#003: Andy Cloyd - How to Raise Millions from a Former Investor Turned Founder

A little bit of the origin story on the company is like, I was actually about to move to Washington, D.C. to go full-time at Revolution, like in the office, because they were about to come back. And the second wave of COVID hit and we're just like, my roommate is moving in with his girlfriend. So I was like, oh, I guess I'm just going to go to D.C. I go to this party, I meet this guy and he's like, oh, you got to come see this house in Venice. Like we, we, somebody just backed out last minute. We need someone to take the last bedroom. And they're like, the only catch is like, you got to sign the lease by 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. You should come check it out. Couldn't even get in the house, whole thing's locked. But I meet these guys and I was like, oh, you guys are like absolute psychos, but in the exact same way that I am. I was like, you know, founders. And like, that's how I met my co-founders. Like, we moved into this house together, total stranger. And he's like this scrappy serial founder, like bootstrap guy, has just like grinded it out for 7 years, like never had a job. And it's just like, he's like, oh, I hear you talking on the phone all day. Like, you sound like you like know about this fundraising thing. Like, We should just start a company. Like, we got some engineers from our friend who just sold a company and like, we should grab them and just like start building something. And I was like, you know what? We should like, let's just do it.

Andy Cloyd is the co-founder and CEO of SuperAffiliate, an e-commerce platform that helps brands supercharge word-of-mouth marketing through co-branded landing pages. Founded less than 2 years ago, the company closed over $3 million in funding and is already working with some of the top e-commerce brands in the world, including Mudwater and Dr. Squatch.

In this episode, we cover Andy's real-time lessons from raising venture capital, what he learned from shifting his physical environment from L.A.

to New York, and what's next for Super Affiliate. Welcome back to episode 3 of Turning Pro. My name is Ben with my co-host Adrian.

I'm Adrian, and we're here with Andy from Super Affiliate and self-proclaimed cold plunge obsessive. Andy, what's going on? Catch us up.

What's going on? Here we are here in Ben's beautiful apartment. Came up here to talk about SuperAffiliate and all things life with, with you all. So we can start with just like, what the hell is SuperAffiliate? And SuperAffiliate, we automate the creation of co-branded landing pages for a brand's best customers and creators. So, you know, there's affiliate links all over the internet. Historically, those are just tracking mechanisms that maybe end up paying somebody out at the back and We wanted to think about what if we could turn that experience of sharing a link into an actual shoppable experience that keeps that creator or customer or media property, you know, in the loop on that shopping experience. So brands can feature products right next to the creators they're working with. People can shop, check out, get paid, and we make it easy to do that thousands of times over instead of, you know, I'm a brand and I advertise on Lex Fridman and I build Lex a podcast, landing page. Now I can make 1,000 of those, and that's what we do.

Love that. We'll, uh, we'll unpack that in a little bit. But to start off, want you to give us a quick overview. What does a day in the life look like of Andy Cloyd?

A day in the life, um, it always starts obnoxiously early, and that was trained from COVID being on the West Coast working at an East Coast company.

And then I need times in this, in this day in the life.

Well, we'll— so I would say normal start time, I try to go to the gym at like 5:30. But that all started because I was living in California and our team is 5 hours ahead of us in Florianópolis, Brazil. So the way the company started is actually funny is how I got on this early schedule is at the origin days of the company, I'm an early person. My co-founder Anders is a night person. And we were literally like overlapping. Like I'd be waking up obnoxiously early at like 3:30 because it's 8:30 in Brazil, and he'd be going to bed after some, like, crazy maniacal brainstorm. He had this notebook and was, like, gener— like, coming up with awful names for the company and awful ideas, which I was contributing plenty to the awful ideas. Um, and just started getting up super early, and that's just stuck with me. But now that I'm— I moved to New York in October, so that's been a very refreshing experience. But now it's like getting up early, go to the gym before I just dive headfirst into a calendar that is back to back. So I would say a day in the life actually mainly looks like me inside my windowless room in Fidei on Zoom. And, you know, we've made some big glow-ups in there recently. It used to just be a white wall, and I was shamed into needing to, you know, make that a little bit of a better spot. So sit in my room all day and, you know, shill software. And—

What's in the room? Like, I want to hear.

The room itself. Actually, this is a good story too. You know, we're a little scrappy startup. You know, we keep things tight on the budget. So I got a good, you know, $70 Amazon desk that holds everything, everything I own, which is like my laptop and like a couple books and a Theragun. And, you know, so nice that one time I walked in and like, you know, long day, throw your bag on the desk, desk just absolutely explodes. And you can actually find this on my Twitter. It's not duct taped together still to this day. But beyond that, we've got a bed and, and an Amazon desk.

I think that's great. I think that's great though, because it holds character and it's probably a good reminder for you as you continue on this journey and you guys level up. And we'll get into that, but like it keeps you humble.

It certainly does. No distractions. You don't even know what time of day it is. You don't know the weather. You know, you're getting the air from the living room. It's perfect.

Andy, I'm gonna invite you over to Cowork one day. You can sit next to the window.

I mean, if it's anything, yeah, it looks like we got a lovely space in here.

You just catch him watching the sunshine.

Yeah, yeah. He's like, wow, vitamin D during the day.

No productivity. Someone's on a call explaining what they do and he's like, what'd you say?

Right?

And he's locked in looking at the sun.

Dude, I love the grit though.

Yeah.

When we first met, that was like the thing that resonated with me. Like, you, you grew up in Kentucky, you had a failed startup, you went into venture, and like now you're here. Congrats on the round, by the way. I know you recently just closed around. It's You've gone a lot of different paths, but it's, it's interesting because I can just see it, that it's a culmination of everything into where you're at today.

I— yeah, I think so. And I think it's like we're all on this path of just like figuring out, you know, what you're not good at and what you're good at. And I've done a bunch of like figuring out what I'm not good at. And I think, you know, you— everything you're doing is like you're just giving your— setting yourself up for that time when you're going to get lucky. And like starting a company was like one of those things, like this esoteric thing that like when you're on the venture side and you're investing, you know, I had 7 years of reps of like seeing people dropping everything to go start a company. And it's like the most admirable thing. And you're always like, oh, like, you know, people are like, what do you want to do? And you're like, oh, of course I want to like start a company. But then you're like, are you actually going to leave that like comfortable thing? And then like, what do you, what idea are you going to come up with that you're going to like beat, you know, an expert from whatever category you want to go build in? And I think, you know, I got super lucky that like opportunity just came and slapped me in the face. Like a little bit of the origin story on the company is like I was like kind of waffling through life. I was like, it was like COVID. I was out in LA, I was working venture and I was actually about to move to Washington, D.C. to go full time at Revolution, like in the office because they were about to come back and the second wave of COVID hit. And we're just like, my roommate is moving in with his girlfriend. So I was like, oh, I guess I'm just gonna go to DC. I go to this party, I meet this guy and he's like, oh, you gotta come see this house in Venice. Like we, we, somebody just backed out last minute. We need someone to take the last bedroom. So they're like, we just need a warm body that can like pay rent so they can move into this awesome house in Venice. And they're like, the only catch is like, you gotta sign the lease by 10:00 AM tomorrow morning. You should come check it out. So I like skateboard over there, you know, very Venice style. You know, you're on your skateboard and stuff and couldn't even get in the house. Whole thing's locked. But I meet these guys and I was like, oh, you guys are like absolute psychos. But in the exact same way that I am, I was like, you know, founders and like, that's how I met my co-founders. Like, we moved into this house together, total stranger. And he's like this scrappy serial founder, like bootstrap guy, has just like grinded it out for 7 years, like never had a job. And it's just like He's like, oh, I hear you talking on the phone all day. Like, you sound like you like know about this fundraising thing. Like, we should just start a company. Like, we got some engineers from our friend who just sold a company and like we should grab them and just like start building something. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, we should. Like, let's just do it. And we started off with, as everyone does, an awful idea. And you just kind of like go out there and like that opportunity smacked me in the face. And now we're like stumbling through building a company, but theoretically it's going in the right direction.

For everyone actually listening to this, like every like 2 people that are, can you give like the 10-second overview of what Super Affiliate does?

Yeah, for sure. So Super Affiliate, like maybe I'll go a little background and then we'll go into the 10 seconds. But effectively, like when we started the company, we were like, okay, there's like, you keep hearing all these headwinds in paid acquisition. Like, hey, like, CPAs are on the rise. iOS 14.5, brands are going to have to think about new places to grow. And where we started to narrow in on is what we call the word of mouth category, which is going to be everything from refer a friend to ambassadors talking about your brand to influencers to affiliates. And we went out and we saw these tools and effectively saw a bunch of link and code generators. Maybe they're giving you store credit. Maybe they are paying you an affiliate commission via PayPal. We're like, these are all kind of the same thing. Like, what if we could just like take all those programs, put them into one easy-to-use app, and like make a merchant's life easier? One piece of software. But then like, I think more importantly, and like what SuperAffiliate really is, is like we turn all of those affiliate links and referral codes into a co-branded shopping experience. So, you know, if you're working with creators, they're making content for your brand already. You're paying them to make UGC. We say take that UGC, put it on this, what we call, you know, personal storefront. You'll send it to the creator. They see themselves on the page. People can shop, they can curate their favorite products, and then they ultimately get paid on the back end. And, you know, I think part of like the appeal to it is I got some advice one time. They're like, if you're starting a company, always make sure it appeals to like one of the seven deadly sins. And like we cover a few of them. We get like the vanity of like a creator seeing themselves on the page. We get the, you know, greed. You're like paying out and like, and like, that's kind of like, of course you're not building your company in that direction. But it was kind of funny when I heard that and I was like, oh, that's like where the flip, the switch flips for people is like they see these pages and they're like, oh my God, that's me on the page promoting Mudwater, or that's me on the page promoting whatever brand I actually love. And like, it's been a really cool experience, like see that come to life.

That's awesome. I think one of the things I want to dive into is You spent a while in venture, right? Like, it's a very different life. You've lived on both sides of the coin. I would love to hear from you how, like, people in the venture world think about, like, founders, and then, like, your perception of, like, how founders think about people in venture. Because I've heard some, like, pretty controversial things, and I'm just, like, curious as someone who's, like, lived on both sides of that coin, how you would compare and contrast the two.

Yeah, I think, I mean, As with anything, there's like good and bad parts of every industry. And I think like we so often, especially right now is peak, like amplifying the negative sides of venture. And I think like there's some credence to some parts of that, of course. I think, you know, what I saw in the venture side in my personal experience was, you know, this opportunity to like be a young person that is like, frankly, like in rooms you shouldn't be in and learning about things at such a level. And it's like the breadth of a day of like, you know, one second you're hearing a pitch from like this person has been at Stripe for, you know, 8 years that's building something awesome in fintech. And then you switch to the next call and it's somebody that's building like a factoring product for truckers and they've, you know, owned a freight brokerage for 8 years. And then next is like a healthcare payments company. And like that breadth was so awesome. And I think like, The people who are really great at venture are just that, like, lifelong learner, like, intellectually curious, and just get fired up about that. I think, like, you've started to see a little bit of a shift towards, like, the mid to end of my time working full-time in venture, where, like, it kind of became the hot thing. And whenever something becomes the hot thing, that's gonna attract a different crowd. And I think, like, now there's maybe— and then you, like, layer into that Twitter personalities and like all these things. And I think that's changed the industry a lot. And you just throw a bunch of money in it. Like, it's, you know, the last 2 years are not representative in my opinion of like what venture was nor what it will be in the future. And I think you have to like think about that when you're, you know, looking at that. I think if you're gonna talk about like the venture perspective of a founder, like the best people have the empathy. Like the best people see the founders as an individual. It's like, you know, my best founder relationships on the venture side are now like some of my best friends. Like I know their kids' names. Like I could tell you what grades they're in. I know their wives' names. I've played pickleball with them in Columbia, Missouri. You know, it's like you really do build that. And I think like that's the good side of it. And I think that's like what it should be. And they are aware of like the pain and the trials and tribulations of like being a founder. I think, that was a huge part of what drives that like, oh, I want to start a company because like I knew when I was on that side of the table that there was like a level of empathy I couldn't tap into because I couldn't look across from them and I couldn't say, hey, I know what it's like. You know, it's like, Ben, like you're building right now. Like, you know what it's like within the course of a day to think we are so onto something like this is going to be huge to jump on the next call and be like, I'm such an idiot for starting this company. Like, what are we doing? And you like— I never— I think venture is much more of like, you know, the headspace of that is a much more— it's longer feedback loops. It's like, I still don't even know if I was good at venture. I'm 7 years in. Like, you know, you like the exits and stuff like that. Like, the ones that really move the needle on a career are not 2-year things.

They're not 3-year things. So you'll probably find out in the next, call it, 2 to 4 years if you were good at venture. Yeah, exactly.

So like, on episode 452, you're going to be like, Andy, were you good? And I'll be like, God, I hope so. Yeah. But so I think like, you know, there's that element of like the best people have oftentimes done it because they're able to do that. And they're able to say like, dude, I know what it feels like to like close a deal, pick up the phone and lose your best customer. You know? And like that is something that you really like have to tap into. I think when you go on the other side and you think about like founders looking at investors, I think it's super easy to like almost paint a more negative picture than there actually is. I think most people on that side of the table are genuinely curious people that want to do well. And I think now it's like this easy thing of like, oh, like you're just, you know, either like Sharky or, you know, you're building your own brand on my back or like you own 20% of my company. And it's like, yes, that's the case. But like those people had to go out and they had to raise money and like that's their job. And like that's what they're paid to do. It's not a nefarious thing. It's like, at the end of the day, when you sign a term sheet, like that's you saying, I'm acknowledging a fair deal here. Like based on all the things, I'm willing to give X% of my company at Y terms for Z dollars, you know, and that's kind of how it goes. But I think like founders, part of what can be difficult that has changed a lot in the last few years is there used to be a lot more asymmetry in information. Between investors and founders. I think now the amount of access to resources and content about the venture world and the startup world, and like there's become, I think, a little more liquidity in the market in the sense of like, you know, you can find out what is market, you know, like Ben, like you, like, you know, I know you were recently going to a raise, like you could pick up the phone and call 5 people and be like, hey, is this normal? Like, is this ass normal? And I think like, Back in the day, there wasn't as much of that, which is obviously a good thing. It's like, it's a great thing. So I think now founders approach fundraising from a much more informed perspective.

So I want to, I want to unpack that a little bit. Um, and I want to speak to my experience briefly and then understand how you look at this. I went, I just went through a round. We closed the round. It was great. I spent some time reflecting on just like, if I could go back and do it again, what would I do differently? Like, what were the things I learned the most? Who were the people that resonated with me the most. Um, and I actually think when it was all said and done, like the persona that resonated with me the most was the person who passed on my company but took the time to actually explain why they passed. And like that level of detail and thought, that was the thing that like I remembered. I don't know why, for whatever reason, cuz there are people who like the way they handled it. I, I joke, but it's like if you know, we raise another round and for some reason they want to come back, like, I won't give it the time of day. Not because they necessarily did something wrong, but I just think the way that you, as an investor, my perspective, the way that you handle the yeses are equally as important as the way you handle the nos. Because you never know when a relationship is going to come back around. And I've always been taught from a young age not to burn bridges. And I just think that that resonated with me so much. But then on the other side, the thing I would love you to talk us through, given that you're on both sides of the coin, what were the things that you looked for in the people you ultimately let into your round and onto your cap table? Because I know you mentioned the fact that there is a ton of information out there for founders now, but there's still a large percentage of founders who don't know what they don't know. And I think that we sometimes live in this bubble, like especially in the e-com, SaaS, New York world where like we all know everyone there's a lot of founders who are on the outside of that, look like looking in and they don't know everything. And so they don't actually have those resources. So I do just want to like level set that I don't know if that's as readily accessible as we believe it is. But just to unpack this a little bit more, I want to hear from your perspective, like, who are the people you pick and why?

Yeah. And I think that was like, you know, if you think about like a cheat code going into a round is like almost already having relationships with the people, you know, it was like, I, these are people who I've done diligence on deals for because they're like, oh, we're looking at this company. You're in this world, you know our perspective. What do you think? So like a lot of ours were super warm and like the way we structured it was like, I knew that based on, I think there's right investors for what businesses you're building. And I think that like being very cognizant of that is super important. Like, You know, if you're building Databricks, that's probably not the same investor that is building, you know, an e-commerce software tool. I think like we're in different markets, the motion's different. Understanding like what makes you successful at selling $250K ARR deal SaaS, you know, is not what makes you successful selling, you know, $12,000 a year deals to like a merchant that is not a sophisticated buyer to the extent of a, you know, procurement through, you know, Bayer or whatever, buying, you know. So I think for us, when we approached that question, it was like we knew that we wanted people with like industry expertise. Like this world, like you need to— not only do you need— will that help them understand, but it's also how they're going to be able to be most helpful. You know, I think of course there's like the general principles of building a business that investors can be super helpful on, which is like you know, how do you structure a hiring process? How do you look for great talent? How do you fire people gracefully? You know, all those type of things. But I think like at the stage when we were thinking about like, hey, what does our company really need right now? We needed more people around the table with networks, expertise, customers, all of the above. And I think that allowed us to like make a pretty targeted hit list and like run a very tight process of like, Hey, here's the people, you know, and it wasn't collectively exhaustive by any means, but it's like, here's like the 6 or 10 people that we think would be a really great fit. Let's target them first and let's get those processes going. And I think we were super fortunate that we were able to like cross-reference a bunch of pieces of like, oh, this person's invested in this brand and they're one of our customers and they really like us. So like you could get like the momentum going on the round. And then, you know, I think what is not captured in that part of it that was just absolutely non-negotiable for us is just like the individuals. Like these are the people who you're gonna be talking to on the phone at 9:00 PM at night. And these are the people who are gonna be around the table when you get to an inflection point, hopefully, where somebody says, I wanna buy your company. And you have to say, is this the right thing to do? And like, these are the people who you're gonna have to, you know, call and talk to talk through that. So I think like being very cognizant and having experienced a lot of examples of things going really well, and things going really poorly, we were able to be like pretty aware of that and then fortunate enough to then have options to like choose that. Because I think, you know, for some people it's like you take the money that's in front of you. Like if you need the money, you know, you'll deal with the other stuff later. But I think it is like you just have to— it's people first. All of this stuff is people first, you know? I mean, selling, people first. Raising money, people first. Hiring, obviously it's people. But I think you just got to like be careful who you get in bed with, if we're going to use a bad analogy.

Yeah, we were, we were talking to Prince earlier about this, of what you've learned about the sales process and what you've learned about sales at large. Really curious to get your lens here.

I think one of the things that I've learned, and I'll go down a couple of things here, and it kind of touches on like what we were talking about earlier, is like this ability of you're just like when you're selling, you're just jumping on with strangers all day long. And it is like this race to build, like, trust, credibility, hear about them and their problems, and then match your solution to them. And like, doing that in 30 minutes, like, it's just reps. Like, you just got to do it. Like, you know, we hired a new person recently, and one of the first things I wanted them to do was sit in on sales calls for literally a month and just hear all the permutations of questions that are going to come up and things that people are going to say about the product. Hear the good, the bad, the ugly. And I think like you learn that like reps is super important. But then I think additionally, everyone has their own style and you need to like lean into your style. You know, it's like my co-founder and I sell very differently. Like he's this vision person that's like, this is where the world's going. It's so amazing. It's so good. And I'm the person that's like, Oh, you know, you're in Indiana. My aunt lives in Indiana. Like, that's awesome. Like, here's our thing. You want to click through the tool? Like, yeah, we do some pretty cool stuff. Like, you want to— you want to buy it? And then— and so it's like, like, that's just like we have very different styles, but like can both achieve different outcomes. And I think I've also learned too that there's a ton of value in having someone else. Like, obviously eventually you need to be like super resource conscious, but like early days, like jump on with your co-founder. Like, yes, of course, that's 30 minutes gone that like one of you is not doing something else. But like the ability to give feedback on the fly and like, you know, I'm sure people can see like we're in Slack being like, hey, I would have said that differently. Or like, and it's just this refinement process. And like, you know, you do that for 6 months and you get something like at least somewhat polished that spits out the other side and you learn that.

I think you need to appreciate the ability to do that at this stage because as you know, when companies get larger, and there's more people in the org, like, you won't find many opportunities to like jump on a sales call with your co-founder. Like, I always remind myself how cool it is to be such a lean team where we can just shift gears day after day for the better. Because the second you start to scale, the second there's more processes in place, you have to go through like these different rungs to get approvals, and like comms are different. And so I think it's so important at the beginning when you're trying to find product-market fit to take advantage of that capability to get on the call and like really learn from your customer. We, we make every hire sit in on sales calls, even if they're like internal and will never talk to a customer. Like, I still think it's important for them to like see like how those conversations go, because when you're trying to teach someone who's new to the team, like what we do and how we do it, there's no better way for them to learn than to hear it from like the customer's perspective.

I think also lean team allows you to change positioning and messaging. Really quickly, as you're mentioning, like there's an angle here, an offer here, and you can really easily tweak it versus— I mean, even from like the content lens of over time, there are so many variations of copy and messaging. It's sometimes the first thing we do when we come in. I'm like, you're saying 20 different things across your LinkedIn, you're saying 50 different things across your email and site. It's like it needs to be on point. But at the early stages, which is like where you guys are at right now, you can keep tweaking until you find something and then go ahead and run it.

'Cause you'll get that exact conclusion. You're saying 50 different things in 20 different places. You're like, yeah.

He already gave it to me.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

First time we like met, he looked at my LinkedIn. He's like, dude, what are you doing? I was like, I don't know, teach me.

He's like, no, I mean on the product side, what are you doing? You're like, I still don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Figuring it out.

Selling the dream.

I wanna talk about life in New York. You mentioned like moving from LA and I know you live with like a bunch of guys here as well. Similarly, first on what you were mentioning about Andy, first time we met, I was so impressed by like your speed and the pace at which you were executing. And every time we hang out, I don't think I've seen you like slowing down at all. If anything, you're ramping up. And so I think New York is conducive to that. But how are you also taking time to not like slow down and decompress?

No, I do think it is slow down and decompress like That is a fair way to put it. I think New York is such a hustle, go, go, go environment that sometimes you can get lost in it and forget to like disconnect and turn it off.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think to your point, like I spent 3 years in Venice, California, 7 blocks from the beach. I saw the sunrise and the sunset from the beach like every day. I was like swimming in the ocean, you know, and like, that's amazing. And I have like my best friends in the world there. But there just got to this point where it was like the endless summer thing they say was starting to feel kind of like that. And I was like, I frankly, and I'm gonna do a little bit of like a how we got here into New York and then we'll go, I'll go into that. But it's like, I just have found in life that like whenever you just shake stuff up in the most crazy way, like that's when you re-inflect that growth curve of like personal growth or professional growth. It's like, oh, you feel, you know, like you start, there's a natural flattening of the curve in whatever you're doing and you just do something totally different and it just inflects again. You know, investing, like, yeah, maybe I was getting marginally better. Maybe you start a company, boom, you're right back to like, oh, now I'm doing 12 things that I have no business doing and I'm totally unqualified, but we're going to figure it out. And I think like an opportunity like that came to move to New York where my buddy was just like, we got an extra bedroom. You don't know any of the people, but I think you'll fit in. You should do it. And like on the call, I was just like, yeah, we'll figure it out. And then I think like coming to New York was a big, a big part for me was that exact energy thing is like you kind of like play the game of the field that you're on sometimes. And I think you come here and it's just like you wake up at 5:30 and it's like, oh, I'm behind. Like there's already people going. Like I see the people, I hear them, there's stuff going, whatever crazy stuff's going on outside my window or whatever. And you're just like, it's just intoxicating. And you do, you run really hard. And I think like that has been amazing for us from a business perspective of just like kicking me into a gear because I think like some people get that intrinsic motivation and some people get that extrinsic motivation. My co-founder is much more that intrinsic. Like you could put that guy on a beach, you know, in Bali and he's going to work 14 hours a day because like that's what he loves doing. Like me, I can work 14 hours a day, but I also can walk and listen to podcasts for 14 hours a day, no problem.

And talk on them.

And that's a great day for me. So I think like, you know, you get to New York, there's people everywhere. It's like everyone is doing what you're doing at the speed that you're doing it. And I think that's just like, it calls you up to a higher level and you're like, I kind of love that like sink or swim environment where you're just like going. But then to your point on like the energy management, I think you definitely like realize that you do have to like pull yourself out of it sometimes. And I think anyone, you know, as I talk to my friends who have you know, lived in the city or maybe even other like big dense urban cities for a long time is like, it becomes a skill. Like you learn your things and like if you don't learn that, you will burn out and you'll need to go somewhere else. And it's like, I think about one of my closest friends, like he's kind of doing like a vacation in LA right now where it's like he's gonna live there for a few years and he is in the city and like comes back every once in a while, hits it so hard and then like retreats back. And I think, you know, right now I'm just in that like, honeymoon phase of like, let's go. And there's just like so many people to meet, so many things to do, and so many like opportunities to just like expand your horizons, like personally, professionally, musically, like you name it, it's here. People are doing it and they're doing it at the highest level. And like at this stage of life, like there's no more intoxicating of an environment that I'd want to be in.

I think it plays into the name of the podcast, which is Turning Pro, and in our eyes that's the concept of like elevating having those light bulb moments, like readjusting and leveling up, whatever that means to you. In your eyes, how is like the growth of your business and like the growth of your own career changed the way you think about relationships? So like how you manage them, how you prioritize them, certain people you choose to get closer to versus not. And then also the overlap of personal versus professional.

I think it's a, it's an amazing question and we could do literally the entire podcast on this because it's the most important thing to me. Like look, like, I love building a company. I love working with founders when I was on the investor side. But like, at the end of the day, I'm like very much a people-first thing and a people-first person. And like, for me, that is everything is like how you manage your relationships and like how you manage the people that are important to you. And I think like obviously there's a finite amount of time in the day and like I think how I've managed it, maybe it's been because you can't like you know, separate these things entirely. But just growing up, I think there's a couple of components that have developed for me that have like allowed me to do that much better. One is like you just start to realize the type of people that you're drawn to and like for what reasons, and like the type of people that you want to spend your time around. And your filter just gets stronger at saying, hey, you're an amazing— like, this person's an amazing person, super talented, they're not like me in that way. And like, we can have a relationship, but that's not gonna be like one of these ones that I'm gonna like, you know, push the boulder up the hill to like have a great relationship. That filter just gets stronger. And like, I think now it's like, I've just gotten more of a natural feel for, you gravitate towards the people who are like you and that think like you, or maybe not even think like you, but are like approach life in a similar way. Hopefully many of those people don't think like you, 'cause that's actually how you're, you're really gonna grow. But I think like, as I've gotten older and gotten better at that, I've found that like my circle has shrunk definitely, but I've become totally okay with that because the depth of all the pieces and the components in that circle are 10x what they were. And like, frankly, so much deeper than I ever thought they were, could be just because of like that level of thoughtfulness and attention. And I think, you know, you also, having moved a lot, like I, you know, I was in Philadelphia and then I was in St. Louis, Missouri, and I was in LA, and now I'm here in New York. And I think you realize that like proximity is super important. And whenever you like remove proximity, I think you need to listen to like where the threads stay strong and where they don't. And once again, that doesn't make those relationships where the threads don't stay strong like less real or less important, but like lean into the ones that remain. And you know, and it's, you know, yes, of course I talk to my co-founder every day, you know, all day, every day. But then it's like there's people in LA that, you know, we're great friends and still talk every day. And then there's people where when I go back out to visit, it's like we didn't skip a beat, but we didn't communicate once in the interim and that's okay. And I think you just naturally like let relationships distill down into like, where they need to be. And then I think just to like put a cap on it all, I think it's like when you talk about the professional and the personal and like maybe the overlap of those things, I think there's room for all of the above. You just need to be really good at managing and like understanding the like ground rules of that relationship. Like my co-founder and I, we are best friends first and then co-founders and like we're able to set those things aside. And like, that's been really important for us. And like, that obviously is a muscle that's had to develop over time. But I mean, like, we lived together for 2 years building the company. You know, there was no separation. And now this like physical separation has actually been good because it's almost like there's more intentionality around. Like, it's not like, are we engaging in a personal or professional ground? But it's a little more, it's more nuanced, but it is kind of that way. It's like, you switch gears, like, how you doing?

Yeah.

Like, and I think that's been really awesome to see.

Is there a specific moment that maybe happened when you had that light bulb switch go off about prioritizing quality over quantity?

I think for me that— I wouldn't say it's a specific moment. I think it actually is those moves, really. And I think it's like, as I've seen, you know, people who you would have thought would be you're like, you know, ride or die till the end. And you just kind of naturally spread apart and there's no animosity. But then you realize like the power of just investing in what's around you of like people and relationships. And like, it is so incredible when you build that community, like whether it's 10 people or it's 2 people, you just feel that support mechanism. And I think like a manifestation of that is like when we lived in Los Angeles, it was like, Friday night we had this incredible tradition. It was like we did Shabbat dinner. You didn't even invite, like you didn't even communicate or organize it. You just came together and like, yeah, sometimes it was 6 of us, sometimes it was 25 people, but like no matter what, it was just like that intrinsic, like default state of just like closeness was really amazing. And like, I think you definitely start to value those things as you see how important it is, especially in like You all— I'm sure you all are like me. There's probably 12 messages that you should respond to on your phone right now, and you like listen to the ones that you find yourself responding to right away and the ones that, you know, sit in the back of your head and stress you out for 2 weeks and you still haven't responded. There's probably a reason, you know?

Yeah. What was the— I'm curious about you moving cities a lot because there's that— I forget who said, I think it was Joshua for Lux, who was like, your happiness is dependent on like where you are, what you're doing, who you're around. And usually changing location like can significantly improve or hopefully put you on the right trajectory to improving your happiness. Was there like— had you just plateaued or was it you were actually unhappy and you wanted to move somewhere else?

I would actually say neither. I would say it was just like I was so— speaking to like the depth of relationships, I was so confident in the incredible like community and relationships that I had built in LA that moving to New York didn't feel as if it would be jeopardizing those at all. Now, of course, there were some, like, you know, maybe like further out orbit, you know, tangential relationships that, like, obviously are not as strong as they were then. But, like, I felt like I was moving from such a position of power of, like, I wasn't running from something. I wasn't like— I was just seeking to expand. And I think, like, I know that internally I'm someone who just like, show me the next challenge, or like, let's climb the next mountain. And I think like I saw like a next mountain and an opportunity. And you can't do that forever, obviously. But like at the time, you know, I was 28 years old and it's like, I still got some mountains to climb. And like, and I think it also, it gives you a chance to build incredible new relationships. And like, you're going to one day, we're going to close our eyes and be 50 years old and you're going to be like, Hell yes. I'm so glad that I can go to any city in this country and know that I have somebody that's like a true awesome friend. And I think this was also a rekindling of a bunch of relationships, a lot of close friends that were here. And it was like leaning into those has been incredible.

When did we meet? Over years ago, right?

Venture for America.

Yeah, it was Venture for America.

Yeah.

4 years ago at least.

I think living in—

I don't think Adrian still saved my number. I do literally for 4 years. I'd be like, yo, what's up? Who is this? I'm like, Dude, we talked.

Dude, did you forget? Sorry for the call. Um, no, accountability is an important part of this podcast. You can continue if you want.

Yeah, just keep riffing.

No, I think, uh, living in different places and being exposed to different cultures to me is such a huge indicator of how people can build new relationships and adapt in different environments. Like, I moved away from home when I was 15 years old. And I have never really like gone back ever since to like live there. Like, you know, I go home to visit my parents and whatever, but being able to have a breadth of experiences in different places, like your comparison of Kentucky to New York, like for me, that was living in Fort McMurray, Alberta, playing hockey, which you probably don't even know where that is.

Yeah.

And actually you should pull out your phone and look on a map. It's, it's actually like by the North Pole. I'm not even joking. It's like minus 40 degrees there.

What were you doing there?

Only time I've ever seen it's on a plane. Flying over and I'm like on the flight map.

No, actually, look, I was playing hockey. So before I played in college, I spent a year playing juniors in Alberta and I went from like an affluent prep school to living in western Canada with kids who grew up on farms and oil rigs. And like when I tell you that from the ability or from learning how to adapt in new environments, like that was the most impactful experience that I ever had. Like the first couple of weeks they hated me, I hated them. We had nothing in common. We had nothing to talk about. And then from there it was just like figuring out how to adapt and like lean into the commonalities. And also just like it teaches you how to pull on certain qualitative elements of someone else and conversations and like what makes them tick and what do they care about and like leaning into that. So it just like puts you in different environments. And so like for you to live in these different places, I think there's a lot of relevance there when like starting a company. Like you're, you're used to change, you're used to uncomfortable situations, you're used to a little bit of adversity. Like for me, I'm, you know, I'm not a venture investor, but like if I were a venture investor, I want to bet on people who've had a little bit of adversity so they know how to like go through these different challenges instead of like this path that's just so linear. Yeah.

Andy moving from LA to New York stuff.

Nobody was in Utah.

He was in Alabama.

He went to Alabama for school. He lived in Kentucky. Like, I don't, I don't know many. I don't know if I know anyone else in New York who did Kentucky and Alabama who now lives in New York.

True.

That's a crazy combination.

I think, I think the idea of running from something versus coming from a steady foundation, like you coming from L.A. to New York, because I didn't know this, of I feel like a lot of people in New York are running from something, whether relationship or city or something they weren't comfortable with. And you can usually tell because you catch up with someone, they're like so hyped to move. Like, do you know anyone? They're like, no. And I'm like, do you talk to your friends at home? They're like, no. And it's like, okay, cool. Reinventing. Fine. But it's very clear. Where it's so cool that, again, I didn't know—

look at the smile on his face.

You can see him.

You were like, I'm ready to just attack this city. I want to be—

it is different because there's much more intentional about why you are here and what you are here for versus just throwing yourself into it. And I think a lot of people that move here get wrapped up in the pace of New York and honestly get wrapped up in like staying out till 4 AM and getting in the party scene or the club scene, because it's really easy to fall into that because it's fun. And coming here from like your foundation is so different because you can tell, man, the way you operate, the way you're attacking things is different.

I want to learn a little bit more about your social life and maybe some activities away from work, like the things you like to do, and also how raising more money and hiring more people and taking on more responsibility has like directly impacted the decisions you're making when you're not in your windowless room staring at a Zoom screen all day.

Yeah, I mean, I, This is so important to me because I'm so like, I'm person first and then you have your jobs or whatever. And I'm someone who just like, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm very passionate about all the things that I'm passionate about. And I think like, you think of how do you— that was a big part of going, moving to New York as well is like, music is like my thing. Like it is my passion in life, playing it, going to see it, whatever. And like moving to New York, has been an incredible way to lean into that. I mean, like, we are within a half-mile radius of like 4 world-renowned jazz bars where you can see like people that, you know, you— most people would never know, but like they're world-class. And I think like that was so cool. And moving to New York, so many of my friends here are very musical, and that's pushed me into like playing more, like performing live, renting studio space.

Like, what do you play?

Guitar and bass.

Hell yeah.

And then, and then I think like other things that I love, like I'm a diehard jam band fan, so I— it wouldn't be a podcast if I didn't get a plug for Goose, uh, my favorite band these days.

I literally don't know who that is.

Yeah, nobody does.

I, I, um, not going to act like I do either.

Well, it's, uh, it's a jam band from Norwalk, Connecticut.

What is a jam band?

You know, just like Spacey Fish, Grateful Dead.

Okay.

You can go see—

how does one find—

so this is actually a good—

find them.

Actually, I just today got a—

like, I don't think I'm going on my like USA top 100 Spotify playlist and like that.

They play Jimmy Fallon, so they actually played a show. Jimmy Fallon came out and played with them a few weeks ago in New York at Port— in Port Chester.

Ben Sharf, you were there?

You were for sure there?

I was there the next night.

I missed the Jimmy Fallon fan, kind of.

I do this 5-night run, you know, it was tough to lock them down. Um, but yeah, they're an amazing band. Everybody check them out. They've like gotten big. But I, I found them when I was in St. Louis, Missouri, opening for another band. Because like in St. Louis, you know, New York, it's like you're on StubHub, like, do I want to spend $200 on this aftermarket ticket that sold out in 10 seconds? St. Louis, it's like during the show you walk up and you're like, here's $5, like, can I get—

they pay you, they pay you $5.

Yeah, come on in. Uh, and I've just found them. And then I just honestly, I, uh I put my brand behind them and they've just hit a trajectory and now they're huge. But you can check it on my Twitter profile. It's, uh, early at Goose.

I think we should talk about Andy's Twitter. I feel like Andy, Andy prides himself on the fact that his Twitter is more just like memes than it is like—

you put your heart on your sleeve on Twitter. What's your strategy?

Let's talk about your— let's talk about your Twitter growth strategy.

My strat— well, obviously you can see that this is not something anyone anyone want to emulate with my 400 followers. But no, I just—

honestly, dude, it's about— I just tweet about quality micro-influencers.

I just tweet what I think, you know. It's like, if there's a funny meme to be made, like, you know. And there comes that point where, you know, Adrian's gonna sit me down and be like, hey, if you want to build this business, we need to take this seriously. And it's going to be a really sad day for me to have to give up my goose memes and, you know, and my random stream of conscience. And I have to start saying, this is why creator landing pages will boost conversion 25%. But that day will come. I think Adrian's going to usher me into that.

I think it's going to be a slow onboard. We can go, you can go anon and talk about it.

I do want to, I do want to say though, Andy Cloyd, who is that? Who is that?

Who could that be?

But I think those posts will convert better when people know that the other side of Andy still exists.

Exist.

Yeah.

So one of the things we were talking about a lot in previous episodes was the concept of just authenticity.

Yeah, right.

Like, one of the topics, um, was talking about like putting your face as a founder on a lot of the advertising you do as a brand. It's maybe not necessarily applicable for like your business or mine, but it's more that like your personality is infectious. And I'm sure you close a lot of deals because people— I guarantee there's a customer who's probably like, I don't even know if I need this, or like, if this is the thing that's gonna help my business. But this guy's awesome and like I want to work with him. And so I don't actually want you to remove that full side of yourself on Twitter.

Oh, it's not going— it won't go anywhere fully. Actually, a good story. We were closing this one deal and like Anders knows that like there's always some like— there's gonna be some random thing that comes up that I connect with someone on and I just sniff out that this guy's a jam band fan. And by the end of the call, I'm literally like pulling this 1981 Grateful Dead tour shirt out, and I'm pointing out tour dates on the shirt, and he's like, yep, Ithaca, I was there. Yep, Port Chester, I was there. Hell of a show. Saratoga, one of the best. And we're literally going down the line, and like afterwards, after the call, he's like sending me YouTube videos, like, here's me and my wife at this show. We're 27 minutes in, 41 seconds, you see us right there. Yep, that's us. And I was just like, Andre's like, dude, what is going Like, what just happened? Did we close it? Like, did they say yes? I don't even know.

But like, you have the Velvet Underground album right behind you.

Oh yeah, Adrian called out one of my— well, because I told you I needed to do some decorations in my room. I got—

got—

so I was like, okay, I need to put some— I'll put some vinyls back there so maybe it'd be like a conversation starter. But of course, my taste in music— Adrian's actually the first to, to ever comment. You got— we got overlap.

Yeah, we got to do a full session.

We're gonna do a little Spotify playlist swap here. We can do that little, um, that little feature on Spotify, the blend. Oh, have you seen that?

I like that.

You add somebody on Spotify and it gives you a blend of your all's taste. So it's like, it's like puts the songs where you overlap, but then also insert some of each of yours.

I have not seen that.

It's a good feature.

We'll do it.

We'll do a 3-way blend after this and see what comes up.

Guys, we're fully off track. What are we talking about?

Just having fun, I guess.

We're cutting the phone.

No, you're talking— we were talking about the authenticity.

Oh, authenticity.

But that's like—

this is what I'm saying though.

Talk about the authenticity piece. He's just so genuine and honest. We're talking about like the vinyls in his room because that's what he cares about.

It works.

Yeah, no, but we can, we can get, we can get back.

I'm not forcing us to get back on track.

Oh, take, take the lead.

All right, cool.

We can make a misdirection.

We cut misdirection, then move forward. Okay, I do want to talk about like work-life and your blurred lines because I feel like every time we talk, you talk to me like I'm one of your good friends, and I feel like you have a lot of relationships like that, which is really cool. And so is there a— do you ever have a hard cutoff of like, these are my high school friends and these are my life friends, and then work friends I can get this close, but then at a certain point, like, you're not going to pass that? Do you have lines at all, or is it—

I think rather than drawing lines between— around people, I think it's more around like drawing lines between situations, because like At the end of the day, you know, work is what you're doing the most. It's going to be a part of who you are and it's gonna be probably, if starting a company in particular, it's probably gonna be a part of everything of who you are in some way or another. And I think it's about like really getting good at saying, you know, in this domain, in this moment, I'm in this mode. And like, yes, of course, like when I go to like randomly go to 3 FISH shows in a row, like I'm not thinking about e-commerce and I'm like, you know, and like that's like my, That's my getaway. But I think when it comes to day-to-day life, they are very inextricably tied because one, because my credo of life is work on stuff that I care about with people that I care about. And if those two things are existing, then I'm not gonna be running from the work component at every moment that I get. And I don't need to draw those hard lines. And I think also we're all lucky enough to get to interact with people like each other throughout work. So it's like, you know, you talk about the line, it's like, hey, is like us going to a dinner with like 4 other dope people in the space, like, is that work or life? And it's like, it's going to be both, no doubt. And like, yes, that can get exhausting. And like, yes, sometimes you want to go to like a dinner and just like talk about nothing. Even like if I hear the word Shopify, I'm just going to get up from the table and leave. But like, you know, also I think it's okay. Like you will let it go where it goes. And I think just having that awareness of not ever needing to push it onto a situation, nor be aggressive about removing it from a situation and understanding where those lines are. And I think just also making intentional— whenever there are those overlaps, being intentional about creating the space for there to be all personal or all work. And it's like, hey, I sometimes I need people to tell me like, hey, cut the bullshit. Like we actually need to like, you know, let's do this. Or it's like, hey, like, how are you doing? Like, you know, me and my co-founder that we had to put a retro on the calendar for us to finally like have create the space to do that. And it's usually not like, hey, how are you feeling about the product? It's like, hey, like, how are you? You know, like what's weighing on you? Like, is there anything that's like holding you back right now? And, you know, sometimes that might be, oh, there's this deliverable I haven't done and I need to like get on it. And other times that might be, man, you know, like, this happened to my brother and like I'm really upset about it. Or like, you know, something like that. And like, you just need to create the space where that's an acceptable thing to say. And like, vulnerability, whether it's professionally or personally— and I think those are going to be the most rewarding relationships.

What, what stresses you out right now?

My biggest stressor right now is, I guess, twofold. One is like, you're constantly, like, especially as you continue to raise money and stuff, you're constantly needing to, despite an insane amount of uncertainty articulate where you're going and where you're going to be for a lot of different parties, whether that's your team or investors or your customers. And I think like, you know, early on we were talking about those like little rapid feedback loops and you're just like cranking and it's like you get off one call, take the piece of feedback, put it in the next call and everything's changed. But like as you start to mature, you have to get better at thinking 6 months down the road and 12 months down the road. And that's an adjustment that is like, it requires a different skillset and it's uncomfortable. And I think, you know, what I'm learning is you have to absolve yourself of being like precise. You just need to be able to understand like, why were you projecting the way you were projecting? And then like what, and then at a nuanced enough level to where when you're not inevitably not where you thought you were gonna be in 6 months, you're able to turn the dials and understand which dials you need to turn to get it back. And I think like, so that kind of like maturation of needing to go from this like rapid feedback mechanism to this scalable, forecastable, like entity is a little bit like new for me, just having not been there and not done that. And then I think just like, just it feels good to do things that you're good at. And when you start a company, inevitably have to do a lot of things that you are not going to be good at and that you are not qualified to do. It was like, I mean, it was like a stupid tweet, but I was feeling it so real. I was sitting here like onboarding under Rippling and I was like, dude, if Rippling told me to like go open up the window, close it twice and scream like hocus pocus, I would have done it because I remember.

Yeah, you and me both.

Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like setting up payroll and I'm like, it's like, oh, are you compliant with like LA tax laws? I'm like, I have no idea. Like, are we registered with LA City? Like, oh yeah, we are. Sweet. Great. My accountant and my attorneys, we, we check that. But I think it's like, it's just stressful to be like doing a lot of things at not only, you know, you're not great at it, but also, you know, it could be doing— being done so much better. And that will weigh— and that will weigh on you forever because there's always going to be those things. But I think on the bright side and like absolving me of that stress, is we now have like the money to go hire people who are really good at things. And I've already started to see that with like recent hires is, you know, it's really around taking an inventory of like, what do we have today? What are we really good at? What do we need to be better at? And then can we go either get better at those things with the resources that we have or bring in an external resource that is like taking you to a level of mastery at those? And that's super exciting. And I think like it's stressful to think about finding the right people to do that, but it's less stressful than just being in this perpetual world of like scrambling and, you know, under— internal underperformance and that like voice in your head that's like, you're worthless, like you're doing everything terribly.

Yeah, no, I can relate to that. We, uh, we just made a hire recently whose job was literally to replicate my technical co-founder's job to allow him to like remove himself from the weeds and like think bigger. And after the first week, he was like, I can't even put into words, this is like the best thing that's happened to me within this business in the last year and a half. So I think the, the opportunity to delegate, as long as you do it effectively, is like the best thing in the world. Um, but I do want to shift gears a little bit because I just think we have to. I want to talk about the Shopify ecosystem a little bit because I know he's in and out of it just by nature of what you do, but we eat, breathe, and sleep this ecosystem and have talked about it plenty. Um, so wanna, wanna unpack it a little bit and kind of get your perspective on what you've seen lately and kind of where you think things are headed. Leave it open-ended to kind of take in whatever direction.

Very open-ended. Um, I think like generally from a macro perspective, we're obviously in a very uncertain time right now, like not only like economically, but I think like it's not just about the snapshot of moment in time of where we are, but I think it's about like where we're coming out of and we're coming out of this like crazed zero interest rate stimulus, you know, venture dollars flying around. And I think like the belt is tightening across the board. And this is not Shopify specific, but Shopify will, you know, this ecosystem will feel it for sure in the sense of like, you know, brands are— brands and companies will have less capital available. I think like there's been a much more like sobering perspective on the like this is hard. Like operating a brand is really hard. Like it, you can't just like get really good at paid ads and have a decent product and scale to $30 million anymore. Like you gotta absolutely scrap for every bit of ground that you can grab. And I think like that is going to, you know, there will inevitably be some brands that won't make it and some brands that will need to be like built differently. Same on the software side. Like we experienced this Every day it's like, you know, you hear about brands, you know, companies that raised a ton of money and now they had to lay off half their team. And like, that is a very real part of this ecosystem. I think, you know, as it gets more challenging for, for brands, that inevitably is gonna get more challenging for the people who are supporting brands. And I think there's gonna be like more of a hard push on like operating efficiently and like, actually creating tangible value and like being able to put dollars and cents to like what you're doing. And I think that's, you know, if that— we'll put that in like one on like maybe macro stuff. Then I think you look at like in our ecosystem specifically, and I think you all are doing an incredible job of this, is there's a lot of people who built features that fundraised like platforms. And now you're going to see a ton of consolidation because you're going to realize like what actually is the incremental value of like the best tool versus a tool that gets the job done? And would I rather get 8 tools that get 8 jobs done in one, or, you know, have incrementality of 3% across all those? And, you know, and I think like there's just a lot of dynamics at play. And you look at like everybody's having that recognition at the same time and moving horizontally to like pull in the features of everybody else. And I think like it's going to be really interesting to see that play out as to like ends up actually aggregating. And like, I think one of the things that you have to think about is like a lot of people are going to be thinking like, where is the actual like first place to start? Like what is that feature or that thing that you need to own that makes it more logical? Because like just because you can doesn't mean you should in the sense of like building features and stuff. Like what are those core like foundational components that then need to have features rolled into it? Because like, it's not every feature can't be a foundational piece and like roll and then roll everything else. There will be some that are more logical places to start than others. And like, obviously Shopify is very lucky that, you know, they are the platform.

We, we started at the base on top of Shopify, right? Which is the theme, right? Like the, the reason that we started with a theme product is because when you're at the base level infrastructure with every day that goes by that a brand is on top of you, switching costs become higher for them to move off of you. Because they're adding more continuously to your product. On the flip side, you have to ensure that you make that, that process, that transition process over to your product as seamless as possible to be able to combat like the reason you think you will have really high retention. But to the point you made around like the features and the consolidation, I think one of the insights that we had is the varying degrees of level of sophistication of merchants where we realize that with a lot of different features and a lot of different apps, there's a huge drop-off in terms of like diminishing returns after like a certain threshold. Like an example for you would just be like a feature where if it does the core functionality, merchants don't care about that like extra 15% of like all the AI that you put into it to like auto-populate what your customer needed. And for that reason you guys raised $7 extra million and you charge 3 times as much. It's like, I guess a good anecdote for you because I don't want to just like sit here and bash any specific company, but it's like if, if you have an app that does like an upsell of like another product where you're paying $5 a month for, let's just say, versus an app that doesn't upsell, but it's like AI generated based on like what products sell with which and they can like surface a certain product to be upsold. Like that could be valuable for brands that are like doing a lot of revenue and like they need the incrementality. But for so many merchants that are like in that middle to lower market, they just need to like consolidate those costs and they want to upsell a product, but they don't necessarily need it to be like this. Huge technical sophisticated thing. And that was like something that we realized that spans across a lot of different aspects of the ecosystem, which is kind of why we took the approach that we did.

I love that. Like the theme is the primitive is like a really interesting— because I think it's hard to say, like you're going to see— you see a lot of people already fighting this out in the streets and, and on the Twitterverse fighting this out. But yeah, well, and so I think like net-net, like, look, the curve is in a great direction for people buying stuff online. I'm very bullish on that and I'm very bullish on people like finding what they want to buy via some element of the internet, whether that's, you know, social or media or, you know, publications or whatever. Like we live online, we live in these things. We're going to continue to buy more things on these things. And I think like Now you're looking at, you know, a company like Shopify that said, okay, we made the right call and we said that's where things are going. Now you look at, you know, look at their market cap, but they have to extract more value out of the ecosystem that they've created. And like, that will be an interesting thing to watch play out as well, is like, you know, you have a company that had a market cap that was several multiples of what it is now, and it needs to get back there. And like, the only way to get back there is to grow. And I think and to grow faster than the overall, like, you can't grow at like GDP plus 1. You have to grow in the public markets at 30%, 40%, high percentage. And I think part of that for them is going to be aggregating value that they've created in the ecosystem. And that will probably put some pressure on some of people's companies like you and I. And it'll be interesting to see where they prioritize and what happens there.

What's next for SuperAffiliate?

What's next for SuperAffiliate? So I mean, right now, like we're in a stage where we have the money that we need to operate for several years. And it's really, you know, back to that point of thinking about getting better at, you know, looking forward 6, 12, 18, 24 months. For us, it's getting great people. Like everything, like this company, like we are where we are because of the people on the team, full stop. Like we have, we got so fortunate to like early on find incredible engineers that have been able to go out and help us find more incredible engineers, product managers, designers. Now we have to build out the go-to-market side. Like Anders and I have been able to be successful like DMing people on Twitter and having, you know, people like Adrian be like, you should talk to this brand. But like, unfortunately that doesn't, you know, that doesn't scale to, hey, the model says we need to have, you know, X leads this month or X customers close. Like that's gonna be hard to scale Andy DMing on Twitter. So now it's really thinking like, how do we bring in the people who can help us like start to go fast and build like a scalable machine that can take inputs and create predictable outputs. And I think that's gonna be like a really interesting phase of the business for us. And you know, we're super excited about the, where the product is, the feedback that we're getting. And now we're having to figure out how do we get more eyeballs on it and get it in more people's hands to tell more stories to then thus compound that into getting it into more people's hands.

How do you think about the authenticity that we've been talking about? Something that's so powerful about, like, I think why you've raised as quickly as you can, the investors that you have, the partners that you have, the customers that you have, a big part is the authenticity of you and Anders, right? And so how do you scale that, or how do you try to keep that authenticity, not just like Andy and Anders being on calls, but how do you scale that so that your 10th SDR in 3 years from now has that same authenticity?

It's, it's a great point. And it's something that is like, we were just telling that story of like, we just had to pass on an incredible engineer, like truly world-class because it wasn't a culture fit. And I think like that is the answer is like one, defining your culture. Like I'm fortunate enough to have a team member who she from like day one was like, hey, like I know that like we're all friends here and everybody's having fun, but like I've been at a company where it comes 20 and then it comes 30 people and then it's 40 people. And like that just kind of like filters out and dies away and subcultures form and all of that. We were just super intentional about defining like who we are, how we work, the type of people that we want to work with. And that doesn't mean that it's a homogenous group of people who think the same way or do the same things. But that means that there are those fundamental, like, primitives of who the people are that we bring in that drive, you know, overall a collective culture. And I think like that's the only hope that you have. Like you will inevitably, inevitably not do that. And like, that will dissipate. But I think, you know, you just have to be rigorous. And I think a large part of like finding the right people and like it's so intoxicating in recruiting to say yes to the first good person that comes your way because you're like, okay, I can either be done with this search and go back to work and bring on— like you get like both of these values of like you're done looking and you get started on the process of bringing on somebody who's going to objectively make your life easier. Theoretically, but like, it's work. Like, you have to be relentless and not settling for good enough. And like, yes, don't let perfect get in the way of good enough, but like, you know, you find the right skill set, but it's not the right culture fit, keep going. Like, you know, it— that person could be great, toss the stone back in and go find another, because that is what will end up making that 10th SDR totally, you know, maybe it— and I don't want to say toxic, like, but just not conducive and not additive to the culture. And like thinking about, you know, every time a company doubles, the culture changes entirely. That's kind of like the trope. And I think like we're thinking about that super seriously. And part of it too is like treating people like people. Like let, you know, get the right people in and then let who they are flourish. And like that authenticity is felt like make it a safe space for people to like share what they like to do or like, and make sure that you, facilitate that, and that's super important to us as well.

Awesome. Well, I think that's a good, good place to end it here. I appreciate you jumping on. Do you want to maybe let people know where they can find you and what you're working on?

Thank you all so much for having me. First, you can find us at superaffiliate.com. You can find me on Twitter @AndyCloyd, or you can find me on— I don't even— what other platforms do people use?

Cold plunge.

Well, yeah, you can also find me in the cold plunge, but I won't tell you at what location because we can't, you know, I don't want— it's already getting crowded down there. Down there alluded to it.

Appreciate it.

Dumbo Equinox.

That wraps it up.

That wraps it up.

We appreciate you coming on, Andy. Um, it's been a pleasure. You want to maybe just let the people know where they can find you?

Of course. Yeah, you can find us at superaffiliate.com if you want to learn more. You can find me on Twitter @AndyCloyd, shoot me a DM, or you can find me on Instagram @ascloyd for more unhinged goose content.

Unhinged goose content. That's what we're here for.

Yep.

Awesome.

Thank you. Thank you all.