- Duration: 36 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01K0QC3PPK8ZP5QRH25JA9DSD2 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01K0QC3PPK8ZP5QRH25JA9DSD2)
Transcript
[Michael Houck]: Michael, good afternoon. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Tom, how you doing, man? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I’m well, yourself? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I am doing well also. [Tom Gauthier]: Good to meet you. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, thanks. And where are you calling in from I’m in Charleston right now. [Tom Gauthier]: Oh, nice. [Michael Houck]: Potentially a new home base, doing a little beta test for three months to find out. I’ve always heard great things about it. [Tom Gauthier]: My brother was down there for a while and he loved it. But I’ve never been there. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, you know, I was, I left New York in December, and I was traveling around for six months and basically testing out different cities. And Austin was the best. So here I am. Nice. And you got you got family on the east coast? [Tom Gauthier]: Is that where you’re staying on that side of the country? Or? [Michael Houck]: Um, well, I do have family on the east coast. But, you know, I lived in California for like five, six in my 20s between SF and then LA for a bit when we were starting up Uber Eats. But no, it just, out of all the options, I think it had the best mix of sort of being grounded in good values. I know some people here, but not like crazy amounts. And also just like, you know, it’s a beautiful place. You got the beach right there. It’s walkable. It’s tough to beat, so. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Thanks. [Michael Houck]: But look, man, I know you were chatting with Blake a little bit, I think, through LinkedIn. Is that right? [Tom Gauthier]: Yes, correct. Yeah, I’ve been a lot of LinkedIn conversations, but yes, yes. Well, I’m glad we got connected for context. [Michael Houck]: I’m the founder of our company and anything that we would do, it’d be you and me kind of just like this. This is how I like to do things. So Blake helps out with a lot of our outreach and stuff like that. But it’s on the day to day. I’ll be your primary point of contact for everything. [Tom Gauthier]: OK. Well, I’d love to hear a little bit more, you know, and, you know, what’s going on. [Michael Houck]: So, yeah, of course, happy to share some context and sort of who we are, what we do, who I am. And also then would want to throw it back to you and kind of learn more about your goals for the content side of things. Obviously, you have a pretty good starting point for LinkedIn, I think, compared to a lot of people. So that’s kind of fun from our perspective. But yeah, I’ll just get into it. So yeah, so I’m Michael Houck. I have started a few companies over the past few years. I was in big tech, like both Uber and Airbnb before that, and then helped build Uber Eats, and then founded a company called Launch House. We raised about $23 million from Andreessen Horowitz and some other incredible investors, and ended up turning it into a venture fund, which I know is very odd for a venture-backed startup. But wow, that's cool. It was cool. Yeah, we built a community of all these amazing founders. And we were like, Well, why don't we just get some upside in the index of their companies as well. So we started doing that. And I've sort of built up my personal brand in tandem with that. So between x and LinkedIn, I have about 100 and something thousand followers. And on sub stack, I have 217,000. So I've been doing this for a while. And you know, I met a lot of creators through that process who also have audiences and I was able to grow because they were liking and engaging with my content and I realized a lot of startups might like that kind of reach and social proof that you get from having creators engage with your content. Sort of the trusted voice associating with your brand in an organic way and so not a lot of founders have those relationships and so we built a platform called Megaphone where basically any founder or anyone can share a post Partner with creators to go leave engagements on that post to amplify it to their audience and so that's that was growing and Then a lot of people who were using it were like well This would do even better if my content was better. Can you write my content for me? And I was like, well, I Probably can't write your content for you, but I can build a company the cat And so about a year ago started building an agency that's called megaphone studio. It's kind of two sides of the same coin And so now we do LinkedIn, newsletters, Twitter, and we even have an AI digital twin that we can create for you to create video content that we work with about 30 early stage founders all the way up to billionaire VCs who are trying to build their brand and their deal flow. So large mix of people, but we work with a lot of busy folks and we like to think we know how they work. I'm not trying to put a ton of meetings on your calendar or anything like that. So that's a very, very high level TLDR. And I was happy to go more into process and things like that. [Tom Gauthier]: But that's what we do, content and distribution. Well, that's very cool. Yeah, I mean, I'll give you the quick spin. My grandfather was a farmer. But I grew up in Chicago. I spent 30 years deploying technology. I'm an engineer. I just love fixing things and solving problems. So that's great. Got my degree in chemical engineering and I just said, yeah, I got to fix that. But I, it was kind of a geek nerd on the side, you know, it was doing mostly work for big companies and work for some smaller consulting firms. I had my own company for a little bit. I did it at small exit, tiny exit when, you know, when I was younger. Um, but finally got to the point where my kids are getting out of college. And I was like, you know what, I want to go do something more impactful. And I looked across and I was chatting with a friend of mine actually at my very last Scout meeting I was running, Michael, and a friend of mine who's an agronomist was just complaining about the problems in agriculture with pesticide use and labor and water and weeds. And I was like, you know, we could solve these things. So I started a company. I said, you know what, this is going to be my last hurrah. This is what I'm going to go do. I'm going to spend the rest of my life like solving some bigger world problems. And I'll be straight up, Michael, I wasn't, you know, I'm, you know, and this isn't to be offensive, but I'm not a tree hugger. I'm an engineer. I'm like we just just kind of solve problems like I mean, I'm not gonna go, you know I'm like, we're gonna go find a problem solve a problem and I'm hoping to make some money in doing it and and Idea, you know like an ideology driven here. [Michael Houck]: It's it's like hey, this is a problem It's an important problem and it's a big opportunity to fix it for people. It's a pragmatic solution. Basically. [Tom Gauthier]: Yes Yes, it wasn't like oh, you know the wall, you know the I mean, let's be honest, you know Global warming send me a bunch of money and I'll figure something out No, no, no. Like, I was literally like, you know, wait a second, why are we spraying so much pesticide when we have technology that can be used for precision spray and we can put the right amount in the right spot? I'm like, why aren't we doing that? And I found out that there was technology missing. There was business case missing. There was, you know, convincing the grower missing. And so I jumped right into this and, you know, we've started the company. We've, we've got some good traction, but this is where I still go. And yeah, we've got it. We've got a website. Some social media presence you know we're getting some traction here and there but I'm an engineer you know we've had I've had some marketing people support me over the years but I still don't feel like how do people get to be viral how do I mean we're solving a problem of reduction of pesticide is affects all of us everything you eat and drink Michael is affected by pesticides I'm also not an alarmist I'm not like oh no you better stop you're gonna tomorrow. I'm not one of those guys either. So I'm like, no, we, you know, but we can make a difference. And the technology that I found out is I can see a 90% reduction in pesticides, a great reduction in cost for farmers and the entire food supply chain. And I'm like, why aren't we doing this? And so that's the problem I'm tackling. We're making some traction with some big customers like Gallo, the wonderful company, wonderful almonds and pistachios. We're working with Driscoll now. So I, you know, we, we got some traction. I don't have enough sales. I don't believe that my marketing team, I mean, you know, good folks that have helped me over the years, don't get me wrong, but you know, I, I don't feel like I've gotten directly to the people that really can make a big difference. And I say that because I spent 10 years of my life at Deloitte. And so, you know, when, when I was Tom Gauthier at Deloitte and I get on the phone and I called like the CIO. Or the CFO of Gallo, the world's largest winemaker, they'd like, yes, Tom, how can I help you? But now it's Tom at AgTechLogic, they go, who? And what have you done to get an audience with the executive group to prove that? So I'm still having some trouble reaching all the right personas to understand what we're doing. We just recently signed a dealer, the biggest dealer in California working with us, and they're happy with our tech. And so, you know, so I'm still trying to figure out how do we get to really two audiences, maybe, maybe three. One is, I know there's consumers out there that would love to just see a reduction in pesticide use in all their foods and drink. You know, and boy, if we could get a little bit more people following us and saying, hey, this is a really good idea, why aren't more people following and watching what we're doing, I could probably get some momentum there. And secondly, I'm not sure I'm hitting the right as at some of the right companies, maybe big agriculture, big food that says, yeah, why aren't we doing this? I mean, it just makes sense. It's affordable. Our technology is retrofit. It's a SAS model and it's easy for growers to just jump in. And so, you know, so that's where I say, how do I get my story told better out there in the world that we can get a little bit more influence? And then I hope to get a little bit more sales, a little bit more investment, and then I can keep going. So that's where I'm at. [Michael Houck]: That makes a lot of sense. And I see this sort of multi-audience. It's not a problem, but we'd have to sort of figure out who we want to target first and foremost where, right? Because the messaging would be different to go after either of those groups of people. So that's something we could strategize on. What I would just high-level advise is that wherever you guys are going to get the most ROI for the business, even if it's a smaller number of people to start with. That's where it makes sense to initially invest. And then maybe as that grows, we sort of expand it maybe, you know, not just with you, but with someone else on the team, sort of the voice of that other audience, so to speak. So that's something we can, we can talk to, but we've sort of seen that path work pretty well for some other folks. So yeah, that's what I would advise. But yeah, so was that, do you see that being more so on LinkedIn or through some kind of newsletter or maybe even Twitter? Like where's, where's your head? [Tom Gauthier]: I think that's the other thing that I'm trying to figure out. And I've asked my marketing team and they never really gave me, I'll just say they never answered the question, which is where are our buyers? Are they on YouTube? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they on X? Are they on, do they just go to the farm show? I mean, you know, what are the things, are they still on Facebook? You know, I mean, the older farmers might be on Facebook because they're trying to track their kids. The younger kids are like, I'm not on Facebook. We're on Instagram and TikTok, you know? And so I'm still trying to figure out really where do we go to get to the right persona? I think if the persona really truly is C-level, large ag, large food, I think it's LinkedIn. [Michael Houck]: If it's C-level, it would be LinkedIn for sure, because there's just the network effects there are too strong, no matter what industry industry you're in, if you're at that level, that's where you're going to be spending your time to keep up on the trends and see what other people are thinking and stuff like that. So that would be my initial, I mean, I would take a deeper look at it, you know, and sort of formulate a strategy around, oh, we see confirmation that these people are spending time here, they're creating posts, etc. But that would be where my gut goes as well. So I think you're probably, I think you're probably spot on there. So if that's the case, I mean, yeah, we could put something together where, you know, we content creation for your LinkedIn. And then if there are, I mean, there are probably at least a few people I can think of who would come to mind and we'd add more specifically for you as well to the network. But there's folks who we could loop in to sort of amplify those posts so that they get seen by those people sooner rather than you having to spend the first bit of time sort of shouting into the void, so to speak. So we do that. And then also what we do is we'd optimize your profile in the first week or two. To make sure that we're driving people to the right places. They're sort of seeing the narrative, seeing you, seeing the story, the journey. And then also going into your account and identifying a list of other folks who already have those people in their audience. And we'd actually go and leave comments on those people's posts so that their audiences would see your profile and click through and follow you. [Tom Gauthier]: By the way, that's something we did Little bit a couple years ago, but I don't think we've done much of that recently and partially because I probably don't I don't catch up on it I mean, we've got a part-time social media person. She's wonderful But she's a little bit more Reactive that I mean she's proactive. She's proactive on the things that I tell her to do But if I don't tell her that thing like hey, are we posting on these other people's sites are trying to find influencers? I don't think she actively good does that she she makes posts every day or every every week, every holiday, every special event. I mean, she does that and they look good, but I don't think we're doing some of the other things that I think like, how do you get to those influencers in a way? Because I absolutely believe, Michael, that the reduction of pesticide use is something that affects everybody. And there's so many people that wanna eat healthier, drink healthier, have healthier lives. And this is just something that I'm not asking them for a million dollars. I'm like, hey, just share the story. If you share the story enough, we're going to get some traction and help us to continue to do what we're doing. And I mean, you know, farmers are stubborn. So it takes a while to get them convinced to put the tech on, you know, government is slow. So we still haven't gotten really much traction to get them to make it, you know, and I'm not a big fan of regulation, but I do believe that there should be some in this area. And we now have technology that could actually reduce costs and reduce pesticide use. I'm like, it does both. So it's not like you're doing one or the other. Like it can actually help the grower, you know, to do good stuff. So, so I believe we're, we're, you know, we've got a great mission. Everybody I speak to, and I know that sounds like an exaggeration. I always tell people don't exaggerate, but I have not had a single person, Michael, look at what we're doing and go, Oh, that's dumb. [Michael Houck]: Not one. Like who's going to be against this realistically. [Tom Gauthier]: Nobody, even, even folks that were in the chemical I talked to folks even like at BASF and they're like, well, interestingly enough, we're designing, you know, very special chemicals that in the future we know are going to have to be sprayed with your technology, you know, and the growers eventually it'll help them to do what they're doing. And I'm like, oh, okay. So it wasn't like even the, and again, I didn't talk to major, major big chem guys, but the other chem guys, specialty chem guys were like, oh yeah, we like this. Like, oh, okay. So yeah, we got a lot of positivity, but I don't think as much influence. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, let's turn that positivity into support and into the ability to get the message out there and tell that story to a broader group of people. Because if we're getting positive results, we should turn that into influence, like you're saying. So that's what we specialize in. That's what we help with. Our creator network, we have about 550, I think I said, creators with about 60 million followers and you're not all those and the majority of those are in other niches and things like that. But like I said, whenever we bring on a new client, we sort of do an audit and we'll we'll go through and find more creators specifically for you guys. But also there are some folks in the in the in the network already who I think could be a could be a fit. [Tom Gauthier]: So, yeah, I mean, there are people out there even in even the administration. I mean, RFK juniors out there talking about toxicity and food and pesticides. And I know there's health health people out there. We've even written notes to certain health people that are on TV, and we haven't gotten any response. We wrote some notes. I posted some things on Axe. I tried to do some direct messages and didn't hear anything back. But I got to believe that if somebody really, truly took a look at what we're doing, we'd be like, wow, why aren't we doing this? Why isn't every single sprayer on the planet using this technology to reduce pesticide use? And I would look them in the eyeball and say, I know exactly that's why I'm doing this. [Michael Houck]: Like, like, you know, but I'm just an engineer, you know, one of the things that that we do and that we're that we're good at is basically taking that benefit and translating it into a story into a narrative that's super digestible for people in a split second. That's the idea, right? Because if they can get it that fast, then they'll engage with it, and then they'll get shown to more people. And then, you know, it sort of grows from there. So that's we do. And so maybe, maybe what I can do is this, because I know you said you have someone who's sort of right now sort of managing some of the social media stuff. I'll send over an email later tonight, like a couple different packages and ideas about how we could potentially help out. And you still let me know where you see us fit in the most. And we can just start there. I do think that I mean, I took a look at your content before the call just on LinkedIn, because we were going to talk about LinkedIn. I wasn't sure, but I assumed. And I think there is some good stuff on there. I think we can do a lot more for sure. And I would actually recommend doing most of this through your personal page rather than the AgTechLogix company page. Because people follow people and they trust people. And we want you to be the guy who is on a mission, who's changing the world, and who's bringing this solution to market. And so we want to tell that story That's what it is. [Tom Gauthier]: You got it, Michael. [Tom Gauthier]: You're spot on. And I said, if you asked me four or five years, five years ago, four and a half years ago, if you asked me four and a half years ago what I did, I'd be like, yeah, I work for a company that deploys technology and it wasn't that exciting. And then I suddenly woke up and said, you know what? No, we can actually make an impact on the planet. And I have to admit, I was a little bit tired of some You know, I, you know, Read articles, I mean, just people who are out there yelling, like, oh no, the, the ocean is dying. And then suddenly they get a hundred million dollars. And then I, I find out that, you know, they put 90 of it in their pocket and I'm like, like, no, like, like I'm not looking for, I mean, goodness, a hundred million would be great. I could do a heck of a lot with that. But I mean, like we wrote grants for like $75,000 grants and they’re like, oops, sorry, your technology isn’t innovative enough. And I’m like, what? Like, wait a second. Like if this guy just got $10 million and did nothing with it. And I’m like, I just asked for 75 grand. Like, you know, so I’m, I have to admit that I’m, you know, again, and I’m a hard worker. So I’m like, I’ll keep going after it and keep chugging it through it. But I’m like, goodness, there’s gotta be a break somewhere where somebody says, why aren’t we doing this? And I, I think back to 1974, somebody in Congress decided like we had to put a Cadillac converter on every car. Like we couldn’t just keep, you know, sucking and carbon monoxide, you know, so they put a kettle at a converter on a car and be like, okay, you know, but I feel the same way. We’re at this point, like we are blowing pesticides everywhere in the United States. I mean, you know, we got a great food system, but we spray twice to four times as much pesticides per acre than anywhere on the planet. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yikes. [Michael Houck]: I don’t like that. I mean, that’s kind of why when I feel so good eating the food, then I come back and I gained five pounds. [Tom Gauthier]: No, Michael, you’re right. And you know what? You and I in our lifetime, we’ve never walked into a store that wasn’t filled, right? Even during COVID, there was plenty of food, right? We’ve never seen food shortage in the United States. But when you look at the quality of it, you go, versus Europe, you go, you get better quality over in Europe. And still, I’ve never really seen an empty shelf when I was traveling in Europe. I mean, you always could find something somewhere. You know, but they just do things differently. And I go, we should be doing it better. We can do it better. And I go, that’s my mission. And I’m going to, I’m going to take every single dime I got Michael and do this and figure out how to get it done. [Michael Houck]: So, well, look, I, I would love to help you with that. I think it’s something that I, you know, when I think about having kids and building a family, I don’t have that yet, but plan to. And, uh, it’s something I think about a lot in terms of like how to create the right environment for them. You know, obviously I want to be in the United States, and so I want to make sure that here we’re doing the right things. So look, I love the mission, and I definitely think we could help just looking at the content that I see. So I’ll send some ideas over. You sort of let me know what you’re thinking. If we want to hop back on and finalize something later this week, that’s fine. That’d be great. Cool. I’m pretty flexible on my end, so you just let me know when it works. I’ll include a Calendly link in there, too, so you can just grab another time. I mean, yeah, man, I mean, it’s a, I love working on things on projects and with people who I think kind of get it and who I think are pushing the future in the right way. And, you know, sometimes you get a client and they come in, they’re like, oh, you know, here’s my meme coin to make me go viral. Right. [Tom Gauthier]: And so, I mean, the other thing is, but yeah, I didn’t do this to get rich. I didn’t do this to, you know, I’m like, we could just absolutely make a difference. And I’m just trying to figure out how to do that. Do that. And I just, yeah, I, you know, I talked to my kids, I got five kids and four grandkids, by the way. And so this is a big deal for me. And, you know, I talked to my kids, like, should we go on my, you know, my daughter, like, should I go on TikTok? She’s like, No, dad, don’t go on TikTok. You know, I’m like, okay, I’m like, okay, I’ll stick to it. And I joined like the Forbes Business Council, I got on there. So I got qualified in there, I’m writing some articles for them. You know, I do write my own stuff that’s on LinkedIn. I mean, I don’t have a ghostwriter, you know, doing that. So I do some, you know, sit down some nights and I’m like, okay, I think this is a good article. And then I got somebody who edits it and checks it, you know, and things like that, you know, and say, Hey, does this make sense? And, you know, so, but I, I just go, you know, how, why, why, why can’t I find just one, one that goes viral and somebody says, Oh my goodness, this is it like, wow, where have you been? [Michael Houck]: So. Yeah. I mean, look, having, especially the social media content that you’ve written, but also the Forbes articles, I think, too. All of that as writing samples, that makes our job a lot easier from day one. Because sometimes when we start working with someone new, there’s a lot of back and forth, like, oh, what’s their style? And they don’t even know what their style is, and they’re learning it alongside us. And that’s fine. We’re happy to do that. We do that for a lot of folks. But when someone does have at least some sort of writing samples, we can see the natural cadence and then the tonality and the voice. It does make things easier on us. So just for context, if we’re if we are going to move forward and do something together, it would sort of look like this. Basically, every week in a Slack channel that I’d set up for us, we would share some questions that come up during sort of our research that we think you could share unique, interesting POV on. And all we need from you is to just pick up your phone and record like a two or three minute voice note right into Slack where, you know, ramble, give us the ums and ahs, make it totally off the cuff, don’t prepare anything. We wanna hear how you actually think it through and speak it through. And if we get that, then it gets incorporated into the content, the content ends up sounding more like you. And we’d work to get a couple of weeks ahead so we’re not scrambling on a week to week basis or anything like that. But that’s it, we don’t need a weekly meeting or anything like that. If you wanna do an interview with us each week or each month or whatever, where we get some more content ideas and go deeper, that’s fine. But we also proactively sort of take that upon ourselves and do the research. And then we’d report metrics to you every week right in Slack too. All the content will be available for your review on a board, like a Notion board. So it’s super easy. And as I said, the team is super lightweight. So it would be you, it would be me, it would be a writer. And then our editor-in-chief is my partner on the agency, Blake Imahl. He has like 93,000 followers on Twitter, he’s got an even bigger audience than I do. Everything that goes to you is personally reviewed and edited by him, by me too, but I’m sort of your primary point of contact for everything in general. So the two of us are actually the ones operating the agency and holding it to a high quality bar. Some other times you’ll work with an agency and they’ll have somebody who’s done it before, but they’ll just be like an advisor, like the face of the brand. Blake and I are actually the guys in the trenches with the team every single day, making sure that what we deliver is is high quality. So that’s our that’s our sort of promise to you. [Tom Gauthier]: Well, thank you. I appreciate your time. This is awesome. [Michael Houck]: Look, I’ll follow up tonight, as I said, with an email, you let me know what you think. And if you want to grab time for, you know, Thursday, Friday at the end of the week, something like that, we can we can chat through it more. [Tom Gauthier]: That’d be great. Michael, thank you very much. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Appreciate it. Thanks for your time, man. And talk to you soon. All right.