Although I did say your first name, do me a favor.
You say your first name, last name, where you're
located and the name of your business. Well,
thank you so much for having me on today. It's
truly an honor. My name is Austin Armstrong.
I'm the CEO and co -founder of Syllabi. And I'm
currently in New York City, but I live and reside
in Chattanooga, Tennessee. OK, big difference.
Totally big difference. So world, I asked Austin,
was he a star? So I'm going to say this and then
you can just imagine it. Austin Armstrong. So
yes. So when, yeah, whenever you hear that name,
he's a star, he's here. Please do me a favor.
Tell me about syllabi. Yeah. So I have been working
in social media marketing for more than 20 years.
completely changed my life it's given me everything
that i've wanted every goal i've accomplished
i have now millions of followers across social
media from producing videos i worked in the marketing
agency space for about 12 years i've worked with
every business owner every aspiring entrepreneur
every aspiring content creator in different industries
that you can think of and there were the same
recurring problems over and over again sometimes
people just don't even like to create content
but knowing that they need to create content
but not knowing what topics to create not knowing
what to say on camera or in their videos so that
actually resonates with the target audience that
they want to to reach staying consistent and
accountable not knowing how to edit videos not
having the time to know how to edit and be omnipresent
across every social media platform consistently.
And I wanted to solve all of those problems.
And so that's what syllabi is. And that's our
big vision is I wanted to build the ultimate
video marketing tool. And we're not quite there
yet, but we're working towards it. So what syllabi
does is it shows you the topics and questions
that your customers or your target audience are
searching for online. with data to back it up
so you can you're a real estate agent and work
in mortgage for instance so you could type in
va loan or fha loan and it'll show you all of
the questions that people are searching for online
around that particular topic with data how many
people are searching for it how competitive it
is etc and then with one click you can generate
a video script that's designed to perform well
on social media based on my top performing scripts
and personally handwriting thousands of scripts
for people i have it down to a a structure and
then in one click from there you can customize
and create the actual video so you can create
an ai avatar of yourself you can create faceless
videos which are very very popular right now
these are sort of ai generated imagery and ai
videos portraying what the script is saying uh
and it's the full video so it's it's the uh subtitles
it's the background music it's the transitions
it's the scenes it's uh everything um that you
can think of to make a social media ready video
and then we directly schedule and publish to
every social media account for you so you can
connect your tick tock linkedin instagram youtube
facebook threads and automatically optimize all
of them to be found online, schedule and publish.
And you can even automate up to 30 days of videos.
So if you just don't have the time, you don't
know what to say, you don't like being on camera,
you don't like social media in general, but you
still want to be able to create content, grow
your following, monetize it, get leads, get sales.
You can fully automate video marketing now within
Satellite. Wow. It's so funny. And my goal is
never to make this conversation about me because
I'm the co -host and you're the guest. I was
just having this exact same conversation, exact
same conversation. And it's interesting because
I wonder how many people are thinking, running
on a treadmill, walking down the street, just
listening to ours and actually saying, how do
you get over that fear? syllabi is the answer
right and and and what you just told me that's
the answer to not having to google this google
that uh purchase all these apps to have the words
come down the screen all that syllabi is that
how do you get over the fear of being just on
video you know so that's the part where i'm like
what do you do with that yeah yeah that's the
that's the biggest you nailed it right that's
the biggest thing that i'm trying to overcome
is like that that fear of just getting started
um because once you build that consistency it's
just muscle memory it's just staying consistent
it's hard to start it's easy to stay consistent
um and try to get back on the bandwagon after
after you stop as well so having this just in
your regular workflow and it doesn't need to
fully replace what you're doing either if you
like to create content you know, once a week
or once a month or whatever, like whatever your
cadence is to still do that. Just have this be
a tool to help you stay more consistent and stay
top of mind. Absolutely. And that's, that's the
part where it's like most people. And I believe
I can only imagine how many people are like,
I'm, I'm just like you. I don't even know what
to say. So that syllabi definitely is almost
like. your lunchbox and everything is in there.
You don't even have to go to the cafeteria if
you don't need to. You could just sit in the
corner and just do that. And I think that's super
awesome. So is syllabi an app or is it? It's
a website right now. It's full mobile friendly.
You can use it on your computer or on your phone.
However, this month we're releasing our app.
uh so it's actually good timing so depending
on when you're listening to this the app probably
is already out so um yeah it's syllabi .io we
have syllabi .com uh as well and it's s -y -l
-l -a -b -y dot io or dot com um and yeah you
can uh you can fully use it however you want
on on the go while you're walking i've made videos
uh while uh waiting in line at starbucks before
uh just to cure my boredom. Let me just make
a quick YouTube video. And you can do that. I
told you you're a star. I don't think that I
would ever do that. And it's so interesting because
you have so much passion behind this and so much,
if I may say, bravery to say, you know what?
I know that this is something so many people
need. I want to know what's your why. Yeah. Well,
because Video marketing and social media has
changed my life. And I've seen how much it has
changed other people's lives all around the world,
not just in the United States, but in countries
like the Philippines or we have users in Nigeria.
And some of this can be life changing when you're
able to monetize online. That's become my why.
Before this, I had my own marketing agency and
we charged a lot of money. five thousand up to
fifteen twenty thousand dollars per month to
do a lot of this manually going out on location
recording content editing it scheduling publishing
having the meetings setting the kpis you know
all of that stuff but the average person the
the the aspiring uh uh entrepreneur or the solopreneur
they can't afford that and i think everybody
should be able to create content and be successful
online and earn from that whether it you want
to have it as a full -time thing whether you
just want to start a side hustle and just have
like an ancient history uh youtube channel that
brings in a couple hundred dollars a month or
something like that i think anybody should be
able to do that now with ai and with software
And anybody can do it. Our plans start at twenty
five dollars a month, which is as affordable
as we have. We can possibly make it. This is
not a get rich thing for me. This is how I want
to help a million people be successful on social
media. That's that's my that's my why I've had
the success. I want to help others now. And that's
why that's why I'm doing this. And that's why.
Our margins are very thin. And that's why I talk
to users every single day. Our customer service
is like our number one principle. We have a huge
Facebook group. And yeah, I'm in the weeds constantly
with our users, just helping, just trying to
help, just giving strategy, giving feedback,
giving suggestions. And a lot of our team member
does the same because I am so passionate about
this. Yes, yes. And you hear it. And it's very
interesting. So you say you've been in marketing
for 20 years. I can't even fathom the growth
that has occurred in 20 years to where we are
now. How did you adjust to that? Yeah, it's been
a long journey. So I was 14 years old when I
started on MySpace to take it all the way back.
And I actually had hundreds of thousands of followers
on MySpace and I was monetizing it in a lot of
different ways. And so it's really been a long
journey. I've seen a lot of these platforms come
and go over the years. Reflecting back on my
journey, I started with a bang. uh and and had
a lot of success on on myspace but then as myspace
kind of went away and these newer platforms come
came out i didn't have a whole lot of success
being uh the forward -facing like personal brand
type of person and i started working behind the
scenes so i started as an intern um at a video
marketing agency uh i moved out to california
to do that and really just worked my way up because
i loved it i loved what i was doing i was unpaid
That's how much I loved doing it. I was poor
for many, many, many years. I didn't have a whole
lot of success, but I loved doing it. And I was
so passionate about doing it that I saw the big
picture. And so I went from being an unpaid intern
to a paid intern to a part -time employee to
a full -time employee to basically running that
agency. And then that company failed because
the business model didn't quite work out. My
boss was my mentor. And so we both learned. quite
a lot from that experience we started a more
traditional marketing agency which was about
six and a half years ago or something like that.
And my boss became my business partner and we
grew that. And so that was my first experience
of me being a full -time entrepreneur and going
all in and betting on myself. And so that was
a roller coaster of growth as well. And any entrepreneur
that's listening to this, it's not easy. It's
a long journey. There are very high highs and
deep lows that just are gut punches. And you're
like, Am I going to be able to make payroll this
month? Am I going to be able to eat this month?
Can I pay myself this month to pay the employees?
All of these different roller coasters, you lose
a big client. But you learn and you improve.
And my agency ultimately didn't work out for
a couple of reasons. As I was building this company,
Syllabi, I started to pull away from the agency
to hyper -focus on this. And one of the biggest...
lessons that i've learned in business is uh don't
uh grow a business around your personal brand
um because if you remove yourself from it then
the business fails uh and so i tried to to correct
that uh for a long time and hire people to do
what i was doing and ultimately it didn't work
out and so i really took that lesson into syllabi
and so i'm still very active in promoting it
but i'm like like fourth or fifth traffic source
down the line. I'm not the sole way that people
are finding out about Syllabi. And so the business
can thrive and survive without me. I can go on
vacation and I can disappear off grid for a week
or two and the business will be okay without
me. It will continue to succeed and grow. And
it's been a long journey, both as a creator.
And then as a business owner and entrepreneur
and in various very different industries as well
as SaaS and startup life is very different from
agency life. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.