Transcript
Speaker: Your B2B Marketing Pint is a podcast full of insights for tech marketers. joined by other marketing veterans. Your hosts, Brian O 'Grady and Brendan Ziolo, share expertise on what works today and why.
Speaker: Grab a cold pint of hot takes on branding, content marketing, demand generation and more. served with a side sarcasm.
Speaker: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone. We're here for the next episode of the B2B Marketing Pint. Brian, who's joining us today? Thanks for asking, Brendan. The gentleman on your screen who has more facial hair than you and me. together is Mr. Justin Starbird. And Mr. Justin Starbird is not only perhaps the most interestingly named guest we've ever had on the podcast, but he's got a resume.
Speaker: to match it seems to be All over the shop and Justin, you have an opportunity in a moment to explain to us how. Such an all over the shop resume adds up to a cool. a unified direction. But for the sake of our audience who's just joined us, you appear to be the founder and CEO of the Abley Group. Am I pronouncing that correctly?
Speaker: 100 % you did right. Fantastic. We're already out of the gate and cooking. And if I understand correctly, that allows you to take a systematic approach to business development and repeatable growth instead of.
Speaker: sort of random acts of business development that might live inside the head of a founder. And that already caught our attention. That sounded exciting and interesting. But the way you got there was, I guess, all over the shop. You seem to have worked with Red Bull.
Speaker: You seem to have worked with medical device companies. You've worked worked with the Fortune 500 in logistics. You've got innovation awards. You do a lot of podcasting, probably more than any reasonable person should. And you seem to be involved in fundraising. and even rocket propulsion?
Speaker: okay so um This is quite the LinkedIn profile so far. So when Justin let us know he was a fan and had some unconventional ideas about how to do demand generation,
Speaker: We thought, hey, we have an audience that's really into ideas about demand generation, particularly unconventional ones. Justin, we want to hear all about it. Thank you for joining us on B2B Marketing Pint.
Speaker: Hey guys, thanks for having me today. I really appreciate it. um I hope I can live up to the, you know, the the resume build up that you guys have just given for me today. So we we will soon find out. And it should be a sparkling conversation if for no other reason that I think you've got a unique beverage with you today. What is it?
Speaker: Well, I heard pint. I don't drink a lot of beer anymore. It just doesn't work as well for me. so I, uh, I have a will it. Bourbon. Pot still bourbon with me today So this is ah one of my favorites. So I'm.
Speaker: pouring a glass with you guys i won't be drinking it out of the out of the little guy but We call those NIPS here in In Maine. And so. That's what I've got for you.
Speaker: I think that's a first, Brendan. I was just going to ask, I was just going to ask for confirmation. I think that's both our first nip and our first bourbon on the marketing. Well, generally it comes, you know, it's a normal size bottle, but I thought for this, it would be.
Speaker: special as a single serve you know probably don't need to have multiple glasses of of bourbon neat in the middle of the day but hey but the day is but a pup And and and the podcast has just started, Justin. yeah So we'll keep our answers coherent, if possible, and and a single nip only. Brendan, what are you drinking?
Speaker: So i I think I'm going to double down since we continue our. quest to get a sponsor for the podcast of the beer variety. I am drinking an athletic brewing company, which I did earlier.
Speaker: One of our guests drank that as well, so one of my favorite non -alcohol beers, but that's what I've got today. And Brian, what do you have? Well, thank you. I can't remember where we've had this on the and the pint before or not, but it's one of the original microbrews from up here in Canada, near Ottawa. It is a lug tread.
Speaker: by the good people at Bose. It's been around a while. And I've always liked it, and I still do, and that's the direction we're going today. Yeah. All right, let's crack these open.
Speaker: Or whatever you do to a nip. I don't know there you do but go what you do. s si it Cheers here. this that That looks delicious. I've had the athletic. I have a... an uncle that doesn't drink and he brings them to parties so those are those are delicious as well i've never had a lug tread though Thanks for watching. Well, maybe we can hook you up after the podcast. Nutrition for health.
Speaker: Cheers. Likewise. Right. Well, once you get that down, Brian, do you want to? kick us off while I enjoy my beverage. I do. If there's truth in wine. then God only knows what there is in bourbon and lagers. So first question for that. Unique.
Speaker: Popscotchy. Fascinating resume of yours, Justin. You talk about unconventional unconventional demand generation. And as a B2B marketer myself, when I hear demand generation, I think about campaigns. I think about paid media advertising. I think about content marketing.
Speaker: events, business development reps, all the good things. But you. are talking about very different things. I think when it comes to demand generation, you're talking about using fundraising. For demand generation, you're talking about podcasts, awards, and even communities all to generate demand in these unconventional ways that are not.
Speaker: as straightforward as the ones i might have listed off the top how do you do that and how do you create how do you create a legitimate demand gen lever out of one of those activities versus just having a big distraction.
Speaker: That might be good and interesting for the company, but it's not about demand generation. How yeah how do you do that? Yeah. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. And and truly what you started off with in terms of demand gen and thinking about it all starts with strategy and then it starts with, you know, it gets into campaign and then.
Speaker: and then execution against Each of those elements that that you mentioned, whether that's paid media. an event uh content in some way social all of those fit into that that campaign or that strategy to Help those B2B companies pull in the right direction. What we do.
Speaker: is when we're when we start talking about strategy and getting involved with it, A client. the most important thing that we do is is try to understand their voice and what makes them better unique or different in their marketplace and add personality to it because you know as well as i do in b2b when you're in a certain industry everybody sort of starts to look and feel and sound the same and if once you know if they see something working over there you know on main street then you know on elm street it's going to be
Speaker: you know It's going to be coming out as well. So what we try to do is in the in the in the vein of getting to know our clients, We start off with... actually helping create a recorded interview series that we end up turning into a podcast.
Speaker: And the idea isn't to be number one on iTunes or... you know, on Spotify, although that could be a goal. The idea is to get to know our clients as well as we can as quickly as we can and get up to speed for them so that The onboarding process that generally takes so long to get to know the ins and outs of especially B2B companies is shortened. And it also helps the...
Speaker: owner or the leadership articulate all of the things that make them special So. That's generally where we start. And. In doing so, that gives us an opportunity to not just get to know them.
Speaker: selfishly ourselves. But it also gets them to hear and see what it is that others in the business are saying. So we generally start off with leadership, CEO, and then work our way down.
Speaker: and ask you know Five to seven of the same questions. You know, who are you? Tell us, you know, why you joined the business or started the business. What makes it important? Why is it?
Speaker: that you get up out of bed every morning. to you know, come in here to to to do the work. And then that helps art, you know, it also helps. share their message with the rest of the team or the rest of the company.
Speaker: End. as we work our way through. the business and getting to understand not just leadership's role and perspective, but then into their services or products and and what they are solving for in the marketplace.
Speaker: Then we turn our attention to employees. and ask about that culture or maybe not culture specifically, but. Why are why did they take this job? You know, why are they here trying to solve these problems and take that? is as its own campaign. And what what we do with that is then turn it into content. It turns into edits for the website that are missing. uh it the social posts it turns into blog posts it turns into
Speaker: answers for social i mean for search engine optimization and now you know, agentic engine optimization. so We have... Those things, that that's sort of our root.
Speaker: and then we start layering in you know other opportunities so once we know or feel as though the content is speaking to their customers then you know those landing pages are converting Now we can layer in more exciting things like like ads or paid media placements.
Speaker: and can drive traffic to them. so So I wouldn't say we approach it all that differently. We just try to get to know them more quickly and give them. an opportunity to share what makes them like i mentioned better unique different and also create credibility authority and transparency in the in the Business. Well, good luck. Hey, let's start. That's pretty cool. I never never thought... Approaching. a client relationship quite that way.
Speaker: But after you've done all that, that adds up to a demand gen lever because you're filling in the blanks with this content. Yeah, so it helps us create that content. And we're creating. All right. So taking a step back.
Speaker: So one of the things that we also do. Is we will... So... You mentioned my career arc and and the different things i've I've been fortunate enough in my life to do. One of those things that you actually didn't mention, which probably is the biggest impact on my life, was participating in... in Timeshare sales.
Speaker: And I ran a timeshare sales organization. the sales side of the organization. Sorry, Justin, if I'm going to talk to about timeshares, I think we need to have your wife in the room, don't we? at the same time It was my ex -wife.
Speaker: Okay. i promise you she's not she's not going to be joining me right now that said the the Timeshare. isn't something like you mentioned your wife or you know significant other Nobody walks into a timeshare and says, honey, let's spend $30 ,000 today on a week of vacation.
Speaker: And so. It's very much the hand -to -hand combat of of sales. And one of the things that you have to do as a salesperson is develop an immediate rapport.
Speaker: And be able to. Share with your... with your the couple that is in front of you. Why you you should invest that sort of money into your future.
Speaker: And you know you think about it. The future is always perfect. And the future is always, you know, this aspirational goal of yourself. and The... the best timeshare sales you know people are the ones that can develop that connection and rapport with people.
Speaker: So relating that to today's business, often we'll start when we have a new client, especially in the B2B space. is with the salespeople And we work our way back. So at the at the the tip of the spear for a lot of these businesses are the sales folks.
Speaker: And if you're talking if I'm talking to a great salesperson, Often I'm talking to an organization that doesn't have great marketing. because that salesperson has developed a rapport and overcome the obstacles or limitations of the messaging and what's what's not available in print that they are sharing in terms of the pathway in the framework of the business that they're that they're selling And so we work our way backwards. and
Speaker: but What I mean by that is we use the content from the podcast to fill in those gaps and and you know put the most important. ah elements out as soon as possible.
Speaker: so that We can then go to your point. work on those other demand gen levers and improve their efficiency their ability for conversion and have the information that's out there.
Speaker: needed for a customer to make a decision to you know work with that new with that company and so so that's our real approach is how we end up getting there the podcast is just the one of the tools that helps us be get there quicker Wow, that's a lot to think about. I'm going to have a think about that while I throw the mic to Brendan.
Speaker: Yeah, and I do. I'm with you like 110 or 200 % Justin on getting that messaging and figuring out those stories within the company as a great starting point. I've never thought of recording a podcast to get to that. We normally do it through a workshop and stuff, which tends to work well, but the podcast.
Speaker: Could be a lot of fun. And I also think you are connecting with sales and talking to them early on is quite often missed by marketing teams. and i can definitely see that helping as well but i wanted to circle back something we talked about on our pre -brief which was you know other company initiatives such as fundraising,
Speaker: such as maybe... a launch or a kickoff or something like that as potentially doing double duty for demand gen And I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on. one of those opportunities but at the same time you know How do you make sure you don't lose focus? Because if you're out fundraising, obviously your goal is...
Speaker: Money. Yeah, and funds not. demand gen and sales at that point. Sure. ah How do you balance those two as well? But we'd love to see how you progress this through some of these other initiatives as well.
Speaker: Yeah, so cart horse, right? Which one comes first? do you Do you build the business and get sales and revenue first and build out? you know an opportunity to service clients first or do you have an idea build a prototype and then try to go raise money to to further it and there's an argument to be said that both are ah are important so What we've done.
Speaker: We don't have many that overlap yet, but generally speaking, what TAG does, the Ably group, what we what we've done is... you know we turned 12 this past august and I would say for nine and a half of those years, maybe 10 years,
Speaker: We only worked in the business business space and generally speaking you as your traditional agency. Of course, some one -off projects and those sorts of things, but, you know, pretty heavy in med tech, transportation, logistics, heavy machinery, those sorts of industries that are servicing, you know, long -term clients, you know, and then. you know long sales cycle six 12 18 months so that has always been our are
Speaker: pillar i'd say about two years ago we had one of our clients that had gotten to a spot where they have proven their technology they have a couple tests they even have ah a a customer But in order to truly scale, they needed to to go out and raise money and had done that pretty successfully previously. But about two years ago in the United States. and really worldwide, a lot of...
Speaker: you know venture capital dried up unless it's going to go towards ai or data center and hired a consultant short story long they suggested raising money from their existing community in order to you know in order to create that funding gap that they needed.
Speaker: So in the United States, that's regulated crowdfunding. It's not necessarily always available for Canadian residents, but there are other mechanisms that are very similar. So. Level setting there.
Speaker: And what we've learned is when you go out, even if it's. not through your existing like friends and family but through uh accredited investors they call that a reg d which is available in canada you open that up to allow investments as low as $5 ,000 to go to your cap table.
Speaker: and get some sort of equity stake in the company. So when you're at a lower amounts like that you need more of those people to participate and in order to reach your goals or or have success fundraising.
Speaker: so what we learned as we were creating like fundraising campaign was that a lot of the metro a lot of the strategy that we had used in traditional b2b marketing Really did a great job on.
Speaker: building a community. and resonating with individuals that would see their returns in you know one, two, three, five years out. right so same sort of patience and and again you're you're sharing the story of the future is perfect and and you know we're we're gonna built that.
Speaker: So... What we learned was... that a lot of the same stuff we were doing worked in that space and now what we didn't realize was that as we were going through those campaigns,
Speaker: that the investors would be so active and ask questions. about the technology. or try to poke holes in the strategy. And they did it from a... In my opinion, they do it from a place of of love and their pocketbook.
Speaker: because They want to know. Even at the 5 ,000. level which you know isn't you know is not nothing don't get me wrong it's not as much as you know 500 000.
Speaker: Now they still wanted to have a voice. They still wanted to have an opinion and wanted to feel important. And so what we did was we. capitalized on that on the gary vaynerchuk's you know scaling one to one and that was going to them and asking them you know what could they provide for us yes you gave us money and that's great but Could you connect us to an OEM?
Speaker: could you connect this to another investor that could maybe close the round? could you invest a you know ah introduce us to a potential customer or a joint venture. And when we went out to the community and started asking those questions, we were shocked at the ability of our investors to make those introductions.
Speaker: And one of the things, and we weren't necessarily prepared. you know, for that to happen. But what we realized is that The investor was quite literally invested in our success. And so, of course, they wanted to roll out their Rolodex.
Speaker: engaging me here but they're rolling out their rolodex and saying hey i know this guy i've got you know i know this woman that can really potentially help move this forward and so so then it was all right well how can we get their voices on this and so for one of our clients we just rolled out what we call an ambassador program we have a 100. come on that you know has has done that
Speaker: For other guests, we've brought investors on to the podcast to talk about know what made the mission so important. Why do they see a future here? And you know maybe why did they make those introductions to other stakeholders? best of interest in that success and so All of those things.
Speaker: really added up. And it didn't necessarily change our business. Hold on. but I'd say we've pivoted to about 50 % of... of what we do now is on the fundraising side and helping founder -led startups grow their community to create new investors.
Speaker: Yeah, so I think I know when we spoke, i I understood the investors doing the intros and being excited and stuff. But I guess I did. I missed it earlier that. the investors were also the original community. So it was kind of like a...
Speaker: I guess a snowball effect, right? You had this community, then they invested, then they and introduced and more people became part of the community, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? and
Speaker: You know, when you get that impact, I can see it having a sorry, when you get that momentum, I can see it having a a really big impact. I'm drinking non -alcohol beer for the record. just a sentence together. But yeah, i I think that's fascinating. And I didn't realize the two were quite as connected. But yeah, the idea of investors helping you with intros and demand opportunities, but also starting with that community is.
Speaker: probably very underused, at least in my experience. So youre you definitely have tapped into a ah great opportunity there for companies. Well, I think about some of the industries you mentioned early on, especially medtech or healthcare.
Speaker: or other mission -driven startups. and often they're solving some sort of problem that most of the world doesn't even know exists.
Speaker: But for those people that are affected by whatever is ailing, them either themselves personally. family members or close friends when When you look at that those communities,
Speaker: They're generally the ones that are asked. to do the most. So when you can go to them and say, hey, if you support our company, then we are working to solve what is affecting you. Now, instead of...
Speaker: just throwing a spaghetti dinner or a you know some sort of gofundme Now they are quite literally. having the opportunity for the first time to invest in the success of the solution And that is a huge shift. and and one thing that i mean I just think is is so rewarding.
Speaker: I guess is the best way to put it, and humbling. you know Our team gets to work on some of these incredible technologies. And. Yeah. with ah with the potential to affect the lives of millions. And it is just so cool to be able to... to be a ah real small part of that but you know the goal being to be an amplification of that message so that more people hear about it.
Speaker: and have an opportunity to either participate or learn about it so they can become future customers. That's so cool. i didn't I was already excited about... identifying a brand new demand generation channel almost or ideal customer profile. And now you tell them me you get to feel good about doing it too. You're making the world a better place.
Speaker: Okay, so... We spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about ideal customer profiles and audiences and getting that part right. And the discovery, right? If there's a theme in season three this far, it's get your discovery right. I already feel slightly stupider that I haven't thought this way. And that's one of my ways of identifying good ideas is if you feel dumb after you hear them, that's a really good idea that you were missing. seen Did I just hear you can sort of treat your founders, your investors as...
Speaker: as another audience for your demand gen, even though you're going to them for fundraising. you can You can treat them the same way. that They're operating in parallel almost, right? It's the same kind of concept. Identify the group. What are they interested in? How do I?
Speaker: get them interested this sounds like a dg program already even though it's under another name Yeah. I think you're hundred you're spot on. i mean You know, and and Brendan, you made a point about doing the a workshop with your customers and i'm not saying don't do that what we're saying in addition to that here in their own words by putting a mic in front of them you know, what is most important to them.
Speaker: And when you're talking about, you know, this this show today. It's going to be a little bit longer, but what we aim for is 22, 25 minutes. Because when you're thinking about executives or folks in leadership or... don't worry the folks on the floor at those factories or in the manufacturing spots that are actually doing the work.
Speaker: taking them out of any of those things for more than that is such a hindrance right like now you're now the work isn't getting done so we have to be most efficient with our time effort and energy in order to get that information out of them and then turn it into something and so thinking about the community Yeah, you're identifying who your ideal customer is. and And.
Speaker: When it's mission driven, then those are also your best, customer you know, your best investors and best customers all together. and so and they are they want that to be successful because they're you know, especially in med tech, they might be affected by something or that they don't want somebody else to suffer. and And so that's so cool.
Speaker: When it's... uh you know maybe Another company that we're working with is... trying to solve hydraulics and heavy machinery. they figured out how they to do a one -to -one replacement without using oil So instead of the using hydraulic oil, they use belts and pulleys within the same cavity. uh space and it's the last element of electrification for heavy machinery.
Speaker: So no, it's not solving cancer, but it is solving, you know. Yeah. potential environmental disasters out in you know the middle of nowhere in the the sands of Canada, right? like And so when you have something that has three times more efficiency is three times as fast and has the ability to perform at the same rates as something traditional, then that's pretty...
Speaker: impactful And so. It's a little bit different because our audience is engineers. They are business leaders and we're asking them to also invest in this well if you think about who those folks are they're the ones in that middle level that are out in the fields being deployed to you know, nowhere, you know, the sands of Canada, for example, to living the problem. you Yeah.
Speaker: And. and And they don't ah now they're away from their family for a week because it's ah a couple day trip each way. So those are the sorts of things that are out there too. It's not just...
Speaker: you know, solving, solving cancer. And then you mentioned rocket propulsion we have another company that we're working with that uses bio -derived fuel for suborbital space launches.
Speaker: So it goes. yeah it's still a hundred and 135 kilometers up So. You know, it's not getting you to the moon, but what they figured, but they're still.
Speaker: Bye. significant impact for that particular motor. not only does it go to suborbital but it's it's a hybrid rocket engine and so that means it's also throttleable So you can put it on other types of apparatus, so drones or or other things.
Speaker: and and have you know significant be more handle on what it can do and where it goes. And it's not just necessarily a one way, right? It can can come back.
Speaker: So there's a lot of applications and so building community around that. is also really interesting because when you're talking about bio -derived fuel the ceo literally ate it on CNN in an interview.
Speaker: Pretty good. Yeah, it's it's pretty neat. So, you know, again, talking about environmental impact, talking about engineers, talking about. uh whole host of different industries.
Speaker: that are impacted. you know when you're talking about this sort of technology. Well, Justin, it would be a lot easier for us to have shorter podcasts if you weren't so damn interesting. Oil sands curing cancer and rocket propulsion that you can eat in one answer, ladies and gentlemen. That's a first here for us. Brendan.
Speaker: What? Where do you go from there? one so i'm just going to put a dose of reality here that's the only place i know where to go and and and maybe i'm overselling this as the elephant in the room but it would definitely be a challenge i think justin if The marketing person or team.
Speaker: went to either the CEO, founder, CFO, whoever we're talking about, who has these relationships with customers investors, other communities, that type of thing, and said, oh, we want to go and work with your Rolodex, so to speak, and all your connections, and have them help us with the man gen, can we?
Speaker: so i imagine that can be a challenge within some organizations especially as they grow how How do you handle that? Yeah, so great question.
Speaker: So have we overcome that? and dealing with Of course, we definitely had. I have questions about. How are we? you know able to do this for them and adapt it to their business.
Speaker: specifically so So that definitely comes up, and I and i appreciate that, Brendan. So a couple things. One. at this point we have a little bit of a track record and so people can look at at not just their website and see our case studies or or even listen to the i don't know i think we've 10 podcasts that are live right now and 19 that are out there. so You know, so there are some things that you can consume and say, oh, is this a fit for me or not? So that's one thing.
Speaker: Another thing is We actually partnered with uh the platform we funder here in the united states it's the largest in the u .s for regulation crowdfunding and they actually recommend us for certain types of deals, specifically deals that are difficult to tell the story, that are hard tech and that are generally not. apps.
Speaker: or, um you know, just SaaS platforms. So that like, like Rise Robotics is the hydraulic company, or, you know, they have a... It's called Beltrol, because the technology that are replacing hydraulics. Blue Shift Aerospace is the propulsion company in Brunswick, Maine.
Speaker: and then tiburay is using radio. radio wave frequency to emit radiation Chemotherapy. in in flash pulse, so less than a second at a time.
Speaker: at the cancer cells. Those aren't easy to talk about, but they have huge impacts. And so that's that's our specialty, I'd say. When we're talking to founders about how to do this.
Speaker: You know, generally speaking, I know this is going to sound a little bit funny, but there's a little bit of a vanity itch if you're a founder too, to be able to want to tell your story. And even though it's not necessarily number one on Spotify or iTunes,
Speaker: Yeah. The idea of... being able to you know, be out there once a week or every other week. to share what makes. what you're doing better, unique or different has some appeal.
Speaker: And when I'm talking to them about. that I only need them for 25 minutes every other week. That also is appealing because it's efficiency use of their time. or efficiently using their time. And so You know then I always say that we work really well with others. Our team comes in and is your partner. down the hall across the country or across the world. And what I mean by that is we help you fill in the gaps, especially if you have a great team in place or a great person in place that's really good at what they do.
Speaker: we don't want to take away their most favorite things right we want to help do the tasks and execute on the things that maybe they're not good at. But the difference is that We're not going to get stuck in those got a minute meetings.
Speaker: where we're trying to you know appease the the board of directors or the ceo with their whims of that particular day. like we're We're focused on the strategy.
Speaker: and executing those campaigns so that the team on the ground. in the office is able to focus on the fire that needs to be put out and we're there to support the mission.
Speaker: and make sure everything continues to move forward and so I think. having Having it kind of presented in that way as opposed to another agency coming in and we're competing on a retainer for six months or 12 months you know does does put us in a different place than a lot of other competitors and and then you know where we especially on the fundraising side, if you're a founder led startup, that's just getting out of the gate.
Speaker: We look at these as opportunities to be long -term partners to help you. you know growth scale exit like you know like we talked about in the traditional B2B marketing sense is like creating those systems and processes for leadership to be able to replicate what they're doing on the biz dev side. And that. gets them to scale so when there is an exit opportunity Maybe their contract's only six or 12 months, not 36.
Speaker: to stay on to hit that multiple in order to really exit so So there's a lot of similarities, but when we are looking at it from a longer term approach, it gives us a little bit of a different.
Speaker: you know, vision for what that future is going to look like for these companies. and So I think it's time that we give him. Our favorite final question. and see if we can take the rug out from under him.
Speaker: Oh, good. This is my favorite part. You let the bourbon do its work now, too. Yeah, that's true. That's why we leave it till the end. This is our MythBuster question, Justin, and the direction we're going to put... it in for you is sounds like you deal with a lot of founders sounds like you deal with angel investors or early investors or seed investors.
Speaker: Your opportunity right now is to bust. The myth. What? Do you keep bumping into with these crazy founders who have a vision and a mission and they think, oh, I want to use my seed capital people or my board of directors or these stakeholders. I want to use them this way because that's going to work great.
Speaker: Versus. What you know won't work at all. and how they should be used instead what's the myth You need to slay. So the next founder you talk to who's seen, of course, watch this episode of B2B Marketing. will not come in and make that same mistake and say justin i want to use my um early investors this way. because they... he or she is going to know better because you just. killed the myth right now. Go.
Speaker: there's ah i So I'm so glad you asked that because there's actually a couple ways to answer it. and And I want to kind of attack each one because... There are so many myths around the founders and how to you how they use their initial capital. There are the founders that say.
Speaker: We'll take any money that whatever we can get from anyone. And. the Of course, the myth with that is that it's actually going to be helpful. because the The truth is, especially your angel investors,
Speaker: They're investing in you. You. there Maybe it's the technology, but... In speaking with as many angels as we have and DCs as we have, They're investing in the founders.
Speaker: themselves. As much, if not more. Then. What? the company is doing or can do because they think that they're going to figure it out. End. what founders do.
Speaker: Is that you? do they leave their angels or their investors on the sidelines and don't include them And I'm not saying on a day -to -day asking for advice on how to make payroll. It's more of...
Speaker: They don't. tap into those networks well or ask them questions about how to get to the next stage. And that often is what hinders. the first you know especially founders that are doing it for the first time.
Speaker: Thinking that they know exactly the path that they need to take it's never the path that is available The path the path that they see in their mind is never the path that they take and the and the myth is that they actually don't lean on those that have gone before them.
Speaker: enough and i think that's definitely one area of of founders that we see with their angels. the other is that they're gonna you know here's another one Different scenario.
Speaker: Founder goes on something like Shark Tank. And thinks that they are going to be the ones that open all the doors. i got Watch me go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You invested in me? Great. Here you go. You take it over.
Speaker: and And that doesn't happen either because they're busy. day. It's not that they're not willing to give advice. But... they R. wanting you to take the reins and do the work and and and so that's another area it's been really interesting to see we've had we've had those as well where you know they they they've got that money and they think that somebody else is going to do all the work. And then the the third one.
Speaker: and this is the one that's most difficult for us is they bring us on And they're like, okay, here you go. You do the work. And one of the things that that needs to happen, and that I've had it on our own show, tagline, I had... the CEO of Rise Robotics on Hiten St. Paul. And he said,
Speaker: that he spends between 75 and 85 % of every day on fundraising. And that. That everything that we do. is just the amplification of what he has to get done.
Speaker: right like so in order for him to be successful all those little things and pieces need to be in place so that he doesn't have to worry about it but he's out there doing the work. I can't go to the VCs or angels and pitch on his behalf.
Speaker: they've got to believe in him but we can help them with pitch decks and social posts and other social proof and you know bringing on others to do that so so the myth there is that they're going to hire somebody whether it be tag or other Others. and And that's all they need to do. And they just let us go. And and that's not true either. the The most successful companies are the ones that.
Speaker: have active angels that are willing to give of their time and expertise and of course their money. as well as making the right partnerships. so that they get doors opened. but the secret for a successful founder -led startup to to achieve their goals.
Speaker: is to Do the work. and And so many aren't willing to get up every day. and do that and that's the difference between a successful raise and one that's not as successful That was like three myths killed for the price of one right there. Awesome. Uh...
Speaker: Well, that was a really... Great discussion. And I don't really want it to end, but I think we have to wrap it up because as you pointed out, we're we're running long because of how interesting you are. So I blame i blame Justin, Brendan. Justin's fault, do you think, or the bourbon?
Speaker: Let's blame the bourbon. Okay, I blame the bourbon. We really appreciate you sharing your time with us, whether you're you're a founder or a CEO or all of the above. The most precious asset we all have. is our time and you just shared some of yours with us. Really appreciate it. I think the audience will too. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Speaker: guys thanks for having me on i i really appreciate this was a lot of fun All right. hey Cheers. Cheers. Hey folks, if you liked that episode, you won't believe the next one. So don't forget to subscribe on your favorite platform and you won't miss out. Or... If you've got an idea we haven't thought of yet.
Speaker: Hit us up in the comments. We'll cover that too.
