- Duration: 41 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01K1BT28MHXD1HC3WWJ81684ZN (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01K1BT28MHXD1HC3WWJ81684ZN)
Transcript
[Ben Ornstein]: So everyone’s talking about it here. [Ben Ornstein]: It would be pretty huge for your brand, I gotta say. [Michael Houck]: It’d be pretty crazy for me. Honestly, dude, the worst part about the Launch House debacle is that I will never have a chance to go on reality television because none of these shows will touch me. That’s the worst part of the whole thing. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s the worst part. Oh, that’s killer. My sister is frigging obsessed with that show. It’s all she talks about. So that’s why I know about it. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I saw the first season and like it was it was interesting but I wouldn’t I don’t watch it like ten times or whatever but Yeah, so a lot of people down here are talking about right officer. [Ben Ornstein]: They’re in Charleston. [Michael Houck]: That’s too funny How’s it been so far down there? You’re really liking it Yeah, I am. It’s um, I think I made the right choice. Well, we’ll see I’m gonna I’m like one month in and basically after two and a half months. I want to decide what to do so and then have like a couple weeks to like make relevant plans and everything but Early indications are good. I’ve met some good people It has a lot of the things that I like and it’s sort of an under-the-radar city like a lot of the problems that I’ve observed that are happening to The bigger cities like SF and New York and everything like that. I think Charleston is like just small enough where it’s sort of under the radar and so like one really is pushing for a lot of that stuff to happen here, which gives me some like long-term hope that it’s a good place to be. So, yeah, we’ll see. Maybe I’m biased, maybe I need to let it sit in a little bit more, but like, I don’t know, we’ll find out. I think a lot of people here are like not in the tech and startup world really too. So there’s sort of like a, Like when I’ve met startup-y people here, it’s a little like big fish, small pond vibe. [Ben Ornstein]: They’re probably very impressed with you. Yeah, and like, it’s a little weird, right? [Michael Houck]: It’s a little weird, but I actually think that for what my goal is, which is like, you know, I mean, really my number one goal here is like meet the person that I marry and I build a family with, right? So that’s my North star. I actually think that works in my favor. So, you know, I’m optimistic, but we’ll see. That’s great. That’s great. [Ben Ornstein]: I felt that in Delaware, right? [Ben Ornstein]: Like there’s no one in startups in Delaware. It’s an interesting spot to be for that, but yeah. [Michael Houck]: How are you doing, man? [Ben Ornstein]: How’s everything going? Very good. I had a call with Ben at Cape yesterday. He seems awesome. Great, he’s a good guy. Yeah, he seems great. And so we’re gonna start that part-time work tomorrow, actually. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Oh shit, oh my God, okay. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, it was a quick turnaround. He gave me the offer literally yesterday, like a few hours after the call. Wow. [Michael Houck]: Ben trusts my word a lot. [Ben Ornstein]: He made a point to say like, you know, I was impressed with you, but he made a point to say like, I very much trust Yeah, but I mean also like, you know, I think after what we’ve done over the past year plus, you know, you can basically go in there and crush that. [Michael Houck]: He probably saw that like right away too, you know, so. Well, that’s cool. So what is your schedule going to be then? [Ben Ornstein]: Like, how should I think about your availability? It’s, I’m not sure yet. He made it seem like it was, it’s very unclear. The role is very flexible in terms of what it’s going to turn into. I don’t really know yet because I’m going to be managing VAs and potentially even having other VAs manage others. I still have to figure that out. [Ben Ornstein]: It seems like it’s going to be up to me. [Ben Ornstein]: And I’ll get more clarity on that over the next week or two weeks or whatnot. But I don’t think it’s going to impact us too much. From like where we are today right now with things. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I think what would be helpful for me is Now obviously you don’t need it like first week or first two weeks or whatever but just like the sooner you can get clarity on that the better and just my POV would be I Would rather know like Ben is available in the mornings or Ben is available in the afternoons Rather than like Ben might be available at some time when I reach out to him or something like that. So I think some level of structure there, I don’t really care what it is, like whatever works best for you is fine with me, but just that level of clarity would help me in my planning. [Ben Ornstein]: Yep, no, totally understand. [Ben Ornstein]: And as soon as I have that, I will absolutely get it to you. And thank you again for the intro. I really appreciate it. Dude, of course. [Michael Houck]: The last thing I wanted was for you to be in a bad spot because of what we were talking So I’m glad this worked out. Hopefully it does work out, obviously. I hope you like it and like it becomes something that is lasting too, at least until we can go back full time. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s still my plan, by the way. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: That’s what I would like, [Ben Ornstein]: I want YouTube to work because I think if we crush that, it’s not only going to become like something just really fun to do, but it could be a big revenue driver. It really could. Yeah, I agree. [Michael Houck]: I think YouTube is the key project. I thought about this a lot. Maybe we do launch another agency second half of the year still, like we talked about. Maybe we do that. Because when you look back at the history of Rye Valley, the first year we launched Founding Journey, the second year we launched Megaphone, the third year we launched Megaphone Studio. This year we haven’t launched anything new. And so maybe there is something new that we launch in the second half still TBD, we have those ideas still floating around from before. But maybe what we quote unquote launch this year is we relaunch the creator brand, the YouTube, the LinkedIn, the threads, the sub stack, all that stuff. Maybe we really devote the time and energy to that. Because we know that can be a revenue driver, we know we’re good at it. And to your point, I think YouTube is the key to a lot of that. So yeah, so I’m I’m totally aligned. That’s my goal. And I think that YouTube is a good way to get there. Also, some of this additional sponsorship revenue that I’m trying to get Blake to bring in. So basically twofold. One is the retreats. So we’re doing the retreat with Tyler. We’re trying to sell a primary sponsorship in that for like 10, 20, 25k. And then if we nail that, we’ll do more of these. Like a week here, a week there, maybe one a quarter or something like that. But then also starting a dinner series where I fly up to New York for a night and we do a dinner with like a two or three K sponsor, you know, and then another one where we, we launched like some hiring thing through the newsletter and we charge replacements. Finally, I’ve given into people telling me that we can do this. So I don’t know what it’s going to look like yet, but I’m trying to generate more revenue on the sponsorship side. And the more that FJ is bringing in, the more that we can use that to invest and to sort of get back to where we want to be. [Ben Ornstein]: So that’s, that’s how I’m thinking about that. Very cool. I love all of that. I think the in-person stuff is so key. Like everyone’s starting to talk about that, especially, I’ve been seeing so much stuff online with, with AI. Like one of the things that people are double doubling down on is in-person because, and It makes total sense, so. Yeah, I love that. [Michael Houck]: It’s the same wave, the same driver that was happening during the pandemic when we started LaunchOut, right? And do I think we’re going to do that as like a big company? No. But do I think having these retreats and these dinners and this like more in-person network is going to help us raise a fund? Yes, I do. And so that’s sort of the idea, like reinvest more in FJ and use that to springboard into a fund. So my guess is that the first half of next year, we’ll launch a fund on the back of some of these like thoughts about AI that we have like the arbiter thesis, right and things like that. So that’s, that’s the thought there. And for context, we’re also seeing some good results, reaching out to VCs for Metaphone Studio. I had the chain smokers venture firm is like 99% and they’re probably gonna convert in the next couple of weeks once their contract with someone else runs out. But those convos are a lot easier than the founder convos, and they’re more long-term lock-in too. [Ben Ornstein]: Oh, absolutely. Long-term lock-in and just in terms of like… [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Stability. [Ben Ornstein]: Stability, that was the word I was looking for. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, a lot better. There’s no more stitches, basically, you know? [Ben Ornstein]: Oh man, yeah. That was rough. They were rough. No, that makes total sense. Awesome. Yeah, I want YouTube to work. It’d be sick to be able to focus on that, a fund. I’m starting to think about my life being split into three places now in terms of, well, the third one being the tennis newsletter, which is a hobby project. So that one. But just now, the two being everything with you starting with Cape a little bit. And I wanna make sure that like, the overall goal is one focus on one thing, be able to just go all in on that. The reality of that is, you know, it’s not right now doable, which is fine. But that’s the North Star in terms of work. So I wanna be able to go all in. [Michael Houck]: And look, I mean, I don’t even think I need to say this, but I will, which is that like, you know, I hope you know that I very much like working with you, I have a lot of trust in you. And so the hope is that sooner rather than later, we get to a point where we’re bringing in enough revenue where it makes sense to add on things where whether it’s whether it’s you being CEO of founding journey, or whether it’s you going back and doing more like chief of staff across if we launch something new, or something like that. For me, that’s that’s definitely like 100% the goal. So I’m glad they’re on the same page about that. [Ben Ornstein]: Definitely. Absolutely. Oh, and you mentioned Tyler just off the, I was curious, because some of those responses from like Tyler, Andrew, they weren’t necessarily like, I’m not working with this guy, but they were like, let me think about it. Those are usually nos, but like, [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I have reminders set to follow up with them on like Thursday to see if, to see if that turns into yes. I think Andrew, just candidly, like I know some people who work with Andrew or for Andrew, he pays pretty poorly in general. So my hypothesis is that there’d be some misalignment there, which is why he asked about like looking at, he said he was gonna look at budgets or something like that. But Tyler maybe, Tyler I don’t think has anyone working on his newsletter except him. So there could be some opportunities there that are pretty easy and or with Beehive, I framed it around both. So we’ll see. I think he could be a maybe. He just got back from a retreat. So he’s probably got like just processing and catching up with beehive stuff. But yeah, it could be something there. And then no response from Sawhill. [Michael Houck]: He’s in Necker Island hanging with Richard Branson this week. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: So. Okay, that’ll do it. [Michael Houck]: Yeah. [Ben Ornstein]: I don’t think he’s gonna respond anytime soon, if at all. Wild. Okay. Well, no, regardless. I appreciate it. Anything on that side of things would be great. I took a lot of time doing research on those guys and trying to come up with something. The email’s really high quality. [Michael Houck]: You did a good job. I appreciate it. [Michael Houck]: I think that’s why they’ve responded. Give me one second. My treadmill just hit the maximum, so I’m going to use this to go to the gym. I’ll be right back. [Michael Houck]: OK, we’re back. [Ben Ornstein]: All right. [Ben Ornstein]: I forgot to send the 101. Sorry about that. So I’ll just go through the… Yeah, you’re fine. Let’s do it. So yeah, I already got through a couple of them. One of them was I did fix the Chris spreadsheet. I didn’t include the… Because I didn’t realize he wanted to know about like the comments. [Michael Houck]: I think like, honestly, man, like I’m gonna be so happy once this is launched in the platform. We don’t have to do this stuff anymore because these people don’t know what they want. And it’s just like, like he told me on a call. Like we just want like maximum reach to support the launch and I’m like, okay Well, let’s put together some creators who could partner with you And so I think he took that to mean one thing and I took it to be another thing. So don’t worry about it. [Ben Ornstein]: Um We’ll just we’ll follow up with the more robust pricing form and he’ll pick and choose from from there Yeah, these campaigns god I mean they it’s been such a shit show and I feel like some of it’s my fault in terms of like how I’m framing or how I’m like I don’t know. [Michael Houck]: I think overall, we’ve lost money on these in terms of your time being spent on them and Reena’s time being spent on them versus how much commission we actually make on doing them. Yeah. So we’ll get it in the platform soon. There’s a blocker right now that Eng is dealing with. And I need to remember we’re like a month behind on it. But I’m working on it. [Ben Ornstein]: I’m working on it. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah. No, that’ll be really nice when it’s finally there. But so and then on the I’m now totally clear on thank you for that long voice note that you sent at like 3 a.m. About like the starter story kind of starter story these but V for VC back founder angle I am now totally clear on like what we’re going for with those type of videos and and In that second review of generation lab was that like much better? Is that kind of what you were going for? [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I didn’t love the second one as much. But the first angle you hit exactly on what I was what I was looking for. So the hook, I Read the title. And I actually know how normally I hate when you use little toggle things. Yeah. I think in this case, I actually like it, because I can digest the title, like I would like a thumbnail on a title of a YouTube video. So I digested that title. And I was like, Yes, I want to click on this. [Ben Ornstein]: I want to hear this story. [Michael Houck]: Right? Actually, yeah. Right. Exactly. That one up first and I went through it and I was like, oh, the meat is there too. It’s good. There’s a narrative here. It makes sense. I think what we need to, what we need to learn over the next couple of weeks where we do these is basically like, what does the script around that look like, What are the questions we should be asking the founders in these interviews, right? Like basically between now and Thursday when I record with Alina, I want to be mapping out the whole video. So that’s like a task for me for tomorrow because I want to like storyboard it mentally, you know, like I’m going to do an intro and that intro is going to end with this. And then I’m going to ask her these questions and get her to say these things. You know, it’s more directive rather than like reactive to what she’s rambling on about basically. [Ben Ornstein]: Yep, absolutely. And I tried to provide some of that in there. It was like questions you can ask. I think I said in the first, in like the old versions of like, in terms of things you should get her to say, I may have done that, but I, yeah, that’ll be, cause this, that’s the type of stuff Jake Klaus’s producer did. And he was so good at it when he, when I watched that course. So. [Michael Houck]: I think the tough part for us and what we’re going to need to learn over these first few that we do is like, what is that Right. Because like, you know, we can, you know, you watch the J Klaus thing. I’m doing the Patty thing. We’re both learning, but we’re not experts at this for YouTube specifically. And so there’s going to be trial and error. We’re going to figure it out over time. The key thing is going to be, if we’re doing one of these every week, then when we have these meetings on Tuesdays, what are the learnings from last week? How can we improve? Like, let’s keep a running tally of like what we learn about our audience. Um, because that’s the only way they’re gonna get better. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, absolutely 100 Um, so I’m I’m excited to to like see that come to fruition and see what that first video looks like And of course see how it does. Um, yeah Uh, yeah, that’ll be good. So I’m finishing that additional research i’ve found. Um, Michael is like a ghost. There’s not that much out there about him. Um, yeah And then same with hunter stunzi actually. Yeah, there is nothing online about him. I am- That’s good for us in some ways. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: It is. [Ben Ornstein]: So I’m gonna dig into that. You said, did you say by Wednesday or like by end of day Wednesday? [Michael Houck]: I have a coffee shop meeting with him Thursday morning. So by end of day, maybe like midday Wednesday, probably then. [Ben Ornstein]: If you just get it to me by Wednesday night, I can review it before I go chat with him. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: That’s all I need. Okay. [Ben Ornstein]: I will ensure that is done. [Ben Ornstein]: Tomorrow for sure. I started on it a little bit, but there’s I just have not found much so Yeah, I’ll dig one and he’s he’s also gonna send over some stuff that I can send you when he does too That’ll be helpful as well. Yeah, because there’s like no podcast no YouTube features Like there’s nothing so What I can find but that is good. That is a good thing for sure I So Andrew is out of office Friday and Monday. We’ve already messaged Async a little bit about kind of me taking over engagements for Friday and Monday. He’s gonna try to make things as lightweight as possible for me, he said. And like any details that are necessary for, you know, to run with those. [Michael Houck]: I think as that happens in the future, like if it does, just like if you need to do it because of like cape responsibilities or something, like, let me know. Obviously I would prefer if you prioritize our stuff, but I know there’s like a give and take there too. So don’t want to put you in a bad spot. But just so you’re aware, I talked with the Squib guy yesterday and it’s going to work for what we want. So basically he has it ready for X. He doesn’t have it ready for LinkedIn yet. And you need a minimum number of accounts in order to get the pricing that would make it worth it for us. So once he has LinkedIn ready later this month or later next month, I guess, in August, we’re going to sign up. And basically what it will do is rather than having to source posts to engage with and then write from scratch the responses to them, it does both of those things for us. And all we need to do is approve, reject, or edit the posts. That’s it. Um, so it can take, you know, it can save like two, three hours a day for whoever’s doing content ops, basically. Um, and so we’re going to launch that as I said, like whenever it’s ready for, for LinkedIn as well. Um, and so the need to sort of spend a lot of time on this, if he is out of office or something like that, we’ll, we’ll reduce. [Ben Ornstein]: That’ll be great. Yeah. It’s been a while. So it’ll be it’ll be interesting to see what that looks like, but Like run a bike Yeah, and I think there’s less clients now too, unfortunately I’m not sure so well We will see what that looks like, but just wanna let you know we’re on top of it The one question I had I didn’t ask him this yet Am I going to be responsible for doing reporting on monday? [Michael Houck]: No, uh, he’ll do reporting when he gets back on tuesday. [Ben Ornstein]: Don’t worry about it. [Ben Ornstein]: Got it. Got it Okay. Um, but yeah, so we’re gonna have a short call on thursday. He’s putting things down. We’ll you know, we’ll figure it out. So Um, and then I think the last thing i’ve had on here was those natural ai guys. Oh my god, these guys were ridiculous so like They wanted three different posts for the creator list to engage. And they wanted comments, reposts, and quote-unquote prices for all of those guys. And they wanted it for three different posts all today within one hour lead time. It was insane. One hour lead time. Because I had spent all that time curating the list, getting the sponsored post prices, That’s what they told me they wanted. And then when I gave it to them, they go, yes, it’s too expensive. Let’s just do a, we just want the comments on our launch posts. And I said, fine. Cause then they had originally said it would be later in the week that they were going to do more posts. I was like, okay, fine. I can make that happen. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. Right, right, right. [Ben Ornstein]: And then this morning they said the founder, Carlo was like, no, actually all three of the posts are going live today. And I’m like, there’s no way that’s going to happen. We’re going to do make the, just use megaphone. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, you made the right call. It was so weird because Andrew intro’d me to them on, I wanna say it was either Friday night or Saturday morning or something. And then I responded right away. And I was like, hey guys, I know you wanna launch on Tuesday. Let’s move, I’m sure you’re working this weekend. I’m here, let’s go. And then they didn’t get back to me. I had to bump them last night. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I saw that, yeah. [Michael Houck]: And I was like, these guys are not serious people, right? If you have a big launch on Tuesday, you’re online that weekend prepping for it. So at that point, I figured they were gonna be a little bit of a hassle, but I figured they’d at least still do it. [Ben Ornstein]: And then they just moved too slow and yeah, it makes sense. [Ben Ornstein]: The guy said, when I hopped on a call with the guy who said he was like investor relations, Mike, Michael or Mike. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Says their job is investor relations. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, especially in an early stage startup. Like what are you talking about? That was what he’s like in his um email signature. It said but anyway, he was like, yeah, we we have like 10 to 20k that we can Put towards this campaign. So I’m like great. Let’s do it Sounds awesome And so I gave them all the pricing they’re like, yeah too expensive. It was just absolutely nuts. So They did end up putting 2k into megaphone and and a lot of it was spent. So Yeah, that’s great, but we’ll get a commission on the two K, which is fine. It’s no big deal. Um, yeah. So these campaigns, I cannot wait to automate these. [Michael Houck]: It will be, I mean, it’ll definitely be in August because this point we’re so delayed. There’s like, the reason it’s been delayed is because, um, in order to do, it’s such a stupid fucking reason in order to do, to use LinkedIn’s API, you need to submit a document that says you own the domain that you’re like integrating it with. So like megaphone.network is our domain, right? Because we own the domain through fucking Squarespace, they don’t have documents that show this. And I’ve emailed them and they like refuse to create one for us. And so I had to record a loom video, like going into the account and showing no, you know, it’s not just that the invoice says this is owned by me personally, if you look at it, has also has the company, which is Rye Valley LLC. Here’s the domain. And they like, it’s been a fucking process with that. I sent like 20 emails about this. [Ben Ornstein]: It’s awful. That’s such a dumb reason. [Michael Houck]: Oh, that’s brutal. So we’re not approved for the LinkedIn API yet, but we will be, we will be soon. [Ben Ornstein]: Man, that’s crazy. Wow. Do you want me to respond? I can respond on that. At Chris Wurst’s email saying everything’s updated, because it is. And just tell him, like, let us know how you’d like to proceed kind of thing. Yep. [Michael Houck]: And then just follow up with him on Thursday or Friday if he hasn’t come back to you yet. [Ben Ornstein]: Cool. Sounds good. We got a lot of time for this. I think his launch is like September 4 or something. Plenty of time. Which is great. I’m glad he reached out so early. [Michael Houck]: He’s clearly serious. He saw the anti-metal launch, and he was impressed. [Ben Ornstein]: That’s awesome. That’s great. Um, cool. I think that’s everything on the list. I’ll finish the Generation Lab stuff. I’ll just get as much as I can. And then I’ll prioritize the Hunter, Stunzy, anything I can find, I’ll get as much as I can, can get there. Yeah, if we don’t have anything, I can. [Michael Houck]: It’s okay. If I go to this meeting on Thursday, and I’m like, there’s nothing about you online. We need to brainstorm this live right now. You know, that’s fine. [Ben Ornstein]: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I’ll see what I can do there. But yeah, other than that, I think we’re looking good. It’s been, yeah, it was a long two days with all the research, which is great. I enjoyed all of it. It was good. So got more hours than expected, but Good. [Michael Houck]: OK, well, just all I can ask is keep me in the loop with the Cape stuff. As you get ramped up with them. You know, I will advocate for my interests in these cases for sure, but I also am not going to push you in a spot where you need to sort of make sacrifices on that end too. [Ben Ornstein]: So we’ll find the right balance for sure. We’ll find the balance. I am going to prioritize you. I’ll be totally transparent there. I’m going to find the balance that is clear and as soon as I know like what the schedule for that is going to look like, at least some sort sort of repeatable schedule. I will let you know. [Michael Houck]: Well, yeah, I mean, my guess is that they’ll want to overlap with some of their time. And also, you’ll be able to tell the VAs when you need their time and things like that. So I actually think it’s a cool thing for you because I feel like you’ve like gotten a taste of managing Venus and stuff here and like being directive towards Rena and everything. And now, you know, you’re basically gonna get to manage and build and lead this team of VAs. So it’s like a bigger sort of thing version of that. So yeah, I think it’s a good thing. [Ben Ornstein]: Yeah, no, it’s not gonna be foreign to me, which is great, coming in with that experience. I feel like every job I’ve taken, it’s a lot of news, like brand new stuff, which is great. I love learning. I love to continue learning. It’ll be nice having a background for sure, so. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I mean, it’ll make it easier to do both, basically. [Ben Ornstein]: Right, exactly, that too, that too, which will be great. And I also appreciate the follow-ups to Tyler and them, because those guys are, you know, they’re awesome, so. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I’ll let you know how they go, but I’m just glad that, you know, this really shitty thing that I had make decision on did not put you in a spot where you’re like, moving into this new spot, and you’re in trouble, right? Like, that’s, I feel good about that. I hope you feel good about it, too. It seems like you do. So I think I think I think it worked out. I feel I feel good about obviously not what we want long term, but at least for the for the short to medium term. [Ben Ornstein]: It’s, it’s good. So, okay. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I’m thinking long term, right? Like, short term sucks, but you know, that is what it is. Is. And so I’m thinking long term. [Michael Houck]: I mean, look, you know, next year, I want to be doing multiple millions of dollars through Rye Valley as a whole, regardless of what the avenues that is, whether it’s a fund, whether it’s more top funnel through social, whether it’s launching a new agency, or even a new software product or something like that, I don’t know. But as we do that, there will obviously be Important needs and room and things like that. It’s just uh The fucking up and down in the ghostwriting agency kills me That’s all So appreciate you all with the punches and uh glad we’re glad we have a solution Definitely definitely. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: We’re we’re looking good. [Michael Houck]: We’re looking good All right, um, I’ll talk to you. Um, adios sounds good See ya.