- Duration: 38 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01JE4N23C1PFVG9QSQYMPPFAY9 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JE4N23C1PFVG9QSQYMPPFAY9)
Transcript
[Akshay Rustagi]: Hey, how’s it going? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Good. [Akshay Rustagi]: How are you? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Doing well. [Akshay Rustagi]: Sorry about that. Just running around, but yeah, nice to meet you. I saw, I guess I was watching a podcast by your founder or co-founder and was interested in learning more. I can tell you a little bit about our company and our product. So we’re an AI company. We’re similar to, I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but a company called replicate.com. So we’re similar to them where it’s like a platform for AIs. Difference between us and them is we have a consumer app and APIs for developers as well. So we’re a little bit more consumer centric. And then we have a full fledged mobile and we focus on some of our own proprietary models in addition to the open source ones. So we’re about to go to market and looking at a variety of strategies to test them out, SEO, articles, content, et cetera. So your stuff piqued my interest. We don’t do any real, we’ve just done tests for like ads on Instagram and Facebook or Meta, haven’t really We have a profile on Twitter and TikTok, but haven’t really published much content yet. And then we’re about to start. We have in the holster right now, two different brands. One’s real estate centric and then one’s generalist. So we’re, you know, we’re looking at what strategies can we implement and scale effectively to sort of build credibility and awareness. Max Palmer: Great. Do you have a, of how Megafone works or should I explain? [Akshay Rustagi]: Please explain. Okay. Max Palmer: So Megafone is a creator engagement marketplace. So we have users like yourselves who are looking to grow their audiences on either Twitter or LinkedIn or both. And then we have creators who are, you know, people from anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of followers. And they’re in a variety of different niches. So we have a few dozen niches covered, and we have over 400 creators on the platform now. And these creators will engage with your content, and that will help boost your content in these platforms. And when I say engage, it typically means they’ll comment on your post. When they comment on your post, your post will be shown to all of their followers, and it will be shown to other people on the For You page and whatnot. So that’s how it works in a nutshell, there’s two parts of our pricing. So the first part is the subscription, which is either $49 a month or $89 a month. And the only difference between those two is with the $89 a month tier, your posts will get sent to the creators as soon as you send them to us. Whereas with the $49 a month tier, your posts will be delayed an hour until we send it to the creators. And then besides that, you do have to pay you have to set a budget per post, and that’s the money that’s going to go to paying the creators. So on average, people spend about $30 per post. And we allocate your posts to creators based off three criteria. So first and foremost, we want to send your posts to creators that are in your niche. Thankfully, we have a ton of creators in the AI space, in the tech space, startup space. Just general business space, so it's not an issue there. But we want to send your, we're going to send your post to creators that are in your niche, right? There's no, it doesn't make any sense to send your post to creators that are in the health and wellness niche. Second, we want to send it to creators that are online at the time you're posting so that they can engage right away, because instant engagement is really important for these platforms. And then third, we're going to maximize your budget on a cost to follower ratio. So we'll send that post to creators. Creators will have the option to engage with it. And then once they engage, that'll boost your posts in the algorithm. Cool. [Akshay Rustagi]: So what type of results have you all seen through this method? [Max Palmer]: Yeah, I mean, we've seen really good results. You can see a few examples on our website. That's all we have publicly. But yeah, we had a few accounts on LinkedIn go from basically zero to 2,500 followers in about a day. Another went from zero to like 8,000 followers in a week. We had someone on Twitter, Mark Andreessen, follow them because of a post that was amplified with Megaphone. So yeah, we definitely works for the right person. And you create good content, though, I will say, Megaphone is not going to help bad content perform well. [Akshay Rustagi]: But it will help good content perform really well. Gotcha. And I guess, how do you recommend we optimize for good content? [Max Palmer]: Um, I mean, you know, it's a lot of ways you can do that, but, um, posting engaging content that you think will be valuable to your target person. Um, whether it's video, whether it's graphics, um, threads, uh, there's a bunch of different types of content, but, um, do you have anybody you recommend? [Akshay Rustagi]: in terms of like, I mean, so we're a platform, we have a hundred plus AIs. Our content would be like, you know, here's something somebody made or it would be a spotlight. You know, for instance, like we got, we got a AI artist to make, you know, try out our AI and you see the result. And then it would be like, you know, first 50 people that respond get X, whatever, free credits. So it would be along those lines. You know, that's what I would imagine would do well as, you know, a showcase and something like that. We could try, you know, more viral stuff, like that has a little bit more shock value, but, you know, in terms of content you can create through our platform. But, you know, I assume I assume an offer is still gonna be best of like, you know, act now, sign up and, okay. What were you gonna say? [Max Palmer]: I mean, not necessarily, like people on these platforms, they don't want to be sold to, they want to be entertained and they want to be engaged with. Okay. So yeah, like the act now, that stuff can definitely work, you know, you've got an awesome offer and it's relevant. [Akshay Rustagi]: Well, I guess, I guess if we're doing AIs and stuff, it's like, what's the point of just showing you something you can make with an AI? It's like, you know, the immediate thing I would do is like, Oh, let me go try it out. So anyway, we can A B test content. Okay, cool. So it's it's a difference in the two subs is an hour delay, you have a community of, you know, people that can boost or interact with it if they feel compelled to do so. What's the price range per boost? I know you said on average it's about $30 per post. Max Palmer: What’s sort of the low and the high end? So the creators set their own prices. So typically, creators will raise their prices by $10 for every 100,000 followers they have. So for example, we have a creator with 370,000 followers, and they charge $35 for an engagement. Whereas we have plenty of creators with 50,000 followers or around there, and they might charge only $5 or $10 for an engagement. So that might give you a good idea of what they are charging. [Akshay Rustagi]: So in terms of us, yeah, I got you. So, uh, in terms of strategies, so, um, how would you recommend we think about this, you know, in terms of the day, it’s just, uh, you know, we look at as, as, as a channel for how many impressions that we get, how many people created accounts, how many people actually, you know, put down a credit card or, or sign up for a subscription. So, uh, you know, What would you recommend in terms of like, uh, if we wanted to, if we’re just getting started with this, what’s the budget that we should set and how should we plan on scaling it, et cetera. Obviously it depends on the results, but I’m trying to think in terms of channels. Max Palmer: I mean, I would allocate, you know, a few hundred dollars towards it and, and test it out for a few months. I’d recommend posting content every single day. You don’t have to amplify every piece. Of content with Megafone, but these platforms reward consistency. So if you’re posting every day for three months, you’re going to see results on the back end of that. Whereas if you just randomly do one post out of nowhere, and your account hasn’t posted anything in months, and you try to amplify that post with Megafone, you might not have as good results as you want. Uh, but your advice would be, it’s really important. Got it. [Akshay Rustagi]: So your advice would be separate from the budget, have a, a plan of like whatever, a discipline or action plan of, you know, every day we’re gonna, we’re going to post something. Max Palmer: Um, um, okay. Act as like a social media manager. You’re going to have a content calendar with, with a whole content strategy. And, um, you know, and some of the posts that you think can and will do really well, you’ll amplify those with megaphone. The other ones, you know, are just filler posts that are meant to keep the account running, keep the account, you know, engaged and whatnot. [Akshay Rustagi]: And you said a couple hundred dollars, was that per day or how long did you say that’s for? Max Palmer: No, I mean, it’s entirely up to you. We, we, you know, you, you can, you can spend $300 a month on this and, um, and still get good results. So, I don't think a couple hundred dollars a day. Yeah. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Got it. [Akshay Rustagi]: And then, um, for the real estate niche, is that a, or is that a niche that you have also cover like real estate influencers or agents or not as much? [Max Palmer]: We might have a couple. Yeah. Not as much like the context. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Akshay Rustagi]: Go ahead. [Max Palmer]: To give you context. [Akshay Rustagi]: It's like, we, we have AIs for trying on clothes, which is like, you know, fashion stylists. We have AIs for, you know, whatever the, whatever the hottest open source stuff is. And then we have AIs for like, uh, real estate in terms of virtual staging and, and stuff like that. So, um, we're an AB test. Um, so in general, our higher ACV comes from like a real estate agent who's just looking for, you know, I, I want the best, fastest result. So they're willing to pay more for the result as opposed to a generalist is just like, you know, just give me a subscription unlimited and closer to like a Spotify offering. But okay. So you're saying you don't have as much real estate. Um, what are the three or four areas you're strongest in? [Max Palmer]: So you said AI, AI tech startups, um, just general business, um, like growth, personal development. We have a ton. But yeah, AI tech startups, like those three realms, we have a ton. [Akshay Rustagi]: And I know those are broader, but yeah, they definitely apply to you. Okay, cool. All right, yeah, this is helpful. So bottom line, your advice is have a content schedule premeditated or planned and then Um, get the subscription when the content start is ready, uh, start posting on, I guess, a daily basis. So, and when you said, would you say five days a week or seven days a week? [Max Palmer]: I daily is better, you know, every, every, if you can post every day, you just want to show the, the platforms that you're active. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: So the, and, uh, does it matter if it's once a day, a couple of times a day, the more, the better. [Max Palmer]: Yeah. I mean, like, you know, I have a buddy who grew, account to 33,000 followers and he posted, you know, three times a day for three years, right? So it's, it's, you have to post a lot. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Got it. Okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: So, so in terms of good hygiene, it would be like plan on posting three times a day, have a content schedule built out or whatever discipline for seven days a week. Percentage of those that you see that do interesting, you can then choose to instantaneously boost to the platform. Have a separate budget set aside for that. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Max Palmer]: You're going to want to decide beforehand whether you're going to amplify a post or not. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Oh, okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: You, you can't post it and then amplify it? [Max Palmer]: No, you will post it and then amplify it, but you won't want to post it, wait five hours, then amplify it. You'll want to post it and immediately send it to our platform so that we can amplify it. As quickly as possible. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: Understood. Um, what else? And then you guys, you all cover Twitter, um, and you said LinkedIn? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yes. Okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: Is there plans to do some of the other ones like Instagram and [Max Palmer]: Yep. There are plans, but it, it's, um, it's Q1 plans. It's in our roadmap. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: Got it. So for the time being, um, and any other platforms y'all are considering? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Max Palmer]: TikTok, TikTok, Instagram would likely be our next one and probably shorts as well. [Akshay Rustagi]: Okay. Yeah. Okay, cool. So, okay, then last question. So, if it is related to real estate or real estate influencers, you're saying you're not the best option. So, what we're planning on doing in that realm is also, we want, well, even so in the two, is we want to build a large newsletter. So, you know, part of that content is for long form generation. So actually like articles and stuff and case studies. Have you seen anybody do those sorts of things where it's like a blog post that they promote? [Max Palmer]: Yeah, I mean, we, we use this to grow our own newsletter. So, you know, we have an with 65,000 subscribers and how it was on Twitter and LinkedIn, you know, posting as a top of funnel to acquire. [Akshay Rustagi]: How long did it take to get to 65,000? [Max Palmer]: A year. A year, okay. It wasn't all organic growth though. I mean, he has over 100,000 followers on Twitter and LinkedIn. So, and then, yeah, we did pay that as well. As well to get to 65,000 subs. [Akshay Rustagi]: So I guess on that front, if we were trying to do it aggressively, like to get to that level in three to four months, what sort of budget do you think we should, assuming the content is good, what sort [Max Palmer]: of budget do you think we should plan on having? You can't get to 65,000 subscribers organically in three to four months. The only way you could that many subscribers that quickly is through meta ads. Meta. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: So not even, so even your strategy would say it's not possible. [Max Palmer]: So, so, okay. So, so yeah, I mean, we, we, we know newsletters very well. Getting organic subscribers is hard. Doing it on, on LinkedIn and Twitter is hard. Megaphone is used specifically to grow the account of a Twitter or LinkedIn. Not to grow a newsletter. However, when you grow your account on Twitter or LinkedIn, you can subsequently grow your newsletter, right? [Akshay Rustagi]: Yeah, it's like brand awareness. [Max Palmer]: And then you have lead magnets that you promote at the end of threads and you can amplify the thread, you know, with with megaphone, so it can indirectly grow your subscribers. But if you're looking to instantly and guarantee that you grow subscribers, you have to do meta ads. That's how every large newsletter has grown. [Akshay Rustagi]: And just since you guys are experts in this, two last questions. Number one, what sort of budget off the top of your head would you say be prepared to spend this if that's your goal? And then number two, is there anybody you recommend we should talk to in regards to that piece of our strategy? [Max Palmer]: You can talk to us. So we have a, uh, we have a few different businesses. So one, we have a ghostwriting, uh, service where we write newsletters for startups. Um, we also have a service that helps newsletters grow, um, where we do, we don't do, uh, meta ads, but do a different kind of growth channel through cold email to help newsletters grow. And, um, and then in terms of, you know, if you are going to go that meta route, and run it yourself, expect to pay $2 to $3 per sub. So if you want to get 50,000 subscribers, expect to pay $25,000. Yeah. Got it. [Akshay Rustagi]: OK. Can you send me a follow-up email just outlining the other services? And maybe we set up a separate call, because we’re pretty much ready to go to market towards the end of this month. Plan is to build a consumer replicate. The problem with that business is it’s significantly lower ACV. So we want to focus on the higher ACV ones, like I said, which is like real estate, where the outcome is tied to a sale or a property and they don’t care. They’re much more, whatever, prone to spend 20 bucks on the result versus you know, a developer who’s, who’s, you know, more focused on testing everything out before they commit to any individual result. Yeah. So, you know, bottom line is we have, we were going to do the cold email thing. Our, our plan was to be different because our competitors don’t do any of this. They don’t do newsletters. They don’t, you know, if you look at foul replicate, even hugging face, you know, because of whatever their, PR or their awareness, they just, they don’t do any of these things. No, no ads, no retargeting, you know, yada, yada, yada. Um, and so we are, what we were thinking about doing is putting together two newsletters, one on AI, um, under a brand called OMG, what the fuck AI or OMG WTF AI. And that’s more like, uh, we were going to mimic the Mattermark old strategy where they re-syndicate content every day. Like, here’s the top things you should read, check out. And then we put in our own whatever case studies or editorials. The idea there is, you know, you entertain the person over a long period of time. And there’s that metric or whatever that like, for somebody on average to interact with your brand, it takes like 20 touches with them. So it’s more cost effective than, you know, just doing aggressive CPA. So we wanted to get that started on the consumer side. But we also, so in the short run, we wanted to do the real estate stuff where we have 2. Whatever, 2 million, 2.5 million email addresses. We were going to put them through a system to get them to opt in and then start pumping out content around all the changes going on in that industry, build that up to start. So anyway, the point is, is we want to do two different approaches, as part of the first approach, you’re by default going to be more developer-centric, just because, you know, that’s the community. And so, you know, that’s what we’re interested in doing. So we’re open into figuring, you know, all these things out and, you know, working with people. And that’s what I thought, I think the ad that I originally saw or the video was talking about how you guys do the ghostwriting or the content generation. For startups? Yeah. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah. Max Palmer: I mean, we can pretty much help with all of this. Our gross writing packages start at $2,000 a month, um, mainly for, for social and then go up from there. Um, if you, I’ll send you a whole screenshot of, of all the details. Um, because I think that lowest tier only includes socials. And then if you want newsletters, it’s more, but I’ll, I’ll send that all in an email. Um, and then, And yeah, this new cold email lead gen to help newsletters grow their subscriber base, we’ve launched that. And we already have five newsletters as clients using us. So yeah. And then, of course, you can use Megaphone, too. So I’ll send this info all over in an email. Awesome. Yeah, please send that. [Akshay Rustagi]: And then I’ll follow up with any questions go from there. Max Palmer: Awesome. And I’ll include Hauk in it. He’s our founder. I’m his chief of staff. So, you know, he’ll be able to respond, especially if you’re interested in the ghost writing or the growth agency. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah. [Akshay Rustagi]: And I guess the second question would be probably for a follow up conversation is, you know, in terms of strategy, what would you guys, because I guess what caught my attention was he made a YouTube video where it had like, you know, 20 super impressive founders. So we want to think through like, how do we curry favor with that group? In addition to like the generalists and stuff. Max Palmer: What do you mean? [Akshay Rustagi]: From our YouTube account? Yeah. So he made a video where it was talking about community. And in that video he had, you know, he had a founder from Levels, a founder from, I’m blanking on it, but it was, it was pretty impressive. So it’s like, even I hadn’t heard of, you know, your founder, but by association I was like, Oh, this, you know, they’re legit. Max Palmer: So let me, let me check them out. Okay. I know. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah. Then we just published that video two days ago. Yeah. Okay. [Akshay Rustagi]: So that’s how you found us. Yeah. So I watch, you know, I always have some, something playing in the background and then that, caught my attention because it was the title was four hundred and twenty something million or whatever for community. So I started listening into it because, you know, so the way I think of our product is the biggest bang will be consumer. But consumer is the hardest to what do you say? It’s the hardest to galvanize because it has the weakest sense of community and blah, blah, blah. And so consumer is like, you know, once you’ve crossed a chasm, it’s, Oh, it’s, it’s legit. You guys don’t have too many complaints. Then consumers will, will, you know, use you. But up until that consumer point, it’s like Twitter, you have to start with some core group of, of, uh, whatever it is, you know, nerds, power users, et cetera, who have to really, who have to really like vouch for you. So anyway, it was interesting cause the whole thing was on community. And so in our head, we’re like, okay, we have, 30 plus features we’re launching. We can go developers, we can go consumer, we can go real estate agents. But, you know, the same problem for us is we need to figure out what gives us the most bang for our buck to create community early on. Um, and then, you know, grow from that, um, perspective. And so it was a really cool, um, anyway, that’s how I was listening to stuff like that while working and then it caught my interest. And, you know, in the beginning he was like, Oh, we do this as a service. So I said, okay, let me check it out. Max Palmer: Great. And do you subscribe to our newsletter? [Akshay Rustagi]: I don’t, I didn’t know you had a newsletter. No, all good. Max Palmer: I’m stoked that you found us through YouTube because we’ve just launched that like two months ago and we’re trying to grow it. So this is a great sign. Most people find us through our newsletter. So I just sent a link to our newsletter in the chat, but you should subscribe for startup founders like you. [Akshay Rustagi]: Yeah. Let me see. Um, hold on. I’m talking to you through Google beats. Max Palmer: I’ll, I’ll subscribe one sec. [Akshay Rustagi]: Yeah. It’s founding journey.com. Max Palmer: Um, great though. Okay, cool. Yeah. I mean, I’ll send a, I’ll send some info over, over email and, um, I definitely think there’s ways we can work together. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Awesome. [Akshay Rustagi]: So looking forward to it. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Cool. All right. Max Palmer: Actually. Talk soon. [Akshay Rustagi]: You too. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Cheers.