstrap than venture back. I have made more on my bootstrap exits. Like any, a single one of my bootstrap exits has made more than probably all of my venture backed exits. In terms of what went into my pocket, right? The actual numbers, sure, they're higher sometimes. Investors get their money back plus more than, you know, these liquidation preferences, and, and then after everything is said and done, then usually the founders get paid out, and sometimes after you do that for two, three years, it feels like you kind of just had a job, um, you know, and, and we get to call more shots than, you know, any normal…

AI assessment note: “Bootstrap, you need a smaller exit to make a life-changing amount.”

Q do this. If you were trying to make, you know, ten million dollars, how would you think about doing that today? Like, where, where would you look for ideas? Let's just, You know, pretend like you're completely starting a new company from scratch. Uh, what are a few ideas you look at or markets you look at? How would you build it? Uh, let's just, let's see where that goes.

A So a million is a lot easier. I've done that multiple times. Ten million is, is, is a little hard for me to speak on it. I've scaled a company there once. Um, but let's just, let's just say right now what I would work on, um, I think there's a couple of things that goes into making, um, a business that's, you know, successful or makes money. I think it's a little different on B to B and I think it's a little different on B to C. On B to B, you need to save people more time, or save people more money than you're asking them to spend. So, you know, in the past, it's like, you spend the time building the software, you have unique insight, you know, it saves them time and money, because they don't have to build it, and boom, you know, it's, it's all great, and you're making money, and, and, um, scaling pieces, you know, there's levels to it, right? Like zero to, uh, first 100,000, I feel like it's really hard, right? And then a hundred to two million, it's, do the same thing over and over again, and two to five, um, usually you're dealing with A lot of operations breaking, you're putting in more time, you're not getting more money, and then once you crack that, it gets a little easier to scale. But with AI, B to B now, they can see a problem and they can build a solution sometimes faster than you can, you know, deliver it or for cheaper than you can deliver it. So I think B to B ha…

AI assessment note: “if I was trying to make ten million bucks now... I would actually go on the consumer route”