- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01KWABHBT79F33W76SCBHFEBCF (via Ben Ornstein’s account, imported 2026-08-06)
Transcript
Ben Ornstein: Oh man, crazy different. Ben Ornstein: Nah, not at all. It’s been nice though. Thank you for asking. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, awesome. Glad to hear it. Aren’t there any like tax benefits to it and like credits and stuff in Bulgaria? Like if you get married, like it’s easier to get credits and stuff. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: yeah. Ben Ornstein: There’s definitely some advantages. Uh, we’re gonna like combine insurances, and so I didn’t have health benefits, but she works at a college, so she gets and it’s like a state college, so she um she gets really good benefits, so I get to take advantage of that, which is nice. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Nice, that’s the purpose of marriage, right? Just stay financial. Ben Ornstein: That’s the only reason we got married. Um, no, of course, so that was that was a nice benefit. Um But yeah, other than that, I mean, we’ve been living together for a while now, like four years. So that is, you know, nothing changed there. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah, yeah, not too much. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Amazing. Ben Ornstein: Where are you in the world right now? Tanyo Gochev: I’m back home in Bulgaria. I will be here at least November, I believe. And then me and my friend will travel. And yeah, I’ll go back to Asia by the end of the year. I love my time there. It was amazing. Highly recommend, guys. Ben Ornstein: Where? So, you were in Thailand when I last asked, but where, yeah, where else did you go? Tanyo Gochev: I spent like three months in Thailand and then I spent like four weeks in Bali. And Bali, guys, is the most overrated place ever. Like, everyone there is straight up a douchebag. Like, I didn’t enjoy my experience there at all. Like, you know, these entrepreneur bros it the moment you start talking to them and like, you exchange a few sentences and they started blowing you off and stuff. Tanyo Gochev: Like that’s not surprising. Ben Ornstein: What’s up, Tom? Dominic Forth: How’s it going? Thanks for joining. And I’m sorry, Christine’s not able to join. Can you guys hear me okay? Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, yeah, good. Okay, awesome. Dominic Forth: I’m just going to move you guys over to up here. How’s everyone’s week going so far? Blake Stewart: That’s good. Thanks for asking. How are you doing? Dominic Forth: Good, good. I saw Brazil just scored in the last minute against Japan. Blake Stewart: Wow. Tanyo Gochev: I’m sorry, yeah. Dominic Forth: But thanks for taking the time. I just wanted to go through because Wednesday’s the next newsletter date, isn’t it? Yeah. Yep. So I know time’s of the essence. I just got stuck on the doctor’s post. Just because a couple of doctors might take it personally. So, you know, it’s really good advice. But if we had 25 doctors in our portfolio, I’ll be less worried. But because we have, you know, a small number, it’s just a risky line to walk. But then you mentioned other newsletters that are in the works. So I thought that could be a good place to start is if we go through the notion board. And just navigate through that, or if other ideas to start with, yeah, one second. Can I add my fathom note taker as well? I don’t know if it will add, let’s see if it joins. No, it’s trying me in. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: I got it. Dominic Forth: Okay, cool. Yep. All right, awesome. Tanyo Gochev: Okay, I would share the notion. Dominic Forth: Yeah, I was just getting the workflow down really, because there’s a lot of things we’re talking about, and then I’ve got an update on our end as well. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, sure. So basically, there are these two newsletter ideas to which basically I have the transcript of what you said in Slack, so I can turn those into newsletters. So we have two more of those. And because the newsletter is on bi-weekly basis, that can kind of cover like a month worth of newsletter content. And in terms of like the rejected newsletter post is here. And I do believe that there are a few small changes that we need to make. As far as I remember, what we do need to change is basically. Like the structure of the newsletter, so opportunity board comes up top. Uh, and we do change the different links because you do uh you did have some issues with some of the links that uh that you are promoting. But other than that, are there any other things that we need to change in this current iteration of the newsletter? Um, because like this is like the like the most advanced one, so to speak. Dominic Forth: Yeah, so I think having the agenda at the top. I’ve had that feedback from quite a few people that they just feel it would be easier to just navigate. Do you know how Michael’s is a great example? Here’s four bullet points. Here’s what we’re talking about at each bullet point. Okay. It opened. That’ll change the opening where this one jumps right in, but I do think that helps people find, like, oh, wow, there’s lots of things to kind of choose your own adventure with. Tanyo Gochev: yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I see, uh, I see what you mean, okay. Dominic Forth: Um, so that’s the number one. So, yeah, go ahead. Tanyo Gochev: Sorry, yeah, and anything else, please free to like ramble in. Dominic Forth: Yep, let’s change the example to an attorney, so just make it about a legal professional, okay. Tanyo Gochev: Um Because I have my recording this call, and tomorrow I will edit this piece, and then I will message you in Slack, and then we can schedule it. So just feel free to give me feedback and hear in the call, and then I will use a transcript. Dominic Forth: If you’re okay, I could just go. If you’re okay with me editing it, just be the attorney who couldn’t land a soundbite. A few years ago, I worked with an attorney who was brilliant. The producer had a top 10, and I would say top 10 NBC affiliate wanted him for a segment. I don’t know if it’d be a public health story. Maybe we keep it as a public health story because attorneys comment on those just as much as others. Everything else is genuinely okay. The only reason I denied this, by the way, was just because we were right at deadline with the other one. So I thought there was no ambiguity then which one to move forward with. Tanyo Gochev: Oh, okay. Dominic Forth: Yeah. The thing, the Joe 6 packet, I struggle with because it is a very, it’s a very stereotypical. So I just need to marinate on that briefly, but I can put those text edits in there. Tanyo Gochev: Sure, sure. Dominic Forth: Yeah, so but basically for tomorrow, our only option really is we just let’s edit and refine this. There aren’t any others. Tanyo Gochev: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And also in the Notion Board, there were some issues about you. Differentiating between the social content and the newsletter one. So, going forward, I’ll probably put like newsletter posts and then some emoji to make it like clear. This is like a newsletter piece and then the rest of like the social content. So, it’s easier for you to navigate the notion board. Dominic Forth: I think we do have that. I just get confused, which is which, really. Ben Ornstein: So, Tanyo, actually, on the if you scroll to the top of like this post, for example. Um, see the newsletter I created those tags, like the newsletter tag. Yeah, so then what that maps to, if you go back to just the thought leaders America page, um, there’s that newsletter board uh view, oh, yeah, yeah, amazing that might help, yeah, yeah. Dominic Forth: So, so the thing about, um, I don’t know if we should go into the detail on Joe’s six pack, I’m thinking that. The key thing is with doctors and attorneys, they are trained to be very matter of fact, low emotion. You know, some like a doctor’s delivering news that someone’s really sick. So they’re not used to being like TV friendly. They’re actually taught the complete opposite. They’re taught to be very technical, show off the level of expertise, use long words, things like that. But on TV, it’s the opposite. You’ve got to be very short, direct. You’ve got to sometimes lead with emotion. And opinion. Many of the top people on TV are paid because they’re very opinionated. So it’s kind of like the opposite of why, you know, it’s the opposite of why they’re successful professionally. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Okay. Dominic Forth: Yeah. I just, yeah. So I’m trying to think of how we, I know it’s Monday and you know, Wednesday’s around the corner, isn’t it? Tanyo Gochev: So I almost could I rework this and just give you some thoughts and I’ll do it in the next 20 minutes sure like my idea was that because I’m like time zone wise I’m maybe eight to ten hours ahead of you so tomorrow like first thing I will be able to edit based on this transcript and then when you wake up you can just briefly review it and then you can schedule it so like I know Wednesday is close, but we’ll be able to make it work given the time zone and everything. So, um, I don’t want you to rush this uh today or I take too much of your time. Dominic Forth: Yeah, because I’ve also noticed the three sections kind of flow and piggyback off each other. But when we originally discussed the structure of the newsletter, they were kind of standalone sections almost, which I think made them more powerful. Um You know, so I’m just trying to think about what the initial purpose was of each section, really. I just don’t have it to hand. Let me just go into the folder. Okay, let’s keep scrolling through though. So we’ve got. You see, the first one we did with Jeff Knight was actually. Really powerful because it was a very specific story, very specific CEO. A picture to go with it. The ones about myself, they’re not the same concept with the pictures, they’re really powerful. It’s just a bit self-indulging, whereas it be better to have clients in those situations. What’s changing with us, though, is our focus is moving more towards consumer packaged goods companies, which will actually help because for the opportunity board, we’ll actually have opportunities. Like, I had a spokesperson reach out to me last week. He works with Access Hollywood and a show called Extra, and he’s looking for four clients to work with for a national placement. Now, the pay-for-play placements, that’s the only challenge. So, there’s two things happening: we’re switching our main focus of clients, our ICP. Which means then we can switch the opportunities, but the opportunities will be direct selling opportunities, which could have more impact. Like, hey, we’re looking for four brands to be featured in our Access Hollywood segment at the end of September. You know, have somebody raise their hands. The next challenge we’re having is the list that we’ve built is all over the place. So some of these are. Retainer clients, some are conference clients from other like cybersecurity. So, I’m not sure how the newsletter will play into that as well. So, just making you all aware of that, that’s something that won’t impact today. I think today let’s focus on the newsletter for Wednesday. And then, I think what we need to do is let’s get Christine on the call. Because Christine’s working a lot with us on messaging for the next phase. Does that make sense? So, yeah, yeah, yep, yep. So, for the next phase, what I envision is we talk more about building trust, influence, storytelling, some of the themes that are here already. But we just need to look at the ICP and we also need to look at how we’re going to grow the list. To really, we really just be targeting consumer packaged goods companies, I think, moving forward. So let’s see. So, okay, so back to this, I’ll go through and just send some thoughts in a voice note about this shortly. And then, could you keep going down for the three seconds? Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, sure, sure. Dominic Forth: The Joe Six Pack Test. Yeah, I wonder if this is just a bit too abstract, like stripping the qualifiers. Like advice, like you have to really dumb it down. It’s amazing. People, like 20 years’ experience, you have to spell Well, how do you strip the qualifiers down? Tanyo Gochev: Okay. Just make it more practical, right? Dominic Forth: Yeah, it’s shocking. Like, you have to be so black and white clear. Um, because you’re sometimes like, oh, to have clarity when you speak. Or people well, I know we need clarity, but like, how do you get clarity? Like, you know what I mean? Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dominic Forth: Um, so the word actually says, Okay, I’m not, yeah, and then the authenticity check. Yep, so then if we go down opportunity board, so this is what we need to vamp up. So these are competitors, some of these. So, and I think I put this in my voice note: like that we came out gate really strong. We had some really good opportunities. Now we’re just like, like, someone going podcastguests.com, they’re going to, that’s basically telling somebody to work with a competitor. So, we need to rethink that. Okay. Tanyo Gochev: Do you have adjacent partners that we can feature here, or is the purpose of Opportunity Board to basically get? People to own your own stuff that we can kind of push. Dominic Forth: My understanding was that we would have like real opportunities. Like, I’ll show you what I’ve got. Actually, let’s go through this and I’ll pull this up. But, like, I had a TV presenter. He’s got a segment. He’s like, pitching Access Hollywood, a summer style segment. I’m curious if any of your brands may be interested in joining. It would be a roundup with four style items: clothes, skincare, treatments, plus one other. We’re in the pitching stage, but wanted to ask. Now there’s a charge for it. Um, he’s charging 10k, but it’s nationally on access hollywood all across the country. So it’s a big, you know. Dominic Forth: big opportunity. Dominic Forth: But with that said, the goal of the opportunity board, I think, was be free opportunities, really. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, okay. Okay, not it on there. Yeah. Dominic Forth: So we sort of need to rethink. I didn’t get any bites on coming on the podcast, which is okay, because we’re going to actually just pause that through September. Just the summer’s just not the best time to launch it. But if we get interest, that’s fine. Okay, so. Opportunity board. So to workshop that as well and just get back to you on that piece. And then how we can have, I felt this call to action here was a little bit weak, really. And again, I’m only holding kind of Michael’s newsletter up as an example, but it just seems a bit more of an easier flow into it. But maybe I’m, I think it’s just an introductory, you know, email that goes into it. Okay, let me just turn this off. Um, I’m just gonna look at his really quick. Um, so where’s his newsletter? I think I’ve got it here, okay? So. I can just again put this into my notes if you like, and then just to save time because I want to be conscious of everybody’s time. Um, sure, sure. It must go to my personal email. Let’s see. Um, okay, here we go. Okay. I’m just on his website. So, you the Read online. Um, can I just share really quick? Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, I think I need to stop sharing the screen if you were to do that. Um, yeah, go ahead. Dominic Forth: Okay, so can you see founding journey now? Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dominic Forth: Um, but this is slightly, this is a different format, okay. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Um. Dominic Forth: I was just wondering where the newsletter was. Blake Stewart: That one to the right should be. Dominic Forth: Oh, the outcome. Okay. Yeah. So here’s, so this is, we’ll add this that when we hear today at a glance. Blake Stewart: So on that note, Ben had put that into our template. So I’m actually looking at your template now and we’ve got that already set up for you. So when we send a preview of the newsletter, you’ll have that top part that says, you know, off script, the green room, authority playbook, opportunity board. 30 shelf quick links and then do that. Dominic Forth: Can we do maybe the links? Yeah, it’s interesting because you go straight into links and then the story. Tanyo Gochev: So, in your case, this would be either the quick links or the opportunity board. Dominic Forth: Yeah, and just you could call it like fourth these links. I think we put on the last one, right? The links from articles around. Um, yeah, because this is what hooked me on his originally. I wow, this is really interesting. Um, okay, um, but I don’t know. Unless you recommend otherwise, I’m open if you say, No, no, we do it this way, a different way for yours, because um, um, it’s kind of depends on what you want to do, like the reason. Tanyo Gochev: people put the links at the top is because they want to optimize for a click-through rate and curate different opportunities and new stories and become like kind of like an insider source inside of industry or whatever. So if you want your newsletter to have that kind of element, it makes sense to put the links of the articles and opportunity board at the top. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Okay. Dominic Forth: So, would that help performance overall, do you think? Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, because like the like the first thing people see, so the click-through rate will go up naturally because like people won’t need to scroll down all the way down to click the different stories and stuff. Yeah. Dominic Forth: So, I think that would be let’s let’s try that. And then what I could do in the future is put affiliate links to our clients. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, absolutely. Dominic Forth: And just include that with every sale almost. Like, hey, you get access to, you know, a database of, you know, hopefully one day 50,000 subscribers. There you go. Okay. Blake Stewart: We’ll move links to the top. Yeah. I think opportunity, it sounds like you’re still kind of working on that too. So maybe we leave that at the bottom until you have kind of stronger opportunities as well. Dominic Forth: Yeah, so I’m trying to think because. I want to provide the goal was to provide value, but then, you know, we’ve got these spokespeople that come to us. I mean, what do you think about like that opportunity with Access Hollywood where it’s, you know, it’s $10,000 investments, but it is a really, it is a real opportunity. Blake Stewart: Yeah. I think it’s pretty interesting. Dominic Forth: But we’ll maybe leave the price tag off and say, hey, you know, we’re currently working with Access Hollywood for an X. I could write the three. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah. For that, probably we need some sort of either like a form or something to kind of qualify the person because like we don’t want to make it, hey, click here and get access to Access Hollywood. And then you go to the page and it’s 10K and they’re like, what the fuck? I was expecting something affordable. So we do need to either measure the price or create some gated component around it. So we actually qualify the people before promoting it. If that makes sense. Dominic Forth: It does. Yeah. It’s a yeah. I almost feel for this one, let’s because I’m kind of switching moving the goalpost a bit with the consumer package goods and e-commerce clients. So I almost feel for this one, should we just see out the current format just to get it shipped? And then let’s revisit. I think let’s revisit maybe for the next one, how to approach it. Tanyo Gochev: Sure, sure, yeah, we can do that. Dominic Forth: Yeah, because it may, we may need to, and I don’t want to do this, but we may need to pause just for like 30 days just to get our, you know, get the consumer packaged goods concept mapped out because I want to get infrastructure built around it as well. You know, like I’ve got probably 10 to 15 spokespeople in my inbox that I need to interview still for opportunities. So let’s do this. I’ll tell you what. So let’s finish. I’ll jump into this now and finish, like just write some notes. I’ll have that to you by tomorrow morning at the latest. I’d have it tonight. So when you log on, and then let’s get this one shaped and then I’ll schedule time with Christine and then let’s get all aligned on the new direction that we’re headed in. Tanyo Gochev: Sure. Yeah, yeah, that sounds like a plan. Dominic Forth: Okay. So are you still there? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, great. Sorry, I’m not that savvy with Google. Oh, here we go. Google Meet. There you go. Any other questions on anything at all? Blake Stewart: You mentioned workflow. So I guess we could get back to this for the next ones, but did you have like a time in mind? Did you want us to have like a preview the week before? That makes sense. Getting a better cadence, more clear cadence of you approving the newsletters. Dominic Forth: Yeah, yeah. So I wasn’t sure because originally Ben and I were recording voice notes. Okay. And like some are going to social, some are going to newsletter. And then we stopped recording, which again, that came down to sort of my bandwidth. And then, but I haven’t recorded in some time. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Okay. Yeah. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah. Dominic Forth: So. You know, it’s, I think we need to get Christine on the call because the only reason why is because she’s really taking over the direction of the ICP that we’re targeting. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Got it. Dominic Forth: And so I would, you guys came up with some really strong, thought-provoking questions. And so what I think would be great is if we have Christine identify, here’s the direction we’re going, here’s the ICP. That way, you’re creating questions around them and topics that will be interesting for them versus doing creating questions about our current ICP and then doing all the extra work that we don’t need to do. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah, okay. Blake Stewart: Sounds good. Yeah, let’s get through this week. We’ll get you, yeah, you dropped your comments, we’ll get a new draft, we’ll get you a preview tomorrow, and then we’ll be good for Wednesday, and then yeah, we’ll circle back up with Christine when she’s ready. Dominic Forth: Yeah. So, I mean, would I mean, we can jump on as soon as tomorrow or Wednesday. Okay. She can be free tomorrow morning. Blake Stewart: I’m good, whatever. Tanyo, do you want to? What do you think? You’ll have a draft. It would be good to probably do it all at once as well. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A draft. For Wednesday. Blake Stewart: Right. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, yeah, tomorrow. Like as soon as I get the comments, like I will do it first thing tomorrow. So, yeah. Dominic Forth: I’ll tell you what. Let’s do this. Let’s finish this newsletter first because what I think what I’m worried will happen is Christine will come in and try and change this for the new ICP, but let’s get this done first. Tanyo Gochev: Sure. Dominic Forth: Yeah. And then we’ll put a game plan. I’m going to be traveling for three weeks as well in July. So it’ll be good for you to meet with Christine before then. And I can get you what you need before, or even with Slack, I can record stuff on the go. Tanyo Gochev: Okay, can we do this? Like tomorrow, like async, we finish the newsletter for Wednesday. Then on the Wednesday, once the newsletter is scheduled and published, we can meet with Christine. Does that work? Dominic Forth: Yeah. Yeah. So, would you rather? So, would you rather meet tomorrow or Wednesday? Tanyo Gochev: Uh, Wednesday would be better for me. Dominic Forth: Okay, okay, great. So, can we book that through Slack and then what time on Wednesday? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Because I could send it sometimes whilst can we do it the same time as today on Wednesday? Dominic Forth: Uh, 3 p.m. Yeah, yeah, that work. Okay, cool. Um, it should, yeah, let me check. Let’s send, we go ahead and send the invite now and I’ll send it to Christine. And that way, and then it would be really, what would be really helpful is if you could walk her through Beehive and just show her how the metrics, what your tracking and everything else. Sure. And feel free to push back as well. If I come up with an idea and you’re like, no, that’s not a good idea. Here’s why. I trust your judgment and expertise on this. Blake Stewart: sure. Tanyo Gochev: I’m creating the meeting right now, guys, just so you know. Perfect. Yeah, one second. Let me invite everybody. Blake Stewart: So, Blake, where are you based? I’m in Los Angeles. Blake Stewart: Oh, nice. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yep. Blake Stewart: So, I think we’ve got the globe covered: East Coast, West Coast. Dominic Forth: Yeah, but then where are you based as well? Ben Ornstein: I’m in Delaware. Dominic Forth: Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. I think you told me that before. Congratulations, by the way. Ben Ornstein: Thank you. I appreciate it. Tanyo Gochev: Should I add Christine to the meeting? Dominic Forth: Or do you have her? Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, yeah. She’s in this meeting in terms of like her email and whatever. Dominic Forth: You’ll really enjoy Christine. She has decades of experience in marketing and she will bring of clarity to okay. Yeah. So, with me, I’m sort of like, should we do this? Should we do that? No, we’ll do this. Tanyo Gochev: Great. Yeah. Yeah. Just create the meeting, send invites to everybody. Let me know if you got it. And yeah. All right. Awesome. Dominic Forth: Well, I appreciate jumping on, guys. Tanyo Gochev: Yeah, yeah. Nice talking to you, man. Nice catching up. Yep. Cheers, guys. Cheers. Blake Stewart: Bye. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Bye-bye.