The Exchanges

Q Yep. So did they buy a chunk of Veeam and that's why you jumped into Veeam?

A No, I, I had, it's funny. The connections you make when you're younger end up playing out, uh, to help you in your career. So I had interned and I was completely useless by the way. I basically got coffees and sandwiches for people. At a company that was bought by VMware and, uh, this, the CEO, uh, ended up going over to this company and, and I called him one day for advice and I was like, Hey, I don't know if I should go get another degree here. And he said, well, why don't you just come work for me? And since I went over and started to hang out with salespeople and learn about how you both sell and build a product, I've never left the operating side.

AI assessment note: “No, I, I had, it's funny. The connections you make when you're younger”

Q Do you sell any other inventory besides a backlink in your mostly metrics article?

A So I think about myself kind of as a skew and I think content creators have to do that. Like, you know, it's not just about writing something in a backlink and charging for it. It's my voice is different than other people. And I think the finance game and I will also show up and talk to your customers if you want, just from my experiences. So like you could structure something where, Hey, and I'm just going to make it up, uh, you know, a 100,000 dollars over three months. You could do, uh, one podcast readout every week, um, in my own tone that should resonate with finance people, plus a newsletter post, plus like a webinar show up to your event. And, um, It, it becomes more of a relationship. I think when you do it that way to say, listen, I'm here to make you succeed in any way I can in any content form that you can. And by bundling those together, it's more of like a holistic value prop, not just, you know, a transactional thing where you sign up and maybe they pay you with a credit card for one post and then you never hear about them again. It's, Hey, how can we grow together and actually integrate it into a marketing plan?

AI assessment note: “one podcast readout every week... plus a newsletter post, plus like a webinar”

Q from a Brex. But then if they don't get the click throughs that Rex expected, right, or they don't get like Rex can't justify the cost internally over time, it becomes a one time thing that's very hard to build a sustainable business around. So, so have you unlocked anything in terms of creating sustainable sponsor relationships that consistently yield you, you know, four or five, six grand per month?

A Yeah. So it's a great question. And I think the key is both sides realizing that this is for my audience, CFOs aren't going to just buy something because you did one banner ad in one post. You have to be willing to buy like at least a month or like six posts or, you know, uh, for the podcast, we do three month sponsorships because it's best for both of us. You need to hear it multiple times. I remember there was a study that you need to Hear about a brand seven times before you actually consider making a purchase. So I'm very upfront with people who want to sponsor it. And I'll say, listen, I can do a one time post for you, but I really don't think it's going to be the best results because you have to also build a relationship with the audience and they have to hear from you multiple times, um, from, from multiple angles. So I, I try to caution people away from paying for one thing and saying, listen, I'll even like You know, maybe do one post for free just to show you the clicks or something like that. I don't usually do that, but I want to build a long-term relationship where we expose you over time multiple times to, to an audience.

AI assessment note: “we do three month sponsorships because it's best for both of us”

Q Yep. Yep. Very cool. So when do you, when do you quit your full-time job and go on, on media?

A That that's the, that's the million multimillion dollar question here. And I think it's more so when I finally get an idea to, to, to fulfill what I call, uh, content to commerce. Um, and what my end goal with this is to build a business behind it all. So a lot of companies, what they do is they'll make a startup and then they'll try to find distribution. So they'll start with the product and then try to find the people. My thing is to find the people have fun creating the content and then figure out what product they want. And then build that for them. So like a lot of content creators use their content to invest in other companies. That's cool and stuff, but I want to build a company behind it. And so, you know, I'm happy in the spot that I'm in now learning as a CFO and it gives me a ton of credibility. I think there's a flywheel there where I can crystallize what I'm learning. And I can also be seen as a subject matter expert because I'm doing it day to day, but eventually, uh, I I'd love to, to make this full time probably within, within the next three years here.

AI assessment note: “make this full time probably within, within the next three years here.”

Q two or 9000 of my own money trying to start a business. Um, like I don't see anything in here like Brex supports, you know, everyone trying to start a company, even if you lose two grand like me, click here to try Brex, right? I mean, Your most popular post should definitely be full. You know, if you have a sponsor inventory full, like that should be effectively filled.

A So I guess, yeah, I think the second one down, I think the second one down most popular third one down is on vertical software. That one was sponsored by Abacom, a company that I really believe in within the FP&A space. And what's cool about that is they continue to get clicks now because most of my content's evergreen. Like I'm not gonna, like, if you think about different levels of content, you have like, um, You have evergreen stuff, which I write, which is always helpful. Like people are always going to want to know more about metrics so they can make more money over time and be better at their jobs. And then you have news stuff, which may be a flash in the pan and you get big views one day, but people won't visit it. So, um, some of my early posts, I, I didn't, uh, advertise at all because I was just trying to get audience capture. And to be honest, like it's kind of one of those things where you're learning on the fly every day and trying to see which model is best. And, um, There, there are a lot of, uh, creators that, you know, I look up to in the space and they actually give away a lot of their content for free. So somebody once said to me, CJ, you want to give away so much value that you almost feel sick, not charging for it. And that's when the real money will come.

AI assessment note: “some of my early posts, I, I didn't, uh, advertise at all because”

Q Do they pay you for that or do you pay them to be part of the network?

A Uh, they pay me. So we have advertisers. So there are a couple of different monetization streams I can break down for each, but basically what I discovered was there wasn't an operator voice creating content out there specifically for, you know, the people who are in the trenches, uh, in kind of the office of the CFO. For a while, I was trying to just document what I was learning. And Nathan, that's because people in the startup world will pay you for the playbook that you have. You've taken a company from X to Y to Z. How do you do that now for my company too? And I was kind of scared shitless that I don't know if I can swear on this. I was scared if I, I was scared that I was going to forget what I was learning. So I started to document it. And eventually I found what I call audience market fit. It was a bunch of people who were like me interested in the same stuff. And it, it took on a life of its own. It went from, you know, my mother and my dog and, and my wife reading it to 35,000 people in about a year and a half. So first year and a half, I wrote, nobody listened to me.

AI assessment note: “Uh, they pay me. So we have advertisers.”