What are you going to do for me? If I

can pick that up from the messaging,

then I'm probably willing to talk to

you. But if this whole message is about

what you do, nobody cares, man. Look,

Bootstrap founders that want to grow

really quickly oftent times have like

champagne taste and Bud Light budget.

>> Welcome to building in the age of AI.

This is a new series that I'm doing

where I'm sitting down with a founder or

an operator and we're comparing notes on

what it actually takes to build, market,

and run a business in the age of AI. Not

just a theory, but what is actually

working in the real world. Our first

guest is Wade Low. Weighs an

entrepreneur at heart. He's built and

exited two businesses, one a SAS, one a

marketplace, and these days he works as

a CRO, a chief revenue officer. So, he

goes into companies and owns the

revenue. It gets properly embedded with

a team reporting to him, basically a

co-founder on demand. And that lines up

almost too well with where I am right

now. I'm about to take my own product,

Olati, to market. And the hardest part

isn't building its attention. Olati has

to get noticed in a really noisy world

where everyone's sending the same emails

that are going into the same inboxes,

getting eyeballs, getting customers.

That's what I'm actually working on

right now. That's what Wade does for a

living. So, this isn't an interview.

This is two operators swapping notes on

the same problem. And we don't agree on

everything, which makes this even more

interesting. Let's get into it. Wade,

welcome to Building in the Age of AI.

Why don't we start off tell us who you

are and what do you do?

>> Oh, that's a great question. So, the

easiest way to describe it is I'm an

entrepreneur at heart. And to describe

what I do, I I don't I don't know what I

do at the moment. Like, I'm in So, I'm

doing I'm I'm owning revenue for a

couple different companies and doing

some consulting work uh for another, but

they're not my businesses. But I sold an

enterprise SAS business in 24 and then

took a bunch of time off. And now I'm

very much kind of trying to figure out

as I'm still working trying to figure

out exactly like okay what what does

this look like? What am I trying to do?

Where am I trying to go? How do I want

to add value? And I bounced around from

a a few different ideas but ultimately

right now like where I spend my time

during the day is I'm helping other

companies grow their revenue at a rapid

rate. I think that's that's where I'm

spending the bulk of my day right now.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I heard you say that you

jump into businesses and you get

integrated as if it was your business

and but you're acting as a consultant.

Is that right? But you are literally

acting as a consultant but is you treat

it like if it's your business.

>> Yeah, I think consult it's more

fractional than consultant because

consultant has very little

responsibility for the outcome where I

actually own the revenue for companies

and I have people directly reporting to

me and teams of people underneath me. So

I'm like I'm in I'm I'm operating inside

a b of a couple different businesses. Um

so and I have very specific outcomes and

milestones that I'm personally

responsible for. um and that and so I

but I think the reason that companies

are like that is because consultants

don't really they they can provide a lot

of good strategy but they don't have any

responsibility for the execution whereas

I I

>> they just give you advice or something

and then they walk away

>> and so I'll actually say I think we

should do this and then I'll actually go

execute against that and then I get to

determine whether my ideas were actually

useful or not.

>> So what would you say is your from your

perspective what is go to market? What

is a good go-to market strategy

>> right now? It depends on the business. I

mean the best gotom market, the easiest

go to market is when you have a

tremendous amount of demand and your

main problems are trying to orchestrate,

manage, process,

systematize

the demand that's hitting you, right? It

but that's not that's not typical. It's

not normal. It's great if you have it

because you can build a tremendous

amount of momentum extremely quickly.

But if that's not the case, then you got

to go get it. And that's where real go

to market is. You know, sometimes you

really do have really strong product

market fit or you've got a really good

founder, CEO, and personal brand

mechanism that's attracting a lot of

potential customers. But assuming that's

not the case, then how do you actually

build a a system and build a machine

that allows you to go get business? And

that's a very different type of motion.

>> Yeah. The outbound and and that's that's

exactly where I am now. I'm in a

position where I've got to get this uh

product uh Oli to market the the phone

system product and and the question is

do we do we focus on outbound or do we

focus on my personal brand or do we

focus on both? What is going to be the

best approach? And are we doing a should

we focus on accountbased management

sales? Should we do pure outbound and

and do a productled motion growth? So

all this all these questions are going

through my mind right now.

>> So how are you so how are you doing it?

How are you thinking about it?

>> The plan at the moment is keep working

on my personal brand to build an

audience of like-minded people. But the

idea is tech techminded founders, CEOs,

operators, business operators that uh

share my world view. That's essentially

who I'm after. And I'm building a

subscriber base on YouTube, uh, an email

list through my personal website, and

it's growing, slowly growing, but it's

so slow. I mean, I had one video on

YouTube that did better than the rest.

An outlier, you could say my usual

YouTube view videos are getting 300

views, and this one got 360,000 views,

but it was I thought when I got this,

this video hits the 360,000. I thought,

great, every single video I do from now

on will get 360,000. But that's

absolutely not the case. the next video

got yeah like 5,000 and oh actually the

next video got 10,000 and the following

one got to 5,000 but compared to my

usual videos which got 300 it's lifted

my baseline which is great and it's also

given me about 8,000 new subscribers

that single video did and in total now

I'm at 9,00

something subscribers and I've been

added for six months and the majority of

those subscribers came over the last

month so it's uh it's crazy how one

small thing can make a big impact

So that's my strategy at the moment.

>> Is it turning into business? Because the

only thing that matters in go to market

if the things that you're doing actually

turn into leads which turn into ops

which turn into deals which turn into

recurring or repeat business right so I

think especially on the personal brand

side I think people get wrapped around

the axle on vanity metrics but there's a

lot of people that have built personal

brand with a very small following but

they're but their following is very

engaged. Yeah, good point. It doesn't

matter how many people you have. It's

about how many people are buying that

you have.

>> Correct. Correct. So, is it so I guess

that's the question like how are you

measuring? Are you measuring by

subscribers or are you trying to measure

by what the actual results?

>> I'm so early into this that uh to be to

all to be honest and and all cards on

the table. We've just decided to rebrand

the product because it was called Wii U

before and now we're going to call it

Olati. Olati is a brand new brand. and

it doesn't even have a website yet. So,

I need to build a landing page. I need

to build the um a list and I'm going to

make it a essentially a invite only kind

of a um a weight list method kind of

thing. So, we're going to have I'm going

to be pushing people through to the

latatti website, but I've not started

marketing for latatti yet because we

have the product built and we're using

it with the with Circle Cloud. So,

through the Circle Cloud, we have a a

great distribution engine like you know,

I think we've spoken about it a few

times. We've got the telemarketing team.

We've got 25 people dialing out every

day, actually a bit more now, uh, trying

to book appointments with owners of

businesses, uh, small UK businesses. And

then we have a field sales team that are

going to see them face to face and and

sell them a phone system. And it works

really well for the Circle Cloud model

because we're signing them into longer

contracts. We give them more of a white

glove handheld really like hideouch

service, which is not really scalable

for a SAS. We can't really do it on a

SAS model that that is on a rolling

30-day contract. So we need to change

the distribution method for the SAS. So

the it has to be done on the person on

the on the online marketing side which

is going to be either organic content

through my personal brand and and within

the Olati brand once it's launched or it

will be paid ads and and and paid media.

So I want to try the the organic path as

much as possible before going on to paid

or we just scrap it all and we go

through what we know which is going to

be more of accountbased marketing uh

approach.

>> Yeah. I mean, what's the what's the

duration? It's there's 30-day contracts.

It's not a if it's SAS, it's it's not a

longer term contract.

>> Yeah, we're planning on doing 30 days uh

as a standard, but we're going to be

trying to push people to the annual.

That's the plan. Uh it's just looking at

what else is in the marketplace, the

comparables, if we go in and and require

a three-year contract, we're just not

going to be able to compete with with

other things that are out there. We

we're trying to differentiate in the way

that people ask me, what's the USB? What

makes you different to Microsoft Teams?

What is the USB? The USB is me. And it's

difficult to explain that, but it's

really it's it's my the way I've I've

crafted the product and the way that my

I I believe that people should be able

to communicate in a way that is is not

happening with the products out there

right now. There's so much friction.

There's so much uh noise and and uh in

terms of the products when you use a

communications product, it's it's

cumbersome. An example is Microsoft

Teams like we're talking about it now.

If you launch Microsoft Teams and then

you're going to try and call somebody,

you press the call and just you hear

this thing

b you know that thing that comes up on

Microsoft Teams, it's so annoying and it

just delays the process. And then you

got that cognitive function before you

even open Teams. Okay, I got to call

this person. Do I message them on Slack?

Do I call them on Teams? Do I uh send

them on WhatsApp? All this debt that

comes with uh the decision there. So

what we're trying to do is for a small

business, eliminate all that and just

give them a platform that they can

communicate internally and externally

really quickly and efficiently. Okay.

So, it's not going to take you 2 minutes

to dial when you press the when you when

you either type a number in because you

we've removed the dial pad. We just type

it with a keyboard. Or you can use our

voice command feature to make the to

initiate the call. It's instant. So, the

idea is it is super quick to initiate

the call. It's ringing straight away and

it gives you we've put a lot of

attention into the the the the

finetuning of the product. We've had

time to do that. We've been spending

we've spent the last four years building

this product way too long. But the I

guess the the the card we had up our

sleeves is that we've got Circle Cloud

in the background. So Circle Cloud, the

distribution engine that's already

working, that's already selling the

system and is funding this is is allowed

us to be able to to spend so much time

fine-tuning the product and get it to a

point that we we've designed it with

with you know a lot of attention to

detail and that's what I think we're

going to try and go to market with but

it's such an unknown.

>> Do so do you have customers outside of

CircleCloud? Like is anybody using it

outside of your own ecosystem yet?

>> No. No. So we we've only got four

customers of Circle Cloud using it

externally. Everybody else is using it

internally.

>> Right. So you have So you have four PE

but you do have four customers that are

using it externally.

>> Yeah, we have four customers that are

outside of us internally using it. They

are circle cloud customers. We just

moved them over to to Olati,

>> but they are using it in production for

their main business phone system. And we

are going to keep introducing new uh

customers which again is a great way to

fine-tune the product because we can

discovering small bugs and things that

we didn't realize at the time of

building it that the real world teaches

you which is when by correcting this now

when we do go to market with the SAS

it's it's going to be much more stable

and reliable because we're not going to

have those bugs that we've already

discovered by using it or introducing it

to our existing customer base. You'll

have but you'll find you'll find more

users or

>> oh of course I know

>> in that regard they'll they'll

definitely and they'll help you know

it'll help you if you're paying

attention because it'll help refine the

product. We did that. I had there was a

business called Sitefill that I was a

co-founder in um we then built a

technology platform to service that

business and then spun out the the

actual software as a standalone company

um and and had obviously a very

different business model. It was a SAS

business. That was the business that we

sold in 2024. But we started the same

way where we actually it started off by

servicing the existing company that we

had founded and then we spun it out as a

standalone company. That that software

business then grew and then we sold we

sold that. And what we found by going

through that like you're spinding is

that how we used how the the original

company used it internally was not

exactly aligned with how the market was

going to use it. But it was great to so

we had a good first use case and it got

us 80% of the way there and then by

going out to market and getting other

companies that were outside of the

ecosystem onto the platform. There was a

whole bunch of stuff that we just

weren't aware of um that we ended up

improving and refining and iterating and

and building out to to to make it be

able to suitable for the whole market

versus just for us. And you'll probably

go through the same thing.

>> That's super interesting. Is that the

because you you've been involved in a

SAS and also a marketplace. This is this

the one that you're talking about?

>> Yep. The market was the marketplace and

then we built a software for the for the

we built a a SAS platform that we pulled

out of we pulled out of that.

>> Got it. Got it. Got it. Well, let's see

how many pivots we have to make. That's

the that's the unknown.

>> Yeah. Well, and you won't know until you

get people in it and banging away on it,

right? It's the only way that's the only

way you're going to find out. And and

that's I mean the fact that you guys

have been doing it for four years though

and that that you're using it yourself

internally. You're gonna I mean you're

going to have a product that's viable

for the market. It's just like what

adjustments do you need to make to be

able to service different types of

customers?

>> Yeah, exactly. I read something about

you being focused and actually we when

we spoke last you mentioned this being

focused on I think what you call the

boring businesses. What do you mean by

that and and why is that your is that

your strategy? It wasn't a strategy,

man. Like I was talking to a a company

that I do work with yesterday and we

were just talking about fails on with

the sales team. I'm talking about

face-toface meetings and you need to go

out and have face to face meetings and

it's and they're talking about bringing

product with them to be able it's a

physical company so I'm bringing product

with them to go do to go do the meetings

and I was and I shared a story about

when I started my career. I was 21 years

old. This I'll get to your point though.

It'll take a minute. But I was 21 years

old and I was trying right out of

college and I was working for a plastics

packaging manufacturing company and I

was covering the southeast. So I had

five states and I didn't know dude I

didn't know what the I was doing,

right? I was just like went and trained

for like a couple months and I was

planted in a I was working remotely at

21. So that I've been doing for a long

time and I was on a plane every week and

I was at different cities and I had

customers. I was going to try to talk to

them or I had prospects I was trying to

go find. But we manufactured bottle

caps. So, and not like beverage caps,

like shampoo and nail polish, like all

the fancier type of bottle caps. Like

that's what the business did, right? So,

that was my first job. And that is a

boring business, you know.

>> You were on the road as an exec.

>> I was an a Yeah. At time we weren't

called AE. They were called a sales rep

or an account manager, right? Like AE

didn't even exist. That was late 90s.

And that's what I did. And I had and we

would have to I brought a tackle box

full of samples and caps that we could

show. So I had to show people when I was

sitting across from right like that is a

bor and that's a great way. It's a very

good company. It was very wellrun and

they're very professional. It's a great

training ground but that's a boring

business. And then I got into other

businesses that so I ended up what I

found is I think I have a unique skill

set to be able to help companies that

are it's really hard differentiate be

able to differentiate and sell because

if you can if you can sell and drive

revenue inside of businesses that are

not like cutting edge and first to

market but have been around for a long

time and have a lot of comp have a lot

of competition that is a very unique

skill set to have which I found and I

didn't do it on purpose. just kind of

how my career navigated. And then when I

was in the marketplace was around fuel

like fuel is a nonsexy business and a VP

of sales that was a was also a

marketplace for heavy construction

equipment like heavy equipment for

construction job sites like also not as

a very boring type of there's a lot

going on but it's not super sexy. But

what I found is if you can do well in

those environments then you can do well

in anybody. So, when I'm looking to hire

salespeople, I don't want people that

have been at companies that were really

well known and raised a bunch of money

and had a pole motion on them because

were they really selling or were they

just they're they had so much momentum

behind the brand that they're just

taking orders. Like that's not that's

not selling. Like that's order taking.

There's a very big difference between

selling and order taking. And so you

look for people that have been in

environments where there wasn't they

weren't the big brand. They couldn't

just call and say, "Hey, I'm with Amazon

and I'd like to take a meeting with

you." Be like, "Okay." Right? Like, "I'm

with AWS or I'm with Microsoft or I'm

with Deal or I'm with RAMP." Right? Like

just those are easy. That's easy to get

meeting set up when you're those when

you work for those brands. So, you're

looking for people that have been in, I

think, nonsexy type of environments that

have done well. Those are the people

actually know how to sell. Um, and you'd

want a bunch of them on your team. And

so anyway, so the point being is around

that that though I didn't intentionally

go down that path. It just happened to

be where I landed, but I stayed there.

But I but it's it's served me well

because it I think I' I think it's

really sharpened my skills. And there's

also not if you've been doing it for a

long time, there's just not it's not as

there's not as much highlevel

competition. You're not competing with

people out of Silicon Valley. No, just

not. And that's okay. Okay, there's

nothing wrong with with people in the

space, but that's a different type of

competitive landscape, right? Where this

is not that and it's very beneficial

because I think it's easy to be

recognized and demonstrate a different

level of professionalism that people

appreciate because they're not used to

getting it.

>> Yeah, we hire sales team, sales people

uh frequently. We have a revolving door

that we call it of telemarketers because

it's a really tough job to do. So they

come and they go, but in particular the

field sales guys, these are the real uh,

you know, the hunters. We we've had some

in the past that are just not hungry for

it. But the ones we have, they're on

commission only and they earn really

good money

>> and they're they're hungry for it.

They're driving around. Sometimes they

spend, I don't know, six hours in a day

driving from appointment to appointment

and then they spend two, three hours in

each meeting and they have really long

days, two, three meetings a day and

yeah, they they're hungry for it.

they're good sales people and it's

difficult to find a team of good sales

people. So when you go into a business

as a let's say fractional CRO

>> what do you do with a team in there? Do

you do you recommend to the CEO hey we

need to founders and CEOs we need to

replace your guys or do you train them

or do you do a bit of both?

>> It's a bit of both but oftentimes it's

like one of the companies I'm with right

now there's only one salesperson that

was there when I started.

>> How many did you how many were there

when you started?

>> I'm not going to get into the details

but there was a lot more than one. Um, I

mean only there's only one the team

still there's still a team there now,

but it's all different people. She's the

only one that made it through that

process and it wasn't because we fired a

lot of people. It's just that the

expectation and the standard gets set

and then when there's more visibility

into like, oh, there's performance

metrics and oh, we're going to actually

report on how things are going. Oh,

we're going to hold you accountable and

support, right? Right? It's not just

hold you accountable. It's it's hold you

accountable and train. Some people don't

want it, right? And it gets really

apparent very quickly if you're doing

well or not because there's a big gi

unlike any other department, there's a

big giant scoreboard and if if you and

if you're looking at the school and if

you make the scoreboard public so that

everybody sees it every day, the people

that are underperforming get very

uncomfortable, right? And and it's very

and they it's very apparent who's doing

well and who's not. And the ones that

are underperforming on an ongoing

regular basis and then don't want to do

the work to get coached up, they

typically just navigate their way out of

the business versus having to be told

that they need to be that they shouldn't

work here. They go find something else

to do. That's typically happens.

>> You raise the bar

>> and then it it's a natural selection

from that point, isn't it?

>> Correct. And you've got to be able it

can't just be raise the bar and then not

make any changes internally as well to

support them. There's got to be

training. There's got to be there's

there's there's a there's al it's it's

two-sided. There's the expectation and I

firmly believe this. I grew up in sales.

There is the expectation that the people

in the seats have to perform at a

certain level, but at the same time the

business also has to do what it needs to

do to be able to support because you

can't give somebody a quota that's

unobtainable and say, "Hey, you have to

hit this now." If the business isn't

doing what it needs to do to be able to

make sure that if the right person is in

the seat, they can't hit it, you know,

and that's where there's that's where

that's where sometimes I think younger

founders struggle a little bit that like

that because you can make them you can

make a model do whatever you want,

right? And so I just will the revenue I

want to see the revenue at this, you

know, move up to this level. It's like

okay, great. But how like what's the

business doing to make sure that that's

actually possible? Not just that you

want to see it that way.

>> It needs to be realistic. And when you

go into a business, do you transform or

introduce any new technology? How are

you using AI right now for your when

when you're in a business?

>> Uh, I mean, everybody's trying to figure

that out, dude. So, yes, using

technology. I mean, personally, like I

use cloud co-work. That's what I do

personally. And it's [clears throat]

connected into all my different It's

connected to my email. It's connected to

my calendar. It's connected. I've got

projects inside of co-work that are

associated with the different companies

that I do work with. doing some personal

side projects that I have going on that

are unrelated to anything like this,

more like passion projects. Um, so for

me, that's what I personally use is kind

of my orchestration layer to be able to

see what's going on and what's

happening. And then inside the

businesses depends like in one business

we use HubSpot and HubSpot rolled out uh

and some AI functionality and tooling

that as a beta that we were one of the

testers on. It's actually really good

and specifically for our SDR BDR team

and it's actually a really good tool.

like because I don't want to have to

build everything from scratch. Like it's

not super helpful. But then in other

instances, we're using a company called

um there's a company out there called

Growth Band that handles like email uh

email box warm-ups and the ability to be

able to send and using AI to be able to

write some messaging and it's you know

there's definitely you got to have human

in the loop on that because if you just

let the AI do the messaging right it's

not always really great but you can get

70% of the way there and then like on

another side it's instantly AI is a tool

that we use Apollo's obviously a tool

tool we use. We're doing some homegrown

build out of agents internally for

inbound to be able to process inbound

more effectively and do some lead

routing and scoring and messaging back

for like tier four leads. So, it depends

on the company and it depends on what

tech stack they already have or don't

have. And then it's how much of it do

you want to build and how much of it do

you want to buy. You know, I think it's

okay to build some things. I don't think

it's great if you're not a soft if

you're not if you don't have a team of

engineers. I don't think it's great to

be building 15 agents because

>> you got to manage them,

>> right?

>> Exactly. There's a bunch of new

companies that I'm seeing app popping

up. And I think it's a wave, a new wave

that's coming of the whole personal

assistant AI thing where you connect

your tools to it, be it Gmail or

whatever email you use, Slack or

whatever chat system you use, whatever

phone system you use, meeting nodes. it

essentially because it's got the

connection to all these tools, it knows

all the context of what you're doing at

work

>> and that's when it can really become

useful. The question is who's going to

crack this so it works properly. There's

so many companies that I'm seeing out

there that are starting to build this

and it's really the the one that cracks

this or it might not be a single

company. It might be just a joint I mean

it might be Claude that does this with

all the integrations that it's got but

it's having that context that's context

is key right now.

>> Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And the um and tools

for the sake of tools like what outcome?

At the end of the day, it's all about

outcomes. Like what outcome are we

getting? Is this making things better or

not, right? Are we getting better

outcomes? If the answer is no, then stop

doing it. Like I don't think you just

have to run full force into the AI wall

because everybody's doing it. I mean, be

selective about what you're trying to

do. And look, if you're not tech and

companies that I work with are not we're

not they're not super technical. So

that's a very different conversation

than if you go into like again like a

Silicon Valley company where you've got

teams of engineers. you're going to use

AI differently than teams that don't

have those resources. And so what's the

what's the best way to be able to do

that without overwhelming a very and I

work with bootstrap companies, right? So

you're always constrained by capital,

you're always constrained by resources,

you're always constrained by talent. So

if you just start to go in and start and

start throwing a bunch of stuff for

people to do that are already

constrained and there's no real strategy

and there's no real, you know, practical

use application or results that are

being driven, then stop doing it, right?

And then figure out like where do where

are you going to actually get good

results and have an impact versus just

trying to have everybody use it for the

sake of using it

>> and not throw a bunch of tools at it.

You mentioned talking about tools Apollo

earlier and in reality most businesses

have access to the same tools more or

less. So how do you how do you stand out

or get noticed or just uh get the

attention of people right now if

everybody's got the same tools in in

outbound in particular?

>> Is it the people? Is it literally the

people because people buy from people or

is there a way with a particular way of

doing email marketing or LinkedIn

approaches? Do you see like a something

that's working better than others? Some

approach

>> I do. So it has to be multi-pronged, but

phone calls are are definitely getting

the best the best result. I mean, send

the email, but you got to make the phone

calls. So you got and you see that I

mean, you've got a team of people that

make phone calls all day, right? That

that there is as much as people don't

want to do that, there is no way around

not doing it. If you rely exclusively on

digital, unless again, you've got that

inbound demand hitting, you've got so

much product market fit that the

market's pulling you, that's different.

But most companies don't have the luxury

of that. So you have to go get it. So

call is important. Um, the other thing

that's important about the, at least

what I found on the messaging on the

email side is that you have to very

clearly state

what problem it is that you're going to

solve for them and and do it concisely.

So, whatever their like one of the

companies I work with like risk

mitigation is the thing like we tested

some messaging, sending things out. The

ones that got the best response were

around risk mitigation. That's that's a

real situation that companies are trying

to deal with. So it's like okay so the

messaging is going to be around how we

help companies with risk mitigation

specifically on you know certain

projects that they're that they're

working on. Um but you got to find out

it can't just be blank first of all it

can't be blanketed just standardized

messaging and it certainly can't be

about you. It has to be about them

because if you're just describing what

you do nobody gives a like they

care about them. They don't care about

you right? Especially they don't know

you. So, if they're going to bother to

read something, it's got to say, "What

are you going to do for me?" And if I

can if I can pick that up from the

messaging, then I'm probably willing to

talk to you. But if this is just like,

"Hey, this is this whole message is

about what you do." Nobody cares. Nobody

gives a

>> Yeah. So, he's making it about outcomes

for them. There's a guy, I think he's

called Jordan Crawford. Have you heard

of him? He does like something he's got

a product called Blueprint GTM and and

he's got this whole approach about

sending cold emails, but they emails

people would pay to receive. There was a

one example that he gave of this

trucking business. I think it was a

trucking business or it was a uh a plant

hire business. That was right. And he he

got he he looked at uh different

permits, construction permits that have

been granted around the area where the

plant hire company was was uh was

renting out his equipment. And it sent

uh a bunch of emails to plant hire

companies in the area saying there's

this construction project that's being

uh that's coming live or it's just come

live based on the rates of your

equipment rental. This is an opportunity

of this much for you. and you know

here's here are the details of this lead

and if you want more of those let me

know something like that it's just

providing value straight away and then

you just want the reply saying yes give

me more and that's that's a great way in

>> yeah what's the name of that company

because I may call him later today

[laughter]

>> yeah so I think that the the key is on

the the what is it in for the for the

customer right

>> making it about them

>> it's always got to be about them I think

that gets lost a lot of times because

there's such a focus on growth growth

growth hit your numbers, hit your

targets, right? And so there's this

there's this natural pressure that sales

people feel that I have to close deals.

And so if I have to close deals, like it

creates this kind of energy about you

that is less about the customer, more

about you. And that's

>> desperation.

>> Yeah. It comes from the top, you know,

so

>> people can smell it. And and you work

with obviously coming from the top, you

work with directly with founders. And

you mentioned that you work with

bootstrap companies. So I'm assuming

it'll be founderled businesses and

businesses run by founders, right?

Typically, yes.

>> How do you find because I heard you say

once that the business takes on the

personality of the founder?

>> Yeah.

>> How how is it Have you got any examples

that you've ever seen a business either

become toxic or where where it's it's

basically taken on the personality of

the founder, but it's not gone well.

It's it's the opposite of what should

have happened.

>> Yeah. I won't get as I don't want to

throw people under the bus so I won't

get like super but so yes I've seen that

one environment in particular was just

very young founder and and didn't quite

know what he was doing yet but was very

intense and very um I think he just

believed that and it's not anybody I

work with now by the way but I think he

just believed that by force of will he

could make things happen and if he

wanted it to be so then it must be

possible to do like maybe but there It's

like it's the it's always the question

about how are you going to do that? It

was very intense and very passionate.

But that intensity and that passion, you

know, bled through to the entire

organization, but because there wasn't a

great plan around it create a lot of

panic, you know, because it's just like,

oh, this is what this is what the CEO

founder wants and this is what he's

going to push on and he's not going to

relent that this is where we're trying

to go. But there wasn't a good plan

around how we're going to get there. And

all that did was create a lot of anxiety

and work and pressure for people inside

the business without really a good plan.

And so it just created a pretty um

toxic, but it was it was just it wasn't

a real pleasant environment to be in

>> because people were stressed because

they don't know exactly how they're

going to be doing the the thing that

needs to be done according to the

founder when there's no plan. So I get I

understand that entirely. Yeah.

>> Yep. And so so the intensity level is

very high. So everybody's intensity

level was very high and passion level

was very high but it wasn't super

productive. So that would be one example

in particular.

>> And when you go in to a business what's

the first thing that you fix? You

mentioned earlier that you look at the

how and you look at the people is that

what what the first thing is is what is

the objective and how are you planning

on getting there?

>> It's two it's two things. It's what's

the model like do you have a model built

like and what assumptions are in the

model to be able to determine whether

like what's fine what's the goal where

you trying to go and then well so

there's the there's always the well

where are you trying to go ultimately

that's kind of always the first

conversation I have with people is

because if you don't know where you're

trying to go I can't help you that's

there's coaches out there who can help

you figure out what it is you want to do

and where you want to go but that's not

my job my job is you've already

determined where you want to go and now

let's figure figure out how to get

there. And then typically, you know,

I'll go back to that example I was just

using. If there's not a plan in place,

then it's just wishful thinking. So,

it's like, well, what's the plan? Like,

have we built a model to say, okay, this

is how much revenue we're going to do

this month, and this is how much we're

going to do the following month, and

this is what's the headcount associated

to that? And is there a marketing

budget? Are we going to lose money for a

little bit? Are we going to always try

to stay profitable? Like, and are we

trying to do inbound? Are we trying to

do outbound? And if we're going to

allocate capital to growth, what where

are we allocating that capital? Is it

going to be to people? Is it going to be

to tools? Is it going to be to both? Are

we trying to take one big bet and place

it in one place? Are we trying to take

like six small bets and place them and

see where that goes? So, so that's that

all has to ha doesn't have to, but I

think it's helpful to happen because

then at least if there's a plan, you can

talk to the rest of the team like here's

the plan and maybe it'll and and look

and if it doesn't work, we reserve the

right to adjust the plan, but this is

what we're going to try to do. So, let's

try to do that and if it's working,

we'll do more. And if it's not, we will

we will adjust the plan accordingly and

we will figure out some other avenues to

test. Right? And it's okay. I think it's

okay for people to hear that even from

the top. They I think sometimes

especially younger founders are scared

that if they don't have all the answers

to the questions that they're losing

credibility like nobody has all the

answers to the questions. So just be

honest about it.

>> Best to have a plan and change it than

not have a plan in the first place.

>> Correct. Or just think your plan is a

like having a target is not a plan.

Those are wildly different things. Like

that's great. It's a target. It's not a

plan. A plan is how you get to the

target. And then sometimes like that

target is not realistic. Or I was

talking last week like man bootstrap

founders that want to grow really

quickly oftentimes have like champagne

taste and Bud Light budget. Like what?

Like what do you I hear you. I know. I

would. Yeah. Of course you want to build

a you know billion dollar enterprise but

but you've got a budget that's not like

companies that do that at scale. They

raise a lot of money. They have a huge

balance sheet and then they burn cash. I

more I guess AI is changing the dynamic

a little bit on that for sure. There's

definitely companies that are scaling

super aggressively that did not are not

burning through all their cash which is

very much what it used to have to

happen. So it's interesting to see that

play out. But they've still most of them

have still raised, you know. So you have

to have like realistic expectations on

what your growth is going to look like

if you're not planning on raising

capital.

>> You said earlier that you work at um so

you look at the model, right? But you I

think you mentioned in a previous uh

conversation that you work with

companies of 5 million and above. Is

that right? 5 to 20 million or something

like that.

>> Well, five 5 to 50 in that range. That's

it.

>> And then you look at obviously

increasing their revenue and and

profitability. You mentioned the model

is one of the things you look at. How

many times would you say there's a

percentage of times that you've had to

change the model because a business

that's doing five million in turnover

and above it's got a they've got a sales

model. They've got a distribution model.

They're they're operating. Have you ever

had to change it?

>> Yeah, but they don't have but they may

not actually have a mo like an actual

model built with assumptions that can

make it predictable about what's coming.

Like a lot of times they can take they

can they have a conceptual model that's

working but it's not necessarily

predictable based off of specific

assumptions that they're trying to drive

towards.

>> Makes sense,

>> right? So when I say model, I mean like

an Excel spreadsheet with assumptions

that are built in that if you change the

assumption, it's going to cascade out

for the next 18 months like that. And

typically they don't have that because

they've gotten to where they are on the

back of the founder

>> just by doing what they've always done

and they're going to get they've always

what they've always got. that we started

to marketing and an example now is that

we've got a a commercial director who

has he's a king of spreadsheets and he

knows to the like a person sitting down

dialing out should make this many calls

in a day from this many calls we expect

this kind of contact rate from the

contact group we expect this many

appointments from this many appointments

how many will sell and this whole thing

trickles down and we know exactly what

the unit economics are of one single

person sitting down and that's the

amount of time they're sitting down for

and that's I guess what you mean by

model is having it all modeled out and

and detailed

>> correct and a lot of companies don't

have that, right? like is they don't

have that level of granularity and then

it's because the nice thing about that

is is be you can p it's easier to

predict like what's going to happen in

the future

>> especially if you see the some of the

assumptions starting to trend up or down

you can kind of you can figure out okay

what is that going to mean three months

from now where I think it gets

challenging one of the things I'm

challenged with right now with companies

is there's incremental changes which is

often time you can play around with the

model and find the changes to help grow

20% a year but then there's like step

changes and the step changes are less

about the model. It's like what are we

what are we going to do fundamentally

differently that could help the business

double like in a year and that's

typically not in the model like versus

just get a model place you understand

what's happening figure out where your

how your business operates but beyond

that it's like okay you can continuously

for the first you know 12 18 24 months

you can make pretty good improvements to

a business by really understanding

what's happening figure out what levers

to pull pull the levers get better

results but then to make like step

changes like oh we want to double okay

well that's a fundamentally different

like are Are we off are we doing a

different service offering? Are we

creating a whole new business unit? Are

we changing the value prop? Are we doing

category expansion where maybe we offer

this particular service now but in order

to be able to we need to offer also

another service that we can sell into

the existing customer or take build a

product you know like a SAS product and

take it out to market. It's a separate

company. Like those are step changes and

that's different and that really is up

to the found that's not that's a that's

not my job. That's a fact. Like if you

want to do that, you got to figure out

what the thing I can once you figure out

what that thing is, then fine. Let's go

execute against it. But I can't help you

figure out what a step change is for

your business. That's got to be

typically coming from the founder.

>> Makes sense. Well, look, wait, this is a

there's a section here that I've

introduced for the quickfire round that

we spoke about. And the idea is that

instead of doing me asking you questions

and you answering quickly, I thought

that we could do like a swap notes idea

where I ask you a question and we we you

answer quickly and I answer quickly and

then we go to the next question. Is that

uh

>> perfect idea?

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> So the first one is an an AI tool that

you use every day.

>> Cloud code work.

>> Cloud code for me.

>> Is it cloud code? Okay. I don't code at

all and I'm very I'm just like almost

like anti because I'm just like

something I don't want to learn. But I I

should probably get into it. thing is I

don't code either. I've not written a

single line of code in my life. I've

tried but I just can't get the syntax

right. But uh the the clo code just

writes it for me which is great but yeah

it takes a bit of a there's a bit of

learning curve on there. Next one is one

thing that everyone says about AI that

you think is wrong

>> that it's going to replace it's going to

replace more jobs than it's going to

make.

>> Completely agree with that one. I was

going to say something on the lines of

AI coding. People think that they're

going to give their thinking away to AI

coding but I think you can still keep

your thinking but let AI write the code.

developers are attached to the identity

of writing code. So I think there's an

element of giving up your thinking. You

can still think and let AI do at a

higher level. You think at a higher

level and then AI will do the thinking

at a at a lower level. I think that's

that's a good way to put it.

>> Yeah, I would agree in that uh there is

always going to be a tremendous amount

of value for people who can think

critically that I don't think there may

be actually that gap may widen for

people to do because now they have tools

that just can allow them to be

incredibly productive. But if you just

let Ally do the thinking for you, you're

in I think you're in a world of hurt.

>> Yeah. Yeah. The next one, I think you've

already answered it before, but I'll ask

it anyway. Build it or buy it.

>> Buy it. [laughter]

>> For me, it's build it when I can because

I I love to own the whole stack,

especially if it's something that

customers the customers um end up using.

But I appreciate the point of buying it.

It just saves so much time. Um but I am

I am just one of those stubborn I like

to build it myself kind of people.

>> Sure. I mean I think there's a place for

I think some of it's personality but I

think some of it's dependent on the on

the like what the resources of the

business are because everything that you

build you have to maintain.

>> Correct. Exactly right.

>> Yeah. That so that's where it gets

tricky. Yeah. Because it's easy to build

it's harder to maintain and then if

you're building a lot of different

things and and they're touching each

other if you're not you know if you're

not technically inclined you can't and

you're and you're constrained that's a

that's a job in and of itself and you

may not have the resources internally

for it. And software is like perishable

goods. You have to it literally it goes

off. The software has to be kept up to

date. It has to be maintained otherwise

yeah you run into that problem. And the

next one is what is the last thing the

AI did for you that genuinely surprised

you?

>> That genuinely surprised me. I was doing

some due diligence on a private

placement deal that I had the

opportunity to participate in. And the

research that it was able to do that was

well beyond like what would have taken

me probably two weeks in regards to like

really doing the DD and the research and

finding things that were relevant to the

people that were involved. like it did

like it did a really really good job of

and and being very detail oriented and

very robust and finding information that

I don't know that I ever would have been

like would have ever found.

>> And was that with Claude or was it with

Pexity?

>> It was with Claude.

>> Yeah, it's pretty impressive for

research is really good and Plexity is

really really good for research as well.

For me it was a coffee machine that

broke. I'm not sure if you heard the

latest video that I put out on YouTube,

but I I tell the story there. Basically,

coffee machine, integrated coffee

machine I got at home broke and I I

couldn't take it away and take it to the

shop. I needed somebody to come to the

house

>> and I and it was broke for a month or so

before I got round to looking at it. And

it's just one of those things that you

know it's going to take you time calling

the manufacturer getting put on hold

pass around multiple departments and

just waiting and it's

>> so I I thought I just discovered

perplexity computer which is an AI agent

that it's like open claw but it's more a

clean version I guess where you know

it's not it's not it's more secure. So I

took a picture of the machine and the

model number was in there and I uploaded

the picture to the computer and I said

the machine's broken. This is the

problem. This is where I am. find me a

uh somebody to fix it and off you go.

And then suddenly I got an email, a

notification back on Plexity saying they

can come on Tuesday. This is what it's

going to cost. And I approved it.

Somebody called me. They came to the

house. I maybe spent 10 15 minutes if

that between Perplexity and the guy that

came to the house letting him in. But

yeah, the machine was fixed. It was

really like a an aha moment at the time

because uh I never used an agent

functionality before because I connected

my Gmail to it. So it's able to do all

that for me.

>> Nice. Yeah, it's a I mean it's

spectacular. What the efficiency and the

personal gains that that you can get

from from using it that where you just

where you get time back. You just get a

lot of time back.

>> Exactly. But what's one thing that you

wouldn't hand over to ever?

>> I don't know about ever. But right now

I'm not like I'm not connected to any my

financial data. Not from a business but

from a personal perspective like I'm

just not doing it. Not yet. I don't know

that that's will always be the case but

I'm I'm not comfortable with that yet.

>> Yeah. I think I agree with not handing

over and in particular with software

it's not handing over the keys uh

because you have to keep your

environment variables secure because

that again that has it could potentially

have financial repercussions but also

security implications.

>> So yeah, it's sensitive information and

that's a valid point. There's still not

I wouldn't hand it over to to one of the

big one of the big AI companies. Well,

I've got Cloud Co-work connected into

like all my different work emails, but I

won't connect it to my personal like I

just because there's a lot of person,

you know, I've got all my tax filings in

there. I've probably got my kids birth

certificate number like just stuff in

there that I'm just like

>> I don't know they need to have access.

>> Not quite yet. Yeah. Yeah. That's why

I'm surprised that all these companies

that I said earlier, this type of

company that's this delivering this

personal assistant product that requires

you to connect your company Slack, your

company email, your company drive, how

are they going to get around the the

friction? Because as a company owner, I

don't feel too comfortable giving away

all my company data to this company

that's probably a startup that is just

going to copy everything everything into

their database. That's scary.

>> Yeah,

>> that's something they're going to have

to overcome and I'm not sure exactly how

I would sell that.

>> I'm not technical enough to know like

how that gets handled on the back end,

but I definitely don't want to be on the

bleeding edge of that. I'll let other

people go first and they'll take the

they'll take the bullets and then as it

settles down and it gets more

standardized and I'm sure there'll be an

opportunity to step in and you don't

have to absorb as much risk.

>> Got one more um one or two more. What's

one piece of growth advice that uh it

refuses to die that just doesn't work

but it just keeps being pushed.

>> Mass email I think [laughter]

>> it's like in bulk like bulk anything. I

just think bulk anything is dead.

>> Yeah, it has to be custom. You can still

do it in bulk, right? Customize it,

right? Make it about them.

>> Be personalized and it has to be about

them. And it can't just be personal

like, "Oh, I saw that you're connected

to my friend on LinkedIn." Or, "Hey, I

saw that you, you know, you posted and

your dog's name's, you know, chick and

I've got a dog, too." Like, it's gota,

you know, it has to actually be fairly

it's got to be relevant and then it has

to be specific about how like how are

you gonna help?

>> Exactly. So, what would that what would

you say is that one piece of advice

you'd say for somebody building in the

AI era? Would it be that or would it be

something different?

>> I don't think I'm have a good answer for

that, dude. Because I'm seeing a lot of

people because look, man, I'm almost 50,

right? Yeah. And so, you know, I'm lucky

in regard where I've had some success in

my career. Um, but, you know, I still

need to work for a little bit and and

and

>> I'm seeing solo young founders build

like just build incredible things really

quickly and get off to a hot start. And

it's just like, man, I'm like I'm like

I'm sure that's possible for me, right?

But I'm also like 49. I don't know that

I want to go down that path necessarily.

So I don't have a great insight into

that. If you're still I mean I watch my

son, he's 12. He loves lovable and this

is because of me. Like he he loves he

building stuff. I was like dude that's

amazing. Um that you love to do that. So

I think the one advice would be just

find something you're interested in and

try to apply the ability to build

something with AI that's related to your

interests because I don't know where

else to go like I don't know what else

to where things are going to go. So try

to find some I think it's try to find

something you're really interested in

and then try to build something that's

related to that. You know I think that

goes a lot further than trying to like

I'm trying to look for a wedge in the

market and trying to find a way to make

a buck. So just just find just follow

your edge. I think the thing with AI,

you can follow your interest in so many

different places and actually do things

that are that maybe you couldn't do

before and try that to start and then

see where you go.

>> That advice is timeless. Do you know

follow your interests, do what you love.

Don't chase the money, chase your

interests. That's that's timeless.

>> Yeah, I think and do what you love, I

think, is sometimes gets is a little

tricky. I do think if you have some

interest, now's the time to you can

now's the time to follow them because

you can probably monetize it more so

than you ever could before. And I don't

mean doing it I don't so I don't mean to

make it about the money but you actually

can take interests and find niches and

ways to be able to make money related to

your interest which I don't think was

possible you know for a lot of people 5

10 20 years ago.

>> Yeah. Ultimately that's how you breed

happiness. You follow your interests

which means you're going to end up doing

something you probably will love doing.

So that's that's good point.

>> Yeah that's

>> so wait thank you for your time. What

would you say how how can people reach

out to you and get hold of you?

LinkedIn, that's probably the place. I'm

I've got some other socials, but I'm not

going back to age thing. I don't spend a

lot of time there. Uh, but LinkedIn, I'm

fairly, if not active, at least I'm on

it a lot just to kind of keep up with

what's going on.

>> Okay. I'll link your profile in the show

notes.

>> Cool, man. I appreciate you having me.

Great talking to you.

>> Thanks for your time. Thanks I do.