Inside Mostly Media: The Team Behind Run the Numbers

Summary

Run the Numbers – Inside Mostly Media: The Team Behind Run the Numbers

Host: CJ Gustafson
Date: May 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This special episode provides an inside look at the Mostly Media team behind the "Run the Numbers" podcast and the broader Mostly Metrics ecosystem. Host CJ Gustafson introduces listeners to the people who help produce, operate, and grow the show and its related media products. Through engaging, candid conversations, the team shares their backgrounds, unique roles, anecdotes, and lessons learned from building a fast-moving, founder-led media and recruiting company.

The episode highlights the dynamics of scaling a startup-like media company focused on financial education and community for ambitious tech operators. Topics include creative process, team culture, recruiting, sales strategies, the evolution of media as a product, and the challenges—and humor—of working together in a remote, high-growth environment.

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Meet the Team: Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Team Introductions and Early Banter

• Team Members:
  • Michelle Phan – Head of Accounting and Operations
  • Callie Spillane – Director of Talent, Mostly Talent
  • Sarah Bousquet – Head of Media Operations
  • Matthew Mazzocchi – Head of Sales and Partnerships
  • Ben Hillman – Director of Production
  • Steve Sarasoli – Show Producer
• Humorous moments: The group playfully teases CJ, referencing his “fanboy” status and geeky scooter-riding days.
• Quote:
  • Callie: “People fan boy and girl over CJ... in my mind, you have on a helmet and you have your motorized scooter, and you're like, just geeky thing around Boston.” (00:00)

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2. Michelle Phan: Operations and the Transition from Tech CFO to Founder

• CJ and Michelle’s history: Worked together previously at PartsTech, with Michelle as a foundational company operator.
• CJ’s Growth: Moving from intense, nervous first-time CFO to visionary founder.
• CJ’s approachability: Fearlessly asking accounting/tax basics and learning openly.
• Cultural Learnings: The difference between operating in private equity environments vs. “building what I was always meant to build.”
• Team Chemistry: Intentional hiring, high bar for culture and fit.
• Quote:
  • Michelle: “The job that you're in now is the one you were always meant to be in. You're so happy and you're just learning something new every day.” (06:04)
• Unfiltered honesty: Joking about never hiring in New York again after filing headaches. (05:35)
• Turning a newsletter into a company: Michelle recognized the seedling of greatness even when CJ was “just dabbling on the weekends.” (07:00)

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3. Callie Spillane: Recruiting at Scale, Culture, and the 0→1 Journey

• From Tech Recruiter to Talent Leader: Callie’s track record at Superhuman, HubSpot, Snyk, and Formlabs, now building Mostly Talent.
• Negotiation dynamics: CJ found Callie “formidable” in offer negotiations, admiring her salary negotiation and comp plan insights. (13:46)
• Zero to One vs. One to Ten: The challenges—and excitement—of helping build a recruiting arm from scratch, pulling lessons from previous hypergrowth roles.
• Process Innovation: Automating manual recruiting tasks using tools like Claude, while balancing high-touch experience.
• Cultural Fit: Focus on treating every candidate and client with care.
• Candid Struggles: Daily swings between scarcity and overwhelming abundance in client/candidate supply.
• Quote:
  • CJ: “Some days we wake up, we're like, we haven't had an inbound lead. Like, our families are going to starve. ... And then other days we wake up like, how the hell are we possibly going to fill all these roles that people are going to pay us for?” (21:02)
• Lessons from experience: “No high is too high, no low is too low. Like, you gotta stay in the middle.” (21:31)
• Commission wins: Real satisfaction from entrepreneurial success. (23:04)

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4. Sarah Bousquet: Operations, Structure, and Community

• Origin Story: Recruited after her husband, a long-time fan, sent her CJ’s job post.
• Transferable Skills: Management and multitasking as a stay-at-home mom transitioned directly to operations leadership.
• Role evolution: From two newsletters to podcasts, events, and recruiting arm—a constant embrace of change.
• Family Perceptions: Humorous anecdotes about her kids’ interpretation of what CJ actually does (“YouTuber,” “pilot”). (29:01)
• Structuring Chaos: Implementing creative structure to balance CJ’s multi-vertical focus.
• Authenticity and Approachability: The importance of genuine, direct interaction with the audience and fan community.
• Quote:
  • Sarah: “It also really does feel like a sense of community... People definitely have a fan base, but people also really feel like they know you and... you’re pretty much what you’re like.” (31:15)
• Honesty as default: Sarah occasionally serves as the “no” voice for CJ, keeping him focused and helping translate feedback. (33:12)
• Work style insight: Jokingly compared CJ’s rigorously scheduled day to “American Psycho”—“You might be a serial killer.” (33:48)

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5. Matthew Mazzocchi: Sales Leadership and Building Long-Term Partnerships

• Long collaboration history: Working with CJ for “three, four years... booking out the fourth year as we speak, 2027.” (35:03)
• Sales strategy shift: From transactional “ad spot” sales to long-term, embedded partnerships with brands seeking deeper value.
• Product-Market Fit: Early signals—strong inbound and evident demand from both audience and sponsors.
• Multi-product surface area: Navigating the expanding array of products (podcasts, newsletters, reports, events).
• Quote:
  • Matthew: “Companies are making fewer bets on creators and on media networks, but they’re making bigger bets on them as well... It will only continue to get more and more integrated.” (37:50)
• Sales Philosophy: Prioritizing likability, ease of working with, and real understanding of partner needs:
  • CJ: “Hopefully likable people. That’s not something you can put in a contract, but I think it does help you have high renewal rates.” (39:04)
• Future vision: Growth revolves around “producing really great content for CFOs to help them be better at their jobs.” (43:05)

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6. Ben Hillman & Steve Sarasoli: Creative Process in Media Production

Ben (Director of Production) and Steve (Show Producer)

• Creative DNA: Roots at ProfitWell, where they pioneered creative branded media to drive product adoption.
• Media as Product: Transitioned from content as a vehicle to content as the “main course”—distinctive, enjoyable media in service to a community, not just a sales funnel.
• Team dynamic: Complementary creative approaches—Ben as analytical, Steve as execution daredevil.
• Innovation: Regular teasing teasers, visual creativity, and “bringing the fun back into B2B.”
• Quote:
  • Steve: “Fun almost gets put on the back burner a little bit, throw it back on the stove, heat it back up, heat the fun up.” (01:39, repeated 45:46)
• Cultural quirks: Ben is “really good at Notion”; Steve says it gives him “a panic attack.” (49:53)
• Show differentiation: Run the Numbers vs. Mostly Growth—balancing creative ambitions with product needs, audience growth, and expanding to new verticals.
• Growth mindset: Ambition to build out more shows and formats over the next three years.
  • Ben: “Are there these different verticals that we can use the sort of same formula that we’re doing and approach those?” (51:29)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Callie | “People fan boy and girl over CJ... just geeky thing around Boston.” | | 06:04 | Michelle | “The job that you're in now is the one you were always meant to be in...” | | 13:46 | CJ | “You’re a stern and formidable negotiator.” | | 21:02 | CJ | “Some days we wake up, we haven’t had an inbound lead... our families are going starve.”| | 21:31 | Callie | “No high is too high, no low is too low. Like, you gotta stay in the middle.” | | 29:01 | Sarah | “So all my kids have very different perspectives on you...” | | 31:15 | Sarah | “It also really does feel like a sense of community... you’re pretty much what you’re like.”| | 33:48 | Sarah | “When I first saw your schedule... I went to American Psycho that you might be a serial killer.”| | 35:03 | Matthew | “He is a real person.” | | 37:50 | Matthew | “...fewer bets on creators...but bigger bets on them as well...” | | 39:04 | CJ | “Hopefully likable people... it does help you have high renewal rates.” | | 45:46 | Steve | “Fun almost gets put on the back burner...heat the fun up. It adds a lot.” | | 49:53 | Steve | “Ben’s really good at Notion. When I open Notion, it gives me a panic attack.” | | 51:29 | Ben | “Are there these different verticals that we can use the sort of same formula...?” |

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Key Timestamps for Segments

• 00:00 – 00:59: Lighthearted team intros, teasing CJ, setting the tone.
• 03:37 – 09:00: CJ & Michelle: The evolution from her first impressions at PartsTech to startup operator.
• 12:12 – 23:22: CJ & Callie: Recruiting philosophies, negotiation, going 'zero to one', startup anxiety.
• 26:58 – 34:43: CJ & Sarah: Family support, managing growth, structure, authentic community.
• 34:44 – 43:55: CJ & Matthew: Sales, partner philosophy, industry shifts, vision for next three years.
• 43:56 – 52:35: CJ, Ben, Steve (and brief Matthew): Creative process, media as product, dynamic teamwork, future ambitions.

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Themes & Takeaways

• Building In Public: The team operates transparently, often sharing learnings, mishaps, and growth challenges as essential fuel for audience trust and authenticity.
• Culture and Chemistry: Intentional hiring and valuing diverse skills contribute to a healthy, fun, high-performance culture.
• Blending Media and Business: The lines between creative content, education, brand, and direct product value are increasingly blurred; media is both the storefront and the engine.
• Scaling with Heart: The company’s “playbook” is still being written—balancing ambition and pragmatism, staying adaptable, and keeping the sense of fun, camaraderie, and community connection at the core.

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The episode offers an entertaining and candid behind-the-scenes journey—filled with insights, real talk, and humor—into what it takes to build and scale a modern media company for ambitious tech operators.

Transcript

[Callie Spillane]

People fan boy and girl over cj, which, again, like, in my mind, you have on a helmet and you have your motorized scooter, and you're like, just geeky thing around Boston.

[CJ]

That scooter finally broke after having it in my garage for, like, nine years.

[Michelle Phan]

I'm Michelle Phan.

[Callie Spillane]

My name is Callie Spilane.

[Sarah Bousquet]

My name is Sarah Busquet.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

My name is Matthew Mazzocchi.

[Ben Hillman]

My name is Ben Hillman.

[Steve Sarasoli]

I'm Steve Sarasoli.

[Michelle Phan]

I'm not gonna lie. When you first started, you were a little scary.

[Sarah Bousquet]

I was scary.

[CJ]

Really?

[Michelle Phan]

Well, scary. I was 100% all in because it's just so much fun.

[Callie Spillane]

Recruiting is always. You have to be a really strategic thought partner, but you also have to, like, do what you say you're going to do.

[CJ]

Some days we wake up, we're like, we haven't had an inbound lead. Like, our families are going to starve. We won't have any. My children need to choose. First thing we got to cover is Nate, your husband going to be upset that you're on the podcast before him.

[Sarah Bousquet]

Barry, you're making my life hard. And then Rita, my youngest, just thinks you're, like, a YouTuber.

[CJ]

What did she say? Like, if he's a YouTuber, why does he make you do so much work?

[Sarah Bousquet]

Mom, why does he make you do so much work while he does videos? Yeah. No concept.

[Callie Spillane]

She's four.

[Sarah Bousquet]

She doesn't know. When I first saw your schedule and how you like to lay out your day, I went to American Psycho that you might be a serial killer.

[CJ]

Tell me more or.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

Can't say. Sales for the majority of my career, I feel like it was a really obvious tell that we had product market fit. Almost immediately, CFOs, and the community was strong and continuing to grow. Where I think a lot of companies are headed is that they're making fewer bets on creators and on media networks, but they're making bigger bets on them as well.

[CJ]

The chef, because Steve just cooks.

[Steve Sarasoli]

I live in the kitchen, working in, like, B2B. I feel like everyone's always kind of propping up, like, a sophisticated and sleek way, like, look, and I feel like that's cool, but I feel like fun almost gets put on the back burner a little bit, throw it back on the stove, heat it back up, heat the fun up. It adds a lot, and I feel like it sticks out a lot.

[CJ]

And what we talked about was like, hey, dude, you've been working on the appetizer to set people up, come and work on the entree.

[Ben Hillman]

Now, that was one of the things that made me feel seen and made me convinced to come aboard. Our job wasn't successful if we got like a million views on the video, because that didn't really translate to anything. And unless people actually own bought the product.

[CJ]

Ben, what convinced you first to take the leap and work here? What drew you in the most other than that I had to hit you over the fucking head with the banjo, Ben, in order to get you to join. Is this thing on?

[Ben Hillman]

Yesterday's price is not today's price.

[CJ]

Necessity is the mother of all invention, and so are cancellations. So we had a couple of people drop out this week. I think I'm just making everybody sick or it could have been those offensive things I said on Twitter. We had an hour and a half recording gap to fill, so I figured I'd hop on the mic and actually introduce you to some of the people I work with Day to Day. A lot of people see me as the face of the company, but it's kind of like when you see like a bird on a pond and it's swimming, there are a bunch of feet below the surface helping to make it go. So I want to catch up with contributors to this Mostly Media empire and give you a look into what we work on day to day and some of the chaos that we put up with. It's been fun making the transition from a cfo where I'm reporting to a CEO on a board, to the CEO of myself. And, you know, it's a great job, but it's also a hard job when your own boss is a workaholic. So we're going to get a glimpse inside the making of Mostly Media. So I hope you enjoy this.

[Michelle Phan]

I'm Michelle Finn and I do all of the accounting and operations work for. For Muslim Media.

[CJ]

Michelle, it's so good to see you.

[Michelle Phan]

It's good to see you too.

[CJ]

Cj where in the world are you located these days?

[Michelle Phan]

I'm in Richmond, Virginia today.

[CJ]

So we've known each other for like four years, right?

[Michelle Phan]

20, 22.

[CJ]

What was I like to work with at Parts Tech?

[Michelle Phan]

I'm not going to lie. When you first started, you were a little scary.

[Sarah Bousquet]

I was scary.

[CJ]

Really?

[Michelle Phan]

Well, scary. I had some kind of brutal text. I might have to resurface them at some point, but I do have some kind of brutal texts that she sent me at the very beginning.

[Sarah Bousquet]

But.

[Michelle Phan]

But after you had sort of gotten your. Your. Your feet underneath you, I felt like we really were partners together. And that was really special. We were Learning together a lot of the stuff when you first came on

[CJ]

board, and it was my first CFO role, so I was pretty nervous as well. Just to not mess things up. I had this, like, recurring vision that someone was going to just, like, open the door and be like, who let this kid in? Who's in charge around here? Who let. Who let them do these things? I probably had, like, a bazillion questions for you when I first came, because you'd been there since the start of the company, like, over. Must have been at least eight years in.

[Ben Hillman]

Right.

[Michelle Phan]

Ten years in, because I started at the very, very beginning. What the great thing was is that if you didn't know a funky accounting term or tax term, you just asked, and you were so cool about it. You just said, michelle, stop talking. You lost me. You're, you know, talking about Nexus or sales tax or something, and you would just say, whoa, stop. You lost me five minutes. And I would explain it. And then you. I could see you writing stuff down, and you were so excited. Yeah, I just learned something new.

[CJ]

I looked at you as, like, the enforcer at the company in many ways, especially if we had to give a message to somebody around an expense policy internally, or if we had to fix something with one of, like, the horrible states that we had to file sales tax with or some sort of employment thing.

[Michelle Phan]

Well, we would absolutely say, please don't ever hire anybody in New York again. And then the next week, we would get a. You just hired an employee in the state of New York.

[CJ]

That was my bad. That was my bad. And I gave you that direction that we weren't going to hire anybody in New York. And two weeks later, we hired somebody in New York.

[Michelle Phan]

And I just got us out of the state of New York, like, literally four months ago.

[CJ]

What are some of the words you would use to describe my working style? Was I intense? Was I easy to work with then or now? Is there a difference? That. That's a better question, I guess.

[Michelle Phan]

I think there is a little difference. As you said, I think you were nervous with your first CFO role. The job that you're in now is the one you were always meant to be in. And I think you can tell the difference because you're so happy and you're just learning something new every day and constantly looking for new ideas. And I feel like you're much more creative and visionary in this role. Whereas back at Parts Tech, it was just sort of every day. It was, you know, make the numbers, do the reports.

[CJ]

That's like, what A venture backed, private equity backed environment, like that's what it comes with. And we had underground a bunch of growth where we're basically doubling headcount there each year. And we were doubling revenue as well. And then we both partnered together to exit the company. So it was a good ending to it all.

[Michelle Phan]

Yes, yes.

[CJ]

What did you think when I called you up and said, hey, I actually need your help on my company now?

[Michelle Phan]

Oh, I was so excited when I first started getting copies of your newsletter and you were just kind of dabbling in it. You said, oh, this is just something fun I do on the weekends. I enjoy writing this. And I knew that you had something way back then because I had been in, you know, controller roles, operations VP for, you know, 20 years. Your newsletter was teaching me something new every week. And it was stuff that I was like, this is amazing. CJ's telling me I don't have to go look this all up on the Internet. CJ is giving me this information and it's exactly what I need. So is how I can do my board decks. This is how I could do my budget.

[CJ]

I think what I didn't realize at the time is that it could become a career and like actually a company.

[Michelle Phan]

Yeah, I was 100% all in because it's just so much fun.

[CJ]

And we had a lot of contracts to send out to all the different advertising sponsors. And I think like, I reached my breaking point at like 11:30 at night. And I was telling my wife, like, I can't be sending all these. She's like, have you talked to Michelle yet? I was like, I should definitely call Michelle.

[Michelle Phan]

Glad you did.

[CJ]

What has been your experience so far in seeing us ramp up both on the people side and the sales side of things?

[Michelle Phan]

I think you've got great, great taste in employees, not including myself. But I have a good friend who only, for example, who only hires D1 athletes as salespeople. He says tried hiring other people. But D1 athletes, there's just something about their mentality, something about their work ethic. They make the best salespeople. They've never let me down. And I don't know what you've got going on in the, in, in the back of your brain, but I feel like every person that you've picked as a hire has really complemented everyone else on the team. And we've just got a really cohesive group now to move forward. And I feel like the sky's the limit. We can do anything.

[CJ]

And who knows, if we hit our number this year, maybe we all go to Disney World. Michelle, thank you for everything that you do for me. Keeping me honest, keeping me on track. I really appreciate it.

[Michelle Phan]

Happy to do it. Thanks dj.

[CJ]

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[Callie Spillane]

Kelly Spillane and I am the director of talent at Mostly Talent, which is a sub company of the Mostly Media business.

[CJ]

I'm hearing internal rumblings that the females of Mostly Media are angry at me that I didn't give enough heads up.

[Callie Spillane]

The common theme has been it's such a male thing to do to tell you that you're going to be on a podcast 30 minutes before.

[CJ]

By the way, congrats on making your first hire.

[Callie Spillane]

Thank you.

[CJ]

What's it been like to get the band back together and have to work with me again?

[Callie Spillane]

It's been great. Like generally it's been great. I still in my mind have like I visualize you being riding a scooter into an office in Boston with a helmet. So that's been funny. Just to like go back from like being in person with you to then going into being like via screens. It's been really exciting. I'm like really grateful for the opportunity.

[CJ]

Callie, give people a download of where you were working before this and what you were working on.

[Callie Spillane]

So I worked at companies like Superhuman, HubSpot, Sneak Form Labs, which is a 3D printing company. So a bunch of different tech companies in an in house recruiting role.

[CJ]

I think what made me like really motivated to try to convince you to work here is you have this in house experience. You weren't a headhunter beforehand. You were always a partner to helping whether it was a CRO grow the team or even sometimes a cfo.

[Callie Spillane]

I love the in house. That's why I tell people I grew up in house.

[CJ]

In my career, the real question is, why were you so hard to hire? Why did you hold out on me for so long?

[Callie Spillane]

Was I hard to hire?

[CJ]

You're a stern and formidable negotiator.

[Callie Spillane]

Do you know what's really interesting? I've been told that I tend to negotiate pretty, like, directly. I thought that I put everything on the table.

[CJ]

Yeah, it worked. It definitely worked. I felt like you had some reps at this beforehand. Like, I was thinking, like, oh, it's someone who's worked in recruiting. Like, not that you're going to be a pushover or anything, but, like, you're just going to be like, yeah, happy to take a look, and this will work. This won't. You even came at it, like, hey, if we're building a company together, we should figure out a way to incentivize, like, getting more hires in the door. Like, and you started referencing, like, comp plans. I think that's where my eyes lit up. I was like, oh, she actually wants to scale this thing.

[Callie Spillane]

Yeah, I don't want to just, like, do a job. To do a job, there has to be some motivation behind it.

[CJ]

You and your husband, Ryan, you both worked at HubSpot. Was he behind the scenes putting his sales brand to this saying, like, turn the screws to CJ when you ask for this?

[Sarah Bousquet]

No.

[Callie Spillane]

A lot of the negotiation was from me, but I definitely had, like, his contract view lens on it. He's also just, like, really passionate about startups anyways, so for him, like, this whole venture has been really exciting.

[CJ]

Take me back to that. We work on Boylston. I was running FP&A at the time. You were hiring, like, over a hundred salespeople a year. What was that look on my face?

[Callie Spillane]

So what's really interesting is when we were in Boylston, I was only there, I think, like, two weeks before we went to the office. I'm pretty sure every time that one of the leaders in the company was like, yeah, we're going to hire this many people. I looked at you and you were like, we'll do it in budget. You were not happy with the amount of asks I had for additional budget on. On hiring.

[CJ]

It was a crazy time because for context, we raised, like, five rounds of funding in two years, over a billion dollars. And we went from, like, 150 people to over 1500 when we were there. It felt like a new company every. Every, like, four to six months.

[Callie Spillane]

When we started, it was just like, okay, like, this company has legs. And then all of a sudden, Covid hit. And so three months in, it's like, okay, everyone pause for a second. What are we actually doing? It was like, you know what? We have an opportunity. Let's accelerate. And I remember having a conversation with the VP of HR at the time and. And talking about, like, okay, well, the CEO wants to pull all of the sales headcount forward into, like, for what was going to be fiscal year 21. We're going to pull it into Q1 of 2021. And I'm like, excuse me? Like, how are we going to do that? It was really exciting. I can't believe how quickly we grew and scaled. When I think about the people that I work with and, like, the trench, being in the trenches with them, like, that is a company where a lot was learned in those. Those years.

[CJ]

Do any of those early days remind you of what we're doing now? Like, what's your view on entrepreneurship? And, like, we're truly going from zero to one. I think when me and you both joined that company, maybe we were at, like, 05 going to 1.

[Callie Spillane]

I think that we were probably even in, like, the one, right? Like, when you're at a series B going into series C, like, we were definitely in, like, the one, but it was like, hey, how do we go from 1 to 10? So this is by far my first venture in going 0 to 1. And what I'm grateful for is that I've had a lot of experience doing, like, the 1 to 10. So there's things that I. I feel like I can get ahead of, but I also don't want to be preventing myself from, like, just, like, doing and making sure that we're, like, providing for the people that we're working with, and they're. They're having a good experience.

[CJ]

Ethan Schechter, who we both worked closely with at sneak, you were hiring for him. I was budgeting for him to break that budget. You would always joke, like, you don't want to hire stuff people. People who, like, show up and they're like, okay, where's my stuff? This is very much, like, not a stuff role. You have to come in and be like, oh, we need to do outbound for this role, because we need to augment, like, how many people we have at the director level in this random city. Like, we could ask my wife maybe to help out and do some of the outbound, but there's no stuff.

[Callie Spillane]

No, there's no stuff. Like, honestly, cj, I was just actually in Claude and I was trying to figure out a way to build something for us that helps me to stay organized across all the different employers that we're working with. I'm used to working in an ATS or something that like just really allows for me to stay organized and have my updates. And when you're working in an Excel file, it's all manual. And so Claude's helping me to like build a little bit of automation with a little bit of manual labor.

[CJ]

It's actually four months today that we've been working on this together is we had set a pretty ambitious goal. Like do you think we could fill 20 roles by year end? And so we're four months in. We've won nine heads to place. Nine head count so far. First question, do you think you're going to pass out?

[Callie Spillane]

My anxiety level is high, but I also have a high bar for performance. And I think that like recruiting is always, you have to be a really strategic thought partner, but you also have to like do what you say you're going to do. And I have a high bar for what I expect in like providing for a client. And so I'm used to working in high growth environments, but there's a lot more tooling to help it be automated. So yeah, I'm on the threshold of passing out.

[CJ]

Well, it's also difficult because you have different stakeholders and like something that when I was speaking to you about joining, I'm like, I take it very seriously how we treat the candidates because none of this is possible if they don't want to work with us and if they don't want to read the newsletter or listen to the podcast, like, this all falls apart. You've spoken over 110 people so far.

[Callie Spillane]

What has your experience been really eye opening. I think there's a lot of people that have like put their names into the hat to say, like, yeah, if the right opportunity comes up, like I'm happy to take a call. If one of them would have applied to a role that I was working on at any of my in house companies, I would have been jumping for joy. Like that would have been wonderful. One, everyone loves you. Like whether it's an employer or whether it's a candidate. Like people fan boy and girl over cj, which again, like in my mind you have on a helmet and you have your motorized scooter and you're like just beep beeping around Boston. I have that vision of you in my head as you're like this credible influencer who people just really enjoy Your content and it's real. And it's not just like finance people that enjoy it. Like, you know, you brought up Ryan earlier. He loves it. He tells me all the time. He's like, wow, that's great. This is amazing. And you know, you've, you've put out things that have allowed for others to, to really enjoy it. Super impressed by the people that I've spoken with so far.

[CJ]

That scooter finally broke after having it in my garage for like nine years. Do you think this thing has legs? At scale, you're four months in. When do you think this like, really starts to like, come? Are we already there? Are we still figuring it? How, how are you feeling?

[Callie Spillane]

It sways daily depending on what's going on. At one point I felt like we had too many candidates and not enough employers. At one point I feel like we have too many employers, not enough candidates. So we're in this like seesaw motion. But there's totally legs. And I think there's a lot, again, like a lot of credibility with who you are and what you do. There's a ton of great candidates in, in people who are interested in opportunities. So it's just going to be like matching the right people at the right times and ensuring that we're helping both parties.

[CJ]

Some days we wake up, we're like, we haven't had an inbound lead. Like, our families are going to starve. We won't have any. My, my children need shoes. So for context, between the three of us, we have six kids, four and under. So we've got a lot of daycare bills to fill. And then other days we wake up like, how the hell are we possibly going to fill all these roles that people are going to pay us for? And so you oscillate between these two extremes of like, this can't possibly work out. If you were to try to just be a rational person and look down the middle, it's like, okay, I think it's working.

[Callie Spillane]

When I first started at HubSpot, I was a bdr. That was like how I got my first job. But that's how I met Ryan, because he was an account executive on the team. And I remember just like being really sad or like frustrated one day. And he's like, you gotta take the hits as they come. Like, no high is too high, no low is too low. Like, you gotta stay in the middle. And it's just funny that like 15 years later he's giving me that same advice, like on a day to day basis. And it's resonating between you and I as well as I'm like, cj, I don't know what I'm gonna do with all these people or I don't know what I'm gonna do with all these clients. Like, how am I going to fill the right roles?

[CJ]

I made you take a call on your first day. We really wanted to work with this incredible hiring manager and we were still trying to figure out how to pitch ourselves. And like I called you after and we both did the same thing. We totally fucked that call up. And every time we would have like a one on one, we're like, I really hope she wants to work with us down the road. Maybe just send one more email. And then like for context, a week ago this person finally came back to us out of the, like from the dead and said, hey, I would love help with this role. We're like, no effing way. Now we're trying to hire for her. But like a lot of this is, it's funny how there's a feedback loop and it's, it's never as fast as you want it to be, but eventually you do figure out if it can work.

[Callie Spillane]

And I think like again, we're what, on 9,000 days of doing this? Like, we're still so early. And you're very good at reminding me about like the entrepreneur pieces where like, you just gotta like, know who you are, commit to your work ethic.

[CJ]

Half the game is staying in the game long enough for stuff to happen.

[Callie Spillane]

Yeah.

[CJ]

Last question. What did it feel like when that first commission check hit?

[Callie Spillane]

It was pretty awesome. I can see how it could be addicting. I'm. I think I'm a very motivated person and so knowing that like I'm getting paid for my work is exciting.

[CJ]

Well, I'm excited to build this with you. I appreciate it.

[Callie Spillane]

It's been very fun.

[CJ]

Hey, thanks for listening. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Most finance teams aren't underperforming, they're actually under equipped. The problem isn't the people, it's what they're being asked to do. Because there are two kinds of finance work. The kind that moves the business forward and the kind that just keeps it from falling flat on it face. And too many finance teams are buried in the second kind and they call it a good week when they just get through it. Expense reports that take longer than the trips they cover. Spend policies living in PDFs that no one reads. A three day approval process for a $40 receipt that's a lot of burritos, but not worth it. Month end close that stretches into weeks. These aren't edge cases, they're the default state of finance at most growing companies. And the cost isn't just the time, it's what your best people aren't doing. While they're buried in the wrong work, you become what you spend on. And right now, too many finance teams are spending on maintenance instead of momentum. And that is why I use Brex Agentic Finance that captures receipts, automatically, enforces policy before the spend happens, and closes your books in minutes rather than weeks. So your finance team stops spending on maintenance and starts spending on momentum. 35,000 companies like OpenAI, Coinbase, Anthropic and Doordash already run on Brex because high density talent deserves some high leverage systems. It's time to get Brex AF can't believe they let me say that. Learn [e-mail] metrics that is brex.com metrics I've seen a lot of FPA tools and a laugh is one of the few that gave me that aha moment. Within minutes I remember watching their founder shout out to Albert, connect my netsuite data and build me a full P and L live in minutes. LAFF is now trusted by hundreds of leading companies. I've had the CFOs from Turo 8, sleep, zapier and more on the pod and every one of them is a huge advocate. I also just published my second annual CFO Tech Stack Report and Aleph has been on the podium both years including a number one finish in the 50 to $100 million segment. This year, instead of being just another planning tool, they built a real enterprise grade data foundation for finance implemented at startup speed with AI native workflows woven into its DNA. All your systems erp, CRM, hrs, ats, product usage and more, powering one clean governed data layer that finance can actually trust. With AI moving as fast as it is, they're pushing even further. Mcp, custom AI chatbots, AI powered variance analysis and the list keeps growing. Try it with your own data at get a left.com run that is G E T A L E P h.com/run tell them CJ sent you. So here's a pattern I keep running into when I talk to finance leaders at fast growing companies. You've outgrown the spreadsheets. You've probably outgrown your billing tools built in Revreck, but you're not quite at the point where you can throw a 20 person team at the problem either. That's exactly the danger zone. Right. Rev owns. Right. Rev is revenue recognition done. Right. It handles the messy stuff like high volume subscriptions, usage based contracts and mid contract upgrades. The things that break your ERP and the billing platform bolt ons. Here's the thing though. Your sales team isn't slowing down for you. They're closing ramp deals, usage commitments and mid quarter upgrades. And the longer you wait to fix the engine, the further behind you fall. So stop scrambling at month end and stitching together allocations across 3, 4, 5 spreadsheets to just have the numbers read. Well, that's it. That, that's the whole pitch. CFO's telling me it's like a glow up for the revenue books. If that sounds like where you are right now, right. Rev is worth the look. Head to rightrev.com cj that's right. Rev.com cj check them out.

[Sarah Bousquet]

Hi, my name is Sarah Bousquet and I am the head of media operations here at Mostly Media.

[CJ]

First thing we gotta cover is Nate. Your husband gonna be upset that you're on the podcast before him.

[Callie Spillane]

Very.

[Sarah Bousquet]

You're making my life hard.

[CJ]

How did you find out that I was hiring?

[Sarah Bousquet]

So my husband Nate is a big fan. He's been reading your stuff and listening to you for years. And he saw you put out a back call on your LinkedIn and sent it over to me and said, hey, I think you would be perfect for this.

[CJ]

Yeah. Your role has grown so much since you joined. You're now heading up all of our media operations in addition to making sure I stay on track, I'll put it that way. I kind of look at you as the adult in the room at this company, which I so very much appreciate because otherwise I think us kids would burn the house down.

[Sarah Bousquet]

Well, it's kind of funny I was thinking about that, actually said that before and before this. I have taken the past seven years to be mostly, mostly stay at home mom. And it's funny how those skills kind of have transitioned over to my role here. My husband likes to say that I'm the question lady. So I think jumping in and having no fear of asking everybody in the team, you know, how can I help you? Where can we do better? Has also helped a lot.

[CJ]

Mothers with multiple children like can. Can multitask and can organize things so much better, I feel than I could ever do. And I remember when I was interviewing you and I was telling my wife like this person, Sarah, I think she'd be great for the role and she's like, oh, how many kids did you say she had? I'm like, she has three small kids. Just like, she's like, oh, she's gonna crush it in that role. She can handle that. Like, this is gonna be totally easy dealing with, with you guys. Just trying to figure out the production schedule and everything. So you've stepped into the role fully and it's been a lot of fun just to figure out, like, when you came, we. We had two newsletters, we launched another podcast, we launched a recruiting arm. Like, your role just keeps changing in terms of all the different things we're touching.

[Sarah Bousquet]

I kind of like that. I like the leanness, the flexibility. There is structure, and I like playing a part in kind of creating that structure. I also appreciate that we're able to kind of flex and grow.

[CJ]

What does your daughter think that I do?

[Sarah Bousquet]

So all my kids have very different perspectives on you. The oldest, who's 7, has a crush on you. She's a girl and she thinks you're cute. And then my middle child, or I should say Nate, and my's middle child, friend of the pod Nate, he thinks it's hilarious that you are so much younger than me. The first time he saw you, I said, yeah, that's cj, my boss. And he goes, but what does he look like now, Mom? I said, no, that's, that's him in real life. I'm looking at a podcast recording and he's like, why is he so much younger than you? And then Rita, my youngest, just thinks you're like a YouTuber. She basically wants to be you. She thinks you're, you know, playing with toys and showing kids how great they are, and you just make videos all day.

[CJ]

So what did you say? Like, if he's a YouTuber, why does he make you do so much work?

[Sarah Bousquet]

Mom, why does he make you do so much work while he does videos? Yeah, no concept. She's four. She doesn't know.

[CJ]

That's amazing. Well, I told people that I went into my 4 year old's class to tell them what I did for a living, which is podcasting. And my wife got a text from one of the moms in the class, like, oh, it's so nice your husband came in. John had no idea that your husband was a pilot.

[Sarah Bousquet]

Concept's hard for them.

[CJ]

So you get to see my calendar and all the different conversations that I'm in. Do you think what I'm involved in running this media company in the front, recruiting company and data service in the back. Do you Think they go well together, or does it just look like just total context switching all the time?

[Sarah Bousquet]

No, they do. It's actually surprising. We have definitely, even since joining, had to kind of find some creative ways to add a little more structure because you are in a lot of different conversations and fields and having to switch brain. So we put some parameters around it so that it's not as quick to switch, I would say. But it all feeds into each other. Like you're having a podcast conversation with somebody, and then you use a nugget from that in one of your newsletters, and then a reader sends you an email and adds something on that they wrote about in a similar topic last week. It just continually evolves, and the connections you make are pretty natural.

[CJ]

It's really cool to see people write in with ideas or to, like, piggyback on stuff that I've written about that that helps me come up with the next piece many times.

[Sarah Bousquet]

It also really does feel like a sense of community. Like, it's. It's kind of funny. People definitely have a fan base, but people also really feel like they know you and, you know, they'll ask me, well, what's C.J. like? I'm like, well, he's pretty much what he's like. He's authentic in his writings and how he portrays himself on his podcast. Like, he's pretty much like that. And I think it makes you really approachable. So some of the messages we get are, you know, fans, readers that just have a quick idea and you're more than willing to jump in and give your hot take, which is great.

[CJ]

I do get very nervous, though. Before all the dinners and happy hours, I just fear no one's gonna show up or it's not gonna go well, or like that horror story that my friend Tyler told me of how he held an event. There were no chairs there. We showed up, and apparently you had to get, like, where are the chairs?

[Sarah Bousquet]

Thankfully, we have all those things ironed out.

[CJ]

Now, for those who don't know, it's very much like a team effort whenever we put on something in person, where Sarah is helping to find the venue, Michelle's making sure we get the down payment in, and then my wife is helping with, like, the Canva name tags and everything. So we're getting to the point, which is kind of fun, that, like, I can just show up and enjoy them, because before I just like having the back of my head like, this isn't going to go well. I have to talk to people in person. I'm going to drain my social battery. I'm going to be hungover the next day, not be able to get any work done. But I'm getting more used to them,

[Sarah Bousquet]

which is so funny because a lot of us knowing about this team interview, we're getting nervous. But you talk to people on online all day, every day.

[CJ]

Have you seen me make any changes to my working style or schedule or anything since bringing more people on board?

[Sarah Bousquet]

Biggest thing, we had a team meeting a few months ago where you kind of hit home, like, how much you trust everybody on the team to just kind of move forward, make decisions, not, you know, ask for forgiveness instead of permission, but almost that which I think people have taken and run with, which is nice. You're not getting pulled in quite as many different directions, I feel like, which has been good.

[CJ]

I think we're getting better at saying no to things.

[Sarah Bousquet]

It's a hard one to say no.

[CJ]

I mean, we even mess around with Claude sometimes when I, like, want to word something nicely. We call it the no machine and we run the answers through there and that removes part of this thing. I think, like one of the biggest benefits of having somebody like you on, on board, there are a lot of things, like, I can give you the honest answer of if I want to do something or not, but it's harder for me to tell that person. But I can tell you to tell that person as me sometimes.

[Sarah Bousquet]

Yes. Even just bouncing off, like, vice versa, I'll say, like, you can't do that. You shouldn't do that. You don't have time. You know, that's not.

[CJ]

You'll tell me. You don't want to do that, do you?

[Sarah Bousquet]

Yeah.

[CJ]

Last one I have for you. Do I have any quirks in how I go about my day or communicate with people?

[Sarah Bousquet]

When I first saw your schedule and how you like to lay out your day, I went to American Psycho that you might be a serial killer.

[CJ]

Tell me more.

[Sarah Bousquet]

Turns out, you know, you read any business book and you very much are doing a great job of having devoted work time in the morning. Like, you are a creature of habit. And you do a really good job of actually blocking your calendar for things that you need to get done every day and prioritizing those. But the fact that you do it when, you know, I first saw your calendar, it was kind of like, oh, six o', clock, we do this at 6:30, we do this by 7:15. I do that and then I'm working with you. I wouldn't say it's that you have any quirks. I think it's just I know your preferences. You like to stay near a park because you're a runner or if you have five minutes, you know, you get off a call five minutes early, you're going to go get a cup of coffee. Just little things that everybody has. Nothing too crazy though.

[CJ]

I'm not a serial killer. Sarah, I appreciate everything you do. Thanks for being along on this journey with me.

[Sarah Bousquet]

Thanks ej.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

My name is Matthew Mazzocki. I lead all sales and partnerships at MOSA Media.

[CJ]

Sales Guy Matthew, finally on the podcast.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

Longtime listener, first time caller.

[CJ]

People have heard your name on this show on Mostly growth in my newsletter multiple times. He is a real person.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

He's not AI as far as I'm concerned.

[CJ]

Looking back, we've been working together for three, four years, but you're actually now booking out the fourth year of us working together as we speak, 2027.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

It's pretty crazy. I feel like we've really been picking up momentum. I also think that the industry in general has started to move towards a lot of partners, booking both annual contracts and looking a lot farther out. So puts us in a really good place for planning a fourth and even fifth year of media company.

[CJ]

Does it feel good though to have that monkey off your back like to end Q1 that you're like, okay, I have this year, soldier.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

I think we got it done on a Friday. And so I had Friday, Saturday and Sunday feeling like there was no monkey on my back. And then by Monday it was full throttle for 2027. So short lived. But I feel like it's always about looking at what's coming next.

[CJ]

For those of you who don't know, you actually went full time on collaborating together like three months before. Before I did. What? What convinced you that that was a sane move, especially with a newborn baby?

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

I don't know if it was a sane move. It was definitely a move with a lot of conviction though. I feel like working in sales for the majority of my career. I feel like it was a really obvious tell that we had Product Market Fit almost immediately. It felt like we had really strong audience feedback like CFOs and the community was strong and continuing to grow. We found Product Market Fit was just the companies who were looking to get in front of these CFOs and we continuously had inbound leads and inbound customers that were coming to us just bang down the door to work with us and find ways to connect with the audience. So it felt like we really had something special from the early days, like almost looking at it as like a marketplace where it's like we had both sides of it humming and with good fit almost immediately. So it felt like the right opportunity. I feel like you only get so many times in your career that you get to work on something from the ground stages. So time to do it now before the daycare bills get higher.

[CJ]

Yeah, I know. I was laughing with Callie, who, who we spoke to, that she has three kids under four. I have three kids under four. You have another kid in daycare. And so like we should just call the place mostly daycare bills, a lot of daycare.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

We should just open our own daycare. We would just live near each other and send their kids all to the same place.

[CJ]

Me and you have always been pretty aligned from the beginning that we wanted to work with a smaller subset of partners who took like a really long term view on things. I've been really pumped that it's, it's played out that companies have bet on us long term. We've bet on them long term as category leaders. And I think like the conversations that you have with them month to month just, it makes it better and better.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

I think that what has changed over the last, you know, let's call it three years is a lot of companies that we work with are looking at these relationships not only more on a long term basis, but more embedded. And so what I mean by that is previously companies would come to us, they'd want one ad spot or a newsletter or podcast, and it felt very transactional. They were coming, they wanted this very specific thing from us. We'd sell it to them or we wouldn't, but it was very transactional and straightforward. Where I think a lot of companies are headed is that they're making fewer bets on creators and on media networks, but they're making bigger bets on them as well. And so they are looking at how they can not only get the value from the core media that we produce, so the podcast, the newsletters, research reports, but also how can we tap into in person and networking events and dinners, happy hours, things like that, but also how can we just do more creative content together? And so I think a lot of that starts to shine through in the next, you know, 12 to 16 months because we've been baking those into contracts and relationships now. And I think it will only continue to get more and more integrated with the companies that we work with.

[CJ]

And something that we've prided ourself on is we want to be easy to work with and hopefully likable people. And that's not something you can put in a contract, but I think it does help you have high renewal rates. People don't want to have to go out and find somebody else to deploy marketing budget with. They want to work with people who understand the brand, have seen the product and speak to from a practitioner perspective and just like aren't assholes to work with.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

You know, contracts and negotiations and all of that is one aspect. But at the end of the day you're still just doing business with people and people want to work with people that are easy to deal with and are good people.

[CJ]

How do you think about the different surface areas that you're getting partners for? Run the numbers and mostly grow with this podcast you've got mostly metrics and looking for leverages, newsletters. Then we're also doing three reports this year and we also do the in person events. Like you've got a lot of different arrows there.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

The approach has changed over the years. I think that when we previously just had, you know, one or two SKUs that we were selling, they fit into pretty neatly put together boxes. The way that I think about it now is it's like we have a much bigger toolkit that we get to tap into every single one of the companies that we're talking to and partnering with. It starts with really understanding the core of their business, who they are, what their vision is for the company, ultimately what their marketing objectives and growth goals are for the next, you know, let's call it 6, 12, 18 months out and then working with them on a very once upon basis of how to fit meet those needs. Every single one of those areas that you mentioned fit into a different goal for the company. Whether it's brand awareness, lead generation, demand gen, top of funnel. They're all different tools just depending on what stage that company is at and what their goals are for the next. Again like call it 12 months give or take.

[CJ]

What's cool is you come from a marketing background as well. You worked at Marketing Hire and then you come from an E Com background where you learn the ins and outs of marketing and so you understand like why they're spending certain pools of money on certain things. And we've learned that the podcast in many aspects is the air game, right? There's a lot of brand marketing to that, there's a lot of trust building when you're listening to somebody and then the newsletter is more the ground game where it's more attributable. But you have to learn what are you trying to accomplish by working with Us.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

I never want to sell or, you know, put together a professional proposal for a company that doesn't meet their needs and isn't valuable. And I think that a lot of that comes down to the core way that we look at the business, which is long term partners that we want to be working with for multiple years and that we want to be taking bets on them just like they're taking bets on us.

[CJ]

You talk to actually more sponsors and partners than I do. What are the questions that you, they usually ask you about what we're building, what we're trying to accomplish. Like you're kind of the front door to the company. I look at it in a lot of ways.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

One of the things that really stands out to a lot of the partners is that we're building it for the long term. And I think that because we can point back to three plus years of at least, you know, the podcast and us working together, but you've been putting content out on mostly metrics for six years at this point. There's a long look back window and I think that a lot of partners come to us and know that we'll be around next year and the following year. And so it allows us to make those bets and know that we're going to continue putting the content out. Very similar to what I was describing about us being around for so long is we've built that community over time. It has been like one subscriber at a time for the last six years and it's all been organic. And I think that that's the really unique aspect, like no real PR pushes, no real paid ads, you know, acquiring subscribers. It's really just been about word of mouth because the content has been so good for the last, you know, six plus years of the company.

[CJ]

We've been working together for over three years. Where do you think this is in another three?

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

It's crazy because if we're, if we're following the same, same pace as what's happened in the last three years, who knows, we could be selling up J.P. morgan Stadium, like acquired or the exact where we'll be is going to be hard to tell. But I do know that we're going to continue sticking to the core thing that we do, which is producing really great content for CFOs to help them better at their jobs. And so when I look at three years in the future, I think it's going to be a lot of the same things that we're producing today, which is higher quality and upping the bar, the other 50% are things that you and I haven't even thought of. The really unique thing about how we work together in the business is general is every few months we just come up with a brand new product or a brand new thing and things that we had never even thought of or really have been on our radar until we decided to give it a go.

[CJ]

Thanks, dude.

[Ben Hillman]

My name is Ben Hillman. I am the director of production at Mostly Media. And I guess CJ's also unofficially given me the title of creative dictator, whatever that means.

[Steve Sarasoli]

How's it going? I'm Steve Sarsoli and I'm a show producer here at Mostly Media.

[CJ]

The chef, because Steve just cooks.

[Steve Sarasoli]

I live in the kitchen.

[CJ]

Is anybody else sitting in a Profit wealth chair? Got mine right here.

[Ben Hillman]

Mine's from an undisclosed location as well. But not Profit.

[CJ]

Well, yeah, I don't want to admit any crime here, but hypothetically my wife, who used to also work there, brought me there during COVID and I may or may not have a monitor and a. You guys are doing something right over there though. Because I viewed the company in many respects being early to the game of having media in the front, a. A product and service in the back. Ben, what was it like creating that media to drive another product?

[Ben Hillman]

Patrick, who was the founder of ProfitWell, would write these strategy memos of like where he thought things were going and would kind of source information for people at the company and stuff like that. And the media company. That was like a famous memo inside of ProfitWell that I remember circulating. I remember referencing it a lot of different times. And so it was this bet. It was this like bet that we think like, oh, distribution is really hard. This is where we think that things are going. We know with. If we have these different shows, we know that we can hit people up via email like up to two times a week. That's kind of how things ran. That prop well was making these big bets and then mapping the decisions to those bets.

[CJ]

And Steve, you were creating all sorts of. I don't even know if you would call it like UGA content, but like it had this nitty gritty feel. And I remember when Ben was like, hey, we should also bring aboard this guy Steve. I went down this rabbit hole of like you men on the street or at conferences, like in like this four dollar suit, like interviewing people, like just doing funny shit. But it was for a business purpose. I feel like that was. That was kind of cutting edge in a way.

[Steve Sarasoli]

Yeah, I feel like. Yeah, that's the thing is like working in like B2B, I feel like you, everyone's always kind of propping up like a sophisticated and sleek, like, look, and I feel like that's cool, but I feel like fun almost gets put on the back burner a little bit, throw it back on the stove, heat it back up, heat the fun up. It adds a lot and I feel like it sticks out a lot. It's good to blend the fun with the sleek and sophisticated.

[CJ]

Ben, what convinced you first to, to take the leap and work here? What, what drew you in the most other than that?

[Ben Hillman]

For those that don't know, Prop Oil was acquired by Paddle and basically went from a 70 person company to like a 300 person company to no fault of anyone. Just in that, in that shuffle, I think that like what we were building at Profwell was sort of like the initial spirit of it was sort of lost a little bit just because it's like, you know, everyone's fighting over their own dog bowl and trying to get initiatives to be seen and stuff like that. And so I was in a little bit of a period of just like looking for that next opportunity, but had these golden handcuffs of, like, had a really good job and like, was able to kind of do whatever I wanted, but was just ready for the next opportunity. And I, I joked with my girlfriend that I was like, you know, I'm so jealous you, you got recruited to like, come to your company. I would love to have that happen one time. And lo and behold, CJ hits me up and he's like, hey, I've been trying to hire you for like the last year. This is me being explicit and I actually want you to come work with me.

[CJ]

I had to hit you over the fucking head with the banjo, Ben, in order to get you to join. I think like, something we talked about though was I had always appreciated the work that you and Steve did at ProfitWell. It was very much in a service of something else, though. And what we talked about was like, hey, dude, you've been working on the appetizer to set people up, come and work on the entree.

[Ben Hillman]

Now that was one of the things that made me feel seen and made me convinced to come aboard, which is because, yeah, like, we kind of worked ourselves into this hole of like, we're making these shows and these media properties and stuff like that, but it's all so that people would then go buy a product. At the end of the day, it was, our job wasn't successful if we got like a million views on a video because that didn't really translate to anything. And unless people actually bought the product.

[CJ]

Steve, what are your thoughts on that?

[Steve Sarasoli]

It's a lot more rewarding to actually have the product be what we're working on, rather than working on stuff that's auxiliary to another product and trying to tie it in. It felt like a lot of the times, you know, we would struggle with being like, is this even related to Fix that funnel show that we were talking about where I'm wearing the big yellow suit and stuff? It's like, how is that necessarily tied into selling software? But yeah, it was like tying that all together was a lot harder than actually working on the product where we have like, firsthand look at what we're working on.

[CJ]

Steve, to stay on you for a second, you're, like, deep in the guts of the episodes that we put out. How would you describe, like, working on Mostly Growth versus Run the Numbers? What's the difference between the two shows?

[Steve Sarasoli]

The most fun part about. About working on the shows, I think is doing the teasers and for Run the Numbers. I know we did them for Mostly Growth for a little while too, but doing the teasers a lot of fun because you kind of get to flex the creative muscles a little bit with the fun graphics.

[CJ]

You two are like the yin and the yang. You've worked together for such a long time. It's definitely a dynamic duo. How do you possibly split up, like, what you work on? Do you just like telepathically talk to each other? How does it work?

[Ben Hillman]

I've thought about this a lot and Steve and I have talked about this before, that like, we have different ways of approaching problems, I think that really complement one another. I feel like I am very analytical and very like, what's the right thing to do? This sort of blah, blah, blah, which I feel like I kind of get eagle eyed about it and like, I get the like, zoom out and the zoom in on the details sort of thing. However, that kind of means that I'm a little bit slower to like, execute on the actual product itself. In which I think Steve is able to remove all the blinders and just like go forward with it. He's not reckless when he does this, but he's just able to like, go and like, get the thing done. I'd like to think that the guidance that I can offer sometimes is helpful to the end product as well.

[Steve Sarasoli]

Ben's really good at notion. When I open notion, it gives me a panic attack.

[Matthew Mazzocchi]

I.

[Steve Sarasoli]

It's scary. It's scary. It's a scary product. There's too many things going on. Organizing that all together. That task. Ben, when I like open notion up when I first joined, I was like, wow, Ben's been putting work in to notion that I wouldn't even know where to begin doing that. So that's like where your kind of analytical brain really comes in handy. I'm more into just jumping right into something like, give me a task. I want to get it done as efficiently as possible. The actual, like thinking about the why and like going into all of the like, like the distribution elements, things like that. I think that's more your cup of

[Ben Hillman]

tea notion is actually worth it. I'm not doing vapor work.

[CJ]

And if they want to sponsor this show, reach out to sales guy. Matthew. Do I have a bad habit of not looking at the camera?

[Ben Hillman]

Yes.

[Steve Sarasoli]

When you're talking your money, you're literally like Walter Cronkite. When you're like actually speaking and interviewing, you're on the money. And then when someone's talking, sometimes you like go on your computer or something and turn away. We got the wide, we got a cut to do.

[CJ]

Is there anything I say or like a crutch I rely upon that I'm not going to be able to unthink after you say it?

[Ben Hillman]

We were talking about that. It's like I can't really think of. You literally call out like, let me try that again. Which is like actually super useful because it's like, oh, well, I'll just delete that thing before. For anyone that's listening or watching Siege is not playing Tetris on the side. Like, usually he's looking at like data or something that is relevant.

[CJ]

I'm trying to come up with a joke with like a stat in it or something. Like, I'm actually working hard at trying to be somewhat work funny.

[Ben Hillman]

And Breaking Bad is on the other tab.

[CJ]

I'll ask each of you this. Start with you, Ben. Where are we in three years?

[Ben Hillman]

It's a really good question. I'd like to say the moon, but I don't think we're going there yet. A lot of this is sort of learning and training where we launch mostly growth in the last. I think it's been over six months now. And that's been a huge lesson in audience building from the ground up. But I'd like to see is this something that we can sort of scale out and figure out with other shows? Is there a recruiting podcast? Is there a sales guy at Matthew podcast? Like, are there these different verticals that we can use the sort of same formula that we're doing and approach those.

[CJ]

One comment on that. It is actually pretty hard to port audiences over from one medium to the other.

[Ben Hillman]

Still trying to figure out what if we can do that, but we'll see.

[CJ]

What do you think, Steve?

[Steve Sarasoli]

Scaling is huge because right now we got the the two shows running and we have like our, you know, CFO explained series. We're throwing new ideas in there, figuring out the scalability of everything where we can have these shows running and also have more bandwidth to work on some new stuff, come up with some new ideas, maybe get a couple more shows in there. I think in three years we had like like five or six shows running. I think that would be a success.

[CJ]

I'm pumped to build this with you guys and I have fun every day jamming out with you. Run the Numbers is a mostly media production yelling an intro by Fat Joe Artwork by Meg delessandro. Show is executive produced by Ben Hillman. Nothing said on this podcast is intended to be business or investment advice. It's the sole opinion of me, a guy who feeds his dog way too much ice cream and has a history of net operating losses. Lol. If you like this podcast, hit subscribe and give us five stars. It will take like two seconds and our algorithm overlords love it. Drink water, call your mom and have a great day. Peace.