#013: Sneh Parmar - The Art of Delegation for High-Performing Founders

I spend like Sundays trying to get ahead on the week. You only need an hour of like, make sure you get your certain emails out, make sure you plan your week. Like, you're solid. Certain mornings I'd wake up and I realized I was playing defense. I was like playing catch up on everything. Now it's like, oh, I'm ahead of like my calls or ahead of my emails. I realized like, hey, every meeting I push back, we're losing customers, we're losing sales, we're losing opportunities. I mean, time kills deals. As soon as like a customer says yes or partner says yes, like send that contract that day or the next morning. Like be on top of that because the longer you wait, the other priorities come up and then you lose that.

Sneh Parmar is the co-founder and CEO of Lucky, a software platform that enables retailers and brands to work together to get products to consumers quicker. In 2022, Sneh and his team raised $3 million from Unusual Ventures and a host of founders in commerce infrastructure. In this episode, we cover the art and science of delegation and how it enables high-performing founders, time management tactics for entrepreneurs, and key go-to-market strategies for B2B startups. Welcome back. Today we have Sneha Parmar from Lucky joining us. Thanks for joining today, Sneha.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Ben and Adrian.

Sneha, jazzed to have you on. It's also funny because we— I feel like we catch up every like 4 to 6 months. Yeah. And so I get— I've gotten different phases of updates every single time. Yeah. But right before we were talking, for context, you mentioned that kind of the current phase of the business and what you guys are going after really started in like February, March. And so I don't want to talk about business yet, but what were you doing personally at that time? That seemed to change things? How did you operate differently?

Yeah, I mean, like I was saying, like, I mean, I think February was kind of like a turning point for us. I think before that we were just kind of like shooting in the blank. We're trying to get as many like brands, many retail partners on board as possible. It's like, it's like the grind stage, right?

I can relate to that. Yeah.

Yeah. Ben knows.

Ben's in it right now.

And it's like, it's like there's no systems in place, right? It's just like, you're like, we'll do whatever it takes to get as many clients as possible on board. And then February came and we were like trying to figure out, okay, cool, how can we systemize this? It's like, if we're gonna like scale as a team. And we started becoming a lot more process-oriented. So because of that, I mean, I just think like things started flowing better. 'Cause we were like, all right, cool. Like let's forget about like the thousands of companies we can sell to. Let's focus on like 100 and see if we can do really, really good and like acquire like 60% of that versus like 10% of 1,000. So we just started becoming more focused on like our key demographic. And then that's helped us, helped us a lot.

Do you think you did anything different personally whether not like day-to-day routines or habits or anything like that, but from a mindset perspective, was there a moment where you're like, okay, this is not working, we need to do something else?

Yeah, honestly, I think it was probably after like 2 quarters. We were just like, what the hell? Like, we weren't able to like hit the right numbers and we're like, we got to change something. And personally, I think I was just like leading the team in a direction like, hey, let's just grind, let's just like keep crushing it. But I realized like if you give like a sales team or like myself like a list of companies to go after, it'll just be like a blanket toss out there. Like you'll just reach out to them, try to go LinkedIn message, but it's like, what can you actually do to curate it? So I think personally what I did is like just sat down. I spent like a solid like 2 weeks just like figuring out what like value Lucky offers, who our perfect customer would be today, and how we can add value to them. And then just focusing on that.

Yeah, I mean, I think I've been kind of watching from afar. It's one of the few brands that I see that you actually post a lot on LinkedIn— Instagram, excuse me, when you guys like do partnerships or whatever. Yeah. And I think that Something I've thought about watching you specifically is just the concept of relationship building where you're turning your customers into friends. I think that's actually how you cultivate something that becomes longer term.

Yeah.

So I'd be curious to know, did you have any sort of shift in your sales strategy or how you approach these conversations to then help ultimately close more deals?

Yeah, I know that's actually a great question. And I mean, I mean, regarding all marketing content, like we learned, I learned from Adrian, like Adrian is like gracious enough to like spend a couple of calls to like our team talking about how to build content and stuff. I think, but for us though, like it's exactly what you said. Like for the first like 50 to 100 customers, like I have to like personally know them. Like if I can't text them or message them like a Slack channel, like they're not close enough customers of ours. So like we really build like really good like relationships with these people and be like, hey, we'll give you like this pop-up for free for a month. We'll like work with you on case. We'll literally like put money into a case study, design it. And then for you guys can share it with like your network as well. And then be like, okay, can you like refer us to your friends? And like, it's so crazy. And Ben, I'm sure you know this, like when you like start signing up customers, they know so many other founders or other people in the same space that you could also sell to that if they make an intro, it's pretty much a done deal versus like if I try to cold outreach, you have to go through the whole sales process. So like building those like true relationships is like really important.

I think the thing that I've realized being in a similar spot to you is that customer experience trumps everything. I mean, I would say broadly for the duration of a company, but, um, at the beginning. It's like, drop anything to make sure your customers are happy. We just started doing Zoom calls, uh, because we're putting together case studies for the new websites. Honestly, it was one of the first moments since we started this company where I'm like, whoa, yeah, like, we, we had that much of an impact on your life and, you know, the things that you do. Uh, and I realized that we have a couple customers who've introduced us to more than 5 net new leads that are now customers. Which is crazy, but it's because their feedback to us from a case study perspective is you guys literally have been like an extension of our team and have alleviated so much stress that I can't say enough good things. And look, I'm guilty of being so in the weeds sometimes that I don't take a step back to like commend the team or look at even myself of like what it's— what we've done. But this week I'm kind of like, whoa, we're getting somewhere here. Finally.

I don't realize that.

That's dope.

Yeah.

No, I love that. I think, I mean, like customer service is everything in my opinion. Like customers will literally like, if you like mess something up, or like push a fiat product launch back a month or whatever, that'll be fine as long as the customer service is on point.

I guess the scary thing for me though is the layer in which we play is like the infrastructure of the e-com store.

Yeah.

Uh, I'll give you like an example. I'm not going to name names, but we had like a bug that happened, uh, a few weeks ago with a brand where there was like an asset from a different brand in our portfolio that ended up on their website. Uh, and it was related to like a newsletter.

Oh. Wow.

And it like, every minute that that happens, like, that's dollars, right? So like, it's different. It's a little bit more stressful for us what like bugs mean in this context, because it could be millions of dollars with some of the brands that we're working with.

Yeah.

So that's why the customer service thing has to be on point. Like, I remember when this happened, I was actually in LA with one of my engineers, meeting in person for the first time. We were getting lunch together and he was on my laptop. My co-founder was at a wedding, like, sitting there also doing this, because it's like, we need to drop everything to make sure these problems are fixed.

Yeah. I'm curious. Um, so we were talking about this before that like there's phases of any company where you think you're doing, like you think you're driving results and you're pretty sure you are, but sometimes maybe your business is different. Um, but again, you think you're doing it right, but you're like, uh, it's a little hard to quantify. And we recently hit that point also similarly, like March, February, March, where we could actually like track the quant ROI. And then we're like, oh, Okay, now we know, actually know, but the phase before where you think you're doing a good job, but you're not entirely sure, that's when customer experience is everything. Because I remember kind of like our OG, OG customers or clients, again, we think we're doing a good job, TBD, but just because we spent so much time genuinely becoming friends with them, we cared about them, that's where referrals come from. And that's where any business, the foundation has to be there. Of you actually care about the people that you work with.

Do you want to maybe just give a little glimpse into what your company does, uh, just so people listening know?

Yeah, no, absolutely. So like, yeah, our company is called Lucky, and basically what we do is like we're an omnichannel data platform. We connect a brand to their retail inventory. And the reason that's so interesting and like why it's never been done before is like today, if a customer is buying from a DTC brand, the only option to get that product is buy online, pay for shipping and wait a week because the product comes from a warehouse that could be like multiple states away. But what a lot of people don't know is a lot of these products are near them on a shelf at a major retailer that they're familiar with. But brands don't know because they don't get that data from the retailer. And but we do because we partner with these retailers directly. So now a customer can shop directly from the brand but get the product the same day because they can go pick it up or get it delivered from the closest store near them that has it in stock. So, you know, like a one-liner for Luckies, basically we enable brands to do same-day pickup or delivery from the closest store near the customer. So it's basically bringing the whole like commerce infrastructure together, letting brands, retailers work together versus competitively.

I have a clarifying question for my own sake.

Yeah.

What is the— how does the flow of money work when you're taking a SKU off of a shelf of a retailer versus like the margins that a brand gets when they're selling it out of their own warehouse? Is there like a reconciliation process that happens?

No, that's actually a great question. So the sale actually, the merchant record is the retailer. So they would actually capture that as like a general wholesale purchase. The brand I mean, they already got paid off their wholesale amount that they did originally. But the value for the brand is two things. One, it's the data. They get customer attribution data that they never got before. So like right now, if you ask a brand, hey, who are the people buying from the retailer that's buying your products and when and where? They have no idea.

They get no data?

No. The only thing brands get today from major retailers is they get weekly or monthly sales data saying, hey, this is the number of orders that came through, but they don't even know which SKUs got sold. Like they can't even tell like, hey, which one of my SKUs were like the most sold or like all of that.

That's crazy.

Yeah, I know. It's insane. And like we found this opportunity and like, 'cause mine and my co-founder's background is in the space and we're like, wait, this, this has to change, especially post-pandemic where everyone needs to know if product's available locally or not.

But theoretically, are they losing a margin in dollar value by letting the unit be sold through the retailer versus them as the brand?

Yes. So for that purchase, yes, it would, it would be counted as a wholesale purchase versus a DTC.

Theoretically, are they losing a margin in dollar value by letting the unit be sold through the retailer versus them as the brand?

Yes. So for that purchase, yes, it would be counted as a wholesale purchase versus a DTC purchase.

So the, the basically the thesis that you had to crack was that a brand cares enough about the data to be willing to forfeit margin. But I guess the other piece of it too is there's a world that you might just lose the purchase outright if someone doesn't want to wait a week.

The reason brands like love us, even though the sale goes to the retailer as a merchant of record, is because of one, the data, because they now actually get attribution on like, hey, who's buying their product, where they're buying their product, and the frequency in which the product's being sold at that retail store. But also what we've seen is like from the data brands that add Lucky, they actually see a net increase in e-com, pure e-com conversions. So like people that buy directly from them increases. And on top of that, the attribution from the retail sales. And the reason we've always thought this is like going to happen anyways, the consumer behavior is because when a customer goes to a brand, let's say top of funnel, a brand runs an ad, the customer comes to their website. You might not know that brand, but you know Sephora or like a Nordstrom or Target, you know, those retailers. So if you know they're in those stores, you know that they had done— have done their work to validate that's a good brand. Worthy enough to be in a store. So you're just going to buy from the brand already because you're already there.

Yeah, it's like a form of social— it's essentially a case study in a different way. I mean, for sure it is.

Oh, 100%.

Have you had any brands who've said no to using your service specifically because of the point that I alluded to around like the drop in potential revenue with redirecting purchases to like the retailer?

Yeah, absolutely. We've had like probably 1 to 2 brands that we talk to like every week or 2 weeks. They're like, hey, like we don't want to lose a DTC margin at that point. And we're like, that's great. But what we do is we really just send them to case studies. We're like, hey, like we, the brand very similar to you at a very similar stage in revenue literally increased their net e-com sales. Like, and then you test it. And what we do is we tell them like, hey, A/B test it, right? And I'm sure you guys are used to that too. It's like, hey, like for 50% of the customers that come to this product page, have Lucky on your site. For 50% do, don't, and then see which one converts better. And that's literally what brands do with our tool and that we have case studies around. They did that and they saw the ones with Lucky had a higher e-com sale, right? So.

Tell me more about the process from going— When we first started talking about this, you were working with like a handful of kind of these random small brands that were doing really cool stuff. And I liked the idea and I was like, okay, cool. And then I think it was on Twitter or LinkedIn or something. You were like, hey, we're working with Sephora. I was like, Sneh, we got to catch up.

And that's actually exactly how that happened.

But, uh, Adrian and probably 25 other people were like, yo, Sneh, we got to catch up.

Yeah. Yeah. All the investors came back. They're like, oh wait, can we chat? And like, Sorry, your email went to my spam.

I actually meant to tell you we're in for your seed round.

You're like, okay, last year. Um, but no, you're absolutely right. Like, when we first started off, it was crazy. Like, my co-founder was in LA. We literally, uh, worked with a handful of like tiny brands, probably like sub-$1 million revenue, took their products, literally drove across LA to like the different retail partners that we had and put them in the store.

I fucking love these things.

Yeah, literally, like, just— and all we wanted to see was like, if you— we added Lucky and then show that, hey, it was near you in LA, would a customer like go go pick it up or would they get it delivered from that store? And we saw like the amount of people that engaged with our tool was like 60% of like, which is insane. But then with the amount of people that are actually converting, it was like nothing. It was like, like sub 1% because we realized when we were looking at the data, most of those people were like not in LA. So we knew it was worth it if we had scale. So like, that's why when we like, we started like really just focusing on like enterprise retailers. And once Sephora came, it was perfect. Cause like they're in every major city in the country. So that it worked out great for us.

Essentially every phase of running Platter, every phase of running Verbatim, I feel like there's the business part of it that everyone sees. Okay, maybe you operate a bit differently, maybe you pitch a bit differently. And then there's the behind the scenes where for the first like 6 months of Verbatim, it wasn't even, it was like I could, I could work on my bed. Yeah.

Right.

I had no routine. I could work in a, I remember I was talking to friends, I, I was just like in a coffee shop. Yeah. No way that, that routine and that work environment could match the demands of what I need to do now. And so I'm curious in your personal life or just how you create structure around work. If you're closing a contract or negotiating with Sephora, you can't be working in some coffee shop in Mexico City, right? So tell me more about how you built structure and kind of leveled up that game as well.

No, that's a great question on the personal life stuff. And absolutely the same way. I think when we first started the company, it was just me and my co-founder working out of our homes, working odd hours. I remember it was during the pandemic too. So we would sleep in until 'til like 3:00 AM in the morning. And 'cause there's like no timetable, nothing matters. It's just like you're in the very early stages of a company. But then as we added more like customers, added more team members, like you have to have a process. Like you can't have a whole team working random hours. So there has to be like time that overlaps. So like personally, like, I mean, I went from like probably being super unstructured during the pandemic 'cause like no one was even meeting in person. So like there was really no reason to be structured to like becoming so structured now. Like where there's like every single day I wake up, I like, 7:00 AM now. Like my first thing is like drinking Athletic Greens, drinking a smoothie, drinking like coffee, and then like get my day started and walk my dog, do my first couple calls. So like what's interesting is like now from a structure standpoint, I basically structure my day into like, like days per week. So like certain days I do like all my calls. I have one day where it's just heads down focus work, which is like today. Today's like just like external meetings and stuff. And like literally just like keeping my head down, no like customer calls. And I think that structure like changed everything for me because like it made you more focused and also The results were way better.

Here's my question to that. How disciplined have you been since you switched that structure to actually sticking to it?

Yeah, great question. So I think up until probably the last, like, 2 quarters, probably like the last, like, 6 months, it wasn't as structured. Like, I wasn't as— I did it, but like, there was a couple days I just didn't follow it. Now I've realized, like, doing it honestly just makes me better at my work, but also it makes me happier in my relationship, right? It's like, like, personal life as well. So like, with my friends and my relationship itself, It gives me more time to do other things. And honestly, like, one thing I, I think I've learned is like over the weekends I used to let that, uh, routine go. Now on the weekends I hold that routine.

This guy's turning pro.

It's so, it's so important to like do the same thing on the weekend because like I spend like Sundays trying to get ahead of the week. And if you do that the right way on Sundays, you only need an hour of like make sure you get your certain emails out, make sure you plan your week. Like you're solid.

Like when did you have the light bulb moment of what you just said to us?

I think it was, uh, when I realized like I was like certain mornings I'd wake up and I realized I was playing defense. I was like playing catch-up on everything. And then now it's like, oh, I'm ahead of like my calls or ahead of my emails. Like, that felt amazing. Um, honestly, it's probably because like I probably moved around meetings before because I didn't have the time to do them, or like I forgot about them. And like, I realized like, hey, every meeting I push back, we're losing customers, we're losing sales, we're losing opportunities. And I was like, no, like, we— and I learned this thing called like, I mean, time kills deals, right? Like, as soon as like a customer says yes or partner says yes, like, like literally send that contract that day or the next morning. Like, be on top of that because the longer you wait, the other priorities come up and then you'll lose that.

Yeah, it's, um, I'd say one of, one of my highest performing CEO friends, his schedule is Monday, Friday internal meetings, Tuesday, Thursday external meetings, no meetings Wednesday.

Yeah.

And he will not waver for anything or anyone. And I like the discipline, to me is one of the most admirable things. And at first I would like try to be like, no, like, no, come on, but nothing. And it's that, that discipline and that commitment and that trust in himself that that is the process that he needs in place to get to where needs to go. And like, I tried it, and admittedly, like, I failed at it. Like, I'm pretty hard on myself, as you know, across a lot of different areas in my life. That's one thing where like I just have been— I've struggled with like having too much of a structure of like only internal today, only external today, or like no meetings today, because I also think that I'm someone who likes a little bit of change in my days, like keep my mind stimulated. So I struggle to do the same thing for the entire day, which is why I think I layer multiple things into a full day.

I feel like right now, if you get a customer call, right? Like, let's say you get like a great brand that you want to talk to. Like, let's say you have those structured days, like, you're gonna take it as soon as they want to like to chat, right?

Yeah, yeah.

For us, like, if we're like— I've heard retailers like, hey, you want to meet this? Because like, we— it takes us like 6 months to get a mass market retailer. So like, it's as soon as they can meet, because usually like when we first start our relationship with them, the meeting is like every 2 weeks because it's like that long. It like takes them to talk about internally, all that. Like, whatever day and time they say, we pick that first day in time because we know it's gonna take so long to close a deal. So we adjust our schedule for that. So, so I'm curious, like, if it's like Are you like at a larger stage to be able to like, be like, hey, we only meet these days?

Yeah, I know. I think it's interesting. I'll tell you how my company operates specifically. So we have a handful of engineers that are international. My technical co-founder, no meetings before 1 p.m., non-negotiable, because he needs to be available to our engineers and our product team for everything related to the product. On the sales side, we have a mutual understanding that when an opportunity comes up, you can drop or skip any internal call at the expense of literally anything unless there's a fire happening. To get on the phone to close that deal or to be available to this prospect. I would say that my co-founders and I, our meetings get moved all the time amongst the three of us because our schedules are so crazy. We know at the end of the day, like, if there's something that's more high priority, we're very understanding of each other. And I think that goes back to just the implicit trust that we have amongst each other that like we're doing the thing that's going to move the business forward in the best way possible and we will solve all the other things afterwards.

Yeah.

I wouldn't say it was always that way, but that was because we weren't as busy and there wasn't as many things happening. Now that we have like real customers and real revenue and investors and employees and like all the other things, like I know that my co-founders have so much going on that I just trust that like what they're doing needs to happen.

Yeah, having that like cultural fit, like hey, like everyone has a unit, unit, same goal, is like so important. Cuz you know, I mean, like you said, like everyone's building towards the same thing at the end of the day.

Yeah, and I think that's, uh, That's one of the risks that you don't see now, but later, to your point before, when you were starting hiring with Verbatim, you would kind of just hire anyone or you would like be open to hiring anyone who like DM'd you on LinkedIn or whatever.

There's—

I think that's one of the hard parts is as you scale, the rigor around hiring becomes so much more important because those misses can have such a bad impact on the business. But I think one of the things I've struggled with is over-engineering things so early on when I'm like, it doesn't need to be over-engineered yet. But if there's one place thinking in real time that it should be, it's like the hiring process.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I heard this, like, I went to an event and there's like a partner from like a very well-known VC there. And what they said was like, I thought it was like one of the most profound things ever. And I've heard it in multiple ways, but the way they phrased it was great. And they said, as a founder, you need two things. You need to be able to do two things: materialized labor, which means being able to hire the best people for your company, and materializing capital, being able to fundraise well enough. Because those are the two things you can't teach, in my opinion. Like fundraising, like I think it's an innate ability by an individual to be able to like, it's like the dog and pony show, right? Like being able to present yourself in a certain way, storytell in a certain way that shows like, hey, you know what you're doing, you know this is gonna be a mass market opportunity and you're gonna build this. And then that in return drives the best talent to your organization. And the best talent always wins at the end of the day. And I think like if you do those two things, like you'll be a successful company just given the amount of like time.

I would, uh, I would reframe number two to generating revenue. Um, or I'd say half fundraising, half just like closing big deals.

Like, as you know, that's what you get. That's what you get from a bootstrap founder. I have to add it in there.

No, dude.

I love that you did.

I respect that. Honestly.

Well, the reason, the reason I love that is because it's, I mean, I feel like I almost can't speak on this topic at this point because I've been taking capital. But I very much operated under the bootstrap mentality for a long time. I think every business is different. Sometimes you need to raise, sometimes you don't. But I do believe that revenue solves all problems. And I'm also a huge proponent of doubling down on solutions instead of raising money to go find the solution.

Yeah, 100%.

I absolutely love that. Honestly, the way you phrased it, I mean, I think about it this way. It's like, like the more revenue and the more customers you have, the more your team is motivated to keep building and developing solutions. Because one thing for engineers that I've learned, and my co-founders are the ones that manage engineers, but we talk to them, I talk to them I talk to them pretty frequently, is like they get excited when people use their technology that they're building or the technology they're building. If no one's using it, they're just gonna get like, they're just gonna get burnt out. They'll be like, why are we building this? No one's using it. So like, I absolutely agree.

I like the, I like the note you added around like essentially when your routines and habits change to the 7:00 AM morning. Yeah. To, again, they're not fragile, but they're there for a reason to enable some degree of high effectiveness or high performance.

Yeah.

And it's funny that you mentioned it wasn't necessarily a crazy win or a new high that you got from operating at that level. It was the lost sales or the lost customers. There was a moment where I remember I realized there was a moment where my routine was not working anymore, like sleeping in, no alarm, whatever it was. When I hopped on a call, I wasn't prepped. I had slept in a little or I'd gotten bad sleep. I didn't hit the gym that morning. And when your contracts get big enough or the opportunities to get big enough and you don't show up and close, You realize like my performance over 20 minutes on a Zoom just lost us like $100,000.

Yeah.

And when you see the losses in that perspective, then it's like that little 20-minute workout in the morning. Yeah, that really matters.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think the one of the, one of the realizations I had is that there's not a one-to-one correlation between how you spend your time and then like the dollar value or the output. When you think about like a CEO at the highest level, they only have 12 hours, you know, 24 hours in their day. Also, the difference is that every decision they're making can have a much more substantial impact on all the other input, like all the other parts of the business versus maybe like a CEO at our level that's like still in the very early stages. And so for them, it's all the more reason that like you show up late or disheveled to a meeting at the highest levels, we're talking like $100 million mistakes and maybe things you say, things you don't say details you missed. So I think for you to have that realization at this level just sets you up for years to come because you understand what— how stakes increase as you level up yourself. I think this just goes to the point of the podcast of turning pro. When you get in the rooms with like A-list players and high performers, you always got to be on because you never know when your opportunity is going to come. And you also don't want to miss the opportunity when it's there.

Yeah. And to take that internally, I think about like when you show up late to your own internal meetings, How does that set a, like, set a statue for, like, your team members? Like, showing up on time is like the highest level. I mean, like, hey, they need to show up on time as well. And that goes back to the customers. Like, always be on a call like a minute before with the customer, if not earlier. It's like being ready.

If you're closing a deal, you can show up late to my all-hands meeting every day of the week.

I don't care.

Other than that, other than that, there's no excuse.

Absolutely. I 100% agree.

Tell me more about the weekend consistency, because that's something I'm— I know, but I'm still not good at. So tell me about that.

Like, are you—

honestly, you're probably better than me at that. In terms of, like, weekend consistency, consistency. Like, um, I try to get a workout in the mornings on the weekends just because, like, especially honestly even during the, uh, weekdays, I feel like if you do it in the morning, like, it's one thing that's out of your way, but also, like, the energy boost you get from, like, working out in the morning, it feels amazing. And I know Ben did this because, like, uh, you did, like, the 75 Hard Day Challenge, so, like, I'm sure, like, you probably did that before, but it's probably worked wonders for you, like, just being able to knock that out of the park in the morning. Um, but then being able to just, like, like, on the weekends, like, getting a workout in, like, eating a healthy, healthy breakfast, um, like, just then spending time with like your girlfriend or your partner or like your dog or friends, that just like makes you feel great. And like, as long as you're ahead of that curve, you're good to go.

Honestly, I will tell you, the one of the number one learnings I had— I just finished 75 Hard a couple days ago. Yeah, but one of the number one things I had— thank you. You will always be busy. There will always be another thing to do. There's no reason that you can't just reframe your priorities to do the things that really matter to you. Anyone who tells you they don't have enough time in their day to work out I hate that because if a CEO of a Fortune 100 company can find time to exercise, then you can find time.

Yeah. Let me double-click on that. Like, one of the biggest things like that you mentioned just now is like there's, there's always something going on. It's like, but like when we like have conversations like this, like massive corp company CEOs and they find like 30 minutes or an hour of their day to talk with us and like we're just like in the early planning stages, we're just like, hey, just give us feedback and they can find like 30 minutes an hour. I'm like, who am I to say I don't have 30 minutes an hour to do something where like these guys that are running multibillion-dollar companies do?

You can, you can find like, sure, there's going to be days where you have mission-critical things that might literally put you out of business if you don't fix it. But a lot of the guests that we've brought on here, I think a huge common thread is a lot of them love fitness. Yeah, like I was saying to a lot of people, I stopped drinking alcohol, I don't know, 6 months ago, and like that has reframed the way I spend my time on my weekends. I mean, Adrian and I nerd out about this exact topic all the time. Like instead of going to get a drink now, like a part of my socializing with like colleagues and potential clients and customers is like going to work out together. And I've realized there's just such a direct correlation between high-performance individuals and like fitness and health and wellness. And so I— it just grinds my gears so much when someone's like, I don't know, I don't have time, I don't have time to work out. I'm like, no, you do. It's just not that important to you.

So I'll tell you how I got over that obstacle about working out. So I was actually in that boat by like 2, 2 years ago or so, like, hey, like, oh, working out is going to take away from my day to work, right? I realize if you get a workout in, you will be more productive at the work you do and better at it. You don't need like— everyone says like, oh, I need like 3 hours to complete tasks. To be fair, if you look at like the— there's like a study done, the amount of work people do if you have like a task to build, usually like the last like 20% of the time you need to finish something is when you get most of the work done. So if you work out, like you'll be performing at like a much higher level and honestly, like you'll feel better. And I really believe like health is wealth. So like if you feel better and healthy, you're going to be better at your job.

Elon, two things. Elon Musk has a quote about it. It's It's not exactly the quote, but you'll understand the analogy where he says, like, if you try to accomplish your 10-year plan in 1 year, you might not do it, but you're going to get a lot— hell of a lot further than if you tried to accomplish your 1-year plan. So I think the reason I say that is if your workday is now 8 hours instead of 9 hours because you chose to spend an hour in the gym, if you're actually lasered in on what you're doing, you will find a way to get your shit done in the 8 hours versus the 9. I mean, you guys have probably seen, especially as like CEOs, all these studies about how unproductive the average human is at large in America. It's like the 8-hour workday. But most people, I think on average, do between like 2 and 3 hours of real productive work.

Yeah.

What I do personally is like I wake up usually between 6 and 7. First thing I do is open my computer and work for 3 hours, and then I like to go to the gym between like 10 and 12 when all the people in the 9-to-5 wave leave the gym to go to their job. Because then, A, I already got some deep work out of the way, and B, usually all the, like, the machines and the weights are open when I'm there. And so I could be more efficient with the actual workout.

I like that. Yeah, I've actually never done that.

Yeah, that's pretty smart.

I'll think about that. Well, I think it's the other— like when you wake up first thing in the morning, it's when you have no distractions. Typically your employees aren't hitting you up. You don't have meetings. And at least for me, I'm a morning person. So my brain is firing early.

Yeah.

So it's usually like I'll maybe wake up, make a coffee, go for a walk quickly, and then it's like sit down and bang out like my deep work. Because then when the chaos starts happening of calls and Slack messages and all that, it's just like hard. To find like an hour or two to hit a flow state.

Tell me about your relationship with your girlfriend, making sure that you're spending time and dedicating, not just maintaining that relationship, but continuing to deepen it. I think that's something that's always top of mind for me is that, yeah, that's, it's not building business and this relationship, it's, uh, friends, family, relationship. Oh, and then I also get to build this business.

Yeah, I love— I'm just gonna reiterate, like, I can't wait to hear your answer because I need to hear all about the romantic relationship as a founder? Because let me tell you, it's not something I'm capable of at this very moment in my life.

That's okay. I mean, Adrian, I'll find you on someone.

No, it's not about that. It's not about that.

On the market.

My, my perspective on it, not to— because I want to hear your answer, but my perspective on it is that if I'm going to get into a relationship, I want to be able to devote a substantial amount of my mindshare and energy to this person because you're investing in something. And I feel like mentally at this very moment, I don't have the amount of mindshare to give to that person where I think I would be selfish. And honestly, like I said to every— about the fitness thing, you always prioritize the things that matter to you. At this very moment, it's just not my priority, which naturally means I'm not in that situation.

Yeah, no, that's great. Honestly, Adrian, I'd love to hear your take on it as well after my response. But no, um, I think like being able to give someone a time in your relationship, it's so important. Honestly, that's like very mature, like be able to be like, hey, I won't be in a good relationship right now, especially because like I want to focus all my time here. Um, for me, I think what's worked, and I've learned this over the years like through relationships and stuff as well, is like Being with someone who also— and this expands like family and friends as well, right? It's like having friends, family, and even like the person you're dating or relationship with, having them understand like, hey, what you do is really important to you and that you are gonna spend a lot of time there, but also them having something of their own. And I think the best thing is like in my relationship, like my girlfriend, she works a lot as well. Like she's in the medical field, so she works 6 days a week. So like I'm used to working like 6 days a week anyways, or if not 7. So the fact that she goes literally to the hospital 6 days a week works as a doctor. Like, it's great for me. So I'm literally like, oh, that's great. I literally have 8 hours a day, 6 days a week to work. So even on the weekend, I have a full day to work. So that's actually helped our relationship because like she— and she's actually— she loves what she does, so she's really passionate about it. So I think like we both understand, we both have like things we want to do. And then also it's like, hey, pick one day a week. And it goes back to what you were saying earlier, it's like if you care about something, you'll make the time for it. Like, pick one day a week where we'll do like a date night. We'll go out to eat, grab drinks, um, or go do an activity, right? Like, it could be do anything. It could be like walking our dog. To the park. That's an activity for us. But like, as long as you're spending like one day just like with that person, like for a couple hours— I'm not saying, hey, spend an entire day. I think you're— I think that relationship will work as long as they also have something that they're spending a lot of time and energy doing.

Wasn't it, uh, remind me, the CEO of, uh, Netflix, is it, uh, Hastings? No, Reed Hastings. I think I read something somewhere that like for him, since he started the company, it was every Tuesday night at 5 PM is date night with his wife.

Yeah.

And you literally can't stop him for anything.

It's like, if you need something, I'll see Wednesday morning.

Yeah, no, he was literally like, you have to walk— well, come tell me while I'm walking to my car. Yeah, yeah, literally, I'm not gonna talk to you.

And it was every week, every Tuesday night at 5 PM for the entirety of the company, and he never wavered from it.

You guys have like a dedicated date night?

We don't have a dedicated date night just because like my, uh, I've heard like time, like her week's, uh, shifts. So like what, she might have a different day off per week, but we try it. She gets it like 2 months in advance. So like we just pick a day, like, all right, cool, that's this day, we'll do this. Otherwise, I'm like fully free. Like, I mean, also she's so understanding. Like, hey, if I have a work thing come up, like, I'm good to go. So like, I mean, it's about having that flexibility and knowing like, hey, you're both in it.

So yeah, tell me about your—

yeah, how's your life? What do you guys do?

I mean, I think I'm more— which is wild to say, especially with— because I met you guys through business, but I'm more proud of how the relationship has developed and like grown together over we've been dating over 2.5 years now. That's the thing I'm most proud of because the amount of work, both fun and not so fun sometimes, that you have to put in, the same way you build a highly revenue-generating company, the same way you build a high-performance team, building a relationship that you can go deep with and they know you better than you do and they know your family and you know their family. You know everything about them. I'm way more proud of that than Verbatim, because at the end of the day, like, you're going to start multiple companies. You're going to start multiple companies.

Yeah, dude, it's trivial. It's trivial.

Yeah, exactly.

It doesn't matter.

I absolutely love business and I love working and I'm really proud of what we're doing at Verbatim, but it pales in comparison. Yeah. And I do not have the answers by any means because we're not even engaged or married yet.

Yeah.

But one recent learning has been the same way that I share certain things with you. Like I'll send you a podcast episode, uh, with like Andy Frisella or something, or I'll send you, or, or we're talking about reading Turning Pro. Like we're literally texting about it. Um, realizing that you should actually share those things with your partner too. Even though, even if you're doing, she's in a completely different world than I am and she's working on her own stuff and I'm working on my own stuff. The more you share those things, even though sometimes I'm so in my head, I'm like, they, they wouldn't care about that.

Yeah.

Not only do they care about it, but You need to be able to talk to them about those things too. I'm not saying you need to go full like Hormozy style and be like dating your co-founder. Again, hats off to them. It seems like it works great. We're not that, we're not that level. But being able to speak the same language has really helped our relationship because when I'm talking about closing a deal, she actually understands what I'm talking about. And it wasn't always that way. So I feel like it's a lot of sharing and oversharing, even if they're not as obsessed with it.

Was it, was it always that way where you realized truly that the relationship was so much more important than like your trivial— this sounds so harsh, but like your trivial little business you're building in the grand scheme of like the world with like the person you might spend the rest of your life with? Like, did you always realize that was most important, or did you have a realization as your relationship grew that like, yeah, the business is kind of just a byproduct of my everyday life, whereas the relationship is like a core tenet of, you know, Yeah, to the future.

It's again, I think it, it really depends who you're with.

Yeah.

But I mean, this is something, this is like cheesy, but something I talk about with Karina, it's like, I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life with you.

Mm-hmm.

Um, again, not married yet, but when you say that, it's like, wait, we're doing this life together. Yeah. Like, holy shit, we're doing it together.

Yeah.

Till the, till the day we die. Right. Fingers crossed. And once you say that, you're like, okay, this is a forever thing.

Yeah.

Um, this business, even though, even if we crush it and I own Verbatim forever, um, well, that's just not gonna happen. Like, I'm gonna wanna start all these other things too. Yeah. And so in this scheme of things, it's like, okay, if this is gonna go all the way, then this business maybe is gonna go another 5, 10 years, then that's awesome. Uh, and so then it's just zooming out and being like, okay, I'm gonna go like Saturday night, I'm gonna go spend time on that one. Yeah.

Have you guys had any moments like that, uh, with people within your companies? Like employees where you realize that like family or personal issues are way more important than like what they're actually helping you build from a business perspective? Because I had a moment happen a few weeks ago that was my lightbulb moment where I was like, fuck, like no one actually— like what we're building with our company doesn't really matter compared to like this situation that I now have to deal with.

Are you talking about like, uh, mostly employees or co-founders?

I had an— I had an employee, and I'm not gonna go into too much detail just to respect the privacy, but like I had an employee who had a baby a few months ago at this point and almost didn't make it. Has like a very serious illness that came out of it. And it was the first time that my co-founders and I had to like deal with a situation like that. And he was still working and I was like, you like— number one, if you went away for a month and didn't do a single thing, like your computer will still be there for you when you come back because family matters above all else.

Yeah.

And he said to me, he said, look, Ben, the stimulation that I get from working actually helps me because one of the things going on is it's a waiting game. Yeah, there's not really many things he can be doing to like change the situation he's dealing with other than like going down rabbit holes of like reading about horror stories, which is very bad.

Yeah.

So he's saying like the fact that I'm so busy every day during work hours and I love what I do, it allows me to like pass time and get through it. And so I want to be working. But for me, that was the moment where I was like, okay, I have investors, which means I have money through that or revenue. I'm putting food on the table for the families of my employees. And I'm also paying the health insurance bills for this baby that, like, God willing, is going to pull through and be okay. That was the moment for me where I was like, fuck, this isn't really about building a company. This is about like making a difference in people's lives and always doing the right thing and like never compromising your morals for like a fucking business.

Yeah. And it gives you thinking, right? Like, I mean, before these businesses, for me, like, it's like our first true business where we have like true employees and stuff. It's like you always look at like all these like larger tech companies or like big companies like doing layoffs. Like, oh, it's just a number, right? It's like, oh, 2,000, 5,000, that doesn't matter. But when it's like your own company, you start seeing people and you start like building relationships with people and like, you're like, we are in this together, especially from the early days. You're like, wait, that's not a number. That's like literally someone's life that you're like, have. —what you're into.

I think it's like an honor that anyone will take, let alone hours out of their day, but literally their entire day to work on an idea that I have in my head. I think it's an honor. And do I have like an answer to your question? No, I definitely still fuck up all the time. And especially when you're remote and it's just Zoom and Slack and you're like, okay, this thing needs to get done by this hour. Or this client who I promised something is gonna be mad at me. Mm-hmm. And this contract is gonna go away and then I can't pay them. Like there's a clear chain of events where something needs to happen. Yeah. But then, um, what if even little things like they're sick that day? It's like, okay, what happens? And like in those moments, showing up consistently as a person first. Mm-hmm. Uh, Andy from Super Affiliate is someone I respect immensely in this. Yeah. Because every time I talk to him, we're catching up as people first. Yeah. And how we're doing. And then it's okay, we can talk business. And being able to show up as a person again and again and again is really all that matters. And I think from a, like, we haven't been in business that long, so I can't speak to like retention numbers of your employees, but hopefully, fingers crossed, like building a culture of retention where people actually enjoy working there. Yeah. Um, making sure people are in the right roles, doing the right things, and also giving leeway to let life happen. So I'm not great at it yet, but like I try. Yeah.

And it's something that, it's something that matters to me so much. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know if that's the the values and the morals that were instilled into me from my parents, just as a human being. Like, for whatever reason, when I look, I'm competitive, you know this about me. But like when it comes to business, I don't ever lose sight of like the people that I want around me and like the culture I want to build for them. Because to your point, the fact that they're willing to work on something, some crazy idea that my co-founders and I had is like an honor. And it's, it's the thing that like excites me and it's the reason why I do it. And so because of that, I can't lose sight of making sure that they're always in the right state of mind to want to continue to show up for me the way that I have to to for them. Yeah.

I mean, the way I look at it is like, if you're building, like, it's like you're building a ship, right? It's like you need everyone doing the best of their role. And like, honestly, like the way we hire, and I'm sure similar for you guys, like every role we hire for, I look at that like that person we're hiring to be better than me at that role. So when we brought on our head of sales, I was like, I need someone who's better at sales than me. And as a founder, that's what you've been doing primarily first, like first year or two, you do sales. So like it's tough trying to find someone that's better than you at what you've been literally working on for 2 years, but you got to find that person. And at the end of the day, it's like you want to bring everyone up with you. And like, that's kind of like, I mean, we've got like, like LeBron's legacy, right? Like we want to talk about like athletes or people that do stuff like look at Maverick, Maverick or Carter or like Chris Paul, like all these people that he grew up with, like bringing them up with them. Like that's kind of like the same way we look at our company. It's like everyone that's joining our team joined because they believed in a vision that we're building and they're happy and they're excited. Of course, all these other benefits like pay, healthcare and stuff. But then a day like they can choose to go work somewhere else, especially if they're a great candidate and you only want candidates that you know can go get a job anywhere else because then they're worth it. For you. So it's like, how can you help them grow with you? Dude, I love those stories.

Uh, what did, um, Chaz mention to us? One of his friends was like— one of his friends was like living international and like basically needed a job. And I'm pretty sure he was working at like the front desk or something at— I don't even know, I don't even know if it was whatever, Airbnb. And he walked away when it was all said and done with a massive payday. And like Chaz was saying, he was the reason that he ended up at the company. And so the guy's so grateful. To me, it's like, it's my dream to be able to have a team of 10, 20, 100 people who are all like rolling in it now because they believed in my crazy vision and we actually brought it to life. So that's just like a cool, a cool thing. But the other one, we may have talked about this, but you know, do you know the story about the, um, the famous artist with Facebook?

Yeah, though he may be like a mural and then like, you know, shares.

There's also something similar with— he hired, uh, Mark Zuckerberg hired an artist to come into the Facebook office early days to do a mural and he offered him, uh, I think it was $25K or $50K and he said you could take this and cash or equity, and he chose equity. It was like $200 million.

Yeah, $200 million. Yeah, there's something similar with like, I think a DJ for a party or something. Yeah, you don't think somebody could think of like a DJ? Yeah. And, uh, they actually made a movie about it, I think. Um, but he was like a, like a DJ like Mark Zuckerberg had, and like, I'll pay him shares because we can't, like, we're having a party, but I can't pay him cash. And he's like, I'll take it. And then like they IPO'd, and like that dude's like, I mean, he's like chilling now. Um, but it's just amazing to see like those stories, right? It's like, wow, these people What have you—

you're talking about big tech companies, maybe like trying to connect Lucky now to Series C public company Lucky or private company acquired Lucky to that next step. What, even just looking closer, Series A, Series B, Series C, what are you doing right now that you have to stop doing or give up or sacrifice to get to that next level? It could be personal. It could be you do in sales and you know you need to hire someone?

Yeah, I know that's a great question. And I think I like, I go back and forth on this a lot, but I think the role, the more people you hire, I think the role as like a CEO, as you guys know, is like it becomes like it's less about like specific tasks. Like I think it's more about empowering like your team. And like for me it was really hard. And I mean, honestly, it's still really hard. Like I still sit in probably like 90% of our sales calls. Like I just do because like I want to be there. I want to hear the feedback and we're so early. I can do so. But for, as we get bigger and bigger, I know I have to remove myself from this process. And I learned this from like another founder that's like a couple of like stages ahead of us. And like, like the sooner you move yourself away from like, I wouldn't say I micromanage, but like being a part of every conversation, the faster your company will grow. Because if you hire that person, you believed in them enough to hire them. Let them go be good at what they're good at.

And I think that's really tough for me. Delegation is a superpower. It's so hard.

It's an absolute superpower. Yeah. Especially because you're used to starting off, it's just you and your co-founders. Like, you control— you're literally part of every conversation that gets done. Like, you're literally on call like 5 hours a day with your co-founders talking about every little— whether it's marketing, sales, what payroll service you're using, like HR service using, whatever it may be. And now you're like, oh, I don't even know like where the product roadmap is because my co-founder deals with majority of that, even though I support a lot of that. But it's like, it's like, like delegating that and being able to like trust that your team can execute is like so important. And I think that's something I'm like learning. It's like I'm struggling, but I'm learning. Like, hey, just let them be good at what they're doing. And it's also okay for them to make mistakes. The way I look at it is like, making a mistake is fine. That means you're moving at the right pace and like you're doing something different. But like, don't make the same mistake twice. Just learn from them. It's the way I position it to our team.

What about personal sacrifice?

Yeah, personal sacrifice. I think it's, um, like, I think it's— I think some of it's like time related, right? Time spent with family, friends, like, uh, in my relationship with my girlfriend. It's like There's certain days or weekends where like, oh, we have something planned. It's like, hey, I just gotta like move that. Like, I just can't do this right now. Like, unfortunately, I just can't. And like, the benefit— like, the benefit is like building or working and having relationships with great people, whether it's girlfriends or family. It's like they understand that. They're like, okay, cool, we get it. Like, let's reschedule and move it forward. But I think like being able to— like, honestly, in the early days, like, I spent a lot of time away from my family, like, not be able to interact as much just because they live in Atlanta and I was in New York. So was that tough? Yeah, it was definitely tough because like I grew up in Atlanta with my family, like, right there. And then I moved to New York, which is like one step further. But then like once I started building a business, it's like I barely have time for like doing anything. It's like, you know, all I care about is like this company right now. I'm like 150% in. And now I like, because we have a team, I have some more time, which is like great. But like, I'm still not, I'm not good at it. But anyways, I'm still like working on like giving time back to people.

I don't know what your family like background is, but how much of what you do do they understand? No, that's, that's actually so funny.

It's a great question that you ask. Um, probably they probably understand like 20% of what I do.

Like, I love nothing more than like I talk to my mom about like the things I'm doing and she's just just like asking, and I— it's really good for me. Yeah, because it forces me to try to like give lame— simplify, right?

Yeah, dude. My parents, I'm pretty sure, tell like their friends that I run a marketing or IT company, which— and that, that's, that's about like what they tell them.

My dad says high-tech because that's a term that Israel uses when they talk about high-tech.

Anything— I wish my friends— they say— they literally say IT company.

Anything technology in Israel is known as like high-tech. Like, that's like the term for like you're building software company. It's like high-tech.

I'm gonna tell my parents to use that. That sounds way cool.

I feel like IT is a word that I've always heard from like Indian companies.

That's that— my parents, Indian. Yeah, they really think it's an IT marketing company. And like, we don't do that at all, but like, that's what they tell people. And like, it's so funny because like when I talk to them, like, yeah, that's what we're doing, this deal. They're like, oh, that's cool, that's cool. Like, but they still go back and tell all their friends it's an IT marketing company.

Dad, I closed Sephora. Oh, cool. Yeah.

Okay, when you have like one name that they know too, that they can attach to it. I told them I like run a content studio, nothing. Then I say a marketing agency, they go, advertising? And I'm like, you know Mad Men? They go, yes. And so that's like what it's attached to now, especially because I'm in New York too. One note that you were talking about of like balancing, like things you have to give up. Do you follow George Heaton? The guy that runs Represent? Yeah. It's the—

Oh, the brand. I like those socks.

Yeah. These are also— Yeah. The socks are sick.

You can see the logo on the side. Yeah. Huge fan. You should definitely follow him on socials. But, uh, I don't know if he came up with it. It's not that, uh, complicated, but he always says like the big 3 for him, it's business, health, family. Yeah. And when we talk about sacrifice again, like we're all like very first time early stage founders. And so the scale of what you're sacrificing is different. But when you think about those big 3, especially fitness, what we were talking about earlier, Health takes up time, especially if you want to sleep well too. Yeah. Family, I'd include like very close romantic relationships in that as well. Yeah. And then also if you have a close romantic relationship, they're family too. Yeah. It completely like doubles the amount of people you have to spend time with. And then business, like anything not in those, I maybe have like 1% of my time every week or every month to spend time on.

It's so funny because when you say that, I start to think about like what are the things in those other categories? And I almost struggle to think about it because my life is so focused on those 3 categories. Yeah, there's not that much time now in the day, but that's why, and we've talked about this before, but learning how to make yourself, like, create a life for yourself where the things that matter to you, like, those are the things that you look forward to doing, and that's just what your schedule is. So you don't even think about, like, the opportunity cost of the things you're losing because you get the opportunity to do the things that you want to be doing.

Yeah, you're right. It's like, it's like you love what you do and, like, you love the, like, health, family, and business. So, like, I mean, as long as you're building something you enjoy, like, you wait, you don't wake up every day like, oh man, I have to go work on this. Or like go close a deal, like if you enjoy it, like you're not going to feel like you're losing out on anything, honestly. And family, I do close, like close friends like you guys. Like, I mean, I know Ben and Adrian, like we always like kick it whenever we hit each other up, like we grab coffee or drinks or whatever it may be. So I mean, it's like having those close friends there and like being able to spend time on what you love.

I think having things that you, if you separate out those 3 categories and look forward to each, it's really powerful. Yeah. It's funny, I was at my 5-year college reunion like a few weeks ago. And it was great to see everyone. That's amazing. It was one of my like favorite weekends. It was like old times. It was amazing. And there are a couple of guys that like, you know, you kind of just fall out of touch with. I love so much. Yeah. And they're like, where you been? I haven't seen you in a minute. And I was like, all right, we got to catch up. We'll be in the city. And then I realized I looked at my calendar and I remembered those three big kind of buckets. And I was like, I love you to death and I care about you and I hope you're doing well. And I'm not going to see you for the next like two years. Do I want to see you at your bachelor party? Yes. Do I want you at mine? Yes. Do I want you at the wedding? Yes. But in the meantime, those big 3, you're not on it. And that's not a knock. That's just I have priorities and I know they do too. And like that mutual respect when it's there and when that communication is there, that's, I feel like the key to like maintaining some of those long-term relationships. As long as you're very clear about what you're prioritizing.

And you, I mean, Adrian, you said this at the beginning, it's like we connect like probably every like 4 or 6 months, right? Like we catch up, but it's like It's like some of my best friends are people I catch up with like once or twice a year. And it's like when we catch up, it's like, it's just like the old days. Like, oh, we just like shit talk. We catch about work, like fun stuff, just general. But we also understand like we're both doing, we're both really busy and it's like, hey, we don't have to spend every day or every week together, but it's like, okay, cool. But when we do hang out, it's like it's just us.

Like we're just spending time and none of us have kids or are married yet. Yeah, exactly.

We'll circle back here. Yeah, well, we're still going back with that and see how much more time we got to do other stuff.

We had Matt from Hereon on. He just had a little kid. Mac, really cute kid. Oh, um, I think he's a doctor. Completely different life. Um, and I'm so impressed by people that—

dude, Matt's day starts at like 3 AM. Holy shit.

Pretty sure time management. Yeah, that's, that's— we're up like 7. Yeah, our first question—

I think our first question we asked him was like, walk us through a day. And he, he said like, I wake up at 2:30. And I actually started laughing. Like, I thought he was fucking with me. Yeah, he wakes up at 2:30. He's like in the gym by like 3. Holy shit. Home by like 4:30, like gets a couple hours of deep work done for his kid to wake up at like 7 and then like takes him to school or something like goes for a walk. I don't know.

It was so—

the discipline there is so impressive. No, I respect that a lot. We'll see if I do that once we have kids or something like that. Like we got my 2:30, but probably not.

No, that's early for me.

No, that's early.

That's a reunion podcast in 4 years.

Yeah, reunion podcast. And the calendar invite is gonna be for 3 AM.

Yeah, 3 AM, like right when you wake up. First morning meeting of the day. Pre-workout.

Pre-workout. Did you, on the idea of turning pro, I know we've talked about the different phases. Yeah. What you're giving up, what you're starting to do more. Have you noticed the confidence that you've developed from work translate to how you carry yourself, how you meet strangers? Like I definitely noticed in college, like I definitely wasn't confident. I was probably just cocky. Yeah. For some reason, whatever natural gifts you have as a kid growing up. You're probably cocky because they're not really confident. Only recently have I realized I'm like, okay, I think I carry myself differently. So I'm curious about that for you.

No, that's actually a great question because I think when we were first starting Lucky and I think this is also, I think probably most founders early stages, it's like a fake it till you make it, right? Like what do you have when you first start? If you have an idea, you might have a demo, you maybe have 1 or 2 customers, especially if you need to fundraise, then it's like, okay, you have to literally pitch yourself as like you're the next unicorn. And like, you have to have some level of overconfidence or some level of like, hey, like, I know this is going to happen. But like, it's funny because like, I think we would go to more events when we had less customers. We would go to like more things to talk more. And as we've added like more customers, more people that— or like more retailers that people are aware of, like I talk less, like I carry myself with more confidence because like, I know, okay, hey, we have legitimate business, like we're doing the right things. And it's like I say less things, but what I say is like more important or like to the right people. And like, that's all that matters these days. But no, I think like the way I present myself, even like in personal life, it's like now I used to— I remember like when we were first starting off, like we would go to events, like go hang out with friends or something. I would be like, okay, cool. Like, like, do they know someone that could be a potential client for us? Like, can we like get something out of business out here? But now it's like, hey, I just want to hang out with people. Like, I want to spend time with like friends and just to catch up. And like, if something comes out of it, great. But like, I'm not going with that with that intention at all. It's more so just like, hey, let's just catch up and like have a good time and like get my mind off work that I just spent like 8 hours a day at.

Doing. But that's why I found so much more success in doing business with people who become friends versus it just being fully transactional. Yeah, because then you want to see both people win. Yeah, like one of the first people who came on the pod is now gonna be a client of Platter. Yeah, amazing. Unnamed. Which is great though, because it wasn't like, you know, I wasn't just like barking in his ear for 2 months like, yo, use this, use this. It was like Wait, what do you do again? Like, oh wait, I actually think we need help with that. Can I just like see your product? Like, yeah, sure. Goes, yeah, this is perfect. Let's do it. Yeah. You know, it was more of like a friend wanting to help a friend. Like, I gave him a very good discount because I'm like, we're friends. I want to see you win, whatever. And it was one of the coolest like deals that I've done because this, this concept of like making these people your friends is like really came to life. And so I was really excited about it. Yeah, I know.

I mean, that's what goes back to what we were talking about earlier, like the first like 1,500 customers. Like, you have to be like, you want to be close to with, whether you can text them or like Slack message them or whatever, and like they'll respond. And like, it's the same way. It's like the closer you are with someone, like it's not even business at that point. It's like, hey, look, this is literally— they know it's going to add value to them and they know you— they're going to add value to you. And that's how it's—

that's how we do it. I think the biggest differentiator in founders that I'm really impressed by is folks that genuinely not just care about their customers, but like really like them and want to solve their problems because they care about them as people first. And that's why they want to solve their problems. Like there was definitely, I think early days at Verbatim, it was just like, do people need content? How do we think about it? Now it's, I fucking love hanging out with early stage founders. I really do. A, because you guys are kind of at similar stages. We have similar problems. We just are very similar people. And over time it's like, I just like hanging out with these people. And then like their biggest problem is probably generating revenue and maybe I can help there. Maybe not. Maybe it's someone that's a different fit. But like, only I'd say over the past year or so, it's like, wait, these are the people that I really love hanging out with and I'm just going to try to solve the problems. And like the business has done so much better as a result. So I'm curious for you again, there's, there's caring about building product for your customers and then you're just like, I like hanging out with those people and maybe I can help them too.

Yeah, I know. I mean, I personally, like, I mean, when we get referrals, like through existing customers or friends, it's, I mean, for me it's more of like, let's build a relationship, right? Like, let's see if this actually works out. And like, I hate transactional relationships. Like, I mean, that's not the reason why we're building this. It's like, we want to build this because we know it's at value. So, I mean, we've had customers that come to us that we've like turned down. We're like, hey, like, this could be good for you guys right now, but like, go work on this specific aspect of your like website, or like get into more stores before you come to us, because that's when we can actually help you drive a lot more value. Because otherwise you're just paying us and it's not going to help you. And like, we don't want to— like, for us, like, the way— like, to be completely transparent, the way our revenue works is like, we only grow if our customers grow. Like, we have free tier. Like, literally, if a brand doesn't drive enough engagement through our tool, we don't charge them for that month. It just doesn't make any sense for us. So we're really in it for the game, like getting customers when they're early, but only if they're growing quick enough, because that's the only way we'll grow. And like, we only want to do it if it actually makes sense for them.

Yeah. What about you guys?

Uh, just in terms of like the relationship, you mean? Yeah, in terms of the people that—

in terms of kind of as you guys scale your customer base, especially announcing soon, like who is the perfect customer for you guys and why is it that you really care about them as a person and making sure they win or their team wins?

Yeah, I mean, I think like, uh, what's interesting about our product is that we can scale up and down to different personas because at the end of the day we're solving the same fundamental issue, which is just like alleviating some pain point within the e-commerce experience. Uh, with that being said, like the pri— the best customer we've found is someone who like has a fundamental understanding of e-commerce and how it works. But also recognizes that they're at capacity either from a bandwidth perspective or like they've hit capacity on their pay grade in terms of knowledge about where they can make incremental improvements. So I think like that middle market is our sweet spot because when you have customers who typically do the least amount of revenue, they end up being the biggest headache and they end up being the biggest time suck with like my team, which becomes frustrating because at the beginning it's like you'll say yes to anyone and you just like sell the dream. There's definitely been scenarios where it's like we sold, we got it. It's like, I'll be careful what you wish for. Yeah, but now it's like the, the scrappy founders that understand what's going on, but they want a little bit of support. Like Kelsey from Dope, who's on the podcast, she is probably like my favorite customer and like one of the best people that I've worked with because she's such a killer. Like she knows how to run her brand and her store, but she realizes that like we can offer something to her that she can't do by herself and it really makes her life a hell of a lot easier. And so that's the scenario where like, I just want to see her win, right? And we have that in a lot of different areas or with different customers. But the thing that becomes interesting is like, you can't— that intimate relationship doesn't scale necessarily. Like what you can do with 50 or 100 customers, you can't do that with 1,000 or 2,000. Yeah. And so it starts to think about like, how do you scale the relationships or the feelings that you gave to your customers as like founders of your company, like across your team and across your product to allow them to get a similar feeling? but when there's 1,000 of them, not 100 of them. Yeah.

I think what you were mentioning earlier around kind of talking more and then building and then talking more and then building it, ideally following an upward trajectory. I think it's very similar to what you're describing right now of like going deep with a customer and, or talking to a lot of people, trying to solve their problems, going deep with one specific segment and then kind of stopping those conversations and just working with that customer base. Trying to serve them, build product for them, and then coming up for air and saying like, okay, that's kind of built, maybe not perfectly. And then I'm going to go talk about it again. And then maybe move into deeper into that market or upmarket. And then you do the same thing again. And so I'm curious for you guys, you mentioned kind of like you're networking heavy, going to conferences, getting the name out there, and then pause, build for those customers. Do you think there's going to be a phase again soon? Maybe what we were talking about earlier, especially as you're getting after bigger logos that you're going to start to go into that again and then solve some more problems and then go back into—

Yeah, I think so. I think honestly, like every like S-curve, right? Like we will have to go back into that. So she has like fundraising again or like trying to scale into like a new market. Like there'll be 100% like there'll be a time in the next couple of months where we have to go back to like marketing more heavy or releasing more content or PR or whatever it may be. Right now we're more in the build phase, but I see that towards the end of summer, like picking back up. You and me both. Yeah. I think, and it's important to get your name out there, right? Like, I mean, Adrian is an expert at this, but he knows the more time people see you, um, even though you're not selling to them and then you reach out, the more likely they don't respond to your email.

I am chomping at the bit.

It's crazy how this goes more into social. Shout out Tommy. Yeah. Uh, but staying— the amount of people that will hit me, like, I got a DM on LinkedIn this morning, like, hey man, I've been following your content. And I asked him, I was like, for how long? He's like, I've seen you for like a year. And I was like, why didn't you hit me up?

He's like, oh, we didn't raise money.

And he was like, we just closed a round. I would love to work with you. And it's like staying top of mind. Oh, absolutely. Over a consistent period with consistent messaging. And then again, sine curve of like, we don't do conferences or anything, but if I was about to raise a round, I'd probably go do that. Yeah. Or engage a PR firm and like actually get an outlet. Yeah.

I think one thing that I looked at into is like, it's like, it's like, uh, I wouldn't say it's unscalable, but I would say it's unmeasurable in the beginning. but that's like usually becomes like the largest channels for you. It's like in the beginning when we're like doing content and like case studies, like we don't know how to measure that. Like we don't know, okay, hey, how many people actually came through because of that case study? But like over time you can start like seeing more value, right? It's like, oh wow, like we released that case a year ago and now we released like 10 more since then. But like now people are finally responding because they're like, oh, we saw this, this and this brand launch with you guys. Let's chat. It's like having that over time, I think is so important.

Yeah. Amazing conversation. When you go way over time, it's usually a good sign. Yeah. You want to look at the camera, let everyone know where we can find you and your business?

Yeah, absolutely. Everyone, thanks so much for listening in. Yeah, if you want to find us, go to LuckyLabs.io. So LuckyLabs.io. And then you can follow me on Twitter @Snehparmar, S-N-E-H-P-A-R-M-A-R, and then one more R.

So shout out Sneh, check out Lucky. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thanks, man.

Thanks, Ben, for having me. Yeah, of course.