Transcript
Leila (0:02)
How you guys doing? Wow. Okay. We got so much.
Alex (0:05)
Oh, hi.
Leila (0:06)
We have energy in the room. I always joke. I'm like, I think it's like the leftover session because you guys meet the team and then you talk to Alex. I'm like, I don't know what you're gonna ask, but we can go for whatever you got left. I'll take it. So what you got?
Frederick (0:18)
Oh, hey, Leila. My name is Frederick. I sell digital marketing to ecommerce, specifically within fashion and apparel. We do 200k a month in revenue. Right now, we want to go to 400k end of year, in a month. 1.2 in 3 years. A month. What's stopping us right now is basically acquiring a talent at a quick enough scale because when we start marketing, it is exponentially more efficient at finding new leads and new clients compared to acquiring new job interviews with a talent. To give some context, we're from Denmark. We, we were 5.5 million people. So it's a small pool. And we've, like, considered doing signing bonuses to get like the high stasis profiles from other agencies because we want to, like, get people to our office because we have a really strong culture. And obviously we've also considered doing it remote. We're not sure what is the best option here. And just to wrap it up, we are also, like, really investing heavily in doing content like you and Alex essentially is doing, like building that brand. But that's just something that takes time and we need to scale like the job interviews with A plus talent. And that's really difficult right now.
Leila (1:28)
Right. Okay, so tell me, what did you do prior to this?
Frederick (1:32)
What do you mean?
Leila (1:33)
Like, did you have a business prior? Is this first business like.
Frederick (1:36)
Yeah, we started in the 21st of February.
Leila (1:40)
Okay, understood. I think it's a good lesson for everybody here because I think it's something that a lot of people aren't going to tell you. And I want to tell you the holistic picture and then tell you what I would do if I were you. Okay. First off, if you don't have a track record, it is difficult to get A plus talent. It's double difficult to get A plus talent if you have an opportunity that is no different from other people in this room. Right. Digital marketing agency, even though you have niche down, it's not something that it's not novel. It's not like we're building Tesla. It's not right. And so, like, we just have to look at the facts of the situation. I also want to say there's nothing wrong with this, but I wish somebody had told me that when I was building my first company as to like, why is it so hard to get talent? And I had to find out the hard way, which was when we started acquisition.com. and all of a sudden it was so easy. And I was like, I don't understand. I actually feel like, if anything, I had even. I had. I tried even harder in that company to get A plus talent with the signing bonuses and the compensation and the fandom equity and all these things. But it just felt like I was like up against a brick wall. And it was because of the opportunity vehicle and the track record. Why is that? Okay, because suddenly now we had a track record when we built acquisition.com where people can point and say, oh, they've been successful before, therefore, like, I want to tie my cart to your horse or whatever the phrase is for that thing, right? And so they're like, okay, like, I trust this is going somewhere. This isn't just a pipe dream, right? The second piece to it is that now that we've. We have this company, the opportunity size is bigger, right? People see private equity, they see venture capital, they see workshop. They're like, wow, this is like some meaty stuff I can get into. And everyone wants to be able to say that they do M and A and private equity. It's like, I don't know why, it's like terribly boring at times and, like, actually not that fun. But, like, people want to say that they do it. And so those were two things I didn't know in my first company. Now, that being said, I think that you should know that you should not focus on it. What you want to focus on is you want to know what you're up against and then you want to say, okay, how can I overcome that? Right? So, like, at this point, you don't have a track record. The only thing that you have is you have to attract top talent, in my opinion, is that you have two ends of the spectrum that you can go for, which is one end of the spectrum is people who are in the later part of their career. Now, why would they want to work for you? The reason they would want to work for you is if you're humble, if you're coachable, and if you want to learn. Because a lot of people in the later part of their career want to help somebody out who has a really big dream, is trying really fucking hard, and doesn't have an ego because they feel like they'll say, like, I feel Called to help. I feel like I can provide so much value. I feel like I can help you avoid mistakes that you might otherwise. And so finding people who work very closely with CEOs or founders that are in the later part of their career is one. Now the other end of the spectrum is people that are early in their career and that you have to train up. And so the ideal scenario is that you're able to get enough of these people in that they can help you train these people that would be ideal for you. Now the question is, well, what do you do right now? Because it's not gonna be fast to find these people and you don't have the brand credibility. Right. The first thing that I would suggest you do is in this scenario, when you don't have the brand credibility and you have a tough market, borrow brand credibility from somebody. Now where do you borrow brand credibility? From a recruiting company. You find a recruiting company. I begged, borrowed, and I did not steal, but I begged and borrowed from some of the top recruiting companies. When we had our company, Jim Walter, I was like, please fucking take me. I, I am a golden retriever over here. I don't know what I'm doing and I need top talent and I cannot grow the company without it. And I know that I don't qualify for your parameters, but like, I literally just like laid out my soul on the floor and I got some of the top firms to take me on. Now why was that important? Because they were able to get access to talent that would never have responded to me. Because if you reach out to top talent right now, like if I were to tell you, do the LinkedIn strategy, reach out, blah, blah, I can do it, it'll work just fine. If you do it, it probably won't work that well. They'll be like, I don't know, this guy's making some videos online, I don't know what he's done. Another digital marketing agency. That's just the truth. And so what you've got to do is borrow the brand credibility from a recruiting company. That's the first thing I would do if I were you. And I would try to get a couple of those people. And here's the thing, you have to listen to what they're going to need, compensation wise. But you're going to learn way more engaging with a recruiting team because you're going to actually get access to way more top talent to at least have the conversations so you get feedback from the market way faster. In terms of what compensation would it take for them to come there, but they're going to be most attracted to your character. So the only thing you've got right now is your work ethic and your character to attract those people. And they want to know that they're going to be able to have a bigger impact in your company than in another company because you're open minded. That's the only thing that me and Alex had going for us. And I swear that's why we were able to get those people. They felt like they had influence in the company. We were more influenceable, whatever, right. Because we didn't know what we were doing. We were looking for direction. We want people who knew more. And so that's the angle you have to take with that. And I do think if I were you, I would engage with the recruiting company to do so. Then once you get a couple of those people in, the next piece is, okay, how do I create a machine that builds these people? It's essentially like you want almost like mini internships, right? It's like mini interns that are constantly being groomed by these people so that you don't have to try so hard to get these people. Because here's the other thing. These people are in the later half of their career. What's that mean? We don't know how long they got these people. The more you invest in somebody, the more time you invest in someone, the more they learn at your job, the longer they will stay. People think it's the opposite. They're like, well, if I invest in them, then they're just going to leave. It's like, actually the studies show that the more you invest someone, the more skills they acquire on the job in your place, the more likely they are to keep staying there. Because they're like, I'm getting what I want out of this place, I continue to gain more skills. Why would I go somewhere else?