- Duration: 34 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01JQS9F4VH98TS980R573F9HDA (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JQS9F4VH98TS980R573F9HDA)
Transcript
[Akshay Rustagi]: we want to focus on email for now. Um, and so, uh, as a refresher, we have two initiatives. We have a investment initiative that I’ll, I’ll update you on and a real estate initiative. Real estate is really simple. I’m doing the exercises Matt wanted us to do, which is pull our contacts, our LinkedIn’s and all that. It’s, it’s a little bit of a bitch because, The plug-in is giving us some issues that he recommended, MailMeteor, but whatever. The point is, he’s explained it really, really well. He says, regardless of what you try, you got to start out with a healthy seed list and grow from that seed list. And essentially, those are your warm, warmish people. We also have a shit ton of cold emails, hundred thousand of them, plus that we’re trying to, you know, we have a couple hundred thousand of them. So we’re trying to wrap our heads around our strategy of going those from one sec. It’s just, this guy’s debugging something. Oh, good. Oh, nevermind. Um, sorry about that. So, um, anyway, we’re trying to think through how we go from that strategy from cold to warm. And there’s this separate whatever strategy we would do, but that’s more for the real estate side. So anyway, it’s going well. This is where I’m at today. So I definitely see the value of you guys, and I have to talk to my partner just in terms of what we want to do. Here’s what I’m thinking, and I’m just footballing it. So to me, so this is my reaction because I’ve studied your newsletters as well. Um, I think, and you know, what you guys have built is great and we want to emulate it. I think it’s a little bit different because you come, both of you guys come from that more founder ecosystem. So you can, you know, you obviously you’ve, you’ve built your, your following, you know, through effort. It’s not like they just knew who you were. But it’s a little bit challenging for me because I’m looking at it, I’m coming more from the investment side, going and incubating companies to launch them. And here’s where the challenge comes in. So man, I was like, okay, you know, show me your list, whatever. Like, yeah, but you know, handedly, more than half of these people have just been asking me for money or pitching me over the years. They’re not gonna like me. If I didn’t say yes to them. They’re going to say, fuck him. So it’s like, it’s like, it’s, it’s not like, Oh, I, I’m, you know, I’m coming from your same, you know, I am you, you are me. It’s more like, and I told him, I’m being very honest. If these people see an email from me, they’re going to be like, what the fuck is this guy up to? Did he live up? Did he live up to his attitude? That’s, that’s what, that’s what my interpretation of what they’re going to say is. Okay. And then the burdens on us, We have to pull out cool shit to be like fuck you. Yeah, we have some cool stuff and not it’s not like I’m not talking like that negative It’s more like this is what we’ve been up to. It’s cool. Check it out. So I Repositioned it in my head and I’m gonna get to the point which is I was like, okay if someone like me emailed me My reaction to it would be like what the fuck are you up to? Let’s see how shitty this is. And so okay, I’m just saying like That’s how I would think about somebody like me contacting me. And so I would be intrigued, but it’s more coming from a place of like, you got my point. I’m looking to pick at what you’ve been doing. [Michael Houck]: I’ve co-founded a venture fund. I’ve invested myself in over 65 startups over the years as well. So I totally see it from that perspective also. Why did you pass? Why are you emailing me now? What’s happening here. I would say that like, you know, that seems like that’s for the one of the two. We have the real estate side and we have the sort of founder startup side, right? [Akshay Rustagi]: Hold on, let me get to what I’m thinking. So here’s what I’m thinking and then I’ll get to the point. So what I’m thinking, okay, the brand that I like is Mischief and I’m like, whether I give up, like they could all be Teletubbies. I don’t care. I just care about what they put out is cool It’s I don’t even care like I had to look up who’s behind the scenes and there’s barely any any stuff out them And but I’m like, it doesn’t matter they they could be like I said aliens I just care that I’m intrigued every week of what random shit. Are you guys gonna do? I’m gonna judge it. Is it hot or not for me, but the next week I get something else So I was like, this is a really good paradigm for me because it detaches me. So I have my own investment brand, Chasm, been investing for 20 years, but I was like, I don’t want it to be about me because I don’t think people care about what I have to say. Because at the end of the day, it’s like, here’s my track record. Yeah, I made some good investments, but even me, I’m searching for that viral moment where everybody can be like, oh, that’s the guy that did that, right? So here’s the plan that I’m going with, and I’ll get to the point of how I think we all work together. So when I think about that from a product standpoint, I was like, okay, I agree with, like, I saw what you do. And I, I, I got used to it with Mattermark and I thought it was a great strategy back in the day. You’re in the same re-syndicate articles, but I was like, okay, like everybody does that. So that should be a piece of your, whatever your content, but I was like, what is the juice of the content? And I, and I tried writing some articles and whatever, and I was like, you know, what I find intellectually interesting and I think what I, the brand that I want to build six months down the road is every week I want to take a crack at making something viral and I want and you know the burdens on us it’s a headache but what I’m getting at is to get to the point I was like okay I want to structure the exercise where every week the pressures on us for around a couple hundred bucks we have to produce some sort of viral prototype and we release it whether that cadence is every week or every two weeks the point is is it would be something stupid like the see Tinder, like, you know, something like that, right? Like, it’s not, it’s not it. But it’s just like, with AI, you can make something quick and dirty, where you take a Tinder, you know, yes, they’re reacting, you swipe it, and then you can talk to them, did you get rejected or not for your deal? The point is, is, when I start to think from a product development standpoint, I’m like, okay, I want to grow this list. I want the expectation to be like, you know, every week, I want people to open the list. And then I want to get to obviously, like daily cadence, which would be more of the new stuff. Um, I was like, okay, like this is the only idea I believe that people would forward and share, like, yo, check this out, check that out. I don’t see people forward and sharing lists to me or say, Hey, check this list out. I just see me randomly. Like, Oh, I like, like in your case, I signed up for yours. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Cause I liked your YouTube video. [Akshay Rustagi]: Let me see what else comes out this guy. And you know, lo and behold, your YouTube video was tiny bit of what you’ve been doing, which is your newsletter. But because I like the hook, I was like, OK, let me see what else they’ve got going on. They have an agency. Let me check it out. So anyway, here’s what I’m thinking. So with Matt, I’m interested in trying it. And I’m interested in what he said about his network, too, and figuring out how do I bring that type of group on the investment side and target them and create that ecosystem. On your guys. So, so this is where I’m coming from just to be totally transparent. I’m like, okay. And then we’ve been doing this internally and getting better at it after a bunch of mishaps. Um, we can make a prototype, you know, quick and dirty for 200 to 500 bucks. Um, and we can put it out there. It’s not gonna, you know, and obviously like a lot of the stuff you can copy over like the authentication and whatever, but I’m thinking like that’s the path that we should go on and what I’m thinking is where I leverage you. Is on the consulting side in the advertisement side. So we can advertise in your newsletter I saw you guys have packages and we can you know we can use you as a consultant but basically. What is well down to my conversations with matt and he’s he set the expectations and you did as well in the first call I need to get these list about. 50,000 subscribers ASAP. He’s saying that, look, you should be, like you said, you should be prepared to pay a dollar, $52 plus per subscriber that you attract. Uh, and then you mentioned like you might have to do ads, you might have to do other stuff. Um, so I’m like, okay, on the content side, I need to come up with some strategy. Okay. Why are we doing this? We’re doing it for three reasons. We want to convert people on the real estate side to our pay product and that list will become more like a paid growth hacking list like we’re doing experiments over the year and we want people to buy in to get the data. On the personal side it’ll be we need to grow this community of founders and it’s ultimately to facilitate deal flow and the stuff that we’re working on and to have like I said that prosumer type of consumer like the first 2,000 people who are willing to sign up for an annual contract and can get upside in it. Sure. [Michael Houck]: Sorry, actually, I just have to jump in. So are we saying we don’t want to do any content for these people? Because 50,000, you do not need to build a list up to 50,000 in order to get started with a newsletter. That’s not to put words in anybody’s mouth, but that’s crazy. You can start a newsletter with hundreds or a couple thousand subscribers. [Akshay Rustagi]: No, I know. But I guess with the content, so to me, it’s like if I the content was going to cost me, I think you quoted like seven grand or something between the two. [Michael Houck]: If we did both, it would be under seven grand. Yeah. Cause it’s 3,500 per, uh, per newsletter. [Akshay Rustagi]: We give a discount for doing multiple. Yeah. So to me right now, I’m like, I, I think it’s smarter for us to spend that money on the prototypes and the advertising then. So blunt, I don’t think anybody Here’s to hear what I have to write and I know it’s like ghost written but I’m just I’m not thinking that that’s gonna be the best strategy for us I’m thinking the smart strategy for us is gonna be. Do the prototypes go through the process like we might have to make twenty to get one to go viral. Get in the cadence of shipping them out and then instead of spending the money on the writing spend the money on advertising. And re-syndicating articles. So, I’m thinking that’s a smarter play for us, because, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking right now. [Michael Houck]: Okay, yeah, I mean, alright, well, that I guess means you’ll primarily be dealing with Matt, because that’s his business, not ours. [Michael Houck]: No, I’ll be dealing with both of you. [Akshay Rustagi]: your side, I would be dealing with you on some of the consulting and the advertising. With him, it would be on putting out the list and growing the list. But, you know, he’s already prepped us to say there’s only so much growth that he can deliver. So he’s like, he’s like, you know, you should only expect he can only deliver a certain amount of growth with whatever methods he’s using. What I understand is, if we work with you on writing, it’s a 60-day commitment. Right now, I don’t want to commit 60 days to it, number one. Number two, where I think there is synergy with what you’re offering in addition to that is the consulting and the advertising. I’m not trying to criticize what you’re doing. What I’m saying is to me for that 33,000 or 3,500, I think the better value for us would be we spend the money on ads and we spend money on consulting because what I’m trying to get at is for me to make a bang, I don’t think it’s putting out the same type of newsletter that somebody else puts out. I think it’s going to be, More painful, but it’s gonna be like I think it’s gonna be like alright. We need to put out a product a Newsletter product you could call it where the the content is the product, but essentially that’s what I’m thinking right now okay, and so easily put I’m thinking like We mocked up a site where it looks you know sort of like mischief, and we’re like okay every week We got to release something or every two weeks and then Will re syndicate content in between it but the thing that I want to build. Is every week there’s an anticipation of like what am I gonna get to play with and there’s one other strategy we’re gonna do. Where we’re building it now but we’re gonna add an agent to the newsletter so if you want some of the information will share like a report or something you can just message it and I’ll give it to you but I want it. It’s cool, like we have to get to work, but I want it to be more like unique as opposed to where Mimic is up. So here’s what I’m thinking, how we put it all together. I think we leverage you on the consulting side. I think we run our strategy and stuff to you. And I acknowledge that by just having guys ghostwrite, it doesn’t mean we get attention from your followers or your newsletter people. So I think the way to get that is you advertise in the newsletter. It’ll be hand in hand because you don’t want me to put out some junk that will make you look bad. And then I’m like, well, I want your audience. And you’re like, okay, well, this is how you get my audience. So that’s where I’m at. So bottom line, we wanna collaborate. We wanna work with both of you guys. It’s not either or, but that’s what I’m thinking. So where we’re at is I need another, 14, 15 days to finalize some stuff. What I’ll come back to you with is, Hey, this is what we’re going with our strategy. We talked to Matt through with a roughly as well. He’s like, well, if you want to run both and you want to, you know, do this and that you should do it this way. But, um, bottom line is we want to work with both of you. We don’t want to do a 60 day commitment quite yet. If we look up, you will benefit. Cause I’ll come back to you and say, all right, you guys take it over where I’m interested in understanding is, um, how do you guys do the social? [Michael Houck]: Um, so yeah, first of all, that all makes sense and sounds good. We can move forward with that. We can check in, in, in like two weeks about, uh, about getting that started. So all sounds good there on social, you know, we can take over, uh, an ex account, a LinkedIn account, both, uh, you know, if the content’s the same, it’s basically we take over both the contents meaningfully different than it’s two accounts. Um, we handle a content creation that can be a mix of, you know, long form threads and posts and screenshot essays, to infographics, to short form posts, we want to do like a different type of more short form strategy, we can do that. And we also handle ops. So we’ll do scheduling, optimize the profile, you know, we’ll engage with people in the comments from the account, we’ll engage with thought leaders in the niche whose audiences you want, as well as you get some free impressions from them. So it’s sort of a combination content and ops What’s the scheduling cadence you do for posting cadence? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Depends on the frequency of post. [Michael Houck]: For example, some clients want like a smaller number of long form posts. Other clients want a mix of long and short. So it depends on that, but we always post in the morning and we’ll retweet it after 12 hours or on LinkedIn, repost it after 12 hours so that it gets like a double whammy. Not posting the same post again, but actually like physically reposting it. [Akshay Rustagi]: And I guess the way it’s supposed to work is the LinkedIn should drive the newsletter signups, or like that theory. [Michael Houck]: Either LinkedIn or X can drive newsletter signups, you know, we’d set the profile up in a way that sort of drives traffic to the certain link in a few different places. And so, so yeah, that would be that’d be part of it. And we can layer and you talk about strategy, talk about content ops and talk about social content, maybe all three of those things can sort of be and matched as you want and priced accordingly. [Akshay Rustagi]: Okay, so I think that makes sense to us and seems more interesting. So here’s where I’m at to bring it full circle. I want to work with Matt and you. I just have to confirm with my partner. Our plan is we need another 10 to 15 days, like I said, to get some of our shit out the door. [Michael Houck]: up a whole process here. I imagine there’s a lot going on behind the scenes right now. [Akshay Rustagi]: Yeah, there is. And then, you know, candidly, um, I mean, as you know, you live it. Uh, content is like, it’s like lifting weights. You gotta, it sucks when you start, but it’s like, you gotta get into the motion of it. And it’s a skill that you learn over time. So it’s like, there’s no substitution for putting the reps in, unfortunately. Yeah. And so even if you leverage, you know, outside people, or helpers you still need to like you know you need to change the way you think about it’s not just like oh they’ll take care of it and and even then like yes so we’re doing that now but the plan is I got to get this housekeeping stuff done combine the list and to Matt’s point you know start with the strongest seed list we can start with practically and then I want to get a couple things out the door so probably where the next call I want to do with you is a strategy call where I come back to you and you know I can show you the thing that we’re thinking of feeding all this is I’ll just quickly show it to you but basically we are thinking of mocking up this which is like basically like we would do our releases here and then anything we publish or the newsletters we we would put here, like a hacker news thing. The idea is if we had a portfolio, just go here. If we choose to show our portfolio, we’d go here. But we’re thinking of like, this is how people would see us on the web. And then to feed it, we would do the tweeting. And then we would do the newsletter to follow up the tweeting. So the first place people would see us as the ads we would run or market in your stuff. So for instance, I have to come up with a content schedule, but let’s say the first thing we release is VC Tinder. So we say, play Tinder with whatever, AI Tinder with the famous VCs. So it’s like, we would put that prototype together in a week, test it. And then I come back to you and say, okay, I want to advertise this prototype and then I want to put it on the site. So how do I advertise it? Okay. I advertised in your newsletter. And then I say, okay, I want to follow this up with a series of posts. So I would say, okay, you know, help us on Twitter for instance. And so that’s what I’m thinking in my head. Um, um, and then the other issue is, is on the real estate side, the will, I’ll come up with a content schedule with you. But the problem with the content schedule is going to be, it’ll end up just being mostly interviews because there’s not that much content you can put out for agents every week. So I’ll come back to you with like, look, this is what we’re thinking and then see where you plug in. But on our side, we got to make sure we can line up the interviews and they’re juicy. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: So yeah, it makes sense. [Akshay Rustagi]: That’s basically where we’re at. Um, but you know, to be, to be fully transparent with the idea that’s going in my head and what I left the call with Matt yesterday with is I said, okay, how should I wrap my head around this? I said, okay, we’re going to commit, you know, over, let’s say three, four months, 20 grand to this. So in that sense, what I’m thinking about is with the 20 grand, uh, between you, him and, and ads, how do I maximize? Because at the end of the three months, I’m going to be like, what do we accomplish? Right. And so, and so I get his point. His is like, well, look, you’re building an audience. This is an asset that can life last you a lifetime. I was like, yeah, but I need to also think about like, so for instance, from my understanding, if I just committed the 20 grand to writing and, and growing the audience, you’re not getting any impressions off of that spend. So it’s like, you’re just, you’re, you’re getting an audience. And he said, you should expect the growth to be about 20% a month. So I was like, okay, in three months, I go, if I start a C list of 20,000 or 10,000, I’ll get to 16,000. But then, you know, I was like, okay, well, instead I could advertise in Matt’s newsletter and see what those impressions are and then start to tweak the content. And so to me, the content would be like, what product are we posting there? And so, you know, in Mike’s newsletter. [Michael Houck]: see how the whole thing flows together. It makes total sense. And then we can layer in newsletter stuff down the road if we see good results. But starting with social and strategy stuff makes sense to me. And I think building the list in the meantime, sort of in the background with Matt also does make sense. So all sounds good. What I’ll do is I’ll send over an email. I have a flight in like two hours. So after I land tonight, I’ll send over an email. With some options of how we can mix together strategy with the content ops, with social stuff in general, and the advertising. And you tell me how you want it to be allocated and we can go from there. [Akshay Rustagi]: That sounds like a plan. So appreciate that. Thanks both of you guys for giving me a crash course. [Michael Houck]: It’s a crazy world, man. [Akshay Rustagi]: I mean, look, I respect the hell out of what you guys have done. It’s very difficult to do it in a clean, like it takes time to do it in a clean way. So I respect, you know, what you guys have built together. And I definitely want to leverage and learn from you. I’m also trying to think like, I don’t want to be the voice of it. I want my, my product to like, you know, stand on their own. So I got a, I got to go through that process, but I think we’re on the same page. He gets it and you got it. So we will be working together. [Michael Houck]: But I’ll send that email over and then I won’t expect that we sort of move forward for like two weeks and I’ll just check in if I don’t hear from you by like mid-April or something. [Akshay Rustagi]: Okay, sweet. So, well, let’s do that. And then, yeah, if we totally mess it up, then we’ll come back to you and say, you guys handle it. This isn’t our bailiwick. But I appreciate it. Thanks for everything. Talk more soon. Excited to work together. Yep. You as well. Thanks, Mike. Safe travel.