- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01KG5NS4MBJN16HS8MB20QWET7 (via Ben Ornstein’s account, imported 2026-08-06)
Transcript
UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: It’s good. Michael Houck: We’re about to take the landing page for the megaphone. I don’t know if I actually shared this with you, but Blake and I have built a course for how to build an audience with the goal of specifically raising money. We’re partnering with WeFunder, and they’re going to send us a bunch of founders. And then the goal will be they pay a couple hundred bucks for the course, they expense it, and then we sort of blow them away. Some of them take a system and sort of run with it. Megaphone studio clients so I think it’s pretty good and Yeah, so we’re gonna launch that we built a landing page for it and I gotta get Raphael to actually build that but it’s designed and ready to go. So I’ll take that live in like two weeks is my guess Jesus Christ Okay Yeah, so there’s that. And then this morning signed a new studio client, first new one in a bit, which is nice. It’s this referral from Mantis. They’re gonna do both founders social and maybe one or two more people on the team social, and then probably also Geo and SEO, but we’ll see about that. Wow. Awesome. That’s great. Yeah. So that’s nice. And then just been reaching out to some more VC firms. Try and get some more going and also retreat stuff. Um, we are, um, and I, people keep balking at the price. I don’t know how Tyler is getting these people to pay 10 K because I cannot figure it out for the life of me. Like everyone’s like, and maybe it’s because they knew launch house was like three K for a month and this is 10 K for five days. But it’s just like, I mean, I would not pay 10 K for a five day thing. And so it was like, I don’t, believe in it at that price point enough. So it’s been a struggle. Tyler’s really pulling most of the weight in terms of getting the people. Michael Houck: But we brought the sponsor, we’ll do the content, we’ll make up for it on the ops and the hustle side. Ben Ornstein: How many people are confirmed as of right now? Michael Houck: We’re two open spots left. So including Tyler and I, there’s eight people confirmed. That’s pretty good. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Nice. Ben Ornstein: Cool. Michael Houck: If we get the last two, we’ll be at 100k in revenue for it, which then obviously, you know, we got to pay for the house, that’s like 25k. And then got to pay for the videographer and some other stuff. And then we split the rest of it between the two of us. So it’s not like the biggest payday ever. But it’s it’s something you know, yeah, it’ll be like, well, like 30k each maybe? Yeah, probably ends up somewhere around, around there for five days of actual like work work, which is cool. Not too bad. Cool. That’ll be awesome. What’s up with you? What’s top of mind? Ben Ornstein: Okay, I wrote down a lot. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Wow. Michael Houck: Yeah, this is big. Okay. Ben Ornstein: Most I mean, the biggest section is the design process. There’s that’s like takes up most of it, honestly. So I have spent a ridiculous amount of time the last few days trying to build the agent that would like, where we could get the image directly generate an AI generated image high quality using like a high quality model using Higgs field directly within Slack. I got damn close on one of my attempts, but I couldn’t get it to work. And so I restarted from scratch and I wasn’t, I got even and not even close again. So I was like, all right, this is ridiculous. I just did like a quick Google search after, and of course found like a viable tool. Michael Houck: I’m mad at myself for that one. Ben Ornstein: And with all the hours that I clocked, I’m just gonna eat that a hundred. I’m not gonna charge that. Michael Houck: I hate when that happens, when it’s like, you just, you’re grinding on something. Like I can get this, I can get it. I hate that, it’s the worst. Ben Ornstein: But I did find a good tool today after all this that was kind of interesting. If you look quickly in the Ben testing channel. Michael Houck: I think, I don’t know where I have that channel. I have that like hidden among other things. There’s some, oh wait, I found it. It’s in my alerts section. Okay, yes, Mindy. Ben Ornstein: So Mindy is a tool that is Mindy AI. They’ve built this pretty cool thing that works very seamlessly Slack. It’s already connected to the core models. And I used ROM’s test, ROM’s post as a test. Basically, you tag Mindy. You give it the context. I gave it reference images that it does take into account. Ben Ornstein: And you press Enter there. And it actually optimizes the prompt a little bit. It cleans it up. Still lets you edit it from there if you want Um, and then generates the image directly in slack. This is exactly what I was trying to build It’s exactly what you want. Yeah, and so it did it. Um, it generated an image Um, I actually didn’t like the first version of it. So I asked it to Make a different one. It does it within the reply itself like it replies to the post so it keeps it organized um It’s not bad. I mean it uses the same model I have to figure out how to like prompt better but like The concept works. And so this is what I was trying to build. This is, this is exactly what I was trying to build. Yep. Um, which is great. Um, so I put that down, um, for 500, 500 image generations and 50 video generations a month. We it’s month, $29 not bad, but considering that we, you know, use it a lot and get it, The better one is the higher tier I think $99 a month is unlimited image generation generations and 200 video generations per month you think we’re gonna do 10 images per day It that takes into account all the like Iterations as well though, that’s the only we we could go start on lower tier here. And if we do exceed it, then be like, hey, I think we should. But what’s interesting about this is the thing that I was trying to build, that I needed Higgs field, I needed Lindy, and I needed Higgs field API credits. So all of those three, that was going to be really expensive. Having that all within Mindy itself, solid. We would have been spending $100 if my solution worked anyway. Michael Houck: Sure, but I guess I’m just, I mean, it’s good that it’s, it’s cheaper than what would have been. But just looking at the options now, it’s like, if we get good at prompting relatively quickly, or have templates that the writers can follow with the prompts so that they’re not using a ton of iterations, like if we build a library of like structures for them, I can’t see us needing to do 10 per day unless we scale clients So I guess I would say, let’s at least start with the lower tier. And then if that hypothesis ends up being wrong, then sure, we’ll upgrade. But yeah, let’s start there. Yeah. Ben Ornstein: So I’m very interested in, I think the tool’s going to work. For speed purposes, this blows our turn process out of the water. So speed is solved. Quality, I know the models work. It’s just about prompting it correctly. Michael Houck: So tell me this then, because obviously we know Higgs field is really good quality, right? And we’re saying that Mindy is also, it meets our quality bar, right? So then what is Higgs field? Like what does Higgs field do that’s like unique and useful if some other tool can just basically be good enough anyway? Ben Ornstein: So they all use the same core model. They’re all using- Nano banana. Michael Houck: Nano banana. Ben Ornstein: nanobanana yeah Higgs field has all the different options for different models for different use cases so that’s what’s interesting about Higgs field they have like use this model for this task use this model for for this like there’s there’s a massive list of them that’s it and they’ve raised 70 dollars or whatever it is as far as I can tell yeah that’s wild that’s crazy what the heck Yeah, okay Well, and then so so from here my thought was there’s two avenues we can take one um The writers They use this wherever they want. They just that we create a channel they use it’s it’s so that is self-service. Yes, um completely the other option is if we do want to keep it as like a process that we handle even internally without the writers, then we could just have the writer tag me, I can create the generation, I give it to them and be like, hey, here’s this. So we like limit credit usage or like that’s, I think either of those processes would work. Michael Houck: It sounds like we should do the second process first and then you build up this like lists of like prompt structures, like Mad Libs style that the writers can then go in And the goal will be once we feel confident that there’s no scenario Like you’ve seen all the scenarios different things they ask for once we feel good about that Then we can just make it fully self-service. There’s also the element here of like Like the writers hate doing things they really do they hate doing anything except writing the content and so And we saw it was part of even get them to use the design request form in the first place place. And so there’s, there’s an element here of like, just playing into that and basically saying, if we give them self service, will we actually get fewer images than if like, you know, Rena is reaching out to them every Monday or every Tuesday or Wednesday or some day of the week, collecting their requests, coming to you, and then you’re running the prompts. And it’s more convoluted to do that. But initially, until they see the better results that they get from the posts and feel good about that, I think that’s probably the way to go. Yep. So that would work. Ben Ornstein: And then the other layer to it is the whole point of the fact that we want custom or client-specific kind of style, which is hard because a lot of it’s much different than tone on a text post which is a lot easier. So I have a few ideas for this. I could literally reach out to the clients and be like, hey, can you give me a few different like images that resonate with you and the brand and the company as like reference images that we could use to generate for now? I mean, we should just get their brand guidelines. Michael Houck: Any startup is probably gonna have like a Figma file with brand guidelines and we can just it to be trained on that. Ben Ornstein: That was, that was my second thing I was gonna say. I was like, any brand guidelines or anything like that. I think I said like brand assets, but anything like that, that’d be even easier. Michael Houck: Yeah, you can even combine it, you can say like, you know, ask the client, like, hey, can we have your brand, your Figma brand guidelines file? And number two, if you have posts that you see images on that you like the style of the image, and you want us to create something like that, just drop it in the channel. And then you I see what they said, maybe they said nothing, maybe they said something. Yep. Cool. Ben Ornstein: Okay. So, um, yeah, I think we could keep this tool internally for now. I’ll use it whenever the, maybe I’ll, um, write a post in microphone studio saying like, we’re going to change the process or. Yeah. Michael Houck: Can you, can you draft that post with the new process fully outlined in it? Send it to me, I’ll give thumbs up and then you can drop it in channel and also let Celine know that we’re changing this up because I don’t want to blindside her with it. I mean, not that it’s high volume or anything, but still. I still haven’t heard back from her on anything. Yeah, I don’t know. Or something. Hope she’s all right. I haven’t heard from her either. Michael Houck: But yeah. And then we also are going to need to update, and I can do this part, we need to update the zap of the form, the design request form. And maybe we even, I guess that they’re all trained on how to use the form at this point. So might as well not change that. But yeah, she can change it to go to you, I guess, instead of Celine. Do you have the air table database for all those requests get logged? Are you on that? Ben Ornstein: I’m not on that. Michael Houck: Okay, let me make a note to do this because that’s probably the only change I really need to make uh, give Ben access to design request air table because when they file those requests Like in the channel, it just shows like this person needs this for this client by this date Um, but there’s like description field and there’s other context that goes into an air table that cillian has Got it. Okay Um Okay, that sounds good. So yeah, just drop that post up send it to me I’ll give thumbs up and we’ll um We’ll take it from there Cool. Ben Ornstein: Um, yeah, so that’s like the the most because that is what i’ve been spending, you know, most of my time on recently. Um Uh, let’s see, uh, so viral examples. Um, so I that one didn’t go off this page But is are you planning to get that one out tomorrow? I’m hoping to get it out tomorrow I still have the tab open. Michael Houck: I just didn’t get to it last night, but Yeah, and then when you do the rest of them next week, I’ll just include next week’s in that I’ll just get a couple weeks ahead of it. Yep. Yeah, I’ll Next week, I’ll find some time to Yeah It’s definitely priority because we already have next week’s sort of ready, but we’re not ready, but you know what I mean? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah. Ben Ornstein: I did finally finish going through all of Jeffrey’s LinkedIn connections. There were so many. There were a crazy amount. Michael Houck: I’m going to open up his LinkedIn now. How many LinkedIn connections does he have now? That’s a good question. Ben Ornstein: I don’t even, I’m not even totally I forget where he started and where he is now. There were maybe 1,500 requests, though. Yeah, I think he was at like 700, and now it looks like he’s at 2,100. Michael Houck: Yeah. Ben Ornstein: And I only did the relevant ones, too. So VCs, LPs, founders, it was a crazy amount of people. Nice job. Michael Houck: I know that’s tedious stuff, but I think he’s going to appreciate it. And I think it’ll show in the results. I just sent him a connection request too. I really like the banner that we have too. He looks like professional now. The design was clean. Ben Ornstein: That was all Celine. That was clean. Yeah, she’s good. She’s clean. Michael Houck: She does a good job. For sure. Ben Ornstein: There were a couple of interesting tools I wrote down. There could be people that we… Played around with this thing called Exa, which I remember you used Exa in Plum. Yes, I remembered that. And so it’s a great tool. And so I played around with it and found like heads of content at VC firms. And I have a generated contact info for it, too. Kind of seems like it’s like a cool like Apollo type of thing, but it was like really fast. So I actually linked to that page there if you wanted to like do outreach to like 25 heads of content. Michael Houck: Yes, I will do that. I’m going to bookmark this. Or actually, can you send that as a separate message? Because if I just bookmark the post, I get the whole list of things. I’m not going to remember why I bookmarked it. Ben Ornstein: Oh, shit. I don’t know where it went. I’ll grab it. I’ll grab it. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: OK. Ben Ornstein: And then there was another one that was called Gojiberry. Out to this guy. He’s pretty successful. He’s like an indie hacker type, but he’s also not. He’s more of like a, he’s like a legitimate founder. He’s built some big tools and he’s got a decent following. He’s got this tool called GojiBerry. And it like, it analyzes the people who are engaging with your content on LinkedIn, or at least just LinkedIn. And it automatically does does outreach to them based on a whole bunch of factors to see if they’re interested in your content, basically, as I understand it. And if you are starting to create LinkedIn content on a more regular cadence, it could be interesting, I think. Michael Houck: Yeah. I mean, it could be. Where’s the link to the tool? Ben Ornstein: It’s in the interesting tools section of my message here. It’s where it says this one looks interesting as well. Yeah, I was looking for the word Goji berry. Michael Houck: I didn’t see it. Ben Ornstein: Sorry, I should have done that. Michael Houck: Yeah, cool. I’ll check it out. I am going to start doing that. I just want to get the YouTube videos done first. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Ben Ornstein: What else? Megathon competitors. So really, It’s interesting. I did a deep dive and I could not find competitors other than the ones, the two that we’re aware of, the primary competitors of Engage Now and Limelight. Like I can’t find like a productized version like Megaphone other than those two. Michael Houck: Well, there’s one other that we know about, which is Windmill. Windmill’s one. I think it’s called Windmill. I only know this because my old co-founder from launch house uses it. Um, windmill, social growth, I think it’s called windmill. Yeah. Windmill growth.com. Um, they’re, they’re kind of similar to us. They, they’re like a full like tech enabled agency play. Um, but they do, they do engagement and also, um, like content creation. Yeah. Okay. That’s one that I know about, but I don’t know any others. Gotcha. Yeah. Ben Ornstein: I remember at one point you wanted to look into like competitors. So that was just something I had done on the side. Yeah. Michael Houck: No, I think we need to, do we have like insights about the differences between these? Ben Ornstein: That I didn’t put down anywhere here. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Okay. Michael Houck: Maybe like low, low priority, like very low priority, but the next week It would be good to have an ocean doc similar to what you did with like the deep dive on ship that was 30 really helpful Something like that where we compare and contrast the feature sets the target ICP the pricing model and business model of these others versus megaphone Sounds good Okay, what else do I have here design GBT Mindy Oh, and then lastly on the Emile speakers task. Ben Ornstein: So I asked him if we could have access to, or I mean, I have access to his LinkedIn sales and everything. I was actually using it. Response when I gave him context was, can’t we just email them in Apollo? DMing from my personal LinkedIn looks desperate in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, we’re going to get better responses through LinkedIn. Michael Houck: I’ll talk to him. I have a call tomorrow. Okay. All right. Ben Ornstein: Um, I basically said like I responded and said, uh, if that’s what you prefer, but can we, can we just use a sales nav and he didn’t respond. But regardless, we could just use sales navigator to get the lead list and then do outreach however you want it. But, uh, but yeah, so I’ll hold off on anything, actioning anything there until after your call. Yep. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I’ll let you know. Uh, let’s The last, no, I think that’s, I think that’s everything. Yeah. I’m just doing my best to keep doing outreach or not outreach, reaching out to the clients to like review content like Tim Draper. I know he’s a, he’s Tim Draper, but I, we haven’t, we haven’t gotten him to review. I followed up. Michael Houck: I don’t know. I don’t know why he, I don’t know why he even wants to review, but it’s fine. It’s like this literal billionaire guy sitting there reviewing Jacob’s social posts. It’s crazy. It’s funny in concept, yeah. Ben Ornstein: But I just talked to them. Michael Houck: I had an interview with Tim on Monday, I think it was, Monday or Tuesday, and they’re gonna expand finally. So we’re gonna do a couple other people at the firm and maybe do Instagram for them as well with Tatum. So I was gonna bring up, Yeah, that’s crazy. So I, I understand, but it is on the, on the list of things to push that with them, but just got deprioritized in the conversation we had. Ben Ornstein: I reached out to Michelle and I was like, Hey, it looks like Tim hasn’t gotten a chance to review. And she said, Hey, do you want to just pull a post that did well from like months ago to like fill up the gaps? And I said, that’s fine. I did. And that’s what I did for this week. So I’ll continue. And I told her I’d continue to do that if we have gaps like this in the future. So you’re doing that. So yeah, she reviews the DA stuff, but it’s, it’s the Tim content that he’s still in the loop for. So, um. Some of them have done really well recently. Michael Houck: That’s why he was so excited to expand. Cause one of them got like 3000 likes or something crazy like that. Oh yeah. They’re crushed. Ben Ornstein: Some of these are crushing, uh, which is awesome. Michael Houck: Jacob’s really in a, in a groove with it. Um, yeah, he definitely is. This one is so fucking crazy with ROM. Michael Houck: Jacob is crushing it for Brindis. He’s crushing it for Null. He’s crushing it for Tim. And Rom’s over here like, you know, I think that the, I think that the chart color needs to be like slightly different. Come on. Ben Ornstein: We’ve been iterating on one post for, so I don’t even know what to do. Like, this is why I messaged, Jacob and I have been going over message DM and I go, I’m not crazy. Right? Like, This guy is insane. So I just want to make sure I’m not the one that’s thinking about this incorrectly. Michael Houck: He’s in a very common trap, which is he’s a young founder. He’s building something that’s very interesting that a lot of important people are looking at. And he is putting himself out there in the world for the first time and has a lot of eyeballs on him. And he’s very nervous about how he’s coming off. I get it. I really get it. And he’s right that he’s Brand has got to be airtight with these people. Like he’s, he’s a hundred percent correct. But like, I really, like, I think he’s, I think he’s not articulating really what he wants effectively enough for us to adapt to it. And so that’s why I kind of pushed the issue in that question. Cause like, like whenever I’m not getting what I need from someone, I’ll just force the issue with like, you know, is it this or is it this, you know? And that way we at least get more, More guidance from him. So oh shit. Okay, I gotta take this But I will call you back in a couple minutes if there’s anything else we need to go through Okay, sounds good. Ben Ornstein: Okay