Attention is the New Moat - LIVE with Scott Albro at GTM Tailwinds - Ep 79

TT - GTM Tailwinds - Scott Albro - Full Session === Scott Albro: The default setting for a startup is obscurity. Scott Albro: Nobody cares, right? Like it's really hard to get the market's attention. And you can keep doing the same Go-To-Market things and positioning that type of stuff.

Everyone else is doing that stuff, so it's not likely to work. So I think about these three new things that I think every startup should be doing. ​ Craig Rosenberg: So welcome, Scott. Thanks.

You know the drill by the way. Seven time transaction guests. Matt Amundson: Seven times. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

So, uh, question number one we want to start with is, uh, can you tell us of, of, you know, one of your funniest Go-To-Market stories. Last time you did this, you made us cut it 'cause it was funny and also scandalous. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Uh, so, and we encourage that.

But anyway, go ahead. Yeah. Tell us, tell us some. Scott Albro: Well, like most of my funny stories, this one involves you, so hopefully that's okay.

And, and you kind of gave a nice lead into this particular story. So Craig and I, um, we had built two startups together. We started working together in 2007 and at our first startup, um, uh. Scott Albro: We were, we had this great run the first few years we did the, the old, uh, ARR benchmark thing where you, you try and do one your first year, three your second year, and then 10 your third year.

And, um, by, by the way, how many people know Craig personally here? A lot of you, so, so I think this will track for a lot of you. Scott Albro: Um, so, so anyway, we, we do the 1, 3, 10 thing that puts us in a position to go out and raise our series C uh, at, at the time in 2010, it was a big series C and um, and it was led by this new investor, a very well-known firm. And by a senior partner at this firm, um, that is also very well, he's also very well known.

Scott Albro: He's also very, very intense. And one of the most interesting moments I think, at a startup is like you, you close a new round and it's really exciting. And then you have to have your first board meeting with the new investors. And this is like, um, those first board meetings with the new investors.

It's like when you go to the dog park and all the dogs are sniffing each other, and that, that's what, that's what that first board meeting is typically, you know, everyone's trying to figure out like who's who, who's smart, who's not, uh, what are the power dynamics in this room, that type of stuff. Scott Albro: Right? So it's a really important meeting and, um. Y you know, as a founder you want to show off in that meeting, put your, make a really good first impression.

Craig was just at, Craig was young, inexperienced, and let's just say a little rough around the edges James Kaikis: still, Scott Albro: but he was also really, really smart. And so one of the things I wanted to do in this board meeting was basically put Craig in in front of the board and I don't even remember what we had you present on. Scott Albro: But it went really well. I mean, Craig just delivered this clinic in the board meeting and, um, so the board, the board meeting breaks up, everyone leaves, but the new investors and I stay behind to like do our first post post board meeting debrief.

And we're talking about different things. And this senior partner, again, this very, very intense guy, kind of pulls me aside and he goes, you know, Scott, we, we got a lot to figure out here. Scott Albro: I got a ton of questions. But one thing I'm certain about is that guy Craig is the key to this business and he kind of pauses and he looks around the room and he walks over to the door to the boardroom and closes the door and he goes, but you know, I just gotta say the user interface is highly unusual.

Scott Albro: He said, and, and then he said, but we can work with that. And, um, you know, I think that diagnosis holds up 15 years later. Craig Rosenberg: I remember something different, but yeah. Scott Albro: Anyway, that had nothing to do with Go-To-Market, but it is a funny story.

Matt Amundson: It Craig Rosenberg: was a great story. Scott Albro: I tell that story. People who meet Craig for the first time, and I, I tell them that story all the time. Scott Albro: It, it is a good encapsulation of Craig.

Craig, now that you have a mic, anything you'd like to add? Craig Rosenberg: Well, no, I. It's still not working. Oh.

But yeah, but everyone can hear this Scott Albro: is Craig Rosenberg: exactly what this board guy is talking about. All right, we'll, we'll share James Kaikis: Matt and I'll share. Craig Rosenberg: Okay. So tell us, you know, you're doing a lot of work with startups now.

Craig Rosenberg: Mm-hmm. And you've always been in the startup world, and so it's gonna be for a lot of, you haven't heard Scott's stuff on this. It's really interesting. But.

You know, tell us about your three to five things that you're seeing working today in the market. And, uh, we'll just start there and then we will ask questions as we go. Scott Albro: Yeah. Great.

Um, yeah, I, I work with basically four to five founders CEOs every year now, and as Craig mentioned earlier, I help 'em, I help 'em with a lot of different things, typically falls into two. The, the founders I work with are typically early stage startups, first time founders, usually technical founders. Scott Albro: And, um, by, by the, something implicit in there is like, they're usually pretty young people. And um, so I help it with two areas.

One is tons of Go-To-Market work and then the other is what I call adult leadership. We can talk about adult leadership if you want, but on the Go-To-Market side, um. The big issue I focus on now with these startups is what, what I call the attention bottleneck or the attention crisis. Scott Albro: And I just have this fundamental belief that in today's market, like everything is downstream of attention and, um, you know, easier than ever to build products, easier than ever to create content, more vendors than ever.

I mean, if you, I think if you go look at like. AI sales tools or assistance on G2, they're like 800 different vendors listed in. Scott Albro: And by the way, most of them aren't AI assistant tools. But Craig Rosenberg: still it's a problem except for our sponsors.

Yes. Yeah. Keep going as you were. And, Scott Albro: and then, um, and, and I think we all know that, right?

Like the market's really crowded and noisy, but there are a couple new dynamics that make the problem even more vexing for most startups. Scott Albro: One dynamic is obviously the AI dynamic, right? Which makes building product easier than ever and creating content easier than ever. But the other dynamic that I think not enough people are paying attention to is yes, there's a lot more content out there now, but there are also these like big, huge narratives in the market.

Scott Albro: That are sort of like taking up all the oxygen in the market. And so you might be a traditional SaaS vendor that tells this story or narrative about, well, hey, we focus on this workflow and like we improve it by 10%. Meanwhile. Founders are out there talking about data centers in space or you know, batteries that can go into the ocean 5,000 feet down and like will completely revolutionize how we think about the ocean, right?

Scott Albro: I mean, they're just these big, huge stories out there that are super hard to compete with. So anyway, I think of that as like attention bottleneck or whatever you want to call it. Attention crisis. And so.

And then it's like, well, what do you do about that? And Craig mentioned this idea of the attention engine. Scott Albro: I don't, I, that's what I was calling it last week. I don't really like that term, so I'm not calling it that anymore.

I just now think of it as like three things that you need to do well as a startup, right? And to get the market's attention. Remember, like the default setting for a startup is obscurity. Scott Albro: Nobody cares, right?

Like it's really hard to get the market's attention. And you can keep doing the same Go-To-Market things and positioning that type of stuff. Everyone else is doing that stuff, so it's not likely to work. So I think about these three new things that I think every startup should be doing.

Scott Albro: One is you need to view your market as a network as opposed to a target account list. And you need to figure out a way to traverse and navigate that network in a really smart way. In most markets, there are these things that I call like 10 X hubs and you need to figure out a way to go in and like infect those 10 X hubs in the network. Scott Albro: And we can talk about each one of these.

And then what you're trying to infect the network with is a narrative, right? And we can talk about, we can talk a lot about the difference between good narratives and bad narratives. And the difference between a narrative and, you know, messaging or positioning or whatever it's right. Scott Albro: Um, and then the third thing I spend a lot of time on with my, with my CEOs is I call 'em distribution tactics, which is, you know, like a really boring term, but they're really important.

And distribution tactics are like the moves that you make around the network to get your narrative to spread. And so just to. Scott Albro: Give an example of like a, you know, like all the founder brand stuff you see, which I think is like mostly broken, but that is an example of a distribution tactic, right? Is, is founder brand.

So those, those are the three things that I'm really focused on right now. And I try and take this approach to them, which is like, we need to be doing things that are really differentiated. Scott Albro: If you're one of those 800 AI sales assistants and you're just running marketing the way that. The other 790, that's not gonna work.

Right. So, yeah, that's, that's how I think. Oh, and then one other thing I'd just say about this attention idea is like in the early days of a startup, like there's this difference between push and pull, right? Scott Albro: And in the early days of a startup, you're doing 99% push and you're doing 1% pull, right?

Where like the market comes to you and is coincidentally pulling. The product out of your organization, right? Um, most people call that product market fit. Now your objective is to get, is to flip those numbers and you'll never get to 99% pull, 1% push, but maybe you can get eight, you know, to like 80 20 or something like that.

Scott Albro: And these companies that go zero to a hundred in a year or 18 months, they're the ones who figure out how to like invert that push versus pull equation. These three things are, are ways to go do that Matt Amundson: big lead in. Scott Albro: Sorry, long lead in. Matt Amundson: No, no, no, no.

I think you set the stage well. So I think. How B2B Marketers Craft Winning Narratives That Spread Like Wildfire - Matt Amundson: Being a marketer, and many people in this room are also marketers thinking about how do we craft that winning narrative? Matt Amundson: I think we're all, we're, we're, we're sort of nervous about, we know we need a narrative.

We know we need a perspective on the market. We start to think about our, our target audience as a network as opposed to as target accounts. How do, how do we craft that? How do, how do you think about it when you're partnering with, with some of your clients to think about a narrative that, that can infect that network?

Scott Albro: Yeah. Well, I, I start by thinking about like, what are the attributes of a, of a dominant winning narrative? And these are just like generic attributes, right? And so a few things that I believe in are like, it's gotta be big.

Per the data centers in space example, like you have to be able to like compete against that right? Scott Albro: Now you can do that in a narrower market, right? It doesn't, it doesn't have to be data centers in space. But you know that, like that's one attribute that's important.

Um, it has to be differentiated. You can't be saying the same things that. That everyone else is saying, you have to be able to answer the question, the, the literal question. Scott Albro: Like right now, why would my customer care about this?

And um, you know, typically the answer to that question lies in like, you know, it's entertaining, engaging, et cetera, but it also delivers value. And then, um, the other thing about your narrative is, is it has to be believable, right? You have to be telling the truth. Scott Albro: And by believable, I don't just mean that in an abstract sense.

I mean that like, you know, like you, your demo has to like show that this narrative can become a reality. So I think about those, those like attributes to start. And then the next thing I do is I try and figure out. What types of narratives or stories should a startup be able to tell?

Scott Albro: And I believe every startup should be able to tell Three. I call 'em story types. Three story types. One is, um, these are all very important.

One is, um, the customer story. And that typically by, by the way, I'm like staying pretty high level here, but that typically revolves around two things. One is like you deeply understand what the customer is going through right now. Scott Albro: That obviously includes things like pain and priorities and like day in the life, and you are able to offer up ways to improve the customer's life, right?

That might involve your software or whatever it is, but it also needs to involve like best practices and insights and data and so forth. Okay? So that's story type number one, the customer story, story type number two is what I call the personal journey story. Scott Albro: This is actually your story.

I do encourage startups to talk about themselves. Most people discourage you from doing that, but you wanna do it in like a really personal way. Like, why did I start the company? Um, what has this journey been like?

Like let me take you inside of this business that we're building and, and why we're building it this way and so forth. Scott Albro: And so I call that the personal journey. Then the third story type, which is in today's market by far and away, the most important story type is what I call the transformation story. Transformation story.

There're basically three parts to it. There's the status quo, which kind of looks like that customer story. Scott Albro: There's a future vision that you have that is believable, but also kind of magical. If anyone's familiar with this.

Literary field called Magic Realism. You kind of want to think about it that way. Um. And they're winners and losers in the future.

You want to be able to articulate to your customer why they will be a winner in the future, right? Scott Albro: You want to do it in a really specific, concrete, believable way. Like when you listen to Elon talk about the data centers in space, you can see him over the last few weeks like starting to fill in the details on like what these things would look like, whether, whether you think that's a good idea or not. Scott Albro: It is a good story.

Then the third part of a transformation story is the journey that the customer is going to go on to get from the status quo to the future. And you want to be prescriptive there. You're like a guide. The customer is the hero.

You're like a Sherpa or a guide that helps the customer get to the future. Scott Albro: You're offering really specific guidance on how to do that. You're providing these magical tools that allow the customer to get there. One of those is what you sell.

Right, and you just take this customer on the, on this journey, you're able to articulate that again in a really specific, actionable way. Focusing Closer on Your Target Market Will Reveal The Compelling Narrative That Works For Your Buyer - James Kaikis: Can I ask a specific question on this? 'cause I, I really love what you're talking about, but even looking at the companies that signed up, there are plenty of companies that. I don't know if they can create a compelling narrative to compete with data centers in space.

And I think that's why I see a lot of like hyperbole out there early on with early stage companies. James Kaikis: They're putting out crazy stuff because then it, you know, you maybe can meet that like, Hey, we got something really compelling here. But for your, your third option, is it, does it meet the realism? So like what kind of tactical advice can you give companies that are in the room that are thinking, I need to create a narrative?

James Kaikis: You know, that creative narrative that you mentioned that stands out that can compete in that noise and that attention with something like space? Yeah. But you know, is, is based in realism, right? Because we've talked to early stage companies who are saying, you know, the closest thing to a GI you get on a demo and it's like, this is, this is nothing compelling, right?

James Kaikis: So I'm curious on like how companies can bridge that gap. Scott Albro: Yeah, totally. Well, well first of all, you don't need to compete against data centers and you, you, you need to focus on your target market and come up with a compel. You know, so like you, you focus on the healthcare vertical, for example.

You need a compelling story for healthcare organizations. Scott Albro: You know, Elon is focused on these like world transforming technologies and markets, so maybe that's what you do. You're probably not at this event if that's what you do, but I would, I, I encourage everyone to focus on like what narrative will resonate with my specific target market. And 99 times out of a hundred, that's a narrow market relative to.

Scott Albro: Data centers in space or autonomous vehicles or whatever, it's right. But let me give you an example of that. So my favorite narrative of the last, call it 20 years is ServiceTitan. Do people know who ServiceTitan is?

Right. So Vertical SaaS, um, they focus on what they call the trades. And you think of the trades as, you know, an HVAC repair person, or an electrician, or a plumber, whatever it is, right? Scott Albro: And, um, those story types that I mentioned, they tell all three of those stories at the same time and those are the best stories, right?

And so if you go through each one of those, they, they have this great saying, which, um. There are two co-founders there and their slogan, I don't know if it still is, but their slogan used to be born in the trades, built for the trades, and they would, they have a picture of each, uh, founder with their dads and all four of them are standing together and the reason they have a picture with their dads is because. Scott Albro: Both founders, fathers were in the trades, and so this is like this deeply personal story that they're telling.

And because both fathers were in the trades, the founders have this incredible understanding of what it's like to be the customer and the, the, the. The stories that they tell about this are just incredible, right? Scott Albro: Like one story they like to tell is how, you know, one of their dads would come home, get home at like eight o'clock after being out in the field, he would have to run his hands under warm water to like loosen his joints up so he could sit down at the kitchen table and like send out invoices.

Right. I mean, that's incredible, right? Scott Albro: So you've got the personal journey, you've got the customer story, and then the transformation story that they were telling or maybe still are, is like the trades are frozen in time. These businesses are being run like they existed in the 1970s or whatever, and that doesn't need to be the case.

These are like really va by the way, if you know anything about these are like. Scott Albro: Really great businesses that were being run off of kitchen tables, pen and paper. And these guys were just like, we can digitize these businesses. We can modernize them.

These businesses should be run like, you know, modern businesses, right? That's the transformation story. And so if you think about that, that's not competing. Scott Albro: You're not competing against data you, but that is the biggest story in that industry, right?

And they do all three things incredibly well. Matt Amundson: There's something that's so authentic about that. A hundred percent. Specifically in that example, how much, Why & How CEOs Should Incorporate Their Own Authenticity into Their Narrative - Matt Amundson: when you're chatting with the CEOs that you work with, are you encouraging them to bring that level of authenticity into their narrative?

Scott Albro: Oh, totally. I think authenticity is, um. You know, those attributes we talked about earlier, right? It's one of the most important attributes, and sometimes founders ask me when I, when I tell 'em that, like they say like, well, do I, do I have to have been an electrician or a plumber?

To start ServiceTitan and it's, that would help. Scott Albro: Right? And like, like the founders of ServiceTitan, like were serendipitously sort of born into this opportunity, which does not happen with most founders. But so, so then the question is like, how do you develop that?

How do you craft that authenticity? And you just have to become a student of the game and, and you have to like immerse your, and I recommend that you start. Scott Albro: By immersing yourself in your customer's lives. Right.

And I, you know, Craig and I worked together for a long time. And I would say like Craig is a great example. You know, Craig is now known as like this incredible Go-To-Market expert. We, our second startup, which was really successful, I tell, you know, there, after you sell a business, you try and distill down like, what was that business?

Scott Albro: What was really happening there? And one distillation that I have of Topo is like. We were basically taking all the stuff in Craig's brain and productizing it and like selling it. And, but Craig wasn't born that way.

He acquired that knowledge, you know, over the course of, you know, at that, at that point, like a 15 year career or whatever it is. Scott Albro: And. And so, so it is just like you're curious. You're spending as much time with customers as possible, and you're just developing this body of knowledge that does in fact make you James Kaikis: authentic.

I'm curious on where the line is. 'cause I love the authenticity play. I think that there's plenty of people in this room that can log into LinkedIn and they see something, it's somewhat cringe, you know? James Kaikis: Right.

It's just like crossing a line. Choose, yeah. You know, it's crossing a line. Right.

So like where is the line? Has the Rubicon has been crossed? Yes. So where is the lion?

Right? Like, how do you work with founders to find that level of authenticity, vulnerability, tell that narrative and story. Without pushing it too far, right? Scott Albro: Yeah.

Well, okay, so we're sort of shifting the conversation of founder brand now it feels like, which is one distribution tactic that you can use to infect, infect the network with your narrative. And it's a really powerful way to do it. I just, um, and I'll try not to name names here, but, um, I just think that, um. Scott Albro: Most of us are approaching founder brand the wrong in like this really tactical way, and we are likely doing more harm than good.

Mm-hmm. And, but there's no way to measure the harm. There are only thumbs up buttons on the social platforms. And so, um, you got 5,000 impressions on that cringe slot post the other day, and you got a hundred likes, let's just say 4,500 people just didn't feel compelled to do anything but those other 400 people out of the 5,000.

Scott Albro: They, they didn't like what you did, right? Like you're, you are doing irreparable harm to your brand with this cringe slot. And so I, what I tell the founders that I work with is like, no, your objective with founder brand is for you to become personally synonymous with the market or category that you play in. Scott Albro: And people ask me, well, what does that mean?

And I give him one example. I've, I've only been able to think of a few examples and the example that I like is Nick Meta from Gainsight. And you know, Nick's no longer at Gainsight. Nick Nick's, I've known Nick for a long time.

Craig's known him for a long time and I don't even know if this was something intentional that he did. Scott Albro: We, we, you should have him as a guest at one of these events. But basically Nick became personally synonymous with the customer success category and. Um, it, it, it is that is so much more valuable than this stuff that dominates the world of founder brand today, where it's like, you know, I wrote this like, cringe post, got a hundred likes.

Scott Albro: I mean, who cares? And, and so the way to do it is the way that Nick did it. And, um, it's personally synonymous with the category. People then ask me, well, how do you do that?

And it is a high energy endeavor. Like if you know Nick, you know, he is like a super high energy guy. And I describe Nick when I was a venture backed founder, I would go to these events. Scott Albro: You get invited to these dinners and events every night.

And every single one I went to, I saw Nick, he was just everywhere all at once. And yeah, maybe he was posting on LinkedIn, but he was also speaking at events. They did their own event. Right?

Like he had this look, you know, like he dressed a certain way so that he was memorable. Scott Albro: Right. And so, you know, if you don't know Nick, I just encourage you to go read up on him. He's, he's an incredible like high energy person and I would describe his founder brand strategy is as everywhere, all at once, and it goes way beyond like.

Posting on a certain platform, it's like, no, I'm everywhere all at once. Scott Albro: So I, I don't know how else to put it. It take, it takes a lot of energy. I would say that.

Craig Rosenberg: I know I said I wasn't gonna ask questions. You're allowed to. I am. Alright, good.

Go. And by the way, one, we gotta have this guy on more often. I feel really good about myself. There's been multiple stories about me.

All right. Craig Rosenberg: Uh, take note, other speakers. All right. And then, um, uh, but Treating Your Market as a Network of Target Accounts, Not Just a Target Account List - Craig Rosenberg: can we just back up because you said something pretty provocative in the start, right?

Which was. You gotta think of your market as a network, not as a set of accounts. Scott Albro: Yeah. Craig Rosenberg: And I think that's a big deal.

And so like if we, can you talk about that for a minute and well probably longer than a minute, but I think that's important to sort of re-baseline us and then we can talk about the other stuff that comes out of that. Scott Albro: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think the big idea is like you can, you should have a target account. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a target account list or an ICP or whatever it is.

I just think as a startup, you are looking for leverage when you enter a market. And there's the old school way of finding leverage, um, which is like, Hey, I believe I, I have like this ICP or target account list or whatever, and that yields like these, um. Scott Albro: What I would kind of think of as like funnel or pipeline improvements, right? Like my conversion rate goes up because of that or my ACV increases because I'm focused on the right accounts.

Totally cool. You should do that. But the other thing you can do is you can find strategic leverage. By thinking of your market as a network.

Scott Albro: And what I would do is I would identify who your target customer is, and then identify the nodes in the network that connect with the customer, right? And some of these nodes are these 10 x hubs or nodes or whatever, whatever you wanna call 'em. And if you can infect one of those nodes or multiple nodes in the market. Scott Albro: With your narrative, you just get like, talk about turning, push into pull.

That's a great way to turn, push into pull. So again, people are like, well, what does that mean? And, and um, and you know, there, they're real examples of this, right? One of 'em is actually a Go-To-Market tech example.

So everyone's familiar with Clay. Scott Albro: Um. One of the reasons everyone's familiar with Clay is Clay in the early days basically said, Hey, we're gonna go infect this hub, which is in our network, which is cold outbound email agencies. Which, you know, if you, if they had told me that, however, you know, three, five years ago when they start, I would've said, that's a really bad idea.

Scott Albro: But it was actually a really good idea. And the reason it was a good idea is called outbound email agencies are power users. They are connected to lots of now end clay customers and have a ton of influence over those people. Um, they are willing to push the envelope on how a product gets used, and as a result of that, they tend to see higher ROI than say, you know, the marketing department at a Fortune 500 company would, and they're loud as hell, like they will talk about you if it works.

Scott Albro: And so that's an example of one of these 10 X hubs and, and one of the primary reasons Clay has been so successful. Another more recent example is granola. So how many people here, if, if I had come to you and said, Hey, I wanna start a, a 12 months ago, I wanna start a new note taking app. How many people would've said I, I'll write a check for that.

Scott Albro: Literally no one right. But Granola had this ama, they viewed their market as a network, and the first hub that they went after in their network was the VC community. Now they have this calling card, it's, they're a really good product team over there. And so they were able to get meetings with VCs, but they targeted VCs because VCs have lots of meetings and they have lots of meetings with founders.

Scott Albro: And that was Granola's next customer that they wanted to win. Oh, VCs are allowed to, particularly on Twitter X, right, where a lot of founders are hanging out, everyone's trying to figure out like, what are the VCs thinking? Well, like a year ago or whenever it was, you just see granola popping up everywhere and I'm asking people like, what is what? Scott Albro: How is this different than it kind of didn't matter.

They just ended up dominating the VC founder discourse on Twitter. And again, the VCs were a 10 x hub for them. Founders were also a 10 x hub for them because that took them into startups. Right.

And so that was like a really well executed your market is is a network type strategy. Scott Albro: I think they're raising around right now. Maybe it's closed billion and a half dollar, uh uh, yeah. Billion $1.

5 billion valuation right now on a note taking app. That was like five years late to the market. And it was just, we're gonna go lock up these season founders. All the cool, what Craig and I used to call the cool kids at Topo.

Scott Albro: And um, and we'll go from there. So, and I guarantee you there is a version of this in your market, right? It could be consultants, influencers, early, I mean, crossing the chasm if people still remember that is like fundamentally I view my market as a network, right? Matt Amundson: I think those were both great examples.

Creating Systems for Founders and CEOs to Build Attention Around Your Brand Narrative - Matt Amundson: Thinking through like one of the things I think is challenging as people think about pulling all these ingredients together is most founders are thinking about building their systems. Whether that's their system for how they develop products, whether that's their system for how they're thinking about Go-To-Market. Matt Amundson: These examples? Like how much, when you work with the CEOs, are you thinking about building a system for this or are you thinking about like, Hey, this is a work in progress and we're gonna develop this together, and as we find that either message market fit, or we find the right hubs for our business, then we're creating systems or.

Matt Amundson: As you bring them into this world, is there like kind of a system list that you're bringing them through and probably don't have time to go through it if that's the case, but like I wonder about that because I think so many people are like, well, if you're in Go-To-Market, you're like building a funnel. Matt Amundson: If you're building product, you're doing agile. As you think about this component, does it have a system or is that still to be defined? Or is it unique?

Scott Albro: Yeah. Um, I think it depends upon which one of the three things mm-hmm. We're talking about. So like narrative, in my opinion, you don't really need a system for that.

Scott Albro: I don't, that might be an interesting area to explore, but you know, like you're, you, you, you can and should your change your strategic narrative and like optimize it, but you probably, you probably don't need a system for that, I don't think. Viewing your market as a network? I think, I mean, I don't, I don't, I haven't built a tool, but like if someone's built a tool for that or, or is building i'd, I'd write a check for that. Scott Albro: Um, I think that's a pretty good idea.

Like, hey, you know, not a static target account list, but something like really shows network connections in my target market I think would be really, really interesting. So I don't have a system for that with the CEOs that I work with. You know, it's more like, hey, let's just map this thing out in like a Google sheet or some something. Scott Albro: Right?

Matt Amundson: Yeah. The, the and I, and I don't mean like software, I just mean like what is, what is the like order of operations Yeah. To bring this to life. Yeah.

Scott Albro: Well, you know, start with your target market, obviously, right? Like, um, and understand what the networks are that you care about. And in particular, these kind of 10 X hubs. Scott Albro: Build a narrative that will resonate with them.

I typically recommend that founders do both of those things to get, you know, like you don't have to finish one to do two, you want to do 'em both alongside, and then on the distribution tactics, that is where a system is really valuable, which is like, think of distribution tactics as like just continuous experimentation around like, here's how I'm gonna infect the network with my narrative. Scott Albro: Like lovable does a really good job of this, right? They are. They are constantly running these growth bets and experiment all the time, and they're rapid fire.

They see what works. They double down on the ones that work. They jettison the ones that don't, and that, that requires real like system. James Kaikis: Level type thinking.

James Kaikis: Fun fact is we're gonna be talking about Lovable later today with carry loose sessions, so great. Love that you brought that up. Scott. This has been incredible.

Good news is we are recording this session. I saw a lot of people taking notes. How can people follow along? How can they engage with you on this content?

James Kaikis: How can they learn more? Well, the funny thing about me is like I talk about all Scott Albro: this stuff, like, I'm like this advanced go and like I don't have a website or, or I was talking to your guy yesterday, he is like, can you send me content? I'm like, I don't have any content, so I don't know. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Scott Albro: Send, send me an email. My email is, you know, Scott Albro at gmail. If, if you want to connect with me and, um, and uh, yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn. Sounds good.

Thanks so much.