10.08 - Farzad Rashidi - Respona

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to Rising Tide Startups, where we chat with startup founders and solopreneurs just like you from all over the globe. During our chat today, picture yourself starting your own startup journey. If our guests can do it, you can too. Every episode of Rising Tide Startups is sponsored by podbrand Media. Let podbrand create and host your company branded podcast. Learn more@podbrand media.com this is rising Tide Startups and my name is Kevin Pruitt. And we have another great guest on today. And man, we've already had a great time chatting before we hit the hit the big red record button. But we have Farzad ah Rashidi with us today. Farzad, thanks for joining us on Rising Tide.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Kevin. It's a pleasure.

Speaker A: So it's interesting because we both went to university in the same state. I mean, I think it was a couple of decades apart, but, uh, you know, when I was there, his university was named something else. And it's interesting because it's, uh, just the whole time difference. But hey, you know what, we can cross these time barriers with our conversation. And if you and I met at a, at a networking event, how would you introduce yourself to me?

Speaker B: Yes, I would say my name is Far. So it's quite a conversation opener because there aren't a whole lot of people with that name. And yeah, and I run a company called, uh, Respana. It helps brands show up in AI answers like Google AI, uh, overviews, and ChatGPT. And yeah, that usually is a good way to kill the conversation because most people have no interest in the nerdy business I'm in. But yeah, that's, uh, what I would say.

Speaker A: Did I see I read somewhere that it's primarily focused on SEO, but it is very directly related to just, uh, valid backlinks.

Speaker B: Yeah. So basically the way search engines work. And that's true of LLMs nowadays, you know, whenever you ask, for example, um, um, chatgpt, hey, what are the best podcasts for, uh, aspiring startup founders or one story company or some shows that you listen to? Want to make sure Rising Tide is one of the shows that it recommends. So the way we would, um, optimize for that is kind of reverse engineering how, you know, it's word. So we kind of see, uh, okay, when you ask it a question, usually because their training data is outdated, they conduct web search. So they go on a, you know, a search engine like Google and then basically search, um, best startups or best startup podcasts. And then, you know, they read A few, uh, articles and what we call citations, right? And then they, um, find a few names that are more frequently mentioned across multiple different publications. And then they do a little bit more research in the chain of thought. You know, they read some reviews and like Rising Tide podcast review or, um, some comparison guides, you know, if it's a product or a service. And then they call me down to an answer. And so, um, what we help with specifically is to get your brand name mentioned on authoritative publications, uh, and formats that LLMs would read and cite those content pieces. So usually in the form of a listicle, like top 10, X, Y and Z, um, comparison guides, product reviews, et cetera. Um, and so that's how we can help businesses sort of improve that AI visibility. But also these are still backlinks pointing to your websites that have this little hyperlinks pointing back to the website, which is kind of a vote of popularity in eyes of search engines like Google. It also helps with traditional SEO where, you know, it helps your domain rating to go up and your pages to rank higher on Google as Well, the traditional 10 blue links.

Speaker A: So with, with the LLMs, and, you know, the ChatGPT world just exploded in the last few years. Has that changed dramatically from where we were, you know, five years ago? We're just sitting there with Google and Bing, you know, the major search engines. How has it really changed? Or has it right?

Speaker B: So I guess one thing that has changed is the research process has been delegated to these LLMs. So before, you know, if I wanted to find some podcasts, what I would do, or, you know, um, any product, ah, let's say, hey, I'm having trouble sleeping, uh, and I need some sleep supplements, right? And so what I would do is then I go on Google, I'm like, okay, best sleep supplements. And then I would try to read a few blog posts, read a few articles, find some common pattern, you know, what are brand names or, uh, they're mentioning like, magnesium is good. So I, and then I would go down that rabbit hole of, okay, what are some of the best magnesium brands? And then, then I will find a product, and then I would, you know, look it up, uh, on Amazon or somewhere else and then order it. So that process now has been sort of delegated to an LLM. So essentially what they do is that they kind of do the research for you. So you can just go and type on chatgpt or even on Google now when you ask it a question, hey, what are the best sleep supplements? Um, it will generate that reply. So it's gone already and done the research and read all those articles and generated a response. So I guess the user behavior changed a little bit. Um, uh, in a way that we are just expecting a reply without having to do a whole lot of research ourselves as we kind of delegate that thinking to these models. Um, but as brands now it's imperative for you to make sure you show up in those answers. So you show up where these crawlers are looking so that you increase a likelihood that you end up with an answer.

Speaker A: Let me, let me drill down a little bit on the question. So that's exactly, you hit on it right at the end. I was I guess asking not necessarily from a user perspective how has that changed but how has it changed from respondents perspective. I mean how, how do you work differently now, you know, to show up than you did say five years, you would have say five years ago.

Speaker B: I guess it's become a little bit more scientific. So traditionally search engine optimization because you know people user behavior was that they would just look up something on Google and then it would go down the top 10 search results. So Google rankings were very important. Um, so essentially what we were doing or what most brands were doing is basically writing content pieces, creating landing pages and then you would want to build some backlinks to them from other pages. So you reach out to other websites and get them to mention that specific page. Um, so that these search engines again look at it as a voter popularity. So that's how you can get your pages up in the search result. So you write content, build backlinks, you get higher Google rankings. Very simple. Nowadays it's a little bit different because the user behavior has changed a little. So even at the top of Google nobody's reading or going through those searches results. So what the brand has to do in order to show up in AI answer uh, is a little bit more complicated. So uh, essentially what we would do is to reverse engineer the thinking pattern of the LLM. So what that means is that we can actually run the prompt through the M model and then look through the chain of thought to see the type of content pieces that it's citing and retrieving. So we can see, okay, basically this model is looking for like a few listicles like best supplements. And then it's looking down at um, some comparison guys like magnesium glycinate versus like lumatonin, yada yada yada. And then it's looking down into okay, different reviews of specific brands like nicotine, magnesium review and okay, so we know exactly that chain of thought and the type of articles and the type of publications that it's referencing, then what the brand wants to do, their natural reaction is to go and try to reach out to those specific publications to try to get your brand name mentioned there. Right. That's what a lot of folks do. And that's what we were doing too. It makes a lot of intuitive sense, but very little response. Exactly. So the response rates on those are extremely low. You get less than 1% success rate. So you run all these prompts through and uh, all the top six models like Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc. And then you get a um, few hundred citations and then you try to reach out to them. If you're lucky you get 1% success rate. So you have a 400, you get three or four to say yes. And that will do nothing because it's not enough to move. So a uh, process that we've seen that works well and that's what we do at Responder. Again we don't do magic. You can do yourself as well. Ah, and house. Um, basically we want to find lookalike publishers. So 45% of the citations rotate around um, each month because this model is a home group for new content. So what we do, we take each one of the publications, we reach out to them, but most likely 99% of the time, um, they don't either respond or say no, that's okay. What we do then is we create a pool of lookalike publishers. So we try to find publishers that match their metrics in terms of um, domain rating, traffic and also their keyword profile. So we find publishers that are ranking for similar keywords. So it means in eyes of search engines are very similar. And then what we do is we write a new Skyscraper content piece, which what that means is like a fresh new updated piece. Mhm. Um, and we get inspiration from that specific article that was already in the citation pool, especially the title and the content that's been written, and then write a new updated piece on a comparable publication with two differences. One, it's going to obviously have our client's brain mentioned at the top there, and two, it will be a new piece of content. So once these articles go live, get indexed, what happens then is that these models pick them up as citations and you end up controlling the narrative. So you sort of create like a surround sound strategy around the model. So your brand's mentioned, everywhere is looking and so that's how you can improve that visibility score over time.

Speaker A: So why would the response rate be better from the lookalike, higher quantity.

Speaker B: So for each citation, if your success rate is 1%, you can create 100 lookalike publishers. When you reach out to 100, you get one hit. So that's how you can replicate, um, 400 citations.

Speaker A: Creating these, you're not finding a similar publication and doing the same outreach to that. I get it now.

Speaker B: So just to elaborate on that real quick, so we find the lookalike publishers, find publishers that have a similar profile, and then we write a new piece of content that we pass on to them that they publish under their own, um, byline.

Speaker A: Why is the response rate higher with the second company you have, uh, or the second publication you reach out to versus the first one?

Speaker B: Response rate is not higher. So let's say, let's take a step back. Let's say we have 400 citations. We want to try to get our brand name mentioned on there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: For each one, we create 100 lookalike publishers out of the 400.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Now 40,000 publishers. Right now with 1% success rate of 40,000 publishers, we get all 400.

Speaker A: Right. And this is all done by AI.

Speaker B: So there is a combination of AI and humans. Ah, so we found that it's very hard to replace humans completely. And ah, there is that human touch that's pushing things over to the other side that helps with the quality control of the content. Uh, and also there are some sniff tests you got to do looking at the website. Obviously, uh, LLMs help us create a lot of automation and consistency because we do this at a very large scale. So we built over 2,500 articles last month. So wow, over 100 did it. So. And from all different publications. Uh, so obviously automation has a part because we want to make sure quality control is taken into account. Everything's consistent. But, uh, we still have a team of humans to double check everything, make adjustments, to make sure everything matches to all the control checklists that we have.

Speaker A: It is amazing. I told you from the beginning that, that I almost wanted to avoid getting deep in the weeds because I wanted to talk about the, you know, kind of your pathway and your, your journey. And then I keep asking questions about the weeds. Let's take a, take a step back and go, let's, let's go back to early days. Um, you know, pre respond, what, what did Farzad's life look like, you know, on a day to day basis?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I started off working at another software company called Visme. And if you haven't heard of Visme it's like a competitor to Canva. I started around the same time. So it's like great presentation on a visual assets for your business. And that company Bizme actually just got acquired by a P.E. firm. Um, and it was a huge success. You know, we grew it to eight figures in AR when I joined the company, I was the first marketing hire and we were a bootstrap company so we didn't have a lot of funding or any funding for that matter. And so um, my job was to figure out a go to market channel. And you know, you have the usual suspects. Paid ads get very expensive very quickly. There's a bidding system, there's diminishing returns. When you double the budget, you don't get double the convergence. You know, usually it's caps on how much you can make that work. Um, cold ambush also didn't make sense for our price point because it's a product that was like $20 a month at the time. So it's like, doesn't make sense to hire salespeople to go door to door and start selling. Um, and so we landed on SEO the channel. Like, okay, we show up in places where people that are looking for a product or solution like us would find us organically. Then we don't have a customer acquisition cost, um, what we do, but it's very minimal and we can scale it up. So that's what we did. And um, so we started writing blog posts, creating a website, doing everything people told us to do. Uh, and it was completed crickets. It was zero traffic, no signups. And one key thing that we found that moved the needle was getting these backlinks. So the way these search engines work on Google, and that's how Google beat all the other search engines by the way back in the late 90s was by developing this algorithm called PageRank which doesn't just look at the on page signals like your keyword mentions on the post etc. It's also looking at external validation. So it's looking at seeing, okay, are uh, other people in their space talking about them. And if they are, then it's a vote of popularity. And that's how they improve the search result quality and that's how they beat all the other search engine. Google became Google. So basically we started spending majority of our time getting, chasing after these external citations, backlinks and that was very tedious. So we built a little internal tool that helped us sort of automate a lot of the dirty work. And so we built a do it yourself average Platform essentially, which you could reach out to publications, figure out a deal with them, write the content yourself, etc. And send it to them. And we released the standalone product back in 2019 and uh, started getting some customers and like, hey, great. And so we spun it off as a separate company back in 2019.

Speaker A: So this is like a birth out of Visme.

Speaker B: Exactly, yes. So it was incubated out of Visme, it was initially internal software and released it as a standalone tool.

Speaker A: Okay. Is there still a connection between the two companies?

Speaker B: Completely separate entities. However, my co founder Responda is the founder of Visme. So initially when we were self funded, obviously Visme was funding Responda. Ah, so I convinced the founder of the company I was working at to help us build this internal tool and then we're like, okay, now let's release as a standalone product. And so, uh, we got a obviously, um, initial funding that was needed to get the product at the door. And then essentially we've been self sustaining since. So uh, it's been a blessing to not have investors or external investors because obviously we can move our own pace and make decisions on how to. And now here's a quick word from

Speaker A: one of our new sponsors on Rising Tide Startups. Every episode of Rising Tide Startups is sponsored by podbrand Media. So you started your own company or branded podcast and now it's fading. Let Podbrand give it new life. Check out podbrandmedia.com to learn more. I want to go back to, uh, to this. You, you kind of skipped over the, the initial, you know, entry into this world. So I think I, I'd maybe heard on another podcast episode you'd done that, that uh, tell it, tell a story of you reaching out to the, to the guy at Visme initially about the job itself or, or not. No job itself.

Speaker B: Right? Yeah, absolutely. So I, I was looking to make a presentation. I was still in college back then and I found. And so I was like, oh, I don't want to use PowerPoint, it's kind of outdated and looking for some pamphlets. And then anyway, I found Vis me out of nowhere and then I used their product and it was actually a really solid product and then nobody had heard of it. So I was like, okay. Uh, so I looked through their LinkedIn and found that it's a very small company. It was a very small startup at the time. I think it was like seven or eight people, mostly engineers. And then I found the founder, his name is paymon. I was like, ah, that's a Persian guy. And so I reached out to him.

Speaker A: I'm in.

Speaker B: So I reached out and I was like, hey, um, I'm a marketing student, Found your product, loved it, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help. And he happened to get back to me and he was like, sure, but can't pay you anything. And I was like, that's fine, uh, just work for free. And then, um, I started kind of digging my hands, you know, getting my hands dirty with the business and you know, trying uh, to figure out the stuff that they needed to implement and you know, they didn't have a solid, like customer support systems and so brought all these in and then throw a while, like, what, we're gonna stop paying you? So I was paying, getting paid like $7 an hour. Just Missouri's minimum wage at the time.

Speaker A: I think it still is.

Speaker B: Yeah, probably, yeah. Uh, and then obviously that grew over time and then the company started taking off and then, um, uh, you know, I became a director of marketing. Um, not because I was qualified or anything, it's just because I was the only guy there sort of hiring people that kind of actually started working under me. And then, um, obviously I came up with the idea for Responda, pitched it to him and it was at a good time because, you know, Visme was taking off and there's another software company and. And so Paymon took a chance and he was like, sure, you know, let's, uh, work on this thing and kind of gradually build, uh, it over time. And in the worst case, we just use it ourselves internally and if it works well and other people were want to pay for it, even better.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, that's great. So was there an overlap time that you stayed at Visme while you were trying to get respond, like, I'm going to work on respond in the morning and vis me in the afternoon or Tuesday, Thursday or.

Speaker B: Right. And I was also in college at the time, so when we started.

Speaker A: Oh, you're still. I was still there. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was a full time student. And then I was also working full time, uh, well, practically full time at Bisbee, and then also had respondent also, uh, in the works. So it was quite a busy time. It was like a couple of years. And then once I graduated from college, I started mainly focusing on respondent because had some initial with a concept at the time. And I was still involved with Visme of course the first year or so. But then, um, you know, I've shifted focus entirely to respond.

Speaker A: I, I mean, I love that story and I'm glad you. You kind of highlighted that. I mean, just, you took the initiative in college and you just said, you know, hey, I'll start working for free, because, you know, I, I have, number one, I kind of believe that I can do this. And number two, it will help me grow. It will give me the experience. And I'm in. In kind of on the ground floor of something that looks like it could take off. And I mean, it was just like perfect timing.

Speaker B: Yeah, I m mean, retrospect makes a lot of sense, but at the time, I didn't know what I was doing. No clue.

Speaker A: There was no plan?

Speaker B: No, there was no plan. Uh, and so I think when I'm in doubt or when I don't know what to do, I do something. And I think somebody said that action produces information. So whenever you take the initiative to do something, it doesn't matter what it is or if it's a good or bad decision, then kind of leads gives you enough data point that you can use in order to make that next call and moving forward from there. So I think getting started is really the main thing. Um, a lot of people just dwell on things a little too much, and especially when it comes to picking careers, jobs, uh, you keep thinking, okay, what I should do, like, what field of work should I get in? But matter of fact, is just get us somewhere that leads you down a different path as you, you know, like, I thought I was going to become a doctor coming to the US And I'm so glad I did it. So, you know, um, getting involved with software was one of the best decision decisions I've ever made. Uh, so, you know, that was definitely quite a blessing and sheer luck, obviously. But, you know, you got to put yourself in positions to get lucky.

Speaker A: Uh, walk us through the kind of the progression of responder since it began. Like, what was, what was the official launch date and what does it look like from that date to today?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I remember when we got our first customer. I was last semester of college. It was like December 2019. Paul Paimon like, hey, guess what? And then he was like, you got your first paying customer. I was like, yes. So very excited coming out of college to come to a company that we had a product, we had a couple of paying customers, which is great. Um, and we essentially started selling the software. I mean, we were at customer acquisition strategy has always been SEO. That's what we've been good at, and that's what has been working for us. So only made sense to double down on that and issue we were facing though, I mean, the company grew for a number of years, which is great. Obviously, you know, with software it's a little slow at the beginning and then there's a lot of fixed costs and then you kind of increase that, ah, customer base over time and it helps with revenue and you can reinvest it back in the business. Um, one issue we hit after a couple of years was that our churn and new business started catching up. And that's a very common theme when it comes to any subscription business where when you're. It's kind of like a. Think of it as like a leaky bucket, right? So you've got a bucket, it's got a few holes in it and then, you know, you can pour some water in it and fills up to a certain point, but it gets stuck. So your new incoming customer, so you, so you get a customer, you lose a customer. And for a number of years what we were, um, doing was trying to add more features. You know, we were like, okay, let's just add this feature. Let's get the product to do more. And that will make it more sticky. People use it more. But looking at customer feedback, nobody was saying, hey, the product doesn't work or we don't like it or it doesn't do enough. They were just saying, hey, we don't use it enough. Just let's sit in there and forever. You know, it's like traditional advice to software founders, like, hey, don't become an agency because like you get yourself in services, get yourself involved in services. It's very high overhead, human heavy. So it's not scalable and low margins and it's a terrible business to be in. And then also my co founder, Paymon, prior to launching Visme, he actually ran and started a web development agency. Um, and he was saying the same things. He's like, you know, services, agency, bill of clients not ready. So, um, for years we resisted the idea of delivering outcomes. And we're like, we're just going to give you the tool set and you got to have your own team members use it and try to make it as easy as possible. We still got to have someone that uses it, knows what they're doing. And link building is very difficult because that's entirely to reach out to people, develop relationships and you know, m. It's a lot of work. It's not complaining. And so, um, until one day, and that was early last year, ah, and mind you, at this time, you know, we were so disappointed in ourselves. We're like, okay, this business is not taking off as much as we wanted to. Obviously it was broken even and, you know, was sustainable, but it wasn't growing. And so at some point we even considered selling. We're like, this is great. You know, we can just exit and move on to the next thing. Um, so that was kind of the state of mind we were in. And one night and there was like a very interesting conversation with the customers. I'm having to tell you more about that, but I'm going to pause real quick because I've been talking for a while.

Speaker A: No, I want you to continue because, um, the thing that came to mind, and I know you're going to touch on this in just a second, is that, uh, you are completely at the mercy of the internal, you know, staff of the companies that you sold to your clients. Whether if they used it, you, it was great. If they didn't use it, you were completely at their mercy. Or that's what it seems like.

Speaker B: Yep, yep, exactly. So, you know, we were. And then one thing, we weren't taking into account that a lot of these people had a business to run. You know, building backlinks is not necessarily the core business. So.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: They just wanted the outcome of, uh, getting more external validation, improving the site rankings. They like, if you're a plumber, you just want to go deal with plumbing. You don't want to deal with your website. And so essentially what we were doing was, um, trying to sell a subscription, um, uh, to a software that you could use yourself, as we'll call the do it Yourself software. And then a customer reached out to me. It was a founder of a large agency and I think they wanted to look at our highest tier plan, which had the time, I think was like 800amonth or something. And um, basically we, um, we were talking over email and I remember this because he was based out of Australia. So he was emailing me at like 10pm our time. And then, um, and he was like, hey, you know, can we get a discount? Like, we want to do like $500 a month versus $800 a month. And then I was like explaining to him that, hey, you know, here's like some case studies of our customers. We normally do discounts. Like this is, you know, worth a lot more if you're using it to generate revenue for your agency. And then he said something very interesting. He said, okay, well, if we achieve like results, you know, we give you per, like we give you a fee per result. And that way, you know, you can, you can earn a lot more than 800 if you're successful. And something clicked. And I was like, okay, well that's interesting, but obviously we don't have any control over what your team's doing, right? So if they're not using it, obviously. So what if we just do the work for you? Just threw a Hail Mary and I was like, what if we just do it for you and you pay us per deliverable, that you add your markup, resell to your clients, it's Money Maker and here's how much we charge. I said, lower than what you charge to your clients, Especially securing Money Maker. And he's like, oh, okay, great. Let's uh, start with like seven or $8,000 a month and uh, go from there.

Speaker A: You say you were hitting me up for a 300 discount?

Speaker B: Exactly. I was like, it's the same guy that's badgering me over 300amonth discount. And I was like, oh, okay, seven or eight grand, no problem. Interesting turn of events. That same customer is still with us today. Their spend is $65,000 a month. So they grew 10x since or almost 10x since they started with us a little over a year ago. And uh, they also brought in other customers. So we were panicking because we were like, we've never done this before and obviously didn't have any process, even any tools. Obviously we had our coverage tool, but we didn't have the team in place, not. So I literally spun up a Google sheet, sent it to us, like, okay, tell us what you need. And then I sent it to our internal guy, um, and he's on vacation. I was like, we need you back. So, um, gave it to him like, go build back rooms to them. And then we ended up delivering that first batch. We didn't even know what we were doing at the time because we had never done this for external business. And um, they were like, oh, great, this is fantastic. Uh, let's do 10 grand the next month. We were like, okay, this is kind of interesting, but it could be a one hit wonder. And let's try to reach out to some other companies in our customer base, see if they're interested. So we reached out to a few others and they were like, hey, uh, we were like, do you want us to do this for you? And they're like, yeah. So we signed up. Okay. We're like, what the heck is happening? So we started building out processes. Obviously, you know, it was chaos in the beginning and so we started building out. The team started building out product just for that specific function because it works in a very different way than you just giving them the tools versus you having to do everything yourself from A to Z. And so, and then we hit a point that we couldn't even meet the demand. And we were definitely, uh, um, you know, we were getting a customer. We were like, okay, we're going to start it in two months. Um, and so that's when that was the first time, the past like six years working in the business that we felt true product market fit. And it's one of the things that you never really know how it feels like until you hit it and you're like, okay, it's kind of like pushing a rock up a hill for years and then you finally hit that inflection point where now the rock is in front of you going down and you're just trying to catch up with it. Uh, so that's kind of how it felt like, which was great. And so we've been in panic since and building stuff frantically enough, building processes

Speaker A: and do not what, uh, if you feel comfortable, what Sherry share. What's the, what's the monthly revenue at right now compared to, you know, what you are, let's say talk about maybe in terms of pre this epiphany moment of this Australian client versus maybe today.

Speaker B: Right. So we were in six figures in ARR back then and now we're in mid seven figures ARR. And we had a 5x growth in the past 12.

Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing. Uh, and it's good and bad. There's a bittersweet because you're thinking I can't hire people fast enough to come on board.

Speaker B: Right. Even though we didn't know what we were doing, we did do a few things right. That were calculated. Um, one is we never wanted to turn into an agency. So from the very get go, we were adamant about the fact that, okay, we need to hire humans to do this work for now. But what's our plan in the long term? How do we 10x this? And so what we started working on is creating a productized service where you don't need to set up a call to talk to a guy to put up a proposal. Nothing. Um, you can just go in there, kind of like a vending machine. Like, okay, I want five placements done. You press the button and it's done. And so essentially, um, that way we can create an assembly line that still gives you levers of control or the deliverable. So it's not the same for everybody. But even the customization is standardized and productized in a way that um, we can introduce a lot of automation and improve the quality control because humans are erratic and one guide works in a very different way than the other. So bring streamlined quality assurance, um, processes and also um, making sure that's a model that we could scale easily, um, and also accommodate lower budgets. So we did these right in a way that we primed it for growth. Obviously at the time it was manual. Now everything is taking shape. Um, but I think Sequoia released a new article recently and uh, said that the next trillion dollar company is going to be a service or it's going to be a software company masquerading as a services firm. So you're delivering outcomes. Now it's outcome based pricing versus just giving tool sets for people to use. And because now computers can think, thanks to LLM, they can do a lot of the things that the humans were doing. And if you built the process right you can get rid of a lot of bottlenecks.

Speaker A: It is really interesting you said that. I actually had that on my notes to ask you about that very line. But um, I'm just thinking, as you were saying that I was thinking just the, and I would consider it spam, but the spam outreach I get about how we can do this for your pod brand media company or whatever. You know, we can but we'll do it based on results, you know. And it seems like that it has really increased, that approach has really increased over the last even say six to eight months, maybe, maybe 12 months versus you know, here's the, here's what it costs, here's what you know, you may be able to buy with this amount per month, you know, that type of thing. But it's like hey, we don't, you don't pay unless we get results, you know, type uh, approach. And I'm thinking something has shifted, you know, for sure like, but. And you have to have a pretty good system to, you know, to offer that otherwise you're going to start a death.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I mean I've fallen into the trap of those calls sometimes. And then you get on the call like yes, outcome based bracing, but we also have a fixed retained tech fee and whatever. And that's most of their margin. Yeah, but um, I mean it's shifting towards that direction is clear in the marketplace where um, I think we're also positioned in a good spot because nowadays coding is much easier. A lot of people are producing digital products left and right. It's a lot of content, um, on the on the web. So natural reaction is a lot of these guys are going to run paid ads. And with paid ads, because the nature of a bidding system that the cost of paid ads on the rise, um, and also with cold emails and cold outreach, obviously those are getting commoditized. So, you know, I'm sure everybody's getting seen and flops of those emails in there and marks it is effective, that's going to go down. So really the best companies, the way they can differentiate themselves is by showing up in places where people that are looking for the product will find them. Uh, and so that's where I think it's going to have, um, even more prominence over the course of the next few years as other channels get more saturated. Uh, is that they're uh, they're going to be still under investments in SEO space because attribution is not as clear cut. So, you know, it's not a dollar in dollar app strategy. You kind of have to build that garden over time, water it. And that's why most companies don't invest in it. And so that creates competitive advantage, competitive edge for companies that do.

Speaker A: Yeah, that is an interesting point because it is hard to, you know, say, okay, what's the uh, return on my ad spend here, you know, or return on.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You know, the ROI is a little harder to, to determine. That's a good word. Um, I'm really interested, think back, you know, in your, in your, you know, growth as, you know, growth into your, the CEO position. Who would you say had the biggest impact on you from a mentorship standpoint?

Speaker B: Um, I would say, I mean, it depends on what stage of life you ask. Um, uh, you know, obviously my dad, you know, he's entrepreneur himself and you know, he's a pharmacist in Iran. And you know, he started his own pharmacy from when I was very young. And you know, see him, watching him, I grew up in his pharmacy and watching him, you know, take loans from the bank and you know, invest and buy real estate and you know, hire people and obviously watching the fam work, um, as a business owner, um, because, you know, pharmacists in Iran, they run their own business. It's all private. It's not like here where we have chains like CVS and all this. So. And then I was saying later stages of life. Amon, my co founder, he's a little older than me, just celebrate his 50th birthday. So he's got a lot more experience than I do, so. And he was so kind to have taken me under his wing and called me the business and obviously supported ideas. And I would say he's definitely the second, um, biggest uh, influence uh, on my life when it comes to business. So. So yeah, those two, uh, I love it.

Speaker A: That's, that's really, really, um. Sometimes it's rare to speak in terms of the person you're working for as the mentor as well. You know, you can tell there's a good relationship there, you know, um, and because a lot of times people will say, well, you know, I had a coach in high school, you know, a sports coach or I had a neighbor or my uncle or, or whatever, you know, kind of this disconnected, you know, person that just seemed to be a wise sage, you know, in your, in your life, growing up type things. So um.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And that's one of those things that, you know, you got lucky and I got lucky finding them out of all these people. So um, so yeah, I mean, but again you got to put yourself in positions to be lucky. So you got to take, you know, initiative that I cold emailed them out of, uh, everybody. And so. And I'm sure he appreciated that versus just sending a job application or just uh. And so, you know, taking steps and you know, things tend to work out when you throw a lot of spaghetti in the wall. One we want to say. Right.

Speaker A: Well, you, you said something really interesting that stuck with me of this idea of, you know, sometimes I just, I act, you know, and maybe clarity comes through action type thing. But it's uh, it reminds me of a quote that says, you know, the safest place for a ship is in the harbor. But that's not what ships were designed to do, you know, so it's like you, you kind of. Let's, let's, let's jump and then figure out if we have a parachute later.

Speaker B: Right, Exactly.

Speaker A: That's gonna, that's gonna. Going to uh, you know, farewell and you're uh, gonna bode well in your, in your CEO growth is you're going to have some, have maybe some hard knocks, but man, are you going to see some amazing things happen, you know, from, from uh, having that approach. And I think the people that work with you and for you will, will appreciate that as well. Just say, you know, hey, we've got somebody that's not afraid to take a leap here and I'm afraid to take a chance. I appreciate that, you know, headed in direction. But speak, you know, close us out today. Just, just speak to our audience. Like if they're sitting in a cubicle like you Know, you, you were sitting in a, in a dorm room or an apartment or whatever, you're thinking, hey, I got to have a job here or I want to take a chance, walk them through the process of, you know, what do you think would be the first thing that they would need to do to kind of say, okay, what are the possibilities out there that I could step into?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, right now it's easiest than ever to start a company. Um, you know, when I started in software, you need a whole engineering team. Cloud wasn't even the thing. You know, you had to have your own servers. And the bar to creating a business is flopped to zero, I would say, because literally I was at a friend's house and he's a financial advisor and you know, um, he's building a game. Not a friend of mine is a dentist. Like, these people have absolutely no technical background whatsoever. And she's made a whole app, like, monetized everything. Like, it looks like something that, I mean, if you were to build the Same app literally three years ago, it would have cost upwards of 180, 200k of labor. Now she built it in a few weekends. Um, and so do something. Um, it doesn't have to be a great idea. Um, you know, a lot of people get stuck in that idea stage, like, oh, this is not a good idea. Ideas is a bad idea. If you haven't started yet, just do something. Just go on replit or Claude and you know, build something and then put it out there, post about it and, and see what sticks. You know, you, most of them most likely are not going to work out. Um, and, and one of them will. And, and so that, that's going to give you the data point to know what to do next. And that, that's really all that matters is not to build a business for it to be successful and make money. That's ideally the end goal. But if you haven't started yet, that, that first, uh, project's goal is just to give you the data, data point to know what to do next. And so if you're going with that mindset of not afraid of losing or not afraid of, um, you know, uh, for it to be a failure, uh, because, you know, what do you have to lose is a few hours of your time and, and it doesn't cost the arm and the leg anymore. So anybody who's in a position to be able to start a business now, and, and I think, um, it's just at the very beginning, these models have just gotten good enough that they can code well and do things. So, um, it's a golden time. And you don't take action now, in a few years, you're going to regret it. You're like, I had the opportunity to do this when there wasn't as much competition and there wasn't, um, as many people doing the same thing, and I blew it because I didn't do anything about it. And so it's a very, very interesting time to be alive and be an adult and be able to do things.

Speaker A: Man, what a way to wrap us up today. I thank you so much for just taking time. It's, it's, uh, really a pleasure to. To virtually meet you and, and to hear your story and. And I knew when we. I first, you know, tried to schedule you on the. On the podcast, I knew this story would be a really good story to. To hear, and our listeners would respond well to this. But, man, thank you again for just playing your part in helping all boats rise in a rising tide. Marzad, have a great afternoon.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Gavin. It was a pleasure meeting you as well. And thank you so much for having me on the pod.

Speaker A: We hope you heard some great takeaways and are now ready to take action yourself. As always, thank you for listening and helping all boats rise in a rising tide.