B (3:45)

Really interesting. Can I ask you to double click on the. I know you know that my clientele and your clientele is early in General, early stage B2B founders who have raised a ton of VC funding or tech executives or venture capitalists. Can I ask you to double click on what is the real underlying value we're providing? And the context for this question is an interesting question. Interesting conversation I had recently with the prospect who I asked him, have you had any experience with the ghostwriter previously? Have you done personal branding in the past? And he said he actually had a pretty good writer in the past, but the reason he didn't like them, the reason he fired them was because they were really bad at interviewing him and they were really bad at asking him targeted questions and was kind of really fascinating to me because I never really saw a part of, like a core part of the value I provide in the interviewing. I always thought it was like, okay, I have to do the interviewing. I have to extract their knowledge and insights in order to write for them. That's an essential thing I have to do. But the real value is in the content. And so I'm trying to think through, like, what is the real value? Is it is really a status game? Are we helping people, like, basically feel good about themselves through the interviewing and then be perceived as more legit and authoritative? Like, how do you understand the real underlying value and why people Buy this service.

A (4:54)

Yeah. The real underlying value is that it increases the likelihood that more people see that person as a real person on the Internet. Like full stop, end of story. That's all it is. It's, it's. I'm, I'm an investor. I meet with a founder, we go out for coffee, I know that I'm about to go meet up with them. I got there five minutes early. What do I do? I type that founder's name into Google. That's what I do, right? And if nothing pops up, I'm like, there's, there's one of two answers. If nothing pops up. Either they are boy genius who is just like the most incredibly smart person ever and they are like off on the Internet and they like have completely chosen not to play that game. But like they secretly know how to build rockets or they're incompetent. Right? And so like that, that actually is the value. That is what they're buying. That's why I think it's so hard for most people to understand. And I see it all the time. People ask questions about this in pga, in Liftoff, in here. People misunderstand that. Like for a lot of people, especially startup founders that raise a shit ton of money, the value has literally nothing to do with direct response. It has everything to do with perceived status and the fact that they are a real person on the Internet. The bonus value comes in the interview, which is that over time, the best ghostwriters. The role that I ended up finding myself playing is that you help these people clarify their thinking. Like, yes. Does it create better content? Sure. But like they, they hop on those calls because they're really excited to like think through something. Every other hour of their day is spent them telling other people what to do. This is the only pocket in their day where someone asks them, how do you think about that? It's a really interesting value prop. Right? And so that is actually a very different service than something that's more direct Response related on LinkedIn or whatever platform. It's not that like one is better than the other, it's that they solve different problems. And so it's like, which it's no different than do you want to build a short form video agency or do you want to build PR agency? Like they're just different types of businesses.

B (7:20)

Can I ask that in your business? And then I want to let other people ask questions if they have.

A (7:24)

Sure, that's a great question. All good.

B (7:27)

So how did you think about KPIs in that context? For the clients who wouldn't necessarily care about direct response, thinking about thought leadership and thinking about this sort of ineffable thing called brand value. The CEO of this multi billion dollar company, I don't know how we're going to measure. I mean there's the usual social metrics, impressions, engagements, etc and then there's another category of metrics. People talk about business metrics which could be inbound leads. It could be better talent acquisition or easier talent acquisition and more and better investors. But for the ones who really just like want to be a person on the Internet, is it like were you looking at followers? Was it more just like having a presence and the actual quality of content? Despite that being really hard to quantify. Like how do you, how do you like what kind of reports did you show your clients to show you are becoming a person on the Internet?

A (8:19)

We, I know this is hard to believe but 300 plus clients, we didn't promise a single metric and didn't provide a single report. And now, now there, there's a case to be made that, that there were elements of that were not correct. And I actually, I'm fine to admit that like I think if I was to do the agency over, there are some things that I differently but at the same time, if I'm being totally honest, like we ended up working with CEOs and founders that 99.9% of people would never get the chance to interact with billionaires, most well known VCs in the world, celebrities, Olympic athletes, like, and I think a big reason why we were able to attract that sort of person is almost because of the nature of the service. I was like, I was like, either you understand the value of sharing your insights at scale or you don't. What's the KPI? The KPI is you're not doing it. That's the KPI. You're invisible on the Internet. Do you want a library? And the people that really fought me on that either joined for a month and then churned or they just didn't become clients in the first place. But that wasn't our target client. We, we had clients stick with us for three years who just wanted to put out a piece a week. Being like this is what I, this is what I about my industry. And then if they ever really pushed on, like how do you quantify the roi? I would always try and put it in the context of something that was specific to their business. So if it was like the CEO of a, like one was, we worked with the entire exec Team of a blockchain company back in 2017. They were developing really interesting blockchain infrastructure for other companies to build on. And one of the executives kept giving us a hard time being like, how do we quantify this? How do I quantify this? And so on call, I said, all right, well, ask me how I should quantify. If you walk into a partnership meeting three months from now and someone has read one of your articles and they trust you and they decide to work with you, and that deal is worth $10 million, how would you like me to quantify our work together? And then guess what? That happened, like, literally three months later. They walked into a meeting, and the person that they were meeting with sits down. And the first thing they say is, oh, by the way, I just loved your article last week about blockchain technology. And then they built that partnership, and then they came back and he was like, you're totally right. I have no idea. So it's just. It's a very different type of service, you know.

B (10:55)

In terms of chartered founders. Was there. I don't. I think I asked you something like this last time. But it was a particular stage founder that cared less about the direct response KPIs and much more about the vague. Being a present, being having a presence on the Internet.

A (11:09)

Almost always it was a direct correlation to the more money they raised, the less they cared about it. Like, if I had a seed stage founder, they were like, I can barely pay you, so how do I make sure that I'm getting customers so that this is ROI positive? But if it was the founder of a series D, we just raised half a billion dollars company, they're like, I don't give a fuck. I just want to put out pieces about leadership and I look like a person. Right. So that is the direct correlation. All right.

B (11:40)

That gives me some clarity into the direction I want to move in. Going up market. So thank you.

A (11:47)

Yeah. I think the last thing I just wanted to share is you have to remember that there's very different types of marketing and that there's very different types of reasons to do marketing. And for a lot of these people, the decision to put out content has really nothing to do with customers or money. Like, if you just went and raised a hundred million dollars, you could give a fuck about how many people you convert from LinkedIn. You don't care. Right. You do care, though, about looking like a real person, and then you can go raise another 250 million 18 months later. Right. And so for a lot of that type of person. The decision to put out content is a lot less logical and it's a lot more emotional. Like don't underestimate how many of those people are like I raised $100 million, I did a secondary round so I took 10 million off the table for myself. I just bought a baller ass house, I'm the fucking shit. And now I just want to put pieces out into the world because I want to share how smart I am and I'm not making that up. I worked with a hundred plus people who fit that archetype so I'm just, I'm telling you like you have to sort of separate and go. That is one specific service and you will attract a very different type of client if you're like we get into the nitty gritty, it's very direct response. We send these messages, we do these connection requests like those are not the same person. Well said, makes sense.

B (13:21)

Thanks.

A (13:21)

Yeah, awesome, great question.