Equation of Excellence

FERMÀT Commerce (00:00.11)
this setup is pointless but for a poor like me it's it's it's getting really interesting really quickly because it's hard to find people that want to take on like podcast development yeah because they're like artists or then you get people that just kind of like you know suck yeah yeah it's hard to find that talent it is it is Uchenna are we ready to go?

The raw footage is fine. Thank you so much. This is gorgeous. Perfect. Let me go ahead and close the door and then we'll get started. Thanks, Rabah.

FERMÀT Commerce (00:42.382)
Are we allowed to talk about your link?

FERMÀT Commerce (00:50.414)
Perfect. All right, my man, do you want to get us started? We're here, we're here. My man rolled out the red carpet for the potty. Simi, one, thank you for all this just incredible, incredible hospitality. But two, let's give the people kind of some, you've been on the old pod. Yeah. But you've had so much happen since then. Give us some color. You've just been flying high, man. It's been really cool to see.

You were always a killer, but then you kind of had the really nice acquisition, and now you're at the big boy leagues, and now you're still crushing. It's so cool to see you be able to play kind of not only different games, but at different fields, and then at different levels. Like the scale you're operating at now is so interesting. So give us some kind of, well, for people that don't know you, let's do kind of that elevator pitch, calf to cow, how you got here to the brew, and then let's dive into what you're doing now.

We love to man and I've got to say thank you because you were one of the first people that bet on us when we were initially building our services business and had the chance to do some work with you guys at Triple Whale. But ultimately ran a business media company called Our Future, still run it as a subsidiary franchise under Morning Brew. But really, we do a lot of business media and business news covering founders, startups, tech stories.

Through short form video and you know, we've built a big following across YouTube tick tock and in scram over 1 .4 million followers Yeah, it's it's it's a lot but you know a lot of it was also luck We just happened to be really early to a trend Yeah, and we found inspo around b -roll and animation and applied it to business in a way No one was doing at the time. So we've kind of owned that format and that's still something we've continued to do and really have you know, I

really have stuck and stayed focused within that format. So out of that, we built this big services business because my first million, as we talked about this on the last pod, but they were having a competition. And so Michael and I, we were kind of like two young college kids and we were like, well, we're doing this for us. We might as well go do it for them.

FERMÀT Commerce (02:59.566)
And we ended up winning the contest and we realized, you know what, like there is a massive opportunity sitting here right in front of us. And we're just like too dumb to to to notice it. Yes. And so we win the competition ends up being like our first foray into creating original content for big brands. And so now we do work with, you know, big companies still do a lot of work with HubSpot, you know, Dropbox, Shopify, which I know is big in your world. And.

Hopefully maybe even for my town. You're out sign me up. I got we they just backed up the Brinks truck a couple months ago. Yeah, Papa got some budget What do you find most challenging about short form because I find short form especially the way you guys do it It's one of those it's almost like so I used to be a runner. This is obviously a Podcast about me. I always got to bring it back to me I used to be a really good runner and one of the things about running was so fascinating to me was that?

It was the easiest sport to do. Everybody can run, but to do it well was so difficult. And I find short form videos like that, everybody can do short form video, but the intricacies and nuances and attention to detail that you guys apply, as well as attaching it to business outcomes, because I think that second part is really challenging for a lot of people. How do you ideate? I guess you don't have to give all the secret sauce, but like...

Give the listeners out there some kind of viewpoint into like where your heads at in terms of spinning up this massive services business being able to service the behemoths in the space the HubSpots the Shopify's of the world like How how do you do it like what's in that big brain? Yeah, I mean there's there's all these playbooks, right? You know, I would say generally speaking. There's a few things that you can play into right and so one is like

Pop culture will always be the big thing, right? So you want to find topics that are just relatable to big audiences, especially because if the goal is going viral, you have to do something that is easy, right? Something that is very technical and hard to understand and not easily...

FERMÀT Commerce (05:00.334)
You know relatable or something you can grasp quickly. Yes, just very very hard Yeah, and you have to dumbify it down to some extent okay? And you know alongside that like you what really matters is video progression And this is something people aren't talking about a lot about which is each line really really matters I think everybody is caught up on the hook needs to be really good. Yes, but then these videos just fall flat after that so

Every single line should be adding new kind of context. And at the end of the day, you're telling a really good story, hopefully, right? And so, you know, avoid just explaining something and just, you know, the bottom, you don't want the hook to be the bottom line and then it's just very repetitive information. Every new line should serve a purpose. And it adds to the story. And this is something that people don't talk about, but watch time, again, is so important. I know people talk about that in long form, but the same rule applies in short form.

Interesting that's so fascinating so when you come up with your concepts So what's that workflow process like there's concepts or you find some cool trends or something and then you literally script the video and then you Shoot the video or is the script more of like milestones that you want to hit and then you guys go free flow You know it's interesting. I think it depends on the company like who are they selling into what is their goal right like I honestly say for some companies like you should not try to go viral right? Yes, why are you playing that game?

You know, if I'm a B2B company, you know, trying to build the next CRM tool, like, it makes no sense. I want to be popular within my niche. Very well said. And I want to be very popular with my buyers. And there's ways to do that, right? Like, it's like, you know, some of the best posts, it's really funny. Tommy Clark. Yeah. I know you worked very closely with, worked underneath you at Triple Whale. You know, we talk about this a lot where it's like.

The posts get low engagement, but it drives a shit ton of inbound leads. And so I think the same thing kind of applies here. It's like, you know, you could go build a short -form video around like Taylor Swift or something that you know will go really, really viral or try to play into a meme. But like, what good does that do you at the end of the day if it doesn't drive sales? So I would say like, if you want to play the game of memes and pop culture, you can still do that, but like make sure it's very relevant to your niche in itself, right? So.

FERMÀT Commerce (07:17.934)
Make a joke or make a running meme about sales tech or something that is very relatable and personable and you will do well relative to you know again who is consuming that yes that content and who will be a buyer of your product man that is so spot -on because I've known I haven't been viral yet myself, but I've known some people soon to happen soon to happen But people would go viral all the time and it was so

Non -impactful and it just stressed them out. Yeah, because they just have all these replies and stuff like that But there was no business impact. So is is basically you're just selling a bunch of people that aren't buying so I think it's there's a So much wisdom in that where it's in my opinion again depending on the goal but going viral within the Target market to me is more important again depending on the the business then this is crazy brand awareness play where I mean brand awareness plays again, I'm

Big brand guy now I used to be huge direct response guy, but yeah, I think it's so wise to think of it like that What are some of your like? Are you to a point now you can call videos or is it still like you have no cuz dude I've been in ads almost 20 years now, and I literally have never been able to call an ad ever like you know maybe that's just me anecdotal, but it's just so hard to know what hits like we've

I've been at companies that have spent $50 ,000 on a video and I whipped up something in Canva and that spent a million dollars and that video was $20 ,000 of spend just because like we spent $50 ,000 on a video and make this work and you're like, dude, this isn't gonna work and your boss is like, make this work. We spent 50k on that. So do you have any or is it more systems still and you're just like run the systems volume or do you have the semi touch where like, I think this is gonna hit. You know, it's really funny. I would like to say that.

You know, we've been doing this for three years, so we have a good sense of it. But really, you know, I think we kind of approach it as like we hedge our bets. What I mean by that is like we post on all three platforms on video. I will tell you, like I know when a video is good and like it will do well. What I can't tell you is which platform it's going to do well on. Interesting. So it's Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, right? And I've had even videos on our future that flop on our IG, that crush on our TikTok.

FERMÀT Commerce (09:37.038)
and vice versa. Really? So it's like the consistency isn't always there. I will say for us, IG has been the most consistent in terms of, you know, I can pretty much know what we're going to get from a view standpoint. And TikTok feels a little bit more like a black box sometimes. But yeah, I mean, it's like I know this is good content because I would consume this. Yes. But like, again, I just I just don't know which which platform it's going to hit on. That's so fascinating. Yeah, I mean,

It is definitely interesting to think the channel parody you would think it would be there, but it's not if all things being equal if you could succeed on tick -tock YouTube or Meta or Instagram I guess which one would you pick? What do you think is the most valuable like tick -tock followers YouTube subscribers or Instagram followers? I think What like who is the best follower? I'm gonna say it's YouTube. Yeah, it's my vote to you

Because I think YouTube lends itself well to long form. And long form is where you build affinity. So if you wanna talk about the shortcomings with short form is that you can get a lot of reach, you can get a lot of exposure, but they don't usually give a shit about you, right? Because there's no intent there. They're not actively seeking you out. They're just on TikTok, they're scrolling. They happen to come across your video.

Maybe they like it, maybe they don't. Maybe they share it with their friends, but that's about it. You're not top of mind. Whereas, same with what we're doing here. This is 45 minutes to an hour. The only way you're listening the entire time is if you really care about us or what we have to say. And so I think from that standpoint, a follower on YouTube is very, very important relative to some of the other platforms. Now, again, it depends on your goal. If I'm a DTC company and...

all I care about is getting more sales, then I'm probably leaning into TikTok Shop, right? Because that is the platform amplifying commerce right now. If I'm thinking more from a longevity perspective, I'm thinking about IG. Because I know that one, it only makes sense if TikTok has their inevitable ban.

FERMÀT Commerce (11:47.885)
IG is just going to be that player swooping in from behind to catch that traffic. And they have all of these different elements that complement the commerce side of this. So you can post something on stories or a video, and I know I can swipe up and go shop straight on the platform itself. How do you think about it? I'm curious. I mean, very similar, honestly. I would definitely think YouTube subscribers are the best. But to your point, YouTube...

in depending on I mean shorts are a little different but YouTube proper I think is so interesting to me because it is very it's almost like middle to bottom of funnel where you go like how do you run an ad or how do you do this so you can capture a lot of really high level intent and there's a really great way to educate people on things where I think tick tock is great.

but TikTok education is more about, like you were talking about, like the stinger or the back of the book versus the whole book. And so it can be really nice on ramps to get people in there. I think TikTok is better for, like TikTok and IG are better for building an audience. So like generating the awareness. And I think YouTube is better for that consideration conversion. Cause I can, it's almost like you meet somebody, right? That's the meeting is like the TikTok or the IG reel where it's like,

I fuck with this guy. This is a really interesting person. She's saying a lot of really interesting things and then you're like go to the YouTube channel that they have to have those more long -form things because I think of like social in two vectors like Even just when I deploy my paid media capital. It's like there is reach and intent or excuse me reach and impact Yep, and so reach is great But reach is similar to kind of like what you guys do like building a newsletter you either want to build a newsletter either really wide or?

Really deep you don't want to be in that messy middle because if you're niche It's okay because if you have only have a thousand readers But you're charging them $500 a month because it's a super niche topic that they're gonna allow the value for that's great Or if you're like the brew where it's like we're super wide We want to have as many viewers as possible because we're selling on this reach that obviously will trickle into impact but I want to get this in front of as many eyeballs as I want versus

FERMÀT Commerce (14:08.749)
these other plays are more about that impact where it's like, I don't care. It's almost like, and I'm kind of going all over the place, but similar like CPMs like, yes, high CPMs suck, but at the same time, if you're in a room with all the rich people, like, yeah, you're going to pay more money to be there versus like, I'm paying a dollar, but I'm in the room with all the poor. It's like, they're not going to be able to buy anything for me. So it's like.

Why do I even care? You know what I mean? Dude, a thousand percent. This is like one of the growing debates that I have with my friends because, you know, they always talk about how expensive LinkedIn ads are. And it's like you're trying to sell into enterprise. Like it's not going to be cheap. Exactly right. But, you know, again, those ACVs will make up for it on the back end. It's always, I mean...

as boring as it sounds and I went to school for economics so that's kind of how I see the world through that lens but Same here, this is why we get along so well. See, exactly. Indiana boys, that's right. That's right. Exactly right. But it's just like what's the goal, you know what I mean? And then being able to back into what the goal is but speaking of Instagram, they just dropped some news on the unskippable. Heavy with it. So unskippable ads, YouTube's had them, Instagram is now gonna get them. What do you think about that?

Unskippable ads to be honest you're breaking this news to me. let's go Okay, he's on the pod yeah, so ultimately too long didn't read you basically you're gonna get this ad and normally you know an Instagram you just pop through you won't be able to skip it you have the Similar YouTube you have the timer, and then you just watch it, and then you can go through What do you think about that in terms of like do you like it? Do you not like it as a consumer? I hate it, okay? I would but on the other side as the advertiser content maker because say you have a viral clip that smashes Yeah, now I run this as an ad

Well people have to consume exactly I mean that or no for for an advertiser. Nothing is better than a captive audience right like It's like okay. I know that in order to do the things that they really want to do they have to watch this video Yes, and so I do love it. I mean there's always some kind of trade -off You know maybe what ends up happening is IG comes out with a new tier that is like an ad free tier

FERMÀT Commerce (16:07.053)
And then they supplemented on the back end so it's always a pair of trade -offs I imagine they know that like you know if you force ads down people's throats right especially a lot of young people like this they have a fierce hatred for ads And you know it's like man this this really sucks I actually think there's more patience for something like this on YouTube because people have grown to expect it 100 % agree

And I think that for IG, it creates a new level of friction for people. And I think it's actually wild. I've noticed this in general, which is like a slight, you know, added layer of friction has a huge impact on whether someone consumes or some piece of content or takes a certain kind of action. And so look, they've got massive teams and I'm sure they've done the studies and they know what's gonna work, but.

From my lens, I don't know. I feel like it's a little bit of a mixed bag. Yeah, same boat, really, because unskippable ad, you can charge me more money as an advertiser. It'll also change my composition of said ad, because it gets closer to a TV ad, where it's like, I know I'm going to get this person for 60 seconds. So I don't have to necessarily be so hardcore on the hook or something, where I have to grab them at the beginning, because they have to watch the whole thing.

But to your point, in terms of the experience, I think the challenge with this on IG, basically to your point, like IG, almost exclusively you're there to entertain yourself. Like I'm filling my boredom gaps, I'm scrolling through this. Whereas YouTube has a lot, again, of like educational, a lot of informational, like you're a little bit more okay there watching an unskippable ad, because you're not really in this like entertainment mode where...

I really am in this instant gratification, so it'll be interesting because I do think and again This is just peanut gallery stuff. Yeah, it's gonna decrease app usage But is that gonna be offset by the premiums that people are gonna be paying for unskippable ads? But yeah, it's it's interesting because you never want to you never want to give up inventory I mean the impressions are the lifeblood

FERMÀT Commerce (18:20.941)
Instagram Facebook any auction based thing because there's only two ways to make more money you either increase ad load or I mean, that's pretty much it because you can't you don't Play with the prices. It's an auction so I don't know it's really fascinating It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out, but you know it's really interesting too because like if you had told me I don't know three years ago that people would be paying 15 16 bucks a month

to be verified on IG for a blue check mark or same goes for X. They've actually made it the default. It's like if you even want any kind of reach, you have to pay the 8, 9, 10 bucks. I think they've honestly probably blown their expectations and a large number of people have probably actually paid to get the check mark. And so...

Maybe, you know, there is some data or statistics that support something like this to say, hey, if we roll out a premium feature, we know X percentage of people will probably do this based off of just how many people are willing to pay 16 to 20 bucks just for verification. Man, that's actually a really interesting point. My only pushback there is when you have an ad network or when you make your money from ads, the challenge with subscriptions. So for me, the fastest way to feel rich is YouTube Premium.

Yeah, I love it. It's not that much money and I consume a ton of YouTube especially like on Apple TV I'll watch YouTube while I'm making coffee or whatever But the people that are paying for the premium are the people that have money and usually going to be the best customers and so now you take them out of your advertising set and you're only advertising to the people that won't pay for premiums which like net net

you're taking your best customers out. And so then, how do you get performance, if that makes sense? No, I think it's a great point. I think that's the challenge when you have an ad -based model with memberships. Usually the people that opt out of the ads are the people that, like, we just, there was a Professor Galloway thing, and it sparked it where basically ads are a tax on the poor. Yeah. Like, rich people hate ads. They don't want, they'll buy the premium service or do this stuff. So, I don't know, it's an interesting take, but I really like where your head's at there. Yeah.

FERMÀT Commerce (20:27.853)
Let me ask you a question. So I think something that's very top of mind for me, and I get this question a lot, is like, hey, how are you guys thinking about AI for your own video creation? And I know so many of these GPT wrappers have come up which create these avatar -based ads, avatar -based videos, and they're doing quite well. So it makes me, and big recognizable logos, and so, you know.

I've got to think they must do decent like if people are you know not churning off these platforms still using it or Maybe it's one of those things where the cost or the subscription is so cheap that even if they're like Mediocre at best it's still creative that can drive inspo for something else and so I'm curious. How do you think about that? Man, I'm one of two minds. There's the first one where do you want to be right or do you want to make money? That's the one where it's like to your point try it

play with it if it RLYs who cares. The second side is more of the brand guy in me where it's like, is this what I want the brand to represent? Is sincerity still important? Is like how, cause I think personification is interesting. If you can personify the AI where it becomes this like entity that I can interact with that is obviously digitally created, but there's some sort of presence or almost like the her right? Where there, it feels like that.

I don't think that's terrible, but I don't know. I just, I might be old man on the lawn where this is the, AI is the first time that I've ever, I've always been a bleeding edge tech maxi. Like I had MP3s early, I was super early on the internet, like all that stuff. But AI is just this weird one where I think a lot of social contracts are gonna get, need to get rewritten where, so for example, like the thought experiment I give people, if you have your partner,

and you want to write this incredible poem for your partner, and you know all this stuff about your partner, and you put a bunch of effort into the poem, but you suck it right in a poem, and then you give your partner that poem, and they read it like, that's great, it sucks, but thank you for the effort. Or you take all the stuff that you know, you still put the same amount of effort in, but you use ChatGPT to write, or whatever your AI program is, to write this beautiful, you know, Khalil Gibran style, like, poem for your partner.

FERMÀT Commerce (22:50.797)
and they're just crying in tears of joy. Again, as an economist, we call that utility. There's way more utility in the second case than the first. But if you said, by the way, I used AI, instantly every gal that I've talked to is like, yeah, I would not be happy about that. And so I think that's where AI to me is so interesting because it's, again, these social contracts need to get rewritten. Because for me, the way I think about it,

it's already been here. Most things are basically not necessarily, they're not invented, they're discovered kind of thing. And so for me, it's like, take a book. Almost every person that writes a book has an editor. So at what point of the editing does it have to surpass for you to consider the editor the writer, right? Is it 20%, is it 50%, is over 70 % of the book is edited?

Is it still that author's book? And that's what I think AI is doing, but I think it just gets into the weird places because it's not a human anymore. Yeah. And so I don't know, like how do you reconcile that? Because with your creatives, like, there's a funny line where AI is not going to take your job. Somebody using AI is going to take your job. We've tried it. I mean, just for the sake of like, hey, we should be experimenting because it will have a role to play in the future. I think Michael and I are still like, these tools suck.

Like, if I'm being completely honest, and it's like, I definitely wouldn't feel good even doing this for a client, let alone our own stuff, right? We even tried experimenting last year, and we replaced Michael's face with an AI avatar, and we got flamed for it in the comments. And I think that was just a big learning lesson in general, right? Because at the end of the day, going back to the conversation around affinity, you want people to like it because it feels very unique to you. It's original, it's a c***.

Creative and sincere yeah and sincere authentic yes, and you you know is it more articulate using an AI thing and maybe you sound a little bit more polished You know perhaps But like I just don't know if that like trade -off makes a lot of sense I've you know I think that even here at morning brew in generally like generally speaking I don't you know I I don't know how much will touch it in a you know AI for for what we do right because a lot of it is like a

FERMÀT Commerce (25:11.341)
so focused on the brand that we have. And I think that if you just compromise the integrity of the brand itself by just automating everything through a computer, there's no field there, there's no connection, there's no relationship. And so I have no issues with it being used for inspo purposes or workflow automation purposes, but.

I don't know, as a consumer, maybe I'm just like a diehard media guy. Like, I don't want to see it just automated away through a computer. It feels a little bit like the human experience is getting eroded with all this AI stuff. But, like, obviously self -proclaimed, but I'm a really good writer. Yeah. And every time, so I'll write my essay and then I'll put it through ChatGBT. And almost every time what I get back is like better.

So I think for me it's like can you get it to the 90 % and then because usually that like 10 % There say you're at like 95 % and 100 % is perfect that 5 % so expensive sometimes and a lot of times. It's not necessarily worth it It's more to go the tweaking yeah, but man if you use chat you get you to so much closer, and it's so cost -effective that But yeah, I don't know I'm still on

But do you feel like it's almost a crutch in some ways like let's say this becomes the de facto way Yes, like where is the role of critical thinking and all of this like it's like man if I just Default to just like hey figure this out for me And I'm just gonna edit this you know slightly great great question So my thesis is it's never been a better time to be a tastemaker Yeah, like taste is very like taste can't be AI driven

Like taste is such a amalgamation of so many skills, so many past experiences, so many things. And like, I think that's where, honestly, like that's why I'm really bullish on Etsy, where I think there's going to be a huge resurgence in a demand for like handmade, like actual like human made stuff. You know what I mean? It's like the OG matrix where it's like, my God, you're driving a motorcycle with gasoline? Like, I don't know. I think there's that, but I don't know. I would definitely caution people though, not to be a Luddite.

FERMÀT Commerce (27:18.573)
where play around with this, break it, try and do it. But I would also caution people to deploy it to your point in a meaningful and tactful way. Because I think there's one thing where it's like, hey, we're going to build this AI. And this AI basically is going to become its own Instagram feed. And it can kind of be almost like a stick or a heel. I think that's setting the expectations properly versus trying to pass off AI as this like,

I don't know. It's such a fuzzy one, man. It's such a fuzzy one, but I just... The... X, like, have you played with the Omni yet? The ChatGPT Omni? Yes, the new one? Yeah, yeah. I think it's way better. It's insane. Yeah. You literally can talk to this thing. So, I was playing around with it for, like, a sales discovery, where it's like, I told it, okay, like, we want to know how much this person spends on ads, what's their AOV, like, all these little parameters. I said, okay, get these parameters.

within three minutes of the conversation, but I don't want you to make it obvious that you're asking these questions, et cetera. And it was actually like not horrible. And so I was just blown away by, and this is one, this is what's publicly available. So you know what's private is just crazy going down now. So I just, I don't know. I think it's going to be, I think what's going to happen is if you think of content creation as a value chain, the value,

is going to get shifted away from the ideation. And it's really going to be in terms of that curation and taste making, where it's like, OK, these are really great ideas, but now let me shape this sculpture in a way that is super meaningful that I don't think the AI can get me to. And I think that is going to be like, if I was a young gun right now, that's where I would be leaning into is like, how can I?

become this taste maker, understand what is actually super awesome. And again, like you'd want to do that now, but at the same time, like taste doesn't really matter if you don't have, like an architect is incredible, but if you don't have construction workers, it doesn't matter, because you're just going to have these beautiful drawings, but you're never going to have a building. But now the construction workers are free, so people can become better architects and shift the resources to becoming better architects and then using the construction workers at a cheaper rate. But.

FERMÀT Commerce (29:40.013)
I don't know there's a whole lot of words to say I don't know still yeah, I love that though because you know I've always thought the value will be You know something I've thought about recently is like how important you know original content will be in grand scheme of the things right because You know like it's no secret you see all these Companies trying to do licensing deals and stuff, and it's like you know

Like, what's never gonna go out of fashion, right? Like, if you're simply curation, that's gonna be like good luck, right? Like if it's just, you know, there's nothing new in there, right? There's like nothing original. But the value of being able to like synthesize all these different opinions, put them together to come up with an original take, is something that like will never go out of taste. I don't care like how good the machine is because to your point,

It's reflective of all your past experiences, all your interactions that you're having, new information that is coming in. And then you let your subconscious go to work and come up with something really unique. That's so spot on. Absolutely no notes. I mean, I think it's also similar. You're seeing this because again, it's already happened, but now it's the tools getting more democratized. But in music, like, have you played with Suno yet? No, I have. my God. Is it wild? It's insane.

Yeah, like there's legit bangers that come out of this thing. So for people that don't know, Suno, I think I'm pronouncing it correctly, S -U -N -O, basically will make these songs. You can be like, hey, make me a pop song with Simi as the star, or he was a rapper. You can give it this whole thing, basically like a chat jib. And it'll make, it's incredible. And so what that also quasi bolsters my previous thesis where people really don't care about the output, they're going to care about the person.

And you already have that really in pop music, like Drake, like all these people, like all this stuff is so systematized and Drake is just a distribution mechanism and people like Drake and then the music is a reason to like warrant or defend why they like this guy so much. And so, or Taylor Swift or what have you. And so I think that's where music is gonna head is it's gonna be more about the person than the art. And I don't know if that's a good.

FERMÀT Commerce (31:48.781)
or a bad thing, but I think entertainers are gonna be more important. And honestly, you saw this analogous a little bit, again, not AI, but if anybody's NBA fans out there, you saw this shift where it used to be some old, when I grew up, like you supported a team. And now all the young guns support players. And then they'll just follow the player from team to team to team. And so I think that's what's gonna happen with AI and the arts is that you're gonna become,

this artist that is being followed because of you and then the work is gonna be kind of secondary. And so, again, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing for society, because it kind of puts the value on the personality versus the actual output and the art, but I don't know, again, going back to, do you wanna be right or do you wanna make money? Yeah, this is super interesting. What do you think about the claim, every B2B company will have a content creator on their staff?

I mean, I think it's a It depends be I think it's very smart. But the one challenge that I have with that question is What does the content creator encompass? Because is that essays is that videos is that because I think short form videos it makes tons sense I think everybody should I mean this is my whole marketing thesis is threefold content community education And then if you have a little bit of money

Moonshot marketing I love it and so I think for me. I'm I Like we spend probably 15 % of our quarterly budget, maybe even a little bit more on content creation Yeah, like it's it's so important and the thing about content why I think personally as a marketer is so important is because if you think of ads it's very hard to get exponential growth with ads like

Eventually that slope flattens just because the way the auction works just because you're gonna get diminishing returns as you buy up like if you think of your customers as concentric circles the innermost customers are gonna be the best customers and you they're usually gonna be the cheapest and as you go out you get two headwinds you get not only are these customers more expensive, but they're usually worse customers Yeah, and so with ads it almost flattens to always linear where? Content can always be an exponential and the other thing about ads once you spend that money on

FERMÀT Commerce (34:12.077)
Those impressions are gone. Like it's not, whereas once you write content, you can have content and then a year later it just pops off because it just hit the zeitgeist or something like that. And so there's just this. And that content can be run as ads too. Bingo. And so you just can have this exponential with content. So for me, content is, is king in B2B SaaS. I think paid media and B2B SaaS is, well, I also think of B2B SaaS as an ecosystem, but paid media in B2B SaaS is not very effective for direct response in my experience. And I've spent.

millions of dollars on paid ads for b2b sass and You know the money's spent better elsewhere for me because I think of it in three vectors like somebody has to like me know me trust me and Before they buy and I can do that actually in person I can do all three of those in person, but in person doesn't scale and it's quite expensive Whereas paid media you really you know, maybe you can get somebody to trust you. Maybe you could get somebody to like you

very challenging to get somebody to know you on the first touch. And so you're missing at least one of those three legs on the stool. And so that's totally orthogonal to D2C, where D2C paid media is fantastic. D2C has levers. When you talk to investors, they're always like, what levers can you pull on? And there's levers in D2C, like content.

Organic you get your organic cranking or your content cranking you can blow it up like the Isaac at Katana now at King Pie Tyler from my gosh, I'm blanking on his slime company cheese peachy babies They're doing millions and millions of views on YouTube and they they've made these monster companies with zero ad spend yeah in B2B sass. That's just not how it works and so for me I

Going back to your question, I think that's a very valid thesis. I mean, going back to a CMO role, I think a CMO's role is twofold. Get momentum or keep momentum and efficient and effective deployment of capital. And for me, I think deploying capital on a content creator is fantastic spend and is way more effective in my opinion than paid media. So if I had to spend five grand on a content creator a month or five grand on paid ads, I'd...

FERMÀT Commerce (36:30.797)
100 % do the contouring curator all day twice on Sundays. I love that man and you know you're the perfect person to ask this question because you made a crazy wave and big name for yourself a triple whale look at the puns the puns are coming out and now you've done it again at Vermont you know and it's it's it's super funny because We've experienced some level of this, but it's like when you become the benchmark

Or you can show people what is possible right now. You're in all the conversations and you don't even have to focus on like trying to get your name out there because what you've done on your day to day has done you know had it has had a big impact that the Conversations are very organic around it. And so let me ask you the question Someone asked me this a few days ago But I think you would have a much better take on this is you know If I'm in early, I'm running an early stage B2B company, and I have a hundred a hundred grand Yeah, how do you allocate that money?

Can I ask a couple more questions? Hit me with that. Okay, what's is it? Monthly is it contracts? Is it sales led? Is it self -service? It's it's contracts. Okay, and this sales led. Yes, that's right. Okay, that's right So if I had a hundred grads so the challenge with so I've had some really interesting color here because at triple we started we got to like 10 million ARR just on self -service like just you and so as a marketer I

Or CMO and specific on that self -serve was it just like organic well what worked for you guys there the OG playbook of community content Education and then moonshots so like we but again like so to get give you guys some more color into how I parse out the budget like You don't necessarily need to do moonshots and when I do do moonshot and for people I guess I'm talking past people moonshot is just basically something think of it like a fancy term is an asymmetric bet but basically like layman language is like a

I know I'm gonna spend $20 ,000, $50 ,000, and this could die and do nothing, or it could absolutely just be a runaway hit. And so at Triple Whale, a few things that we did were, like the first moonshot was like five grand, and we sent an iPhone to space. We had just launched our attribution, and we're like attribution as world, so we got this video with literally Triple Whale, and we put it on a weather balloon taking a video. It was like five grand, like it's not the...

FERMÀT Commerce (38:49.165)
And then the culmination was the Whaley's, which they actually kept going this year as well, where we had a huge D2C awards show. You guys crushed it. It was awesome. It was actually one of the coolest things I've done. And it was really cool because with events, I think of events in three phases, like pre, during, post. And we own the absolute, this is why events are really cool. Here's a little hack if you guys are marketers out there. People love to brag on themselves. And so the pre was so awesome because we had a nomination process.

And so now you get like an incentive to like, hey, Simi, I got nominated for the way that we go vote for me, we go vote for me. So you get all this organic. And then during the event, people are posting about it was amazing. And then post event, everybody's high on that. And so we, the revenue and business impact we got from that was superb. And like out of pocket, I think we paid, like I think all in was like a buck 50 and like out of pocket was maybe 60 or 70. Once we took away like all the subsidies in terms of like ticket sales, sponsorships, all that stuff.

60 grand is nothing, you know, I mean when you're dealing with a big budget so going back to your sales led is challenging because you need synchronicity and so sales led you can't not that you can't grow exponentially but there's way more headwinds because usually the deal sizes are bigger but they take longer and again you need synchronicities because we need to meet versus triple whale was just money coming in like I could just look at the looker dashboard and just see the money Cranking up because we just had this instant impact kind of thing

So for $100 ,000, I would probably split it up between maybe, and this is agnostic salary, right? This is spent. Okay. So I would do, so 100K, I would probably do 30 grand on eventing. I would do another 30 on content and then maybe 10K on paid. So you got content paid and then, so what am I at? I'm at 40 or 50, 30, 30, 70.

and then the other 30, maybe 20K on some sort of sponsorships. So whether that, you know, marketing brew or whatever, and then the other 10K probably try some sort of really out of the box idea. So that's kind of how I would cut it up. So pretty diversified spread. Yeah, because the thing is, again, you want with that, again, and depending on where you're trying to punch at, like if you're trying to, there's two ways to get enterprise, like if you're trying to punch at enterprise, you're this super cool kid that everybody's talking about.

FERMÀT Commerce (41:18.221)
or super experiential curated events that are like 15, 20 people and it's only killers that are very expensive. So those are the two ways I've found anyways to break into enterprise. But if you're mid -marketing and stuff like that down, you just, so most B2B SaaS in my opinion is more akin to CPG, so like customer, like Tide or something like that versus direct response. And what I mean by that is, so at Triple Whale, I actually started,

running it as a direct response company was the biggest mistake ever like within a month I was like I'm fucking up. This is this is not the way to go and What I realized was it was closer that CPG where you not only want to be in the decision set But you want to be the top decision in that decision set when that person is ready to consume and so one of my favorite stories from triple whale was the guy that

take this DTC owner would take his boxes into the FedEx store and the FedEx guy actually knew who Triple Well was. Was the FedEx guy ever going to buy Triple Well that day? No. But if he starts a store, a Shopify store, he, okay, cool. Now I want to make money. I need attribution. I'm going to buy Triple Well. And so that for me is the whole, that's the show for B2B SaaS, in my opinion, unless you're low ticket. If you're low ticket, you can run paid ads. You can do this. But if you're 500 or a thousand dollars a month plus, or if you're sales led,

You really just want to be in the decision set and when that person is ready to consume they think of you and they call you up They reach out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, that's how I'd cut it up. How would you cut it up? I love it, man So, you know my my answer didn't take into account as many factors the way I looked at it was like, okay So I'm taking a third of that budget and I'm a

applying it specifically towards building an organic content engine. Right? I love that. I'm on board. So, 33K just for, you know, could be bringing on a content creator, could be you as the founder creating content, having an editor on staff. And that's great because you can churn out so much volume doing it that way. And maybe potentially an agency partner could make sense if they're early and can devote the kind of time necessary to see this through. Yes.

FERMÀT Commerce (43:28.077)
I would take another 33K and that's my experimentation money. Interesting, a third of the budget you're gonna experiment with it. Experiment with it. Savage, I love this kid. And so that's gonna be anything that sounds like it could work, but like I'm not so sure and it's gonna be a bunch of mini bets. Okay, yeah I like that. Yeah, so I would do influencer marketing here. I would do some level of potentially, you know, I do think paid ads could still potentially work in this capacity. Okay.

But you wouldn't you would roll in your paid ads into your experimentation budget. Yeah, that's right. Okay. That's right So that is like it could be you know small intimate dinner that is like me being really really scrappy trying to find people I can partner with and trying to make it as low cost as possible, okay? So that's this experiment, but you're mixing things up now because experimentation So it's just a catch -all, but you're gonna try like events under it. You're gonna try that's right. That's right I would categorize those in

Events money if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, just don't know it's gonna work. This is where I'm saying Okay, mine was just like 33 is gonna have Event in under it. It's gonna have influencers under it. What have you? Yeah, but very very small me. Yeah. Yeah, I love small bets on us Yeah, and then I'm taking another 33 K and that is money I'm putting to the side and that is my double down on winners

So I'm gonna let this rip for three months. I'm gonna see what works and I'm gonna find the one to two things that I think can really take us from this level to the next. And that's where I'm applying the remaining money. So that's how I kind of thought about it. my God, I hope Rashi doesn't listen to this episode. He's gonna hire me and hire you. It's a really good way to look at it, man. I love it. I think that's... Well, yours is more tactical. I love your approach more. Mine is a little bit more broad bucket. You know, this is taking in a lot of factors and you still have to make...

the decision and you have to use your own discretion to decide how much you want to apply to certain things. I like the idea of having that war chest. It's really interesting, but the only push back to that is when you like B2B SaaS is very flooded with money and like so if you think of cost and three vectors you have expense, dollars, focus and bandwidth. Dollars is the cheapest in that equation. Like focus and bandwidth of the team is so expensive. So.

FERMÀT Commerce (45:40.237)
If you get things to work, money shows up. But I do like that, I've never heard that before. That's so interesting. The thing is that like, you know, I'm hard to even categorize it per like events in this thing, right? Because I think a lot of it depends on the person who is running the ship. And I think that like, listen, if you're not a super extroverted person, like you have no business running the events yourself, right? Like maybe if you have someone on your team doing it, that could make a lot of sense, but.

Like lean into the things that you're good at and think there's alignment there That's why I almost put it under this broad bucket because I think depending on the person running it You probably have an idea of the two or three things three things that could work But like there is gonna require some level of experimentation there, and it's not a CYA type thing right like you are gonna have to defend Why you put the money in that category versus like hey?

I know I'm going to do this organic thing. It may not prove results immediately, but I know long term, this is going to help us with our CAC. This is going to help build affinity for our brand. And like, this is just a long term investment we're going to have to make, even though it may not have the short term results that we need. Dude, that's so well said. And that's such an astute point where... So I'm a big believer and I don't have many beliefs because I think beliefs can get you into dogmatic thinking, but... Yeah.

So maybe I should say thesis I have a thesis that unless you're the founder or owner the only thing you care about is making your boss happy If your boss is happy nothing else matters like usually that's a function of performance But like again if your boss is happy your boss is happy who cares so the reason I say that is Again shout out max and AJ at triple whale they gave me so much bandwidth to really build a brand in the way that I thought was going to be the most impactful fun like awesome and the same thing with her shib and

Like another example, Liquid Death, like Mike at Liquid Death, the CEO is the craziest dude there. Yeah. And if there wasn't, like if the craziest dude there is the CMO, none of that stuff gets greenlit or it gets bastardized or paste pasteurized in terms of like what the actual original idea was and what was shipped was just so far from it. And yeah, obviously it failed because it wasn't the original idea. So that's a really astute point that you really, for me, the hardest part of CMO was managing up.

FERMÀT Commerce (48:00.301)
was like, okay, this is why we're gonna do it, this is what it's gonna happen, this is what we're gonna do. And ironically, because at Triple Whale, we were selling attribution as the primary product, attribution in B2B SaaS is so challenging. So hard. It is very challenging, because it's not, in D2C, there's a very linear conversion path. You have awareness, consideration, conversion, boom, I know. Whereas B2B SaaS, like I said, it's that ecosystem, and it's more of like a pinball machine, where it's like, okay, they subscribe to the newsletter, now they can't do the event. You gotta hit them with a bunch of angles. All these things, and then...

Like what's most important then you get into the attribution talks of like, okay, is it important for the person first click who got them to know about the party? Is it important to get them to the party? Is it important to make them excited when they get to the party? Is it important to get the money from them while they're at the party? Like, where do you, and so that's the biggest challenge for me anyways, as a CMO is attribution is an absolute nightmare, but at the end of the day you need.

like people experience the world and the stories and you need stories to take to your boss. You can't just be like, hey, I need 33 % of my budget is going to go towards experimentation. Like, OK, but what does that mean? You know what I mean? Like, OK, well, I think these events are going to do this. And so for me, I found a lot of, and I think this actually transfers to DTC as well, where I've found it more not only impactful, but psychologically advantaged to have that scientific method versus trying to be right and wrong.

where it's like, okay, cool, here's the thesis, here's what happened, here's why it happened if we validated the thesis, take money out of your war chest, like you said, and put more money behind that. If it didn't work, why didn't it work? And then, you know, take it behind the shed and do what needs to be done and make a new bet. And I think that to me, like, at least on my team, both at Triple Whale and now Fermat is, I don't mind like things going wrong. There's a great book by Annie Duke called Thinking in Bets, and there's something called Resulting.

where people will look at the results, not the system. And if you build a system that has an 80 % probability of turning out the outcome you want and a 20 % probability of not, and you land in the 20%, that's okay. Run that back. Don't throw the system out. But if you have a 10 % probability of success and a 90 % probability of failure, and you hit that 10 %...

FERMÀT Commerce (50:17.037)
I kill that system. You just got lucky. But if you look at the results, the person can look at this is what she calls resulting where it's like, look at the results I got. It's so good. And like, no, you just got lucky. You hit a 10 % out of a 90 % bet. Like, I'm never going to take a 10 % chance of success on a 90 % chance of failure. Like, why would I do that? I want the inverse of that. And so that's kind of, it's.

And I'll take that one step further, which is like just because it worked in the past does not mean it's gonna work in the future and What is it the stocks past performance does not indicate future gains? Yeah, I think yeah, it's like this is it worked at you know the last company just because you know the timing was different if I tried to you know as you know run the D2C playbook of 2010 now like

Good luck like I'm losing all my money you are like you have more fun Just going to the casino and putting it all on red for sure. I like those odds Yeah Exactly, that's a little less than 50 -50 because you got the double zero and the greens, but you're absolutely right That's a very astute observation. I really like that. It's a really interesting question. It's you're so good at this dude It's almost like you do this is a lot of fun. This is a lot of fun What else you got?

What else do I have? We're about at it. Maybe we'll wrap it up. Let's do it. Yeah. OK. One more question for you then. Cool. Or two more, actually, because I have the final question in the pod, and then one more. Perfect. Mike, what do you see in, or actually, this is going to be a selfish question. As a CMO of a growing B2B SaaS company, how do you think I should be investing in content?

This is let me for Vermont so so I don't want to give away our numbers, but we have really healthy ACVs We're only sales led so you have to talk to somebody before you give us money And so yeah, you have you have a lot big hacks when you hit and We have a really up -and -coming brand and actually let me let me give you two I know we're pushing up against, but I really want it so keep the content question, but

FERMÀT Commerce (52:20.685)
Would you invest so this is kind of an answer your question would you invest in brand accounts or founder accounts founder accounts 1000 % I knew that okay, so that's so like Transparently we're gonna spin not spin down our brand account But we put a bunch of resources into our brand accounts on LinkedIn's actually not doing terrible But Twitter is an absolute ghost town and we were like well Rishabh's killing on Twitter. Shreyas is coming up on Twitter or on LinkedIn Rishabh is killing on LinkedIn

We also have Alexa who has a pretty decent presence on Twitter X, and then now we have Erin who also has a pretty decent reach on both LinkedIn and Twitter, and then myself on Twitter. And so that's the smart way to do it. Right, okay. Like have your team be the evangelists, and everyone is growing a personal brand around this, right? You want everyone to be a spokesperson. The thing is that very few people can nail this.

Right? Like, you know, a lot of people are uncomfortable and so they do a half -assed job. Or they just don't have it, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. Like, I have a saying, horses for courses. And like, if you're not, like, Rishabh is incredibly well -smoking, incredibly charismatic. If you're not that, don't put your CEO out there. Like, don't force them to do things because you're like, look at this CEO, so great at content. I mean, Toby and Harley are the perfect example, right? Where it's just like, Toby's a G, but like...

Harley is, I mean that's why Harley's on the CMC. He's just such a charismatic, like says all the right things. He can talk stock, he can talk business mechanics, he can talk culture, like he's like that where Toby's just more so like, I don't give a fuck. This is what I believe, this is how I'm gonna run my company. And again, zero judgment on that, but you wanna put the people that make the most sense in front of people versus forcing, like you were saying, running a playbook. I hate that.

where I think frameworks are a better way to think of it than actual best practices, because then frameworks you can take, like the OG Bruce Lee, absorb what's useful and reject what's useless. And it's like, dude, I don't have a CEO, or if you're at a brand right now that you don't have that person that can be that social personality, don't try and make it. Totally. Go find it. 1000%. But you're not going to make, I don't know, I think people just have that, like you have that, where you command a room, you command the camera, where.

FERMÀT Commerce (54:36.525)
Certain people just don't and unless you're Mark Zuckerberg with billions of dollars to have that glow up It's really challenging to you know grow into that versus go find the talent or what you're saying in terms of that But I totally used a bunch of words No, and I was just gonna add to that which is I think again leaning into the unfair advantages Yes, Rishabh is doing so much video, right? Yes, so I'm gonna keep focusing and I would you know

Recommend and I'm sure you guys are leaning into video for him But just because he's comfortable on video doesn't necessarily mean maybe Alexa would do as well on video, right? So I'm giving her the resources around maybe more copywriting maybe I'll be here with research Maybe helping her with like more edutainment type style of stuff So, you know what? I mean like if it was Tommy Tommy's probably doing a lot of memes style type stuff, right? And so, you know, I don't I think there it's really important that there is consistency. Yes, but

I still think each person on the team needs their own flavor, right? Like, I don't want a carbon copy. I don't want to talk to necessarily five Rabbas or five Rishabs, right? I want individual personality and I want a cohesive kind of feel that like, wow, they all like concisely and they crush content as a team. It's very broad. It's like, it's very clear content is the focal point of this company from a marketing standpoint.

And so yeah, that's how I would think about it But to be honest like this is one of those things where I know you know it even better than I do I don't know you've been giving me a huge bunch of ideas again I'm gonna make sure a ship gets blocked from this great answers, but I totally agree with you because I think what you're saying is ultimately almost like the like metaphor would be when you go to a store and you see different flavors, but you recognize they're all the same brand

Yeah, that makes absolutely you're like but these are different flavors because the to your point Here's a little leadership tip you never want to hire people that think like you yep. I already have those fucking ideas Yeah, like I don't need those ideas. I need different perspectives I need different things and so if you hire especially in leadership you want everybody in leadership to be different and complementary you don't want any supplementary ideas and it can be so devastating when the executives have the same ideas because it's like

FERMÀT Commerce (56:49.677)
then what am I paying you for? I only need one of you. I don't need the same ideas three or four times. Totally. And you look at that ABM type strategy, you just never know who's going to resonate with his content. Exactly right. They may not necessarily... Account based marketing for the kids following along on. They may not necessarily like Rishabh's, but they may love the content coming out of your account, and vice versa. And it's like, man, I love what this Rava guy puts out.

Or you can also like almost like stair -stepper gateway into people, right? Where it's like, this is Robbo at Fermat. this is really interesting. man, this Rishabh guy, his CV is insane. What? I listen to him. Okay, I know I've taken up too much of your time. So I end on one question, as always at the end. What do you think excellence is a function of?

I think excellence is a function of grit. And the reason that I would say that - Another great book, I had Sheila Duckworth. The reason I would say that, yeah, it's a great book. I think that truly, luck aside, you may have a strategy going into something, you may have a plan, but most people, they do the planning, it doesn't work on the first time and then they just stop. And truly, we've been doing this for a long time and -

Every time I seem to have a plan for something, things seem to go, you know, not as planned. And I've noticed that just staying in the game longer is the way that you find your way to success, right? Like that's why, and you know, when you do pivot, you know, you have to do so very intentionally. Don't just pivot to pivot. But like it really is one of those things where you have to keep yourself stable and realize like, here is the North Star, here is the end goal in mind.

And I know the path there may be a little rocky and that's okay. I'm not gonna be deterred, right? Like this is one of those things where if something really works out for me, I'm stable. And if something doesn't, I'm still stable because I know the next one, I just have to keep myself focused and know that like I have to put myself in a position where I can keep making bets and I can keep edging forward and I keep trying hard. So that's probably what I would say. What about you? What about you, Phil Answer? Very similar. I think for me, it's...

FERMÀT Commerce (58:58.765)
a mix of discipline, commitment, and the ability to know when to call it. Where there's that old poker, know when to hold them, know when to fold them. And I think extending the poker analogy, as long as you're at the table, you have a chance to win. If you're not at the table, dude, there's no matter how good things go. So going back to what you were talking about earlier, I like to make smaller bets and then lean into them versus like,

There's I've never once in my marketing career made an existential bet Never I think that is that is the absolute last thing you want to do because One if it doesn't hit you're obviously dead and then two if it does hit like is this repeatable Is this like you know what I mean? Like are you catching lightning in a bottle? I don't want to catch lightning in a bottle. I want so bad hygiene

Like it encourages like, you know, and then exactly right. Yeah, I think down the road, like say it does work, you know, deep down you may have that like signal in your head that's like, hey, I could probably do this again. And then you end up worse off than where you even started in the first place. It's exactly right. It's exactly right. I loved it, man. It's a ton of fun. You're such a beautiful human. Where can the people find you? How can they get more involved with our future with the brew?

This time's yours, my friend. All right, I appreciate it. So the plug for the pod, our future pod, main channels, our future HQ, if you want to find me personally, im .simi on IG and at underscore simi underscore on X. And I know we haven't changed that underscore stuff since we last recorded. Amazing. Let's go. I know it. Hey, at this point, it's like it's the cliche. It's like, dude, this guy's killing it. Why not throw the underscore in there? A little shift action in there.

This has been so much fun. Thank you for the hospitality. That's it folks. That's all we got for today from at commerce comm go book a demo make my boss happy because I'm probably gonna get fired and he's gonna hire this is this podcast no chance and we also have a great newsletter that goes out every Monday by curated by our wonderful Alexa killer our director of marketing called the geometry of growth you can subscribe right on the website see me again. Thank you so much for all this awesome. This is just such a wonderful human. All right, folks. That's all we got

FERMÀT Commerce (01:01:11.085)
Another one of the books. We'll see you on the flip. Thanks. Hey Uchida. Did you have such a good radio voice? I appreciate you, man.

FERMÀT Commerce (01:01:22.957)
Let's go. Dude, this is wonderful, dude. Thank you so much. Dude, this is a lot of fun. I'm so good at this. We can always jam, man. This is so good. Literally zero prep, and that was one of the best pods I've ripped. That was amazing, dude. It was so good. Dude, this is just like, it's like this conversation amongst friends. Yes. That's like, I know when I do a good podcast, when I leave the podcast with more energy than I started. Than when you started. Yeah. It's such a good thing for me. The energy draining conversations are the worst. Dude, like, I have to.