Why Founders Need to Rethink Community-Building—And How RevGenius Did It

Welcome to Go to Market, a podcast for RevOps, sales, and marketing leaders to dive deep into industry insights and best practices. Go to Market is sponsored by Fulcast, the go-to-market cloud. My name is Amy Cook and I am so excited to introduce two of my good friends, Karthi Ratnam, Head of Go-To-Market at Go-To-Market Partners, and Jared Robyn, Founder at Rev Genius. Hi guys, how's it going?

Thanks for having us, Amy.

We're so happy.

We got there in the end. We got there in the end.

So I, I, I could speak about myself. Thanks for having me. I'm sure Karthi, uh, shares the sentiment.

Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to talk to two truly revolutionaries in our go-to-market space. It has been so much fun to work with each of you individually and also together as we try to advance the, you know, the integrated appeal of go-to-market and really develop some cool ways that, that companies can, you know, learn how to do go-to-market differently. So thank you for joining. So let's just have a great conversation. Yeah. This— the thing that I wanted to talk about the most today, you guys, is something that you are so good at. You just are naturally so good at because you're so friendly. That is building a real community. So, Jared, can you kind of talk about first What gave you the idea of starting Rev Genius?

Yeah, um, and, and I think, um, where my head goes is where, um, founders start, but they need to like be more mission-driven around it. So, oh man, so the quick story is I had a LinkedIn group of people when LinkedIn— posting on LinkedIn was trying to come out of, you know, get started, and, um my goal was to find a job. Like, I had a job because of COVID and, and before, like, I lost my job, and my number one goal was to get one. And, and, um, the communities at the time weren't helping me, whether they were paid or free. But like, that was just a thing. Like, I, I had always known that I liked community, I liked people, I'd seen it in the past. Um, like, that I gravitated towards it. I built the fashion magazine, the community was around there. But now I have no job and I'm on LinkedIn, and there's— and I'm seeing people in the comments. I'm throwing a couple of them into a group chat, and we became friends. And, and I'm like, can you bring a couple more people in? Without the intention of starting a community, more to to have like a crew to help me get a new job, right? Because like, that would have been effing legendary. Like, I just kept putting more people in, the outcome would have been me, uh, getting a new head of sales early-stage company job. And what I found was, uh, these people really liked one another, and they also didn't have the space. And, and what does really liked mean, or what does really like look like? Uh, LinkedIn was breaking in the DMs every day. It was shutting off multiple times a day because we were talking so damn much. We're supporting each other's posts, all this. And I'm like, oh my gosh, feels like a community. The obvious question is, do we need a community, right? Like, like, like so many people feels like it and they lose sight of this question. I'm like, okay, let me survey the space. There's one community out that's paid and senior leaders only. Cool. There's one community out that's not paid and senior leaders only. It's kind of like an email chain. Okay. Um, there's a website that does really good content. Sounds like a content website, like not a true community. And there's something else, we don't know what it is and still don't know what it is. Okay. Names left out. And, uh, I'm like, is there really not something for everybody? Oh my gosh, and I had like the everybody's in my chat, and, um, so to speak. And when I say the everybody's, the people that might not be senior leaders or, or desire to pay for access to something. And, and this became important because like it sounds like great altruistically, like cool, you did it for everyone. And, and I do think altruism is massively important, but if you really like unpack like with a goal of furthering go-to-market at the core. Can you further go-to-market if you're not letting everyone in the room? 4.5 years ago, if you have a group for just senior leaders, what does that group look like?

Me.

Maybe with short hair, but you get it. Like white people.

For all of us on audio, the diversity is lacking, right?

Yeah, I framed my face and maybe it's the short hair version of me 'cause I do like to think that I have a little differentiator, but me. And, and, and, you know, the obvious question is like, Liz Cook calls and everything, like, is— are other people need— I'm like, yeah, they are. Um, one, if you don't have a space for everybody, you, you don't have inspiration, aspiration, mentorship set up for people to go past the proverbial glass ceiling. And companies can't figure out like new ideas and stuff because the, the room is too small. Also let's take like what it looks like out of the equation. Let's just focus on the roles. 4.5 years ago is kind of an inflection point-ish where cold outbound got really hard. Yeah, like it got really hard. And we could talk about if it's still a thing today and Karthi and I have our views, but like it got really hard. It was still a thing, but it got really hard. So, you know, who was the best at cold outbound? SDRs. You know who is the worst? Old school VPs. So like, if you didn't allow them in the same group together, these old school VPs wouldn't get smarter because it's obvious, like throw an SDR with a CRO and/or a VP, the SDR is going to have a career path. I use this example as maybe the lesser obvious, like where a VP or a leader could benefit from an individual contributor. And side note, the individual contributors are who they hire more than leaders too. So like that, this is your lifeline of your company. So all of that. And I'm like, okay, I think, I think it is needed. Uh, let me ask a bunch of people directly, uh, if they want to join. And like 10 to 20% of who I asked said yes. I'm like, that's a lot. Like, we're talking people I've never met, never met. So I'm like, okay, we got something. So I was literally asking like 300 people a day and 30 of them said yes. If you do the math, that's 1,000. And yes, Early stage, you work weekends for those who—

for all of us, you work your own time.

But yeah, well, I mean, very interesting point. Interesting point you said about the 4 and a half years. Aabang got really hard, right? Part of the reason why aabang got really hard 4 and a half years ago was because of the pandemic and everyone was staying at home.

That's right. That's right. Well, Karthi, I'm so glad that you popped in because I wanted to hear more about your background now. And Jared, I think you're—

We're BFFs and more.

That's right. We are.

Absolutely. And it's so interesting to hear your background, Jared. And now I want to bring in the Karthi X factor here and tell us more about your background and how you became a part of Go-To-Market Partners.

So my background, I don't know if a lot of people know this, right? So I cut my teeth in like open source. I worked in open source communities, right? Which is why Amy earlier when we were riffing, I said I'm more of a community purist because I can see how when community is done right, it can add value to people. And then after that, I worked in like pre-sales, sales, sales enablement, marketing. And then funnily enough, it was community that brought me to go-to-market partners because I joined Peak and I met Jad. And Jad was a co-founder of Go-To-Market Partners, and he wanted me to come work at Go-To-Market Partners to run Go-To-Market.

Oh, that's wonderful. And just for all of us who don't know yet about Go-To-Market Partners, tell us what you do exactly. I already know because I'm a huge fan and supporter of Go-To-Market Partners and a partner.

But yes, you are a very good one.

People who don't know, give us the scope of what your job entails.

Um, so we're sort of like— and think about us as like an analyst advisory firm for mid-sized companies, right? Uh, we help companies, we do research reports and analyze the state of Go-To-Market and also like benchmark against like pipeline, revenue attainment, etc. But then we also advise and teach the newer frameworks of Go-To-Market because one of the big problems the Go market is facing is because it's evolving so fast, there is no one framework that people can agree on to run all of Go market, and we're trying to fill that gap.

I love that. So your goal is to be able to provide a real framework for the entire, we'll say, community to get behind and understand. Correct.

And which is why a couple of years ago we launched the Go market operating system, which is supposed to be the holistic framework for good market because it takes into consideration all of good market.

I love that framework, by the way. And after going to the Better Together event in New York—

you were amazing at it, by the way. You were so good at working the crowd.

You're so nice. You know what I love? I love being on a stage and I grew up on a stage.

And so you were a natural. Jared, you missed her because after your birthday celebrations, you walked out.

I did see you on camera in the back room and I'm like, this woman just like owns.

I know, right?

Owns that camera. And, and that's awesome. I think an interesting transition from this to the rest is what, what's the one motion on that that's not included yet in the GTM framework operating system?

Kathy, audience, then you like that transition.

And so one of the reasons so, so interested in what you're doing is because I've seen for a long time— I grew up in an entertainment family, which is why I grew up on stage. Um, my family is from— for people age 40 and over, maybe you've heard of the Osmonds. And so I come from that family. And so Donny and Marie, we like— I would come out and be like, they're guest violinist, and I would do, you know, I did 12 shows a week in high school in Branson, Missouri. And so I had a lot of really fun experiences there and understood the value of audience. So I grew up among PR people, entertainment people, backstage crew, and we put all of these— it was basically a show, which is like a storyline for 2 hours and understand the value of audience, and that has not yet really been infused into business.

And thank you for saying that because Jared and I were having this exact conversation about how the entertainment industry has long since known how to build audience, but business, B2B, not that good.

It's very interesting. And I'm seeing some merging together. You're starting to see some of the entertainment professionals, like Ryan Reynolds, for example, and right, some other people.

That's Karthi's favorite example, actually.

Yes, it's my favorite example. Thank you.

Fantastic. I'm not gonna lie, like, I love that example. And, and others who too, who are building brands. But I think that there's so much value from our business, our B2B business community. And if we can just help elevate other people to understand more about audience, then we'll have that go the other way. But it, but this is anyway, that I just wanted to frame that perspective. To throw my 100% support behind what you guys are doing with audience-led growth. So can you explain a little bit more about what you mean by that?

First and foremost, I'm gonna let Karthy take this, but I want to frame it before. People have been saying for years B2C marketing doesn't work in B2B businesses. For years. 5 years after they say that, something else comes in. Maybe it's 7 sometimes. Influencer marketing won't work. Why won't it work? One, the ACV is higher. Okay, I hear you. Two, the deal cycle's different. You're not buying on an e-commerce site. Heard that before. Got it. Um, three, like, the buying process, you need a salesperson and all this. Got it. So what? So what? People still buy from people. So now what we're seeing is, um, and you'll hear people like clichély saying like, humans bought human to human, all this. I'm like, yeah, I don't know if half the people like fully grasp, but like, um, we're at a time where this is happening. And I just heard— okay, perfect example. I was listening to My First Million. For anybody who's listening, phenomenal podcast. Business Builders, they had the either the president or the CEO, not Paul Graham, but, um, essentially the top operator at Y Combinator as a guest, and how he picks the future businesses. And the conversation went along the lines of like, audience building's big. And, and he responded, uh, in B2C we've seen it. And then Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle, who sold to HubSpot, said B2B too. And, uh, and, and he's like, yeah, yeah. And he's thinking about it like in real time on the podcast. And he's like, yeah, B2B too. And it is, it's a little more niche. And you could hear him like all this. And, and Sam goes, there's a reason I'm asking. And he didn't say the reason, but I'm like, mother effer, this guy's trying to compete with Audience-Led Growth, with us already. It's happening.

It's happening.

It's happening.

Yeah, and like just to add, right, to what Jared said and Amy touching on some of the stuff that we were riffing on earlier, right? To me inherently, like, I like helping other people. I like championing other people. I don't like selling. Like, I don't think I'm a very good salesperson or a closer or like, I don't think I'm very good at selling at all, right? But what I do like to do is champion other people and then they inherently see value in having a relationship with whatever entity I'm having a relationship with, right? So because, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Amy, I don't think we ever kind of sold to you, right? We just kind of became friends and we championed you, and then you thought, you know what, this is a mutually beneficial relationship for us, right?

It's absolutely right. I don't think that selling is really the best way to do it anymore. I really believe that, you know, just from the past 15 years, I ran a marketing agency and I was responsible for most of the sales. And I always referred to myself as just the chief problem fixer. And that is the way that we sold because, you know, you go in there and, and luckily because I ran the company, I didn't have a lot of constraints about what I could offer to people. And so I would say, hey, let's just go in and do this for you for free. You can see some value. And it made it so easy to go in and help them understand a value proposition. And then you develop the relationship, and then you want to work together. And Karthy, you did the same thing with me, and I found a ton of value out of it. And Jared, you did the same thing with me in that community as well. And once you give someone, number one, like, the opportunity to get to know you, and number two, you feel like they care about you actually as a person, it makes all the difference.

100%. It goes back to the original thing which I was saying, which is create demand versus harvest demand. I'm not trying to harvest you as a sale or somebody with a contract. I'm trying to genuinely build a relationship and a connection with you and champion you. If that turns into a demand sale, that's great. If it doesn't, that's great too. We still champion you and you're doing really well, right? And that, I think that's the whole thing.

I totally love that. So is that how, how would you differentiate then, Karthi, between community-led and audience-led? So yes, yes, this is the question we need to ask.

Karthi's going to take this one.

Thank you, Jared. You're such a good friend. So, so just to back up, right? One, I'm like a community purist, right? And when I say I'm a community purist, I think community when done right when it's actually based on values and culture and change and truly empowering and championing other people, I think is, is, is amazingly good. And I think throughout history and throughout social movements, you can see how community can positively impact humanity, right? But community for the sake of harvesting demand is what I'm completely against, which I think is kind of what's happened a little bit with the pandemic, right? Because everybody wanted to feel connected. Because suddenly the pandemic was like almost like a singularity, right? Because when you had wars or when you had other things or earthquakes or tsunamis or anything happening around the world, it was specific to a locality. But the pandemic was the first globally shared experience of this generation. So now we all had this common experience that Everyone can relate to and know about lockdowns and social distancing and vaccine policies and, you know, mask mandates and all of that stuff, right? And suddenly, because we were all isolated, we felt like we needed to belong because we're so used to traveling and meeting other people. So community became a thing. But then unfortunately, what then happened was companies started seeing communities as a place to harvest demand instead of a place to support each other, champion each other, and create a sense of belonging. And that's where now brand communities are kind of dying because people almost have like an allergic reaction to it when they're asked to. But obviously third-party communities like Rev Genius are thriving because it's, it's not mandated by anybody. Like it's, it's, it's, it's a third-party safe space, right? It's totally different. So community, when done right, can be really good. Sorry, go ahead, Amy.

Oh no, no, I, I would just to restate what you're saying is people don't— people, you feel like many brand communities are, because they're harvesting, people feel like they're being sold to. Nobody likes to feel like sold to. People authentic relationship.

Yeah, people, we join communities to have relationships, to champion other people, to help other people, right? And to be of value to other people. We don't want to be sold to consistently and If you know that, if I smell it a mile away, I'm not going to join.

So across the board. So yeah, it's a very thin line. We have to work with that as our core business model, right? And we do it well. And I can literally say, hey, we're working with Fullcast because they want to make you better. We're able to do this many new things and they're great. And then what happens? Fullcast looks great. We look authentic. Win-win, right? And, um, but like, I, I sent a, a community leader a text once. I'm like, can you tell me— and, and this is somebody who ran a very successful business, who had an exit with their community. I'm like, can you tell me a case of a company trying to start it and not working? And they said, uh, every case. Like, everybody. Um, and I'm like, wow. I'm like, Okay.

I think though about, uh, Karthi, earlier you mentioned you did think that Salesforce and HubSpot had done a pretty good job overall.

Is that right?

And tell, tell me, what do you think that worked with them that's not working with other brand communities?

So, so that's really, that's a really good question, right, Amy? One, HubSpot and Salesforce kind of started for the deluge of communities that are happening right now, right?

They were first to the market with that.

First to the market, right? One. And two, they were— they built a category and they lead a category. Inherently, categories build movements if you do them right. That makes more than building a community. They built a movement.

That's right, that's right. They got behind a, a purpose Correct.

And you built it.

That's right. And then that purpose and that movement inherently is bigger than a company.

It's correct. Correct. Which is why inbound is not branded HubSpot. It's not branded HubSpot at all. It's inbound.

I have— I, I think I, I have a little nuance to add to this as well, like looking like super tactically. And, and this is all spot on. Um, I also think that in HubSpot and Salesforce's cases— and we could add Clay to the mix because Clay is newer, they they're doing it in real time, you know. Um, I don't want to just use first, uh, as, you know, first to market with, with something, why it works. All three of their— let's call it ecosystems or community, like interchangeably in this case— have people that can make money from, from the product. Okay, make money, not, not where, uh, the company just makes money. And, and, you know, quick guess, it's agencies, right? Like, um, they have an agency component, which I find really interesting because, Clay, like, this is their experts. They're like literally making money by, by, by putting it in. And HubSpot, Salesforce are the same. So when you have this, you'll notice in communities the people that can make money from the most, whether you're Pavilion, Rev Genius, others are the most active, the fractionals are the most active, right? Like the— and it's kind of a joke sometimes, But you have that in HubSpot, Salesforce, and Clay too. Who's the most active? The agencies, the fractionals. They are. Um, and when you have a product that the more active they are also gets placed— and side note, the, the side effects, um, and you know, from an audience building perspective, when you post something, you're like, I'm a Clay creator or whatever, you're not getting paid anything, maybe of 20%. Clay is getting all the creators to come in by blasting it and doing like quick spur-of-the-moment takeovers out of nowhere. And so of course you're gonna post it. And HubSpot— so, uh, the big aha for me with HubSpot was I spoke to, um, their former like head of evangelism or whatever, and I'm like, who are your most act— like, what's the profile of your most active evangelists? Are they, are they the power sales ops people, right? Like, or something? She goes, no, they're all agencies. And I'm like, oh, I get it all. Right now.

I totally get it. You know, we, um, at my— the agency that I ran, we were HubSpot Platinum Partners as well. We were power users. We had to figure out how to use HubSpot in every use case that we were supporting. Like, we had many dozens of HubSpot clients where we were on retainer, and we had to know exactly which use case worked for which client. And so it does make you a power user. It does make you that person that is evangelizing more than anyone and reaching out to the HubSpot support groups and looking on the, in the community, asking each other how to do it. So absolutely. And Karthi, you've got a hand up.

Yeah, that's my calling card. That's my calling card. That and not allowing people to share on Zoom. Anyway, so to Jared's point, right, one, you don't have to be the first mover in the market to have the advantage. You just have to be the person that defines the POV better, right? And yeah, that's one, right? Two, again, to Jared's point, and I'm going to add a little bit of nuance to this, is, right, really good leaders, community builders who can turn, create movements, actually truly what they do is they build an ecosystem.

Mhm.

They're good at building ecosystems, and ecosystems are like whether you look at it biologically or whether you look at it like in the business world, right? Fundamentally are grounded in everybody benefiting from it.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely right. I think that is so, so important. So when you say audience-led, can you kind of define some fundamental principles of this new movement that you two are championing? And I am also championing it with you and being your number one fan. Can you define a few things about what does audience-led mean?

So, you know, this new paradigm, like going from community— so first and foremost, where, where does that mean community-led's not a thing, or this over— no, community-led absolutely is a thing, but, but what are the easiest places for community to exist where you can't fuck it up for a company? Um, Karthi, I've never spoken like this, so bear with me. That tends to be people that are already in your product. Like whether they, um, are paid users or not paid, having a space where you talk about your product a lot, if they're in your product, makes sense. They get it, they want to learn how to do it better, right? Like, so Fullcast has all these users, some of them are paid or not. Um, we have like the power users, the agencies teaching everybody. Um, our goal is to get more people, uh, to be paid users. Uh, also users to be surprised and delighted and refer other people. That's community-led growth loop, right? Like, and, and we want to build community advisory boards and everything and, and get the most excited people active. Like, that is real, that still exists. Is it like customer marketing? Yes, it is. Like, there is an aspect of it that's like, you know, overlap there.

Cool, right?

So community-led, absolutely. Now the difference in the nuance, uh, between that and audience-led is audience-led is more of a demand movement, right? Like, like, like, like marketing. And it doesn't mean that in your audience, your followers, your subscribers, they can't talk to each other. We all go to an event and people talk to each other like that's, that's like it. Like it doesn't mean they can't talk to each other again. That doesn't make it have a community, right? Like, it's a centralized spot for creating content in many formats— webinars, podcasts here, right? Like, um, with the goal of attracting your ICP to listen, to partake. And it's the idea that you have this thing which they could enter for $0 mostly, like, let's assume. So even if you're not a PLG company, to get people in the product for $0, this gives you— this, this extends your product. And frankly, I personally look at audience as, well, content as part of your product now. Like, like how you're going in and like the people like Adam Robinson who have phenomenal audiences literally are saying buy access to my my content and the product comes for free with it. Oh wow, Meta, right?

Like, like, oh, I did not know that.

Check, check that. Like, you could join my community for founders, it's $997, and we give you the product. By the way, if you bought the product separately, it would be $1,100, $1,000, or $1,200, $1,100 a month, right? So that's interesting. Um, but, but, but now you have, um, a new mechanism where you could teach your desired person, your, your RevOps leader, like how to RevOps better, um, or achieve their goals and, and move on and become this like beacon of, of, of help. Like you're helping them solve their problems. They don't need your product yet, you're just helping them solve it. And you could figure out ways to acquire them into your ecosystem, uh, your audience. Measure that they're actually liking what they're getting and they're becoming activated, right? Like, oh my gosh, this person clicked 1,500 links, opened 25 emails, went to my website versus somebody that just subscribed. Like seeing that difference.

Yeah.

And then one of two things happens, like from a tactical GTM thing when they come to you saying, I'm ready for Fullcast. Um, which is the perfect world, especially if you're— if you have the right folks in there, there's a good chance that person is qualified, or a better chance certainly. Or you have a really easy sales conversation. Amy, I, I see you've been interacting with everything— my social, my emails, um, you've been to every webinar, you've even volunteered to speak at one. Should we chat? Like, like, should we chat directly? Like, see what's up?

Like, it's just so easy, right?

It becomes so easy. So like GTM alignment, whatever that, that, that's GTM unification, like happens very synchronistically from that as well. So that's audience-led growth. And then, and yeah, and you could have events where people talk to people. Um, it— yeah, so that's— and Karthi, what would you add? See, this is when she's not speaking that I get nervous about.

Oh my gosh, I thought you did a wonderful job.

No, because Karthi knows things that— nuance to add.

Karthi knows things. I need that on a t-shirt. I'm gonna wear that.

We mentor each other, and on the intelligence side, uh, no, no, she's my leader.

You're making me blush. But But to Jared's point, right, and I'll add a little bit of nuance to this, is audience allows you to personalize at scale. So you could be talking to 10,000 people on LinkedIn, but they each feel like you're personally talking to them, right? And then that, I suppose, if you had like a personalization factor, it keeps getting more and more nuanced as you keep moving down, shall we say, the audience funnel, right? So let's say LinkedIn, right? And then events, right? And then you speak at an event. So the touchpoint of personalization just keeps increasing as you go down. So that's one, right? Two, the tech landscape is— can we all agree— super crowded. So crowded. So if you are somebody who has an idea and you want to launch it and want it to be successful, where do you start? You start by building an audience. When you have enough people who are going to listen to the problem that you're evangelizing, then you can think about doing a podcast. You can do a newsletter. You can launch a product. You can write a book. You can do any number of things. But without an audience, you can't do anything, especially in this crowded space.

And I want to, I want to take what Karthi said and make it practical and make it easy. Like build an audience. It's like, I've never built an audience. I'm gonna make it simple. Post something about your point of view on LinkedIn or on the network where your ICP hangs.

It's a great place to start.

Just post it like, hey, I think, I think CRMs are dead. Not just to be provocative, but, but because you have a— because this is a problem you've heard countless times. Yes, I hear, um, like, like, okay, I, I think RevOps needs to, needs to go because, whoa, it just came. Yeah, but it's because GTM Ops, like, RevOps is still like screaming for these parties to come together and it's just not working. So yeah, in theory it's great, but GTM Ops, I've spoken x number of leaders, all of this. Um, it's nuanced. And I think— or, or like, I think the head of GTM is going to be the next CRO, and here's why. Because this is the problem that CROs have. CROs— sorry, CROs, you're VPs of sales promoted. Like, that's CRO 1.0, and you don't have the full org, and here are the gaps you have. And two, um, you're not part of product, but you're arguing about it. And like, is that really forwarding the company? So like, this is how I propose. And then all of a sudden it's like 2 people might be like, oh, interesting. Maybe, maybe none. So, so send it to your mom, sister, girlfriend, wife, and until, until you get— no, just only, only if they're in your ICP. Only if they're in your ICP.

Absolutely. Oh, that's a wonderful— well, so as we are, um, I wish I had 5 more hours to talk with you guys about this. Hopefully you'll come back and part of this podcast again. But as we have to end Um, what is one thing that you guys are doing that's keeping you at the top of your game? You are both outstanding leaders in your respective audiences. And what is one thing that you guys are doing to just keep you, keep you at the top? Is it Jared that you're in, in the woods a lot of the time and you look out your window? Karthy, do events get you so excited? Like, what are you doing to stay there?

Um, so for me, it's, it's sure everybody knows I love events, right? So that's a separate thing, but events are not the— the events is means to an end. I like championing people. I like helping people. So events is a way for me to do that, right? Anything I do, what keeps me going is if I'm able to help somebody or champion someone else, that keeps me going.

I love that. And Jared, how about you?

All right, so, uh, in the woods this weekend, I needed it. I was telling Karthi, I slept an hour and a half past my alarm today. I typically wake up at 6.

I was—

it was 7:30, the alarm was going off. Oh my God, it's been a week. It's the first of the month. Fortunately, today I was able to do that without much work. Uh, that might be why I was a little late, like I was a little discombobulated this morning. But thank you, everybody. But, um, so, so that's good on like that level. I walk daily, like 10,000+ steps. I rotate podcasts, anything from like All In to Lex Fridman to Joe Rogan, love him or hate him. I'm like trying to find like this objective middle for everything and understand audibles. But also that's why I hang out with this one so much. Like, literally, I'm fairly smart. She's challenged me to think differently. Um, and, and by the way, I've read books that have helped me get there, that have helped our conversation, but she dives in into the nuance that like will challenge even the book's author. So like the takeaway here is find that mentor that, that, that challenges you, not necessarily that's two steps ahead. Like I, I truly believe you need that kind of mentor like in the job you want to get to, to get there. You need like the career mentor to help you get like literally tactically— I want— I'm a director, I want to be VP. But I think, um, from like a founder standpoint, a business standpoint, you need a mentor that's going to challenge you, um, thoughtfully and how you think about problems and stuff. Not just to get to the next point, but to build a new category and like be artistic and creative. That's what I need. I need that passion, and Karthi is that for me.

I love it. Thank you, Jared. Sorry, Amy, just a parting— sorry, I know we're at time, but Jared made an interesting point and I really want to touch on that. So the biggest skill that we're all going to need is unlearning. We're going to have to train ourselves to unlearn and relearn. Like if you had a preconceived notion that, for example, everybody likes to pick on outbound, so I'll pick on inbound. Inbound is the only way to go. And then the world shifts and changes, we have to be able to unlearn that and be okay to adapt this other new thing.

Being agile.

You have to unlearn. If you can't unlearn, you will not be successful.

I love that. That's a wonderful end of an incredible discussion. Thank you so much, both of you.

Thanks for having us, Amy Cook.

Thank you so much for giving us Just incredible insights. I have learned a lot today and I really am so excited to work with you closer and closer as we— Yes, let's go.

Side note, uh, in closing, audience-led allows your feedback loops to be faster than anything. Lightning. That's it.

Let's dive into that next time.

Let's do that.

Sorry.

Thanks for having us, Amy Cook.

See you in a whole nother podcast. The next 5 hours starts now.

Well done, Jared. Well done, Jay.

Thank you guys both so much.

I really appreciate it.