- Duration: 34 min
- Platform: zoom
- Source: Read.ai 01JPN69ZF4BAE4CB2JTJP2X3AV (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JPN69ZF4BAE4CB2JTJP2X3AV)
Transcript
[UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yo, what’s up, man? [Michael Houck]: Not much. Happy Tuesday. Blake Stewart: How are you doing? Yeah, doing good. [Michael Houck]: I’m in Nashville now, but it’s freezing cold here. Oh, really? Yeah, very, very odd. Cold and rainy. Not at the moment rainy, but for most of this week, it’s going to be. Blake Stewart: Weird weather. How long are you there? [Michael Houck]: Two weeks. I’m here until April 4th. First. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Nice. Blake Stewart: Okay, you’ll get some warm weather. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Sure. [Michael Houck]: Hopefully. Yeah. Any racks you’ve been here before? Blake Stewart: I live in there once. It was a quick trip. Just you know, Broadway Street or whatever, you know, the honky toks, whatever. No, no, no true recommendations other than Yeah. The usual. Yeah, we’ll see. [Michael Houck]: I’m, I gotta check it out. It’s a I’m staying I’m saying is a little more industrial than I thought. So there’s not as much around here as I expected there to be. So, okay, I got to get out and, and see the, the areas where things are actually going on. Blake Stewart: Yeah, I don’t know much, I guess it is kind of a smaller town Phil, once you’re off that main street. I went to I went there for a US Mexico soccer game. And so I know, like, right there, which is fun. Like we walked from the main street across the bridge and the stadiums right there. So that was a good time. [Michael Houck]: But yeah, I’m not too familiar with Nashville. Blake Stewart: Are you big? What’s that? So maybe some good hikes. I don’t know. Maybe so cold. [Michael Houck]: Are you a big soccer guy? Blake Stewart: I used to work with soccer dot com. And so we do a bunch of kind of activations for Nike and Adidas. And Puma, and so we would, you know, get a bunch of free tickets to some cool games. And so US, Mexico, Nashville, that was a big one. Couldn’t say no to that. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, that’s a good deal, man. Very cool. Dang. Okay. Well, yeah, hopefully I’ll be able to get out and see some interesting stuff right now. I’m just looking at a parking lot. Blake Stewart: So it’s I got nothing for you. [Michael Houck]: That’s fine. Yeah, how’s it going? Otherwise, what’s on your mind? What’s up in mind? Blake Stewart: That’s good. Yeah, I’m just doing outreach. Yeah, I’m used to the hustle of it. It’s a lot of outreach for not a lot of responses. I’ve got that. And HubSpot can track everything. So I’ll go back and tweak, copy to hopefully get some improvements there. Angelica is doing great. She’s got a Google Sheet up with some new leads, so I could just kind of plug those in, which is good. So I feel like I’ve got a good system, but yeah, just waiting on some results. Yeah, for Tuesday’s post, we had both two of the ads kind of get back to us. They were a little upset about the Substrato I was mad about the call to action button that we had on there. Wait, what do we have? What was the call to action button? [Michael Houck]: It was this button that said CTA. Blake Stewart: Oh, fuck, did I forget to take that out? That’s totally my bad. I’m sorry. It’s fine. We’ll toss him a boat or something on the free spot. [Michael Houck]: That’s, yeah. Blake Stewart: That’s an unforced error right there. That’s rough. [Michael Houck]: It’s fine. Yeah, it happens. Yeah, it happens. Blake Stewart: Nothing you can do about it now, but it just, that sucks. [Michael Houck]: I imagine a bunch of people clicked that and then went nowhere. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Right. Blake Stewart: Let me actually see how many clicks it got. [Michael Houck]: I wonder if that’s something too. Blake Stewart: I can just say like, we’ll follow up with people who did click it and send them the actual link or something. [Michael Houck]: Oh, yeah. Let’s see. Did we get any clicks on, I don’t even know if it might not even track it, honestly. Yeah, it doesn’t even track because it wasn’t a real URL in there. Like the URL field just said CTA also. So it wasn’t even something that they could track unfortunately. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Michael Houck]: Although maybe they have this, this, click map. I’ve never seen this before. Let’s see. Taking forever to load. Oh, yeah, here we go. Although it doesn’t show me the ad. What the heck? [Michael Houck]: Okay. I don’t know what this is. It’s laid out really weird, but, um, it doesn’t show the ad for some reason. I don’t know. Blake Stewart: I don’t know what this is. It’s not, it’s not working. [Michael Houck]: So, um, dang. Oh shoot. Also the, something’s wrong with the template. Because we included the top part twice. I gotta talk to Ben about this, make sure that we’re… Putting in the top part twice. You know the sort of top part of the newsletters is like opportunity, this framework, this tool, this trend, this quote, this like right, like next to another basically. Yeah. In Beehive we have two versions of that. One is only visible to the free readers and one is only visible to the paid readers. And for some reason they both went out to the free readers, I think, or both went out to the paid readers, one of the two. I think it’s paid. Yeah. Yeah, so that’s not great, but it’s weird because that shouldn’t happen because it’s just part of the template. So I need to make sure now that there’s not something wrong with the template. OK, let me make a note to do that. That’s kind of annoying. Check template. Okay, well, I’m glad that we, I’m glad that this happened with Substrati, because it made me catch this kind of potentially multi-issue thing. So, yeah. Blake Stewart: The other one was Flippa invest, just at the top of the copy, they wanted it to say Flippa invest, and we just said Flippa. Ben said he might’ve put that one in, but it’s in the rest of the content like the body of the copy to flip invest the word so should be that big of a deal for him but they sent a [Michael Houck]: little complaint about that too oh yeah I think that was ben um because he does the he does the headers okay either way um yeah that’s weird I guess yeah I guess their brand. Okay. Sorry about that. That’s a little headache for you this morning. Blake Stewart: Part of the job customer service, right? Yeah. [Michael Houck]: But yeah, not a deal. Not a deal. All right. Well, thanks for letting me know. And we’ll, we’ll make sure that it’s tighter going forward. Blake Stewart: Yeah, keep them happy is something else. I guess that kind of goes into the we talked about like a LinkedIn plan, Twitter plan. Yep. You’ve given that much thought. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, it’s on my it’s on my agenda for and before the end of the month still. I have to wrap up some playbooks for the ghost rating agency this week. And then the idea will be to start getting more serious about content planning next week. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. Blake Stewart: Okay, maybe I’ll loop that in with them somehow. So we could maybe plant some content around substratum and keep them happy. Figure that out. Okay, cool. In a month. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: There. Blake Stewart: So yeah, I’ll send out the direct partner page on beehive. I like I think it could be good for us. I guess, yeah, the availability is an issue. I just don’t want someone to go through that checkout, pay for an ad, and then we’re already scheduled since we are pretty booked out through like May already, so. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, it doesn’t make sense for us to take that page live or start using it until they upgrade it a bit. For context, Tyler responded to the feedback I sent over, and he was like, yeah, we’re gonna be working on at least some these things over the next couple weeks to get them live for you guys. One of their co-founders who’s like, one of their engineer co-founders is building it, so. Blake Stewart: Nice, all right, cool. Oh yeah, I’m happy to keep testing it out for them if they want more feedback for that. We’re going through your old Twitter and LinkedIn content that you shared with Jacob a while back for YouTube strategies, so. I could share some that later, but pretty obvious ones. Some kind of pitch deck reviews was up there. I think that could be a good one. Kind of how they started, where they are now. Then I think another top click one was like movies, like startup movies or something. I don’t know if you want to do like a YouTube breakdown on classic movies. Or something, I don’t know. I mean, we could. [Michael Houck]: Something like, you know, are these startup movies like realistic, you know? And we could have me like green screened over like Loom video style. Like, you know, like, hey, this doesn’t happen, or this sucks, or whatever. Blake Stewart: That could be interesting, yeah, like call out plot loops and plot holes to startup movies. This is unrealistic. This co-founder would never agree to these terms. [Michael Houck]: Yeah. This is totally stupid. There’s no way. This is some writer in Hollywood who’s just like making stuff up. Blake Stewart: They did not get their first check from the first meeting. They talked to a hundred VCs. Let’s be honest. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I’ll put more ideas together. But that’s all. Late. Yeah. I mean, mainly just doing outreach. There’s a meeting tomorrow that got moved. Around with Hive. I don’t know what that is. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, so Hive is a company that was interested in, they tried to get us to buy them. They have some data thing where, I’m trying to remember, it was a while ago. Basically, they can map someone’s network on social media or something. And so the idea was like, you know, you guys have all these creators on the platform. Wouldn’t it be cool if your users could like request intros to people in these creators audiences through them or something like that? Um, okay. Let me pull it. Let me pull it up to see. I’m sure I don’t. Blake Stewart: So I, uh, one, what’s a couple of companies like that? [Michael Houck]: Um, Oh, it was also like, um, it was also like helping megaphone price better because could do is say, Oh, you know, I’m a startup founder who’s using megaphone and, um, megaphone has these creators. Well, would I pay more money for a retweet from somebody who has like Mark Andreessen in their audience? And you can be sure of that, you know? Uh, okay. That’s interesting. So yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. Blake Stewart: They wanted us to buy them. [Michael Houck]: And then I think they got some like strategic finance instead or something. So now the idea is just like if we were to partner with them and they have some like API that we use for Megaphone to have that data, like would that be valuable to us? I think the answer is probably yes, but it depends how expensive it is because right now most of our money towards Megaphone should be going towards, in my opinion, growing it. So we’ll see. Will you be on that call? Yeah, I’ll be there. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I’ll be there. [Michael Houck]: I gotta move this other call, though. Okay. I’m gonna RSVP to that now so that I’m in there. Blake Stewart: Okay. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, so that’s that. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. Blake Stewart: It’s good Yeah, not too much else on my list for more fundraising submissions came through So look at those but haven’t yet How’s um, how’s the pipeline? [Michael Houck]: Who’s a who we talking to? Blake Stewart: It’s okay Got a couple in It like you’ll get someone interested You like kind of push them along and then they just kind of drop off. So there’s like, Pipe Drive and Keep Cart are two of them that said they’re very interested. And then just kind of ghosted me. Got a couple other people who have just requested some stuff. But it’s, it’s not where I want it to be right now. For Saturday, we’ve, I mean, I was gonna switch Bampus and do a featured placement for them instead of their deep dive. And then Ad Astra came back and said they might have somebody for that featured placement. They were supposed to know on Saturday, but that’s been pushed along. So I’m trying to get you an answer for Saturday as soon as possible. And then, yeah, just, you know. Pushing where I can, but it’s not, it’s not what I want. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Michael Houck]: How can I, um, how can I help? What can I do? Blake Stewart: I think, I think we’re good. I’m starting to see like more responses, which is good. And then with Angelica kind of getting all these leads in for me nice and easily. Um, I think I’ll see more, I think, I think the pipeline will start getting built out quicker in the next couple of days, which is nice. Um, I mean, HubSpot’s already great for me. Yeah, I don’t know. Just need more responses. OK. And HubSpot setup is going well? [Michael Houck]: Yeah, it’s good. Blake Stewart: Only issue is that there’s a bunch of duplicates in there. And for their easy cleanup, two clicks to barge out the duplicates, it’s a different tier. Just kind of doing that as I go, but it’s not a big deal. And then, yeah, I should be able to track kind of, yeah, reporting. So I’ll have a better idea about, you know, deals and pipeline and visibility. [Michael Houck]: What about Midwestern? Because I think we’d message them or you’d message them like a week ago, and they’ve been interested in a deep dive, but then they had the marketing guy that they hired and everything, so it was a little bit of Blake Stewart: a chaotic spot. Yeah, I haven’t heard back from them. But yeah, I’m gonna push them again. Yeah, I mean, nothing like, yeah, deep dives are pretty empty. There’s nothing really in the pipeline besides them. And there’s another one, but they said no, they weren’t ready for it. And feature placements are also pretty hard. So the only thing really in the pipeline are tools and links, which isn’t great for revenue, but… [Michael Houck]: Okay, so we don’t have any features in the pipeline right now? Blake Stewart: We do through I mean, we’ve scheduled ones through the end of April, but no, like, no good leads leading up to that. Yeah, and pipe drives, maybe, because they had specific terms and haven’t gotten back to me. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Got it. [Michael Houck]: Okay, so, I mean, and Athena is ending, for now, we can re-engage them to see if they want to do more. Blake Stewart: Okay, and I’ve got that other company who’s similar that we could also go back to. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, maybe we should do that, but like go to Athena first and be like, hey, we had this other company wanting to book these spots, do you want them? Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. Okay. I’m a little concerned. Um, cause I’m, I’m looking at these like pipe drive. Those aren’t, we shouldn’t really consider those fully booked out cause they’re still, they haven’t closed bamboo. Obviously that’s, you know, that’s not new revenue, but it is revenue we’ve made. So it’s fine. Um, and Athena, you know, with re-engage them and see if they want, they want more. So yeah, I guess like a little, a little concerned about more in the pipeline right now to fill out beyond that. Blake Stewart: I do have growth school interested through passion fruit. I think we, yeah, maybe we worked with them before. [Michael Houck]: I don’t remember. Yeah. Blake Stewart: Yeah, we have. They said they saw lower engagement in terms of clicks and leads. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Oh yeah, they only wanna spend $300. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I mean, what’s our, like, what should we be doing to juice it? Like are there data sources that we can pull new leads from that we’re not doing yet? I need to be doing more. I know dream stuff is it wasn’t much help, unfortunately, so I totally get that. Just like yeah, like if we wanted to say hey, let’s have may fully booked out with new people so that I’d say 12345. 67 not counting the two for bamboo. So if we want to get all seven of those filled by the end of April like, 56 weeks from now what we need to do. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. Blake Stewart: I mean, I think I don’t have an answer for you yet, because I think I’m doing I think I’ll see better results in the next like three days. Like HubSpot, I just got that up Friday. Like I’ve been blasting sequences on Friday. So like my outreach has jumped, you know, five X since Friday. And so I think we’ll start seeing some results. And so I don’t want to say that it’s bad right now. I’m sending like 100 outreaches a day now, minimum. So hopefully, the pipeline’s looking a little more filled once people start getting back to me, once they start hitting and landing. But yeah, in three days, if responses are still low. Then I’ll be concerned. And then, yeah, I guess ramp it up to 200 outreaches a day instead of 100. But… [Michael Houck]: So one concern, I don’t know how HubSpot works with this, right? But if we’re sending out too many cold emails from the founding journey domain, that act as a liability for the newsletter, which we obviously can’t have. I don’t know how Hotspot works, I don’t know. But one of the things we use Salesforce for was the fact that we can just import a ton of domains and use them. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. Blake Stewart: That’s something to note for sure. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, honestly, I think that’s pretty high priority because if you’re sending 100 a day, really you shouldn’t be sending more than 50 a day. From a single inbox on a domain. Okay. So, and again, once we, once founding journey gets on some like blacklist for cold outreach, like we’re screwed. So I would say like, that’s like a today thing for sure. Blake Stewart: All right. I’ll switch up the email there. [Michael Houck]: Um, let me just make sure we’re, we’re good. So I have a blacklist checker. Okay. We’re, we’re good. Right. Blake Stewart: Yeah, and it’s like I’ve got an unsubscribe link in there. Yeah, I hear you, I hear you. It’s just a deliverability thing. [Michael Houck]: So yeah, I would say let’s change that. And I don’t know, again, I don’t know how to get other domains into HubSpot or how that works, but we cannot have the main domain get blacklisted, because then we’d have to change the whole branding and everything. Gotcha, alright, I’ve already. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: OK. Blake Stewart: OK, well look, I guess just keep me in the loop. [Michael Houck]: If there’s anything I can do on the Outreach side, let me know. And let’s let’s give it some time. Let’s check in again. Next week. And yeah, I think by the end of this month. We should have a sort of clear idea like OK, if we’re not seeing the results we want from this, here’s we need to do so. Just trying to get ahead of this so that by the time May comes around, we don’t have a bunch of a bunch of empty spots. Blake Stewart: Yeah, I hear you. OK, yeah, give me a couple days to see how. How this is working and what’s coming back. Then I’ll think of something else. [Michael Houck]: Cool. All right, man. Sounds good. I think that was it from my side, though. Otherwise, I think we’re good. Blake Stewart: All right. Cool. I guess same here. Yeah. I don’t have anything else. All right. [Michael Houck]: Let me know if anything else comes up. Um, I like the ideas about like other things we could layer onto the business too. Um, when the time, when the time comes, I think, I think a book would make a lot of sense. Um, I just know cause Sahil told me all the time how intense that was for him. And he’s a pretty, he says it’s intense. It was pretty intense. Blake Stewart: Um, no, I’m sure. Yeah. It’s yeah. Um, my thought was this, you know, You already have a bunch of good content. You’re halfway there, but then the other half is not easy. The first half is weird to get to, but yeah. [Michael Houck]: But I think it’s like, we would need to think about, because one of the things he did really well was the five types of wealth is, it sort of like is within the spectrum of the things he’s talked about and posted about before, but he packaged it up really nicely. Also sort of like, it is sort of an idea that he hadn’t explicitly talked about before. So I think we would need something like that. Like what is, excuse me, like Andrew Chen with the cold start problem, right? Like what is our cold start problem framework or viewpoint that runs through all the things we’ve written about that is unique that we can sort of package up in an interesting way. So we’ll see, think about that. Blake Stewart: Okay. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. Blake Stewart: Yeah, that’s, that’s good. Um, I think I’ll, uh, that kind of goes in line with this YouTube content idea planning. I’ll kind of keep that in mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. [Michael Houck]: It’s, um, as we, as we put more stuff out there, especially on the video side, it’ll, um, those sort of threads will, will emerge more. Yeah. Like a lot of Gil has the high growth handbook, right? Um, uh, other people have like similar type of startup books. Like what is our, what is our thing? And it should be based on sort of our experience, right? Like what’s where things going, what’s been proven to be true, what hasn’t been written about. Uh, but you know, this is low priority right now, but something for the longterm for us to kind of keep in mind in the background. Blake Stewart: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Gotcha. All right. [Michael Houck]: OK, cool man, well let me know.