WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:05.960 we explore the journeys that lead to success. 00:00:06.599 --> 00:00:10.220 I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five 00:00:10.220 --> 00:00:13.859 Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you 00:00:13.859 --> 00:00:17.100 insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:20.820 and experts who will share not just their expertise, 00:00:20.879 --> 00:00:24.120 but the milestone moments that have reshaped 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:27.059 their journeys and led to significant achievements. 00:00:27.960 --> 00:00:30.379 So if you're looking for motivation, you're in 00:00:30.379 --> 00:00:33.560 the right place. Subscribe now and discover the 00:00:33.560 --> 00:00:41.039 milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:44.219 to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business 00:00:44.219 --> 00:00:47.299 and Leadership. I'm your host, Sheila Slick, 00:00:47.299 --> 00:00:51.119 and today my special guest is Andrew Ackerman. 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:55.359 Andrew has founded two startups, invested in 00:00:55.359 --> 00:01:00.679 over... 70 early stage companies, and he has 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:04.540 mentored hundreds of founders through accelerators 00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:08.120 and in the classroom. Andrew has published over 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:13.819 60 articles for Fortune, Forbes, PropModo, CRE 00:01:13.819 --> 00:01:18.040 Tech, AliWatch, and more. And his latest book, 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:22.340 The Entrepreneur's Odyssey, turns years of founders' 00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:25.900 advice into a story you actually want to read. 00:01:26.540 --> 00:01:30.340 a textbook disguised as a novel about what it 00:01:30.340 --> 00:01:33.079 really takes to launch a startup. Welcome to 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:35.620 the show, Andrew. Thanks for having me. That 00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:39.239 was a great intro. Well, thank you. And I am 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:44.200 seeing the cover of this, The Entrepreneur's 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:47.859 Odyssey, and I can't wait to learn more. What's 00:01:47.859 --> 00:01:50.500 the meaning behind the cover? And tell me all 00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:54.200 about the book. Sure, sure. So like I'm maybe 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:59.260 overly fond of visual puns. So the cover of the 00:01:59.260 --> 00:02:03.120 book is an image of a maze and there's a founder 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:06.319 standing in front of it and he's got a chainsaw 00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:08.219 and he's literally hacking his way through the 00:02:08.219 --> 00:02:10.800 maze. You know, we talk about startups, you know, 00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:14.180 startups as hackers or cutting through problems 00:02:14.180 --> 00:02:17.060 in a novel and unique way. That's the metaphor 00:02:17.060 --> 00:02:22.240 I wanted for the cover. So he's with the chainsaw 00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:25.439 creating his own maze. Just cutting a path straight 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:28.520 through, going as direct as possible. But if 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:30.560 it's straight through, we all know that entrepreneurs, 00:02:30.900 --> 00:02:33.240 it's never that easy to go in a straight path, 00:02:33.460 --> 00:02:37.319 right? You got to. Yeah. Listen, he can choose. 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.710 He has a chainsaw. So how is this book different? 00:02:40.830 --> 00:02:43.469 What would make us want to read it? What is that 00:02:43.469 --> 00:02:46.729 novel factor about it? Yeah, well, that brings 00:02:46.729 --> 00:02:49.629 us to the second pun, right? So the subtitle 00:02:49.629 --> 00:02:52.430 is it's a novel approach to startup success because 00:02:52.430 --> 00:02:55.990 it's written like a novel. I have a confession 00:02:55.990 --> 00:02:58.870 to make, right? My confession is that I really 00:02:58.870 --> 00:03:02.050 don't like business books. Even the ones that 00:03:02.050 --> 00:03:05.150 are actually quite good often are kind of hard 00:03:05.150 --> 00:03:08.139 to read. So, you know, it's almost like they 00:03:08.139 --> 00:03:10.740 have the same ghostwriter in like Indiana who 00:03:10.740 --> 00:03:13.500 writes it, the same kind of chipper tone of voice, 00:03:13.539 --> 00:03:16.659 bland, but chipper. And it's like anecdote, anecdote, 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:19.580 anecdote, name drop, name drop, name drop, you 00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:22.319 know, chapter summary at the end. And to be honest, 00:03:22.379 --> 00:03:23.860 most of the time, if you just ripped out that 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:26.520 half page chapter summary and just stapled all 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:28.360 30 of those together, you'd have a great 30 page 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:31.300 book and that would be it. But even the good 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:35.490 ones, like it's just hard to read. And as a result, 00:03:35.509 --> 00:03:37.030 in addition to being hard to read, it's hard 00:03:37.030 --> 00:03:38.930 to remember. It doesn't really connect with you. 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:42.550 So what I found when I first started running 00:03:42.550 --> 00:03:46.849 accelerator programs and I'm trying to give advice 00:03:46.849 --> 00:03:48.889 to startups, you know, I could just tell them 00:03:48.889 --> 00:03:51.210 like, hey, Sheila, listen, you know, you got 00:03:51.210 --> 00:03:53.370 this e -commerce company. You're probably going 00:03:53.370 --> 00:03:55.469 to live and die based on like your click through 00:03:55.469 --> 00:03:57.830 rate. Now, why don't you instead of like building 00:03:57.830 --> 00:04:00.069 everything, why don't you just take some Google 00:04:00.069 --> 00:04:03.449 AdWords campaign out, put like a mock up of the 00:04:03.449 --> 00:04:06.930 site? Just see what happens first. And that was 00:04:06.930 --> 00:04:09.430 okay. And some startups took that advice. But 00:04:09.430 --> 00:04:11.370 when I say, listen, you know, I invested in this 00:04:11.370 --> 00:04:13.990 other company a couple of years ago called whatever. 00:04:14.810 --> 00:04:17.230 And they were in a very similar situation as 00:04:17.230 --> 00:04:19.370 you are. Their revenue model, their entire business 00:04:19.370 --> 00:04:24.329 model depended on being able to get people into 00:04:24.329 --> 00:04:26.589 their site for under a certain cost per click. 00:04:27.269 --> 00:04:29.050 They were kind of worried about it. And they 00:04:29.050 --> 00:04:30.769 decided, you know, let's just do a mock -up of 00:04:30.769 --> 00:04:32.610 the site, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So 00:04:32.610 --> 00:04:35.579 same advice. But one was me just telling him 00:04:35.579 --> 00:04:38.319 and one was me telling them about the other startup 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:42.000 who did it. And like the take rate on that advice 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:46.120 was so much higher through the story because 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:49.000 people could identify with it. They understood 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:51.959 like, oh, I see that. That's I see me in that 00:04:51.959 --> 00:04:54.980 character. Right. That's, you know, meaningful 00:04:54.980 --> 00:04:58.279 to me. It's memorable. So when it came time to 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:01.220 like, you know, let's just write it all down. 00:05:02.029 --> 00:05:04.670 I went back to an earlier book that I had in 00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:06.290 business school called The Goal, which was a 00:05:06.290 --> 00:05:08.910 novel about business. And I'm like, I have to 00:05:08.910 --> 00:05:11.810 write the book this way. So the entire book is 00:05:11.810 --> 00:05:15.529 about a fictional startup. From the moment they 00:05:15.529 --> 00:05:18.930 pitch their idea in like an evening event at 00:05:18.930 --> 00:05:22.110 a law firm, to finding a mentor, to finding their 00:05:22.110 --> 00:05:25.110 co -founder, to ultimately, ultimately raising 00:05:25.110 --> 00:05:27.889 their first round of financing. And all the lessons 00:05:27.889 --> 00:05:33.509 are embedded in that story. So we all know there's 00:05:33.509 --> 00:05:36.930 different types of companies, right? We got the 00:05:36.930 --> 00:05:39.209 brick and mortar and then we got the tech startup. 00:05:39.610 --> 00:05:43.970 So this entrepreneurial odyssey, is this for 00:05:43.970 --> 00:05:48.170 someone who has an idea for an innovation or 00:05:48.170 --> 00:05:51.730 is it for Joe who wants to start a pressure washing 00:05:51.730 --> 00:05:55.009 company? Yeah, you know, that's a very good point. 00:05:55.050 --> 00:05:57.230 And I tell people that they're all startups, 00:05:57.449 --> 00:06:01.089 but the kind of archetypical tech startup. that 00:06:01.089 --> 00:06:04.129 you think of when you think about Facebook or 00:06:04.129 --> 00:06:07.470 those movies. That's where I live, right? That's 00:06:07.470 --> 00:06:09.149 the kind of stuff I invest in. That's the kind 00:06:09.149 --> 00:06:12.569 of stuff I did. But it's actually a very small 00:06:12.569 --> 00:06:16.430 subset of all the businesses people start. But 00:06:16.430 --> 00:06:18.189 really, my book is written to the people running 00:06:18.189 --> 00:06:23.370 that kind of startup. Now, it's not to say that 00:06:23.370 --> 00:06:25.810 there aren't lessons there for you in general. 00:06:27.529 --> 00:06:29.689 They don't all have to be software startups, 00:06:29.850 --> 00:06:32.649 right? You could be making a new type of, I don't 00:06:32.649 --> 00:06:35.509 know, hairbrush, right? A lot of the lessons 00:06:35.509 --> 00:06:38.629 still apply, but it's definitely geared to the 00:06:38.629 --> 00:06:41.670 kind of people who are either currently doing 00:06:41.670 --> 00:06:43.370 something where they're sitting in their office, 00:06:43.389 --> 00:06:45.870 like I'm dying here. I have a great idea. I want 00:06:45.870 --> 00:06:48.490 to go do something new. It's definitely geared 00:06:48.490 --> 00:06:51.949 to those kinds of entrepreneurs. Okay. Well, 00:06:52.029 --> 00:06:54.230 that just brought me back. I had told you that 00:06:54.230 --> 00:06:57.319 my... My youngest had just gone off to college 00:06:57.319 --> 00:06:59.560 about two years ago. He went to entrepreneurship 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:05.500 summer camp. And all these kids were maybe 17. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:10.420 And so in that week, they all had to, you know, 00:07:10.420 --> 00:07:12.819 go from idea. They had to build teams and have 00:07:12.819 --> 00:07:14.920 to, you know, have to go from idea to the presentation. 00:07:16.060 --> 00:07:20.459 And it was so beautiful to see Generation Z. 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:23.680 come up with these mind -blowing ideas. And it 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.480 just came to mind when you said a brush, because 00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:30.699 one of them, and they had access to 3D printers, 00:07:30.779 --> 00:07:34.639 one of them actually came with a brush that you 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:40.879 could unscrew and put dry shampoo and then screw 00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:44.540 it back in so that you could, I guess, brush 00:07:44.540 --> 00:07:47.910 your hair. without having to wash it. Very cool. 00:07:48.290 --> 00:07:51.149 So I teach entrepreneurship also. I do one course 00:07:51.149 --> 00:07:56.009 a semester. And maybe it's because I just don't 00:07:56.009 --> 00:07:58.329 know how to do it any other way. I only know 00:07:58.329 --> 00:08:01.589 how to teach entrepreneurship by doing. So the 00:08:01.589 --> 00:08:04.149 students break up into different teams, four 00:08:04.149 --> 00:08:06.129 people per team. And I take them through the 00:08:06.129 --> 00:08:09.389 entire process of customer discovery all the 00:08:09.389 --> 00:08:11.930 way through to completing their deck and what 00:08:11.930 --> 00:08:15.290 it's like to raise a round. I don't think I could 00:08:15.290 --> 00:08:17.990 imagine doing that with them in one week. It's 00:08:17.990 --> 00:08:21.050 just hyper accelerated. So it takes the course 00:08:21.050 --> 00:08:23.089 of a semester. And ironically, one of the girls 00:08:23.089 --> 00:08:26.550 in the class has a similar but not exactly the 00:08:26.550 --> 00:08:29.850 same idea around a hairbrush. So it's interesting 00:08:29.850 --> 00:08:32.389 how like, you know, people kind of start to think 00:08:32.389 --> 00:08:36.710 in similar paths. Well, the only part I didn't 00:08:36.710 --> 00:08:39.190 like now, maybe they were able to do it. because 00:08:39.190 --> 00:08:42.850 it was eight hours. It was intensive. But they 00:08:42.850 --> 00:08:46.370 only spent half the day together in teams because 00:08:46.370 --> 00:08:49.470 the second half, they were actually visiting 00:08:49.470 --> 00:08:54.470 alumni startups around town. And it was a beautiful 00:08:54.470 --> 00:08:58.029 program. I went to the presentations. The only 00:08:58.029 --> 00:09:01.529 heartbreaking thing for me that was an eye -opener 00:09:01.529 --> 00:09:08.169 was the Generation Z right at 16, 17. Anyone... 00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:11.519 that was the age of 30 or any product that came 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:14.840 out that was the age of 30, you know, their logos 00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:17.639 look like Mr. Magoo. And for those that don't 00:09:17.639 --> 00:09:19.360 know what Mr. Magoo is, right? And I was like, 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:22.419 wait a minute, we're not that old, right? We're 00:09:22.419 --> 00:09:25.139 still young. I don't know about you, Sheila, 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:29.000 but I identify as 29. I'm telling you that if 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:32.940 you're teaching like this generation, it was 00:09:32.940 --> 00:09:35.779 a great way to put in a perspective how we are 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:39.269 perceived. Yeah, I have three teenage girls. 00:09:39.429 --> 00:09:43.409 They have no problem reminding me. So do you 00:09:43.409 --> 00:09:45.250 teach them entrepreneurship? Do you sit around 00:09:45.250 --> 00:09:47.710 the table asking them if they have ideas? Not 00:09:47.710 --> 00:09:51.669 really. All parents, nothing that you do will 00:09:51.669 --> 00:09:54.149 be cool to your kids, but it will be cool to 00:09:54.149 --> 00:09:57.070 your kids' friends. So my daughter's friends 00:09:57.070 --> 00:09:59.149 have invited me in to talk to their first high 00:09:59.149 --> 00:10:01.190 school and college entrepreneurship classes. 00:10:01.649 --> 00:10:04.669 And it's great, but to my kids, I'm just going 00:10:04.669 --> 00:10:09.620 to stop being such a dork dad. Well, at least 00:10:09.620 --> 00:10:11.919 you're appreciated somewhere in that ecosystem, 00:10:12.460 --> 00:10:16.039 right? You know, once you send a daughter off 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:17.740 to college, then they start loving you again. 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:20.279 It's rough in high school, but it gets a lot 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:23.299 better after. All right. So we talked about the 00:10:23.299 --> 00:10:29.080 cover of the book, but in your profile, you have 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:33.220 a chair that I must ask, what is the meaning 00:10:33.220 --> 00:10:35.440 of the chair? Can you first describe the chair? 00:10:35.929 --> 00:10:38.190 Sure. So I can describe it and I can give you 00:10:38.190 --> 00:10:41.149 the meaning in the same time. So if you're a 00:10:41.149 --> 00:10:43.830 fan of Game of Thrones, there is the throne of 00:10:43.830 --> 00:10:45.870 swords, right? So you're on there. It's made 00:10:45.870 --> 00:10:49.169 of the melted swords of all their enemies. So 00:10:49.169 --> 00:10:53.789 back in 2015, I was down in Austin for South 00:10:53.789 --> 00:10:56.649 by Southwest. And that was like a heyday of Game 00:10:56.649 --> 00:10:59.669 of Thrones. So they had a pop -up called South 00:10:59.669 --> 00:11:03.230 by Southwesteros. You know, Westeros for those. 00:11:03.690 --> 00:11:05.590 three people out there in your audience who don't 00:11:05.590 --> 00:11:08.230 know it that's the the fictional lamb that game 00:11:08.230 --> 00:11:11.049 of thrones is in so this pop -up and they had 00:11:11.049 --> 00:11:13.690 like models of like this the sword needle that 00:11:13.690 --> 00:11:16.429 one of the characters had they had a model where 00:11:16.429 --> 00:11:19.330 you could take a photo of your face and it would 00:11:19.330 --> 00:11:21.389 put you on the wall of faces which were like 00:11:21.389 --> 00:11:24.190 masks of dead people in one part of the show 00:11:24.190 --> 00:11:26.669 and then they had the game the throne so you 00:11:26.669 --> 00:11:29.429 could get your you know your picture taking sitting 00:11:29.429 --> 00:11:32.629 on the throne so i had it And I went back and 00:11:32.629 --> 00:11:34.669 forth for like my Uber and Lyft profile. Do I 00:11:34.669 --> 00:11:37.029 use the dead face on the wall or do I use the 00:11:37.029 --> 00:11:40.269 me in the throne? The Uber drivers are a lot 00:11:40.269 --> 00:11:42.269 more likely to pick you up if you use you in 00:11:42.269 --> 00:11:45.110 the throne rather than the dead mask on the wall. 00:11:46.889 --> 00:11:51.470 Okay, that clears it up. So it does have a theme 00:11:51.470 --> 00:11:53.710 to it. I was just wondering, is that like a chair 00:11:53.710 --> 00:11:56.049 that he has in his office or at home? Because 00:11:56.049 --> 00:11:59.220 with all those swords, it was. It was a bit intimidating, 00:11:59.519 --> 00:12:03.120 right, when I'm seeing the profile. Yeah. You 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:05.279 know, it's like one of those, like, shibboleths, 00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:06.860 right? For the people who are fans of Game of 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:08.539 Thrones, they're like, oh, my God, where did 00:12:08.539 --> 00:12:10.919 you get that photo? And for everyone else, they're 00:12:10.919 --> 00:12:15.340 like, that's an odd profile photo. Yeah, and 00:12:15.340 --> 00:12:17.980 I don't know what the Game of Thrones is, so 00:12:17.980 --> 00:12:20.220 I will. Sheila, you and I have to talk after 00:12:20.220 --> 00:12:24.480 the broadcast. I don't know. It looks like sci 00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:28.080 -fi. More fantasy. Think more Lord of the Rings, 00:12:28.179 --> 00:12:33.639 less Star Wars. Okay. Yeah. No. Definitely keep 00:12:33.639 --> 00:12:38.440 on talking. Okay. So along the way in this odyssey, 00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:41.779 in the book, with your experience, you have collected 00:12:41.779 --> 00:12:47.039 a lot of unfiltered stories without mentioning 00:12:47.039 --> 00:12:49.759 names or anything specific. What is that one 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:55.090 story that sticks out? In the book or just in 00:12:55.090 --> 00:12:57.789 general? Whichever you choose, whether it be 00:12:57.789 --> 00:13:00.190 in the book or in your experience, because it 00:13:00.190 --> 00:13:02.629 must be really interesting, you know, when you're 00:13:02.629 --> 00:13:07.669 teaching so many people. I'll tell you, honestly, 00:13:07.750 --> 00:13:09.429 a true story, and I'll tell you the name of the 00:13:09.429 --> 00:13:13.289 company. And it's in the book in a modified form. 00:13:13.909 --> 00:13:16.070 And this was one of those experiences where I 00:13:16.070 --> 00:13:17.669 realized, like, the stories are the way to get 00:13:17.669 --> 00:13:21.399 the advice, like, actually listened to. So there 00:13:21.399 --> 00:13:24.080 was a company that was going through the accelerator 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:27.840 used to work at Dreamit Ventures. And this was 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:30.379 a long time ago. And they had a blog discovery 00:13:30.379 --> 00:13:33.940 service. You know, back then, early on, blogs 00:13:33.940 --> 00:13:37.659 were super big. And, you know, finding the ones 00:13:37.659 --> 00:13:40.600 that were a better fit for you than, you know, 00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:42.720 your interests and others was kind of a reasonable 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:47.000 problem. And they had this. this thesis that 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.000 you know they could put a free version out that 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:50.679 would get you so far and then there was a paid 00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:53.480 version and some people would pay for you know 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:55.919 help being helped to find really good blocks 00:13:55.919 --> 00:13:59.259 to read so you know they come into the program 00:13:59.259 --> 00:14:00.700 like here's our model this is what we're going 00:14:00.700 --> 00:14:02.840 to do it's like so what are your plans like well 00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:04.879 it takes us it'll take us another you know seven 00:14:04.879 --> 00:14:07.440 eight weeks to finish building all the premium 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:10.039 features so that'll be about a few weeks before 00:14:10.039 --> 00:14:12.419 demo day when we present to all the investors 00:14:13.370 --> 00:14:15.129 So we'll have it rolled out, we'll get a little 00:14:15.129 --> 00:14:16.950 bit of data, and boom, we're going to go try 00:14:16.950 --> 00:14:19.590 to raise a seed round on that. And we said, well, 00:14:19.610 --> 00:14:22.809 what happens if the numbers aren't good? If you're 00:14:22.809 --> 00:14:25.470 rolling into demo day, you'll have nothing. Like, 00:14:25.470 --> 00:14:27.710 well, no, we hadn't really thought about that. 00:14:28.029 --> 00:14:29.870 And they said, well, we have a better idea for 00:14:29.870 --> 00:14:33.269 you. You already have all the free features working, 00:14:33.490 --> 00:14:38.210 right? I said, yeah. You already know what the 00:14:38.210 --> 00:14:40.490 paid features are going to be, right? Oh, yeah. 00:14:40.830 --> 00:14:42.330 You know what you're going to charge for? Yeah, 00:14:42.370 --> 00:14:45.990 pretty much. Okay, put up the buy now page, put 00:14:45.990 --> 00:14:48.070 up the, you know, upgrade, you know, kind of 00:14:48.070 --> 00:14:49.990 push people to upgrade the way you would normally 00:14:49.990 --> 00:14:51.789 show them like, you know, upgrade, you get these 00:14:51.789 --> 00:14:54.029 features, you know, everything from before plus 00:14:54.029 --> 00:14:56.450 these features. And it's, I don't know, $9 .99 00:14:56.450 --> 00:14:59.850 a month and see how many people click buy now. 00:15:00.250 --> 00:15:01.889 And, you know, once they click buy now, it's, 00:15:01.889 --> 00:15:03.389 you know, you don't have to do anything. You 00:15:03.389 --> 00:15:05.269 just take pop up and say, hey, coming soon, give 00:15:05.269 --> 00:15:07.730 us your email address and we'll let you know 00:15:07.730 --> 00:15:10.889 when it's available. But up until that last stage, 00:15:10.990 --> 00:15:13.330 it should look absolutely real to your customer. 00:15:14.190 --> 00:15:18.190 Because then you'll know that, you'll know what 00:15:18.190 --> 00:15:19.710 percentage of your audience you can probably 00:15:19.710 --> 00:15:23.210 get to convert to paid. Actually, that's awesome. 00:15:23.830 --> 00:15:25.929 All right, so they do that. It takes them a couple 00:15:25.929 --> 00:15:27.610 of days to put it up. They test it for about 00:15:27.610 --> 00:15:30.389 a week. They come back totally crestfallen. What's 00:15:30.389 --> 00:15:34.330 wrong? Well, you know, the business model we 00:15:34.330 --> 00:15:37.250 have says we need a 2 % conversion rate to paid. 00:15:37.929 --> 00:15:40.389 to make this business work. And we were getting 00:15:40.389 --> 00:15:45.149 like 0 .1%. There's just no way we can optimize 00:15:45.149 --> 00:15:48.710 this thing to get to 2%, much less any higher. 00:15:49.629 --> 00:15:53.850 So I think we're kind of out of luck here. And 00:15:53.850 --> 00:15:56.350 so, okay, that's not the right approach. What 00:15:56.350 --> 00:15:58.629 can we do differently? So they think about it 00:15:58.629 --> 00:16:02.750 for a bit and they say like, well, the type of 00:16:02.750 --> 00:16:05.070 blogs that we seem to get the most interest in 00:16:05.070 --> 00:16:08.509 are the kind of blogs. that talk about sporting 00:16:08.509 --> 00:16:11.070 and concert venues and like, you know, the tips 00:16:11.070 --> 00:16:13.610 and tricks to get the best seats there. I think 00:16:13.610 --> 00:16:16.649 we're going to do a pivot and we're going to 00:16:16.649 --> 00:16:20.409 do stuff in that space. So with, I don't know, 00:16:20.429 --> 00:16:22.610 six or seven weeks left before demo day, they 00:16:22.610 --> 00:16:24.549 scrapped their entire business that they'd been 00:16:24.549 --> 00:16:27.289 working on up until that point and built a whole 00:16:27.289 --> 00:16:31.950 new business. And that business today is SeatGeek. 00:16:32.750 --> 00:16:34.789 It was a billion dollar company. That just came 00:16:34.789 --> 00:16:37.889 in today. That's the concert. Concerts and sport 00:16:37.889 --> 00:16:40.009 venues. They started off as being like a place 00:16:40.009 --> 00:16:42.769 to sell, but not just like StubHub where you 00:16:42.769 --> 00:16:44.049 could sell your tickets, but they would search 00:16:44.049 --> 00:16:48.330 all the different secondary markets. Like kind 00:16:48.330 --> 00:16:50.350 of kayak was for different airlines websites. 00:16:51.090 --> 00:16:52.889 So they would do all of that. And now you can 00:16:52.889 --> 00:16:55.669 even list your tickets there. And now they even 00:16:55.669 --> 00:16:57.909 have like theaters who use it to deliver tickets 00:16:57.909 --> 00:17:00.850 that way electronically. And they even have a 00:17:00.850 --> 00:17:04.740 stadium named after them. But all of this would 00:17:04.740 --> 00:17:06.599 never have happened and the company would have 00:17:06.599 --> 00:17:09.460 been stillborn if they'd gone with their initial 00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:11.980 instinct was, let's build and see what happens, 00:17:12.099 --> 00:17:15.680 rather than adapt one of the quintessential startup 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:18.819 attitudes, which is, how can I test this quickly 00:17:18.819 --> 00:17:22.519 and cheaply? Like, how can I de -risk this as 00:17:22.519 --> 00:17:24.420 soon as possible? Because if it's not going to 00:17:24.420 --> 00:17:27.019 work, I want to save myself weeks, if not months 00:17:27.019 --> 00:17:34.859 of effort going down a blind path. Wow. So that 00:17:34.859 --> 00:17:37.119 would be the validation stage, what you were 00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:39.900 describing, right? Yeah. You're asking them to 00:17:39.900 --> 00:17:42.900 get a 2%. So in order to even be able to get 00:17:42.900 --> 00:17:45.720 that data, it's very important to be able to 00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:48.920 track that data. What's the easiest way to track 00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:51.799 that data? Google Analytics? Well, for that kind 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:54.380 of stuff, Google Analytics is really pretty simple. 00:17:54.859 --> 00:17:56.740 They're talking about the number of people who 00:17:56.740 --> 00:17:58.559 would click a certain button and go to a certain 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.579 page. That's super easy. It's not always that 00:18:01.579 --> 00:18:06.089 easy. Uh, you know, the, if I want to say like 00:18:06.089 --> 00:18:09.529 how effective say my billboard ads are, it's 00:18:09.529 --> 00:18:10.890 kind of hard. Like I've got three other different 00:18:10.890 --> 00:18:12.910 ads running at the same time. I've got online, 00:18:13.170 --> 00:18:16.150 I've got outgoing email. It's kind of hard to 00:18:16.150 --> 00:18:19.009 disaggregate that, but sometimes it's just face 00:18:19.009 --> 00:18:22.130 to face. So for instance, in the book, I talk 00:18:22.130 --> 00:18:26.789 about a, an index card app. Have you ever heard 00:18:26.789 --> 00:18:33.200 of an index card app? No. Okay. Not surprising 00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.000 because I think I made it up, but I might not 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:36.380 have. It might've been something that I heard. 00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:39.119 So let's say, I'll give you the example in the 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:42.619 book. So the entrepreneur in the book is named 00:18:42.619 --> 00:18:47.680 Marcus and he has this idea for startup. He's 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:52.539 totally wrong. His mentor, Jason, the reason 00:18:52.539 --> 00:18:54.700 I slipped up there is there's a lot of Easter 00:18:54.700 --> 00:18:58.180 eggs in the book. So Jason is actually named 00:18:58.180 --> 00:19:01.480 after. John Asin, who was one of the OG of the 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:03.859 New York investor scene. He passed not that many 00:19:03.859 --> 00:19:06.680 years ago, but you know, he was, he was a super 00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:09.900 sharp angel investor. So anyway, so his mentor, 00:19:09.960 --> 00:19:12.059 Jason says like, we're not going to go sell the 00:19:12.059 --> 00:19:14.700 businesses, but it, it kind of makes sense maybe 00:19:14.700 --> 00:19:16.640 to sell this for like on the go professionals. 00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:19.759 So Marcus has to go back and do customer discovery 00:19:19.759 --> 00:19:21.799 again. And he's like, well, okay, I'll start 00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:24.339 building, you know, these new features. And Jason's 00:19:24.339 --> 00:19:28.740 like, no, here's what he ends up doing. He. gets 00:19:28.740 --> 00:19:32.619 a pack of index cards, five bucks, takes a pen, 00:19:32.779 --> 00:19:36.500 sketches out what the screens would look like 00:19:36.500 --> 00:19:39.059 on the app. And he goes out and he's talking 00:19:39.059 --> 00:19:42.819 to a woman in his network who's a real estate 00:19:42.819 --> 00:19:44.440 agent who he thinks might be one of the target 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:48.480 markets for like the new focus of this app. And 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:52.099 he says, Julia, I remember the name because my 00:19:52.099 --> 00:19:53.880 wife's named Julie and she's a real estate agent. 00:19:54.119 --> 00:19:57.569 In this case, it's Julia. I'm going to give you 00:19:57.569 --> 00:20:00.450 these index cards. I want you to just treat the 00:20:00.450 --> 00:20:02.650 index cards as if it's an app on your phone. 00:20:03.029 --> 00:20:04.470 I mean, literally, if you're going to press a 00:20:04.470 --> 00:20:07.970 button, touch that part of the card, and then 00:20:07.970 --> 00:20:09.329 I'll give you a new screen, which will be where 00:20:09.329 --> 00:20:12.049 it takes you. Don't ask me questions, because 00:20:12.049 --> 00:20:13.789 if you were downloading the app, I wouldn't be 00:20:13.789 --> 00:20:16.450 here to answer questions. The one thing I'm asking 00:20:16.450 --> 00:20:20.769 you to do differently, Marcus says, is just verbalize 00:20:20.769 --> 00:20:22.930 what you're thinking. So if you're looking at 00:20:22.930 --> 00:20:24.009 the card, and you're like, I don't know what 00:20:24.009 --> 00:20:25.970 button to press, just say that out loud. Or it's 00:20:25.970 --> 00:20:28.109 like, I want to practice this, but I'm worried 00:20:28.109 --> 00:20:29.710 what will happen. Just say that out loud because 00:20:29.710 --> 00:20:32.109 I can't read your mind. But other than that, 00:20:32.190 --> 00:20:37.170 you just interact with this index card app as 00:20:37.170 --> 00:20:39.789 if I weren't in the room. Now, the beauty of 00:20:39.789 --> 00:20:42.549 that approach is, again, for the cost of like 00:20:42.549 --> 00:20:46.210 $5 worth of index cards, you can talk to 20, 00:20:46.269 --> 00:20:48.589 30, 40 people. And you can see how they interact 00:20:48.589 --> 00:20:51.950 with your almost app. And if none of them click 00:20:51.950 --> 00:20:55.569 on a certain set of features, Either your design 00:20:55.569 --> 00:20:57.170 was so bad they didn't know what they were, that's 00:20:57.170 --> 00:20:59.670 why you ask them afterwards, or nobody really 00:20:59.670 --> 00:21:02.769 needs those features. So why build that? And 00:21:02.769 --> 00:21:04.609 if you get to a point where they're all running 00:21:04.609 --> 00:21:07.430 into the problems in the same place, maybe your 00:21:07.430 --> 00:21:09.210 design is bad and you have to fix that before 00:21:09.210 --> 00:21:12.950 you go out there. Maybe how you're offering the 00:21:12.950 --> 00:21:14.869 product doesn't work and you need to change it. 00:21:14.990 --> 00:21:18.589 You can get all that feedback before you spend 00:21:18.589 --> 00:21:21.049 a bunch of time and maybe a bunch of money building. 00:21:22.279 --> 00:21:24.880 So how are you measuring that? Like you're looking, 00:21:24.980 --> 00:21:27.839 like you're just absorbing the mind of the customer 00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:33.480 over 20 or 30 or 40 interviews like that. And 00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:38.480 all with hand -drawn index cards that represent 00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:42.279 different screens and buttons. Now you can do 00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:45.000 it with, it's called, the technical terms you 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:47.140 wanted to do it online is a clickable wireframe. 00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:50.369 Think of it like a movie storyboard. but interactive. 00:21:50.490 --> 00:21:53.430 So you could do it with an actual app. Wouldn't 00:21:53.430 --> 00:21:54.869 take very long to build. You could do it with 00:21:54.869 --> 00:21:57.269 a website, but you can do it with index cards. 00:21:58.569 --> 00:22:03.809 So we know that with AI, everything is evolving 00:22:03.809 --> 00:22:07.849 real quick. Out of the top of your head, what 00:22:07.849 --> 00:22:11.809 opportunities do you see in these times with 00:22:11.809 --> 00:22:14.740 this disruption? Yeah, I'd love someone to come 00:22:14.740 --> 00:22:19.259 up with a tool that tells chat GPT to stop pretending 00:22:19.259 --> 00:22:23.619 it can do things it can't do. Sorry, I did recently. 00:22:23.980 --> 00:22:26.640 No, just recently, like I went down. So I've 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:28.200 been doing a bunch of podcasts, as you might 00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:32.359 as you might imagine. And, you know, I get sometimes 00:22:32.359 --> 00:22:38.460 here. Here's your 30, 50 minute podcast. If the 00:22:38.460 --> 00:22:41.119 host or the hostess didn't chop them up and give 00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:43.099 me highlight reels, I usually just link to it 00:22:43.099 --> 00:22:44.980 and we're done. But I remember thinking, wouldn't 00:22:44.980 --> 00:22:46.279 it be really cool if I could just automatically 00:22:46.279 --> 00:22:49.539 get five or six highlights, 10 second long clips 00:22:49.539 --> 00:22:52.740 and post those. And I'm thinking, well, I don't 00:22:52.740 --> 00:22:54.900 have time to do all the editing. I said, oh, 00:22:55.119 --> 00:22:57.799 so ChatGPT, here's my video. Do you think you 00:22:57.799 --> 00:22:59.880 can like do it? It's like, sure, no problem. 00:23:00.339 --> 00:23:02.619 Like I'll go through it. I'll identify the clips 00:23:02.619 --> 00:23:03.960 and then we'll make the little clips. Do you 00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:05.279 want me to add branding? Do you want me to put 00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:07.279 like a pre -roll? I'm like, oh, that's really 00:23:07.279 --> 00:23:09.279 cool. Here's the, here's the files for the branding, 00:23:09.339 --> 00:23:11.579 the pre -roll. And then as we get into about 00:23:11.579 --> 00:23:14.380 like three hours later, um, and I'm like, great, 00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:16.180 make the clips. And it's like, okay, it'll take 00:23:16.180 --> 00:23:18.700 me like an hour. Come back, come back. Nothing 00:23:18.700 --> 00:23:21.859 like what's happening. It's like, oh, I didn't 00:23:21.859 --> 00:23:23.740 know how to tell you this, but I can't really 00:23:23.740 --> 00:23:28.039 edit videos. I don't really edit videos. Here's 00:23:28.039 --> 00:23:30.000 other services. You know, then why the hell did 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:32.000 you tell me you could do it? And I said, well, 00:23:32.019 --> 00:23:34.960 at least you, at least you identified automatically. 00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:37.779 a bunch of different segments that i can use 00:23:37.779 --> 00:23:40.180 you know okay that's that's half the battle and 00:23:40.180 --> 00:23:43.240 then i i go to look at those segments that i 00:23:43.240 --> 00:23:48.299 identified and it's absolutely nothing like what 00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:50.539 it says those clips are the words don't align 00:23:50.539 --> 00:23:52.859 like the breaks are like right in the middle 00:23:52.859 --> 00:23:56.700 of a sentence and i'm like dude you know what's 00:23:56.700 --> 00:23:59.059 with the what's with the bad clipping like your 00:23:59.059 --> 00:24:02.619 time index is off i was like Oh, I forgot to 00:24:02.619 --> 00:24:04.799 tell you, I can't really transcribe and understand 00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:07.539 your video. I was just doing it on the basis 00:24:07.539 --> 00:24:09.400 of the kinds of things you normally say. And 00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:12.640 this is like indicative. So you did nothing. 00:24:12.859 --> 00:24:15.559 It's like if I gave work to an intern and they 00:24:15.559 --> 00:24:16.799 said, yeah, I'll get the spreadsheet for you 00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:18.240 by tomorrow. And they had no idea how to use 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:20.740 Excel and no intention of actually doing it. 00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:24.279 Okay, I'm done ranting. I'll answer your question 00:24:24.279 --> 00:24:29.539 for real. Which was what exactly about AI? Oh. 00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:33.200 Because you're so involved in entrepreneurship 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:38.039 and you're teaching and startups, what's one 00:24:38.039 --> 00:24:42.079 opportunity that you see that you can develop 00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:47.500 out of your head? It seems like when new technologies 00:24:47.500 --> 00:24:50.539 come along and they open up a whole new array 00:24:50.539 --> 00:24:53.839 of opportunities that were insolvable problems 00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:57.640 before, everyone seems to start sprinkling that 00:24:57.640 --> 00:25:00.000 word on top of their deck. So a couple of years 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.859 ago, everything was, I guess, blockchain, right? 00:25:01.940 --> 00:25:04.259 Natural language processing, like you're sprinkling 00:25:04.259 --> 00:25:07.259 fairy dust or seasoning on your startup. Almost 00:25:07.259 --> 00:25:10.019 all the pitches I get now, with the exception 00:25:10.019 --> 00:25:12.059 of the robotics one, are like, oh, we're using 00:25:12.059 --> 00:25:15.119 AI to do X, Y, Z. A lot of the times it's like, 00:25:15.140 --> 00:25:17.160 they're not really using AI. It's like basic 00:25:17.160 --> 00:25:20.859 stuff. But the ones where they are really using 00:25:20.859 --> 00:25:23.599 AI break down into basically two categories. 00:25:24.619 --> 00:25:31.619 There is vertical AI. or applied ai i'm sorry 00:25:31.619 --> 00:25:33.019 those are two different things sorry there's 00:25:33.019 --> 00:25:35.579 applied ai and then there's like in the foundational 00:25:35.579 --> 00:25:39.859 ai so the the difference is when i'm doing applied 00:25:39.859 --> 00:25:42.319 ai i'm using kind of off -the -shelf tools i 00:25:42.319 --> 00:25:45.079 may be enriching it or customizing but i'm using 00:25:45.079 --> 00:25:47.980 it to do stuff usually within an industry so 00:25:47.980 --> 00:25:50.960 a super simple example is if you're a real estate 00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:56.259 agent and you need to write uh reviews or summaries 00:25:56.259 --> 00:25:59.180 of a property that you're listing Most realtors 00:25:59.180 --> 00:26:01.859 are quite bad at writing that. You can point 00:26:01.859 --> 00:26:05.700 ChatGPT at a couple of photos, not ChatGPT, it's 00:26:05.700 --> 00:26:08.400 other service, at a couple of photos and the 00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:10.400 structured data, and it'll write it for you. 00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:13.900 Now, they didn't create the library or the AI 00:26:13.900 --> 00:26:16.740 underneath it. They're applying that AI to a 00:26:16.740 --> 00:26:19.279 specific use case. And then there's the more 00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:22.059 foundational AI or the frontier tech where people 00:26:22.059 --> 00:26:26.420 are coming up with entirely new AI models. That's 00:26:26.420 --> 00:26:28.559 the super expensive, really hard stuff to do. 00:26:29.460 --> 00:26:32.440 I don't do that second type of investing, but 00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:36.880 I see a lot of applied AI. So my advice for anybody 00:26:36.880 --> 00:26:40.500 who is in sort of a day job and they're trying 00:26:40.500 --> 00:26:43.220 to decide, like, is this the right idea for me 00:26:43.220 --> 00:26:45.200 to pursue? Is it the right time for me to leave? 00:26:45.319 --> 00:26:47.339 Well, my number one advice is buy the book because 00:26:47.339 --> 00:26:49.599 if anything, because it's written like a novel, 00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:52.140 you'll actually understand what it feels like 00:26:52.140 --> 00:26:53.819 to be an entrepreneur and if that's a good fit 00:26:53.819 --> 00:26:57.039 for you. But the other thing to do is to just 00:26:57.039 --> 00:26:59.400 try to use some of the other out -of -the -shelf 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:02.980 tools to simulate what you're trying to do to 00:27:02.980 --> 00:27:05.920 see how easy it is to do their solutions. You 00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:08.180 can use ChatGPT or if you want to use kind of 00:27:08.180 --> 00:27:11.579 vibe coding tools, there's a tool called Lovable, 00:27:11.740 --> 00:27:15.000 which will help build the entire app for you. 00:27:15.180 --> 00:27:18.640 But you can use these tools to get a lot further 00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:22.160 than you used to be able to get, you know, before 00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:25.220 we had AI. Now, what you specifically do with 00:27:25.220 --> 00:27:28.279 that, that's got to come from you. Like whatever 00:27:28.279 --> 00:27:33.319 problem you face, if it's super painful and you're 00:27:33.319 --> 00:27:35.519 pretty certain that a lot of people are in the 00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:39.799 exact same boat as you, and ideally it happens 00:27:39.799 --> 00:27:43.779 a lot, if you can solve that now using these 00:27:43.779 --> 00:27:49.400 AI tools, now's the time to do it. I like that. 00:27:50.660 --> 00:27:53.930 Okay. So I'm going to throw an idea out there. 00:27:54.009 --> 00:27:56.170 I'm not going to be the one developing it, but 00:27:56.170 --> 00:27:58.309 you're in front of a lot of brilliant minds and 00:27:58.309 --> 00:28:01.710 you're a teacher. So just let me know when it 00:28:01.710 --> 00:28:03.789 gets implemented. You know how we were talking 00:28:03.789 --> 00:28:06.970 about that button and how you have to monitor 00:28:06.970 --> 00:28:11.670 clicks, right? So a lot of people struggle with 00:28:11.670 --> 00:28:14.970 Google Analytics, right? Because Google just 00:28:14.970 --> 00:28:18.180 isn't simple. I mean, the only thing that's simple 00:28:18.180 --> 00:28:21.240 at this point is our search bar. But when you're 00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:23.759 going in a cloud and you're going into all of 00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:26.319 these infrastructures they have, it's really 00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:30.140 hard to navigate, you know, within that. So what 00:28:30.140 --> 00:28:35.559 if this same screen, when they're testing the 00:28:35.559 --> 00:28:38.700 button, and they can maybe even use AI because 00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:42.769 sometimes by just changing the copy. perhaps 00:28:42.769 --> 00:28:45.329 they would get different results whether or not 00:28:45.329 --> 00:28:49.450 the person clicks or not. So what the bun could 00:28:49.450 --> 00:28:51.789 do is, instead of having to analyze what they 00:28:51.789 --> 00:28:54.910 clicked, is that AI says, oh, here's your customer 00:28:54.910 --> 00:28:58.690 journey. They spent one second here and then 00:28:58.690 --> 00:29:02.609 suggest improvements. Well, I know SeatGeek wouldn't 00:29:02.609 --> 00:29:05.170 have been born, but I'm just saying, imagine 00:29:05.170 --> 00:29:09.730 if you use the AI so that when you click, All 00:29:09.730 --> 00:29:12.150 of those insights are there and it's reading 00:29:12.150 --> 00:29:16.369 all the all the text on the page. And so you're 00:29:16.369 --> 00:29:19.670 able to just go click and start making those 00:29:19.670 --> 00:29:24.210 edits to see what that looks like. So it's a 00:29:24.210 --> 00:29:27.470 good idea. Parts of it have been in the works 00:29:27.470 --> 00:29:31.509 or even available for over a decade now. So we 00:29:31.509 --> 00:29:33.930 talk about AI now. It's not like I just came 00:29:33.930 --> 00:29:36.289 out of nowhere. Companies have been using it 00:29:36.289 --> 00:29:40.460 for a long time. different about it is not only 00:29:40.460 --> 00:29:43.359 how really good it's getting but also how easy 00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:47.579 it is now for the casual uh you know the casual 00:29:47.579 --> 00:29:50.819 user to to get at beforehand you know it had 00:29:50.819 --> 00:29:52.660 to be something that you built on your own in 00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:55.980 -house now there are um and there have been for 00:29:55.980 --> 00:29:58.880 a while at we call them sorry we call them um 00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:02.960 martech marketing technology startups out there 00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:06.599 They have come up with solutions for that kind 00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:09.180 of thing. So at the very simplest level, you 00:30:09.180 --> 00:30:12.099 might A -B test a button. Do I put the buy button 00:30:12.099 --> 00:30:13.920 on the right or do I put the buy button on the 00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:18.359 left? Do I use this copy versus that copy? They 00:30:18.359 --> 00:30:20.700 would just A -B test different pages and it would 00:30:20.700 --> 00:30:23.119 be automated. I think it's even built into Google 00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:26.839 Analytics. They can just do that for you. And 00:30:26.839 --> 00:30:29.700 when Google AdWords came out, it wasn't very 00:30:29.700 --> 00:30:32.900 long before they would let you A -B -C -D test. 00:30:33.549 --> 00:30:36.009 four different types of ads. They would just 00:30:36.009 --> 00:30:37.690 run four different types of ads, and the ones 00:30:37.690 --> 00:30:39.509 that got the more click -throughs, they'd start 00:30:39.509 --> 00:30:42.390 running more and more of until they found the 00:30:42.390 --> 00:30:46.950 winning ads to do the most of. So that got pretty 00:30:46.950 --> 00:30:50.009 sophisticated pretty quickly. What they didn't 00:30:50.009 --> 00:30:51.869 do at that point is they didn't generate the 00:30:51.869 --> 00:30:54.970 ideas that you wanted to test. That was a little 00:30:54.970 --> 00:30:56.970 bit too much for them. But as the technology 00:30:56.970 --> 00:31:00.250 has evolved, they can suggest different ads. 00:31:00.430 --> 00:31:03.380 They can suggest... different copy. They can 00:31:03.380 --> 00:31:05.440 suggest different placement of those buttons 00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:09.220 based on what they've seen elsewhere and what 00:31:09.220 --> 00:31:11.859 works. So that stuff's already in the works, 00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:17.259 already available to a large degree. The next 00:31:17.259 --> 00:31:18.720 step and the stuff that's getting kind of really 00:31:18.720 --> 00:31:21.980 interesting, and one of the teams in my current 00:31:21.980 --> 00:31:24.720 class is using this as their student project, 00:31:25.059 --> 00:31:28.460 is Google Analytics shows you a whole bunch of 00:31:28.460 --> 00:31:31.279 numbers. It doesn't really tell you. Sheila, 00:31:31.380 --> 00:31:34.960 you should try this next because. So they wanted 00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:37.660 to come up with an e -commerce companion, they 00:31:37.660 --> 00:31:41.859 called it, which would sit on top of Spotify's 00:31:41.859 --> 00:31:46.200 analytics, for example, and translate that into, 00:31:46.339 --> 00:31:49.480 okay, Sheila, it's Monday morning. Here are the 00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:51.839 one or two things we think we should do differently 00:31:51.839 --> 00:31:54.400 this week. If you're losing sales on this or 00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:56.960 we think you'll get more sales on that. And in 00:31:56.960 --> 00:31:59.559 most cases, you can say. Yes, let's try that 00:31:59.559 --> 00:32:02.440 and be able to do it for you. So changing it 00:32:02.440 --> 00:32:05.819 from being an analytics platform that you look 00:32:05.819 --> 00:32:09.079 at and decide what to do to basically being that 00:32:09.079 --> 00:32:13.059 analyst that looks at it for you and then gives 00:32:13.059 --> 00:32:15.720 you like, hey, three recommendations. What do 00:32:15.720 --> 00:32:19.440 you want to do? You're a call boss. Exactly. 00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:22.740 Because it's not that easy to interpret the analytics, 00:32:22.859 --> 00:32:25.339 right? The data's there and then you're like, 00:32:25.460 --> 00:32:30.240 okay, great. Even going back to that one example 00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:33.559 you did, that it was 2 % and they were 0 .1, 00:32:33.740 --> 00:32:37.539 and it didn't work. So if you could just have 00:32:37.539 --> 00:32:40.720 it tell you, based on what people were doing, 00:32:40.859 --> 00:32:44.319 what you should do. Yeah, and that's kind of 00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:50.960 the next frontier for AI, is turning data into 00:32:50.960 --> 00:32:54.859 some fairly simple, appropriate recommendations. 00:32:56.460 --> 00:33:00.380 Do them. All right. So how are you going to wrap 00:33:00.380 --> 00:33:05.740 this up? What is one lesson that you'd like to 00:33:05.740 --> 00:33:10.640 leave us with? Okay. If you're a founder and 00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:13.200 you're looking to raise money, the number one 00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:15.019 thing you should never, never, never, never, 00:33:15.019 --> 00:33:17.940 never, never, never, never, never do is send 00:33:17.940 --> 00:33:22.319 a cold email to a VC. The best thing I can say 00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:24.119 that'll happen is we won't even notice it. We'll 00:33:24.119 --> 00:33:26.339 just delete it. So if you've done it already, 00:33:26.460 --> 00:33:30.759 relax. It's okay. No harm done. But the best 00:33:30.759 --> 00:33:35.059 by far way to get an investor who might actually 00:33:35.059 --> 00:33:37.019 invest is to get a warm introduction to them. 00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:40.220 Somebody that you know in common who can say, 00:33:40.460 --> 00:33:42.839 hey, I've known Sheila a bunch of years now. 00:33:43.019 --> 00:33:45.359 She's sharp. She's got a really great idea. Andrew, 00:33:45.460 --> 00:33:48.339 you should talk to her. That is the way to reach 00:33:48.339 --> 00:33:51.839 a VC. And if you don't have that connection, 00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:56.140 here's the hack. You ready? I'm ready. You can 00:33:56.140 --> 00:33:58.880 cold email one of the investors' portfolio companies, 00:33:59.140 --> 00:34:01.839 preferably one that has something to do with 00:34:01.839 --> 00:34:04.460 what you're doing. Because they're going through 00:34:04.460 --> 00:34:06.819 the same journey you are. They're not overwhelmed 00:34:06.819 --> 00:34:11.440 with tons of like rando founders. Some of them 00:34:11.440 --> 00:34:14.739 are clearly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. They're not 00:34:14.739 --> 00:34:16.929 overrun by that. Like they're running their business. 00:34:17.110 --> 00:34:19.170 They don't get as many of these like crazy, like, 00:34:19.190 --> 00:34:22.449 hey, I'm another startup. They're likely to sympathize. 00:34:22.449 --> 00:34:24.929 If you're in the same space, you meet, you may 00:34:24.929 --> 00:34:26.809 even have an opportunity to do business together. 00:34:27.769 --> 00:34:31.230 And after you've met, if you guys hit it off, 00:34:31.389 --> 00:34:33.969 they may turn around and say, I really love what 00:34:33.969 --> 00:34:36.130 you're doing, Sheila. Would you like to talk 00:34:36.130 --> 00:34:40.210 to my investors? You would phrase it as like, 00:34:40.289 --> 00:34:44.079 hey. Andrew, I'm thinking about approaching, 00:34:44.320 --> 00:34:48.800 I don't know, Vertical Ventures. I see they've 00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:50.179 invested in you. I just want to know what kind 00:34:50.179 --> 00:34:52.139 of people they are. Are they good investors or 00:34:52.139 --> 00:34:54.619 not? Can we talk for a little bit? And then that 00:34:54.619 --> 00:34:57.539 conversation blooms into an actual relationship 00:34:57.539 --> 00:34:59.599 between you and their portfolio company. And 00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:02.340 then you get what's perhaps the best warm intro 00:35:02.340 --> 00:35:06.579 ever, which is from one of their portfolio companies 00:35:06.579 --> 00:35:09.139 that they're making money on or looks like they're 00:35:09.139 --> 00:35:11.460 going to make money on. So it's hard to say I 00:35:11.460 --> 00:35:13.960 know you now. So to all my listeners out there, 00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:17.199 if you want to get a hold of Andrew. They have 00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:20.219 to email you. But it works better if you actually 00:35:20.219 --> 00:35:22.699 know them, right? So a warm intro is like, hey, 00:35:22.780 --> 00:35:24.840 this is one of my listeners. I just met her like 00:35:24.840 --> 00:35:27.019 three days ago. Not really sure what she does, 00:35:27.079 --> 00:35:29.260 but Andrew, would you talk to her? That's not 00:35:29.260 --> 00:35:32.380 really the super vote of confidence. But if it's 00:35:32.380 --> 00:35:34.800 like, hey, this is my assistant producer. I've 00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:37.639 been working with him for five years now. He's 00:35:37.639 --> 00:35:41.800 got this great idea. Super sharp guy. I think 00:35:41.800 --> 00:35:43.360 the idea is good. Andrew, do you want to take 00:35:43.360 --> 00:35:47.199 a listen? Like, no, that's a good intro. Well, 00:35:47.300 --> 00:35:52.000 that was a second tip, too. So where can we find 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.820 you or how can we purchase The Entrepreneur's 00:35:55.820 --> 00:35:59.039 Odyssey? We can find me. It's usually the Upper 00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:00.579 West Side of Manhattan. But if you're looking 00:36:00.579 --> 00:36:04.119 for the book, best place to look is on Amazon. 00:36:05.079 --> 00:36:06.840 If you're interested in just a little bit more 00:36:06.840 --> 00:36:08.800 background on me and, of course, a link to the 00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:12.260 book, my personal website is andrew, the letter 00:36:12.260 --> 00:36:16.300 B as in boy, ackerman .com. So you can go there, 00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:18.019 find out a little bit more about me. And, oh, 00:36:18.059 --> 00:36:19.699 yes, you can buy the book through there also. 00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:22.960 Well, thank you so much for joining me today. 00:36:23.579 --> 00:36:26.519 Thanks for having me. And thank you all for tuning 00:36:26.519 --> 00:36:29.360 in to another episode of Milestone Moments in 00:36:29.360 --> 00:36:31.860 Business and Leadership. Until next time.