#049: Andrew Rea’s Playbook: Going Viral, Launching New York Tech Week, & Founding Taxwire

A lot of times, like, what will make something go viral on, like, Twitter or LinkedIn is, like, the right initial engagement, and you can sometimes engineer that. Whenever you do feel inspiration, you're like, oh, this would be awesome, like, write whatever that is down, like, immediately before you lose it. And we would rather have fewer people and try to do more with less, but, like, we know we have the best people in the world. And so I think that's— it's just almost always worth spending on that. Really, a lot of that first million in revenue is going to come, at least in B2B, from people, like, resonating with you and taking a bet on you as a team and, like, the service and the product that you're building, more so than the fact that, like, on all of your own merits, you are the best thing in the market for like every other thing. A lot of it is how much they like and trust you.

Andrew Rhea, founder of TaxWire, is a seasoned entrepreneur with a deep understanding of the challenges in sales tax compliance for e-commerce and software companies. With a background in early-stage startups, Andrew has leveraged his expertise to create a company that simplifies the complexities of operating across multiple states and countries. In this episode, Andrew shares his journey from a religious upbringing in Ohio to becoming a tech entrepreneur in New York City. He discusses the importance of authenticity in marketing, the value of hiring top talent, and the lessons learned from his past ventures. Andrew also highlights the significance of building a strong brand presence and the role of consistent, high-quality content in achieving long-term success. Welcome back to Season 2, Episode 12 of the Turning Pro Podcast. Today we have Andrew Ray, who's the founder of TaxWire. Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me, guys.

Maybe you want to start by just giving a little bit of background on what you're up to.

Yeah. Founder of TaxWire. We, we do sales tax compliance for e-commerce brands, software companies. Basically, if you sell and operate in multiple different states or countries, we do all the bullshit that goes into making that easy. In terms of background, I've pretty much only ever done early-stage startups, so I was at a company called Capital that I used to— just made a little bit of a splash in New York a couple of years ago and then company called On Deck, few other startups. And yeah, man, all I pretty much ever done is built shit.

Let's start there. New York City Tech Week. I feel like that's got to be one of your claims to fame.

It has to be. I don't go out of my way to claim it.

Um, but it's other people come to you to let you claim it, like me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just a growth stunt, man. Yeah, just a growth stunt.

What, what— I want to hear the story.

Yeah, so we— let's see, we— so the company was called PartyRound at the time. We were like, uh, a fundraising tool for founders. We had kind of been— everybody just mainly know us because we did these drops on Twitter, like very memefied, very gamified, like, shit that would just go super viral. Almost kind of like, what's that company, Mischief? Mischief, like, very, we were very inspired by Mischief.

Mischief for B2B.

Yeah, and it was just for B2B SaaS. We built, like, banking, fundraising, and payroll products, so. But the whole, like, thesis was basically we could, we really understood tech culture and we were building this product suite around founders. And then, so this is like, we're coming out of the pandemic. This is like 2022. The market's starting to turn, but we're still kind of like, Zurp's not quite over. We had owned tech Twitter for quite a while, but we were doing a rebrand, which is a challenging thing to do when you've already built a brand as compelling as PartyRound. Like everybody knew it, everybody loved it. It was pretty controversial even within the company to rebrand. And we were launching a new product. We were launching our banking product. And so LA Tech Week, we were at Miami Tech Week like 2 weeks before that. LA Tech Week had just become a thing. Like I don't think if people even did tech weeks like 3, 4 years ago. So this was like a newer thing. And we just kind of realized someone was going to do New York Tech Week, so why not us? And then I think we texted. This is like a Monday. I think between Monday and Friday, we just like texted and emailed like 12 different startups and funds to come do a, like basically Tech Week with us. Literally like, yo, I just want to put your logo on this like tweet and landing page. And like, don't worry about the rest of it. We'll figure it out. And then we tweeted it. We didn't even tweet it from our account. We tweeted it from like this brand new account. Made sure it went viral. Um, and then it like started to become a thing. And then I ran around for 2 months making sure it was a thing. And then it was a thing. And then we also launched like right going into that week, we had, uh, billboards all over the city. We had like a big video. We did a bunch of events ourselves.

And yeah, so you basically created New York Tech Week is what you're telling me.

Own it, man.

It was a collab. It was a collective effort. But yes. Yeah. Yeah.

I think I saw a screenshot on Twitter of I don't know if it was like Jordy texting you or Dylan texting Jordy about like, we should do this. Is that a true story?

That is a true story.

Wow.

Yeah.

Walk me through. So something I was always fascinated by since kind of the early days of PartyRound was that ability to capture kind of tech zeitgeist.

Yes.

And a lot of people, I think a lot of people understand tech Twitter or understand what's going on, but don't make the jump to go do anything about it. And I think that there's a big discrepancy right now of so many B2B startups, just even if they are in that culture.

Most B2B startups are so bad at marketing.

They don't know how to capture it. They don't know how to be part of it. And I think there's a lot of— I'm more in the B2B space than you are, but there's a lot of companies that want to be part of it or want to latch on to something there, and they just don't know how to do it. They don't know how to make themselves relevant. And so what's the Zero to One game plan of like, number one, does it even matter for your business model? Number two, if it does, Here's how to test things quickly.

The 101 masterclass for B2B marketing.

I mean, I don't think I'm the master of B2B marketing. I just think I learned a lot about it at Capital. But I think— I just think most people are like, one, never hire B2B marketers if you want to do B2B marketing. I have some friends that disagree with me on this, but like our Twitter guy at PartyRound was Josh Harris. He's this like 19-year-old. 18, I think, when he was originally hired. I think you've at least definitely met Josh. He's like running some, some crypto company now. I don't even, I don't even know. But he's super brilliant, super talented. He had never done like B2B marketing before in his life, let alone marketing. But he was like just, he understood culture and he understood like tech Twitter culture. And I think like you want that kind of DNA. So actually consumer people that, that. And so even Dylan had, who is our head of marketing. So I was head of growth. Dylan was head of marketing. Dylan came from my HQ Trivia, and then a couple other different consumer companies. So actually even Jordy, I don't think he did anything in B2B before this company. And so everybody on that team for the most part had a consumer background and generally consumer people are actually good at marketing 'cause you have to be. And so generally I think the number one thing is just like, don't think about it. Like, almost don't go to most other B2B companies for inspiration and then just like make a shit. You have to have taste, you have to make good things and you have to be a consumer in some capacity of whatever it is you're trying to make content for.

I think there is a deeper component there too, of even if you understand all those things and you understand, you know, you have taste in your words.

Yeah.

There's also an element of like, let's just ship it and see what happens. And I think anytime that I was talking to Jordy or when I met Dylan through him or met you through him or was talking to Josh, there was also a cultural element of the company at the time where there was just no fear around shipping things. Cuz some of the drops I'm sure didn't work as well as others, And that may be wrong, but there was a lot of shit worked pretty well. I remember a few that were like everywhere.

Yeah, right. There were definitely some that spiked and hit more than others.

And so walk me through, I think, intentionally building a company culture in which there is a) no fear about coming up with weird ideas and then 2) no fear about quickly shipping those ideas, because there's one thing to have taste and then there's one thing to have a bias for shipping.

Yeah.

How did that— was that culture just built from the top or was that just kind of the combination of people that you hired?

I think a lot of it was just people. Like a lot of Jordy, to his credit, I think definitely understood marketing. And, uh, and that was like always kind of in the ethos from the beginning is that they were gonna do marketing differently and that was gonna be a big part of their competitive advantage. Um, and so you had that like, and I think because of that, he set people free to be creative. But then from there, the rest of it was just people. And I think people underrate, like it just looked like, oh, they just kind of like, because we acted so casual about everything. It looked very like, oh, they just like did this thing and of course it went viral. But we're like behind the scenes, like DMing every single person on Twitter, like, yo, like, go retweet this shit, go engage with this shit. So like all of our investors, like Paki must have gotten so tired of how much we would DM him asking him to like amplify.

I got a lot of Josh's DMs.

Yeah.

GM, please boost.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think, I think there's just an insane amount. And also too, we would like find ways to get feedback on stuff before we shipped it. We were usually pretty confident something was good. You were never like 100% sure something this thing's gonna really go insanely viral, but you can be pretty confident this is at least good and will do okay. And we generally were always pretty confident of that before we put anything out there.

What in your mind is the formula for virality?

Luck.

Number one.

Luck.

If you could engineer it though and give yourself the best chance of success.

Yeah, no, no, no, so like luck's only one part of the equation. So there's like something tasteful that's just like good. Formatted well to whatever medium you're trying to go viral in. A little bit of like current zeitgeist. So like you're, and I think those 3 things are just like Earl's skill. And the last piece is like hustle. Like you have to actually run around and try to get that thing out there. 'Cause a lot of times like what will make something go viral on like Twitter or LinkedIn is like the right initial engagement. And you can sometimes engineer that. And then from there it's just like, you can kind of wash your hands of it and like, I hope this thing goes off. But if you were gonna launch something, for instance, like tomorrow, like new launch for Platter, and you wanted the thing to go off, you can control like the copy, whatever graphics you're using, like all the actual content of what it is you're launching and how you position it, how you tell the story. And then you can control like how fucking hard you go hustle for like in the days leading up to it, how you're teasing it, and then how you make sure every single investor you have, every single friend you have, like you can call in every single favor and try to get people to go like amplify that thing. I've even like, we would even go after people that we weren't even that close with and just be like, hey, you might like this thing. And then every once in a while someone would like retweet it and then it just starts going off. So you can control all of those things. And that will probably, like once you get good enough, most of the time that it'll at least do okay. It like won't be bad. And then everyone, and then like if you get that luck factor, there's a good chance it goes viral.

I think when you talk about controlling the controllables, one like very, very niche part of content that I nerd out about is the associated design assets for a certain push. Even if it's something as boring, I don't know, it's like a downloadable or something that you can control. And it blows my mind how many venture-backed companies who I know have designers internally, even if it's like a new hire announcement, it's like the, the worst design things with no, with no classic understanding of formatting. And like, none of us come from design backgrounds, but there's still just an element of like Like, how, how did this go out? Why do you think that's a thing of like that assets still get created with zero design sense or methodology?

I mean, there's always so many things to do. I don't know. It's like very— and I think a lot of founders specifically just don't have a background in it and or don't take it seriously. And I think if the founder doesn't take it seriously, nobody else on the team, because you probably didn't hire people to take it seriously. You probably don't— like you're culturally, you don't take it seriously. Like somebody has to give a fuck. Or else like you're just not going to be good at it.

I also think it's incentive alignment, right? Like even if you have designers, they just might have other things that are higher priority for them. And if you're pushing them on these crazy turnaround times, I'm like, oh, I need you to make this asset by 2 p.m. today. It's like, great, but I have like this client deliverable that I have to do, so I can't do that. So I think to your point, you need the founder alignment to make sure that whoever is responsible for whatever the thing is has the resources needed to like cross the T's and dot the I's. To make something look excellent, to have the chance to go viral or whatever you're trying to accomplish.

Yeah.

Also, any individual thing going viral is usually part of a broader— Like, sometimes you do just have lucky accidents, but it's usually part of a broader strategy. Um, I actually think going viral is probably a little over— is overrated in comparison to just consistently being good at social media or whatever your channel is. It's like— A social media strategy is not just you being like, "Yo!" terrible blog posts that we only even made because someone said it would get SEO. Like, please go like this. Like, that's like not like a content strategy. Neither is just like shilling, like getting on LinkedIn and shilling your B2B SaaS product. Like, it's just, it's, I think if you don't have taste about it and you don't have like, you have to tell stories ultimately. Like, you have to tell stories that are gonna be good. And I think the best strategy that's evergreen is just make shit that's one, authentic to you, and then two, that's gonna resonate with whoever your audience is. And if you just like make shit that's like independently on its own, like people that you're selling to would engage with whether or not it has anything to do with your product, that's like a win for you because you as a founder, you as a brand are associated with that. It's a really evergreen strategy and when people are actually good at it, it just always works.

Any companies top of mind for you right now that you would say are standing out?

One that I'm actually really inspired by that is not around— well, they're around, but not what they used to be— is Drift. In like a B2B SaaS company. They were a really big deal. Yeah, yeah. So they got bought by PE and now it's kind of like, you know, you know how that goes.

But that took away all the cool things that they were doing.

Got rid of the cool things. The founders are gone. They're like outsourcing shit overseas. It's like they've got a lot of competitors now. It's like it's not what it used to be, but they sold for a little over $1 billion back in 2021. But they came onto the scene in like 2015. And this is the guy that founded it. It was like his 5th company. So he was— he sold a company to HubSpot. And basically rebuilt their entire— it's a whole rabbit hole of a story, but he rebuilt their entire product. Because HubSpot's product, a lot of people don't know this, was like dog shit back in like 2010 to 2012.

It wasn't even a CRM back then. It was a marketing automation.

It was just marketing automation, and it was terrible. But they were really good at marketing, but their churn was off the roof. And so Sequoia did their Series B or whatever it was. They bought this guy's company basically because they were really good at product. And then they came in and they got like 10% of the company supposedly in the deal. And then they rebuilt everything. And then he, HubSpot goes public, he leaves, he starts Drift, and they didn't even know what their product was gonna be for like 2 years. And so they were like fucking around and like trying all kinds of shit. And the whole, but they started a podcast. So shout out to you guys. He and like his marketing guy did a podcast and it was just, it was called like Seeking Wisdom or something like that. And it was like very popular back then. And then they also did, they had like a blog that was just like product marketers were obsessed with back then. 'Cause they ultimately ended up selling mostly into the sales and marketing side of the house. And I think product marketers were their initial wedge into whatever business they were selling into. And they just made a ton of content, like newsletters, blogs, podcasts that people in sales and marketing loved. And then when they like launched their product, they just like, I think at the time in like 2017, they were the fastest growing SaaS company ever. They went to like 0 to 20 million, like extremely fast. And so it didn't happen overnight. And they definitely like were, but they were very good at content and they just made shit that was good for the people they were selling into. Like before they even knew what the product they were going to sell. They just knew who their customer was, but they had no fucking clue what the ultimate product would be. But they were really, really good at making content for that person. Yeah. And so when they finally did figure out the product, they had distribution.

I feel like a sub-content strategy is manufacturing momentum and then keeping that up. And I can't claim this quote, but someone told me about social strategy specifically that, look, end of the day, everyone just wants to be part of the winning team. And they just want to root for it. Same like if you're— when the Patriots are good or something. Yeah, everyone wants to be part of that. And obviously don't lie about your metrics, don't make stuff up. Yeah, but if things are going well, I feel like— I mean, a lot of the time when I'm way too busy on social to create like long-form or short-form and like really deep dive and storytell, the minimum viable product just for consistency's sake to keep up momentum is it could be recaps, it could be if you just made a new hire. Obviously funding is great, but that doesn't happen very often. If you had a good customer win with a testimonial, like that doesn't take very long and a lot of that can be systematized. And then maybe a monthly recap as well. I read yours and that goes so far of just if you, if you are genuinely having wins, just take a picture of it.

Yeah. And then people overthink what they have to do. Yeah. Yeah. I think you guys are both like pretty damn good at this.

Thanks.

And obviously you do it at scale, but for like a lot of companies. But I think it's wild, man, because I think the real thing is just like Beehive's gotten really good at this is to where they've got like all of the internet rooting for them. Um, and there's, there's a total art to making people root for you. And I think a lot of it goes into just almost publicly playing out your hero's journey on the internet. Um, it's, it's almost— you have to lean into the cringe a little bit, but it fucking works. It fucking works.

What's that line that is going around Twitter? Like, everything that you want is on the other side of being cringe for 6 months on Twitter.

Yeah, yeah.

Dude, it's— but the other thing I'll say from my journey over the last couple of months of trying to figure out this whole content thing is like, it's an operation and you can build it for scale, right? Like it takes time, it takes learnings, it takes resources. But like even the podcast is a great example, right? Like we've— it took us a year to kind of figure this out, but now it's at a point where we have the resources in place and we understand the process to be able to do this without taking up like way too much of our time because we are running a company while also doing this. But when I think about it for Platter as well, it's very systemized, systematized at this point. We have people in place for different parts of it. It's like, how can you do that and scale that? Because the context switching part makes it really hard to do it and do it well often if you don't understand like how to allocate against it. And I feel like we just started to figure it out with Platter. Where like people don't realize that it's just two of us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it just you and do you have like—

I have a director of growth and then we have a couple external resources that support in like very minor capacities, but like we're not, you know, a 15-person marketing team.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you do— do you write your own stuff?

I do. I do write my own stuff. I have someone who helps write a certain number of tweets each week and a lot— I like I mean, you know this more than anyone. The shit posting on Twitter are the things that get more engagement. But I have a baseline level of content that goes out each week that's a little bit more like well thought out, more like nerdy, if you will. And the reason I have that is if there are days that slip by me, I'm still at least staying present in the ecosystem. Yeah, but I've taken over my own LinkedIn. I still post every day on Twitter. I just have like 2 tweets a day that I'm getting support on.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think like there's so many different ways to do this, but I'm like, we're actually still trying to figure this out. 'Cause I do write all of my own stuff and scheduling is great. Having a backlog is also great. And then when you've got inspiration, you can kind of just like play off that. But it does give you a little bit of buffer if you can batch, like, I don't know, like doing content to like one day a week or something like that. And then just like everything else is like, oh, I've got inspiration right now. 'Cause like I just had this thing happen and I'm gonna write this really quick. I think the two best habits that have served me is, try to like have like a moment in time where you can just do a bunch of it in one go. And then generally, like, whenever you do feel inspiration, you're like, oh, this would be awesome, like write whatever that is down like immediately before you lose it. Because if you lose it, it's like probably not coming.

For whatever reason, I can't get myself to do this, like block 3 hours off and just like write 20 tweets and 20 LinkedIn posts. Well, I, I, my brain just doesn't like work like that.

I did good. Well, it's really hard. I, I like was on a run for 2 months where I did it really consistently on Sundays. And then, uh, like the last time I tried to do it, I had like, I like where I wrote for like 3 hours and got like 2 posts out of it. It was, it was so bad. And so like, it is, you can't 100% engineer it, but it's like, uh, I think it's the consistency. If you show up enough times, it like probably does, like it does fire off and then, uh, you have something to work with.

Tell me more about long-form writing because I know we've talked to, I think that's where I first found you. Like I'd heard your name, but when I hit you up, I was like, we need to hang out. 'Cause I've been reading your stuff for a while.

God, that's why it's scary.

That— I was like, I have different thoughts. Yeah, you backed it up.

Yeah.

But that long-form writing is again going from like short form, seeing someone, recognizing someone, maybe you've heard good things and then you start to see their real thought process put on paper, even if it's not perfect, even if it's a little cringe. But that connection is A, not only useful for networking and B, and meeting people, but it's also incredibly useful for just, you know, fleshing out like things that you're not sure of and things that, you know, potential decisions you're making at the company. So walk me through TaxWire's focus on kind of long-form writing as a habit for internal company stuff, not just marketing and social here.

I think part of this is just because we're mostly a remote company, so our team's distributed around different places. So you kind of have to default to writing to make remote culture work. All the more so, like, we're in a compliance domain, and so, like, detail orientation matters a lot. Like, you don't want the company that you outsource your taxes to to fuck up your taxes. So, um, I think detail orientation generally and writing stuff down matters a lot, like documenting things well. And it like doesn't have to even be that like overly thought out, but like you need to like get— getting your thoughts on paper just makes the entire company and the culture scalable. Um, so for us, like that, that is like my co-founder and I also, we were at a company that scaled to like 300-something people together that was all remote during, during COVID Zondek. Zondek. And so we like, writing is the only thing, like a writing, we had a really heavy writing culture and that is the only reason I think our culture did somewhat well at that level of scale, especially with how fast we grow. And so we both kind of kept that in like starting this company. So it's all, and then even like fundraising, like for me, whenever I need to talk about something or need to even just like clear my own thinking on something, I just have to write it down. Like I don't like, talking through it can sometimes help, for like getting ideas. But whenever I really need to like, okay, I need to get, figure out what exactly it is I think about this, I just have to write. So like even when we fundraised, I wrote like this massive memo that felt like such a waste of time. But like every single time I would get like a question during fundraising, I would just like go write, add a new section to the memo. And then, but that actually ended up like working really well for getting through diligence. But, um, so like for us internally, it's great, um, for like recording everything for making decisions, um, and having, as you add people to the team, having a history of that. And then for making, like, just figuring out what you think about something, it's, I find it very helpful for that. And then from a, like, more content marketing perspective, um, if you're willing to be vulnerable with it and just be fucking real, because like most people are not like authentic or, and or vulnerable with the stuff they write. There's just so much stuff out there. But the one thing any founder can do is just like be 100% themselves and be incredibly like specific and just at least to some degree don't hold back. Like every, and so, and I've found the more I've leaned into doing that, the more people seem to resonate with my writing.

Yeah, I think it depends. I think it depends on what the founders or what a leadership team's core skillset is. And if it is not pulling back the curtain and being authentic, don't force people into it.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

If you're a product guy, cool. If you're a sales guy, cool. Like there are a lot of other ways to grow a business. Like you are very organic, even just hanging out with you. You're like pretty real, like right from the bat you'll talk about things that you're dealing with, things that you're stressed out on. Before starting Verbatim, I ran like a wellness blog and I started because I dealt with like a lot of mental health stuff in college. And the minute that you get over that leap of telling people that you dealt with stuff, then floodgates open, right? Then you can be completely real. But I work with a lot of founders that are like, how can I engineer authenticity? I'm like, look, man, if you're not feeling it, if you're not going to be that way, Yeah, that's fine. You do need someone on your team to kind of be talking on social, but that doesn't need to be your thing.

Yeah, totally.

I think for me, so it's interesting to hear you talk about this because I would say that like writing is not my thing. I'm much more of a verbal person. Like I would rather sit in a room with a whiteboard and talk to someone to think through a problem than like sit in a room by myself and write it out. Which, look, everyone's different. The authenticity thing has never been a problem for me and I, the, The time that I laugh the most about it is when someone will send me a post like, hey, could you just like read this over and let me know your thoughts? I'm like, yeah, hit fucking publish. Like, I don't know what else do you want me to say? Like, I'm like, stop, stop overthinking it because the harsh truth is not that many people are going to read it and acknowledge it and take the time to think about it. Like, I think people, they put way too much emphasis on thinking other people care.

Yeah.

And the thing I say to someone is, dude, go stand in the middle of New York City in like a dress and just start screaming and like maybe 2 people are going to look at you when they're walking on the sidewalk. Like no one really cares.

Yeah.

And I think people, they get worried. It's like the fear of judgment, right? So it's like when you post that first video and you get no likes and no comments and your fear is like, you know, the people close to me are going to be like, dude, what a weirdo. Like, why is this person posting it? And then like all of a sudden you're cool because eventually you got that acknowledgment that you thought you needed. And now it's the people who are judging me are the ones asking me like, yo, can you help me with this? And I'm like, yeah, just hit post. Like, stop thinking about it too much.

Stop texting me. Seriously. Yeah.

Something I want to talk about with you is your childhood. So grew up in a religious household, you were homeschooled. How has that impacted your journey as an entrepreneur?

I mean, you— I think you just— we were talking about the, like, people don't care and like about like what it's like. Yeah, like I resonate with that a lot. It's like we do tend to overthink how much people are thinking about us and you should just like share shit. And so even like this— so this post I wrote earlier this year about how I grew up and such, kind of stemmed from I just got to the point where I started just being open about where I come from and that I didn't go to Stanford, I didn't go to Harvard. I do not have— my dad is like not going to introduce me to investors for my company. It's just like, which is like nothing against like folks that have that. Like, that's some of my best friends are come from those environments and that's dope. But that was never my background. And I think I had a lot of imposter syndrome about that for a long time. And I just got to a point where it was like, I am never going to be the guy that like has all of the right, like, stamps on my resume. But I did work my ass off to get here. And so, so I generally being more open about that is like, that's a big part of how I fundraised, a big part of getting this company off the ground and just a big part of being okay with being myself at this point. But yeah, childhood, I think so. I guess like for context, I grew up in Ohio. Not, not that interesting, but my dad's like a— was until pretty recently a pastor. So like small church. Like very, very deeply religious. Like women don't wear pants, like, like people don't drink. People like read a very specific version of the Bible. You're in church all the time. It's like some people would call it like cult-like. It's definitely cult adjacent or who even knows, like how you define the difference between religion and a cult.

I don't really think they're different personally.

It's, it's just marketing. It's just if you, if you become successful enough, you're called a religion, not a cult. That's, that's where I'm at on it. Um, but so I grew up that way. It was quite different. Um, the homeschooling thing was mostly because, uh, you know, like public schools teach evolution, so we're gonna— we don't want that, like things like that. So, um, it's, it's very different than how I would say most people I know now grew up. I think it's, it's almost, it's almost like, uh, it's, it's almost such a weird different reality that it almost doesn't feel like it happened at this point. It's just like, it's such a— it's like a warped other world. Um, but I would say at the same time, I think like it gave me one, I've like moved between a lot of different types of environments in my life. And so I think that's, that, that's had a good positive impact on me. And I think I do empathize with a type of person and like way of existing that a lot of people in the world don't like. Uh, so it's about to be election season. Like I very much understand like the people that vote for someone like Donald Trump, like whether you agree with that or don't, like, I at least understand like why they think the way they do. And it's just a lot easier for me to understand how someone can get to this place that looks so, uh, so foreign. I think the last thing is just like, life's not fair. I think that's a big thing. The more you can internalize that and just be okay with it is, uh, it's like, like the better, because you can, you can literally bemoan that like, compared to these people, like I don't have unfair advantages or whatever, but it's like the moment you accept that life's not fair and what are you going to do about it from there? It's like, It's kind of freeing.

What was the first moment that you— I don't know if broke away is the right term, but like stepped outside of this like religious homeschool, like sheltered environment?

I started working pretty young, like 14, 15. Um, and so I, I, by the time I was 16, I was working like 80 to 100 hours a week doing school and at the, in the evenings. Um, and so like I, so I worked in like grocery stores. I did construction for a while. I did like landscaping. I think the thing I ended up sticking with the most is I worked for a grocery store called Kroger, and then I worked for this, like, the company that makes Oreos. I worked for them. Oh, sure. So I did like, I did deliveries. I did like, I stocked shelves. It's very— it's not interesting. It's very like, like manual blue-collar work. But I made a lot of money and got a lot of overtime. And I was saving for college because college was like, my parents never went to college, but in my head, like, if I could somehow go to college, that's how I would get out. But through those jobs, I ended up just like meeting a lot of people that were not like us. And so I think it was like that piece. But then the other thing that I think was unique for me specifically is that we— I don't know how familiar you are or other people are with religion, but generally if you take just Christianity, there's like two big buckets. There's Catholicism and there's Christianity or like Protestant Christianity. And then of the Protestants, which we were one of, we were like part of the Baptist sect, but not even just like just Baptist. It's like It's called Independent Fundamental Baptist. And so like, there's basically dozens and dozens of sects and subsects within our bucket of Christianity alone. And then in the broader world, you've got like atheists, people that don't believe in God. You've got Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. Like there's so many religions. And I was aware of all this. And I remember just being like 13 or 14 and being like, you know, how crazy is it that I just happened to be born into like the one place where we just like know everything about all of life and the universe's big questions. And we like have all the answers and no one else does. And, uh, wow, I'm so lucky. And then I started thinking, wait, wait, this, this just feels unlikely. And, um, yeah, it's just like this, that, this. And so I, that, that thought like terrified me for, or not even terrified, but just, it's kind of like a thought you can't get away from. And, uh, and I think as I just progressively got exposed to more and more ways of seeing the world, a lot of it through just like working so much at a young age, it, it was just like, I, I started like reading a lot and like educating myself. And I think at some point it just was like, uh, shit, like, this is— I just like don't believe this. And like, this, this isn't real. And I ended up leaving home pretty, pretty young. Like, I, I technically moved out of my parents' house when I was like 17. And so like we— and then we made up later, but it was, it was pretty, pretty rocky between us for a few years.

So I want to go into that to the extent they're open to it. Like, what, what was that first moment or interaction with your parents? And then like, how did— what was your, what was your perspective that you shared with them? And then how did that affect your relationship?

I don't— for years I don't even think we talked about it. That's the thing. It was more like, to them, I basically— in their eyes, I just didn't talk to them about it, but I was just doing— I was just doing what I wanted to do, and they didn't like that. And so they made me quit my job, um, and so I did technically quit my job, and then I moved out, and then I got the job back again. And then, uh, and that— like, that— so it was more of like a split of like, we didn't even talk about it. I don't even think I admitted to them that I didn't believe. It was more like, I just don't care about any of this. I don't It was almost like, God, whatever. I'm just like, I don't care if I'm like some horrible sinning person. And so that was the initial schism. And then we kind of made up to some extent. And then I don't think we really talked about it. Cause like I went to this like tiny ass college and eventually like dropped out, started a company that didn't work out and got into tech. But so I don't even think it was until like a few years later that just like one day I kind of admitted to my dad. It's like, yeah, like I I don't believe in, in the stuff. Like, I love you, and, and they're still deeply religious. It's like, I love you, I care about you, I know we're like not going to agree on this, but, um, like, I just like, I don't believe in this stuff anymore.

So was there a hard— I mean, also, as you've gotten older, was— is, is it a hard shunning of like, I don't want anything to do with religion, or still go to church sometimes?

I, I don't, um, I, I personally don't. It is awkward when I go home. Even like my sister is still fairly religious. And so it's like awkward that I'm like the only one that like, I don't go to church, I'm not going to church, I'm not like, I'm not going to be a part of it. Um, but I, I just try to keep my mouth shut about it otherwise, cuz like I'm, I'm just trying not to cause, cause a division when I'm there. But I, I think, yeah, it, I have seen some people that like left and like they got completely shunned by the community. For me, I think I kind of shunned myself from most of the community, and I only really stay in touch with my family. And I'm very lucky that I think my dad, like, 15 years ago would have, like, disowned me, or, like, or at least, like, it would have gotten close to that. And, uh, he, I think, went through, like, so much, like, of just his own, like, maturing, I guess, as, like, a person, that by the time I was at that point, I think he was just like, I want a relationship with my kids, and even if I don't agree with what they're doing with their lives, I'm just gonna, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. And so I think that, that was like very big of him and, uh, why we've— we still like stay in touch. And it's not like, it's not like they don't like hate me, I don't hate them or anything like that.

Do they stay up to date on what you're doing?

Sort of. I try to keep them in the loop. I don't think they understand it, but they, they know that I'm like— they've never—

you're in New York.

Yeah, they know I'm in New York. They've never been here. And so it's like very like, I'm gonna try to fly them up at some point, but they've never been to city. So that, that's like, they're almost kind of scared of it. It's like this weird thing in like the Midwest where people like think New York is like this like terrible devil town. Yeah, yeah, devil town. Um, it's like if you watch Fox News, Fox News like really apparently thinks like New York is a very unsafe place.

Interesting.

Yeah, I learned this from my grandmother when I was home for Christmas.

I learned this from my grandmother.

No, she's literally like, she's like, uh, do you, uh, like, are you, are you safe there? Are you like, I hear about all the stabbings and stuff. And I'm like, Grandma, where are you Where do you hear about this? And she's just like, well, on the news. And the news means Fox. So it's, uh, it's just like, oh, it's, it's, I'm like, there's a lot of people in New York, so it's, we're fine. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's very like, they don't understand it.

I would say religion adjacent, but random. My favorite random side quests in New York is on a weekend. If you're strolling by a beautiful day and you walk by any old beautiful church, go inside. And just stand in the back because the music and the architecture—

Beautiful.

—is incredible.

And it's always like a little adventure in itself, all these old stained glass windows. My girlfriend is so annoyed with me because any cool old church, I'm like, we gotta go in. Yeah. And they're like doing hymns and singing and all these like old people in suits are like, welcome. She's like, oh my God. Yeah.

I'm like, can we just stand in the back for a little? I have a slightly less, that's very honestly like endearing, like, and amazing that you love that. And I actually feel the same way, but like, it's wholesome. That's the word I'm looking for. I have one that's less wholesome. Um, if you are a single man in New York City and you are trying to date the alphas and going to, uh, one of these like more modern Christian churches— I, I, uh, I— the only time I've been to church in like the last like 3 or 4 years was with a friend of mine who is, um, Christian. He came, was in the city, he convinced me to like go to church. I went, just was like, sure man, I'll like come with you. And I was shocked at how beautiful the women are. And, uh, and like, and like, and just very like— and not like very honestly, it's more of like a lifestyle thing to go to church. They're not like hardcore religious either. And so— and they're just like young people everywhere. And so get off Hinge. It's like, I even think run clubs are getting oversaturated right now. Go to church.

I've never been to a run club, guys. I'm so on this island right now listening to this. I'm Jewish. My dad's from Israel. I came in a— I grew up in a Jewish household. I can't say I go to churches and look at our church, like, aside from major holidays.

No. On major holidays, do you go with your family?

Uh, depends where I am in the world. I don't like go out of my way.

But you have like a specific faith that you—

I, I like, I identify as Jewish. I would not say I'm religious. Like I'm not Orthodox by any means. Like if for the highest holidays I'm with my family, I not even, not even going to temple. It's like we, it honestly just depends. It's very situational for me. Like I don't, I'm not religious by any sense of the word. Um, I think for me, I've actually— I've spent a lot of time over the last couple months thinking about this, especially because I'm dating someone who isn't. For me, I'm more attached to like the communal aspects of it versus the actual like religious piece of it. Like, I'm not— I'm not going to temple every week. Like, if I do a Shabbat dinner on a— on a Friday, it's more like gathering with people and hanging out, having a good dinner. It's not like sitting there reading the Torah and like having these very, very detailed religious conversations, cuz that's just like not who I am. I would say similar to where— I would say it's— there's similarities in terms of where you're at, but like my family isn't super religious. My dad was when he was younger, and I'm— I still identify as Jewish. Like my kids will be raised Jewish. I'm very passionate about it. I think the last couple months in this world has forced a lot of people in my culture to like think hard and deep about like what's going on. And I would say I feel a stronger affinity to it, but it's not because of the religious piece of it. It's the communal piece of it.

Yeah, I think that community, it's— it is one of the more special things. Like when I wander into these churches and you just feel this togetherness, even if you're a complete stranger. I do think that is something beautiful. Again, should it be directly attached to religious doctrine? Maybe not. But in high school, my dad started to work with a lot of lower-income Black churches. In Miami. And we went to a couple services. And if you walk into one of those things, you will feel something. You will feel a connection to the people around you, connection to, you know, the congregation, connection to whatever mission is being talked about. It's a really special thing. And I think unfortunately, a lot of my friends, especially going to like liberal arts schools, completely shun religion and want nothing of it. And I think there is this whole world and there are benefits of it. Again, should it be attached to a doctrine, maybe not, but there's a lot to be said about like the communal aspect. I think a lot of people are missing it, and that's why we all host podcasts.

That's also why run club— run clubs exist. Totally. Like, I think, I think the running is a byproduct of the communal component of it. Like, I think a lot of people— I think there's a lot of people who've started running because like, oh, I'm not fit enough to actually go here and not feel like an idiot, but I go there because I like the people around me. And it's now they're using it as a means to just be surrounded by other people.

Yeah, there's so many of the things within religion that are just being like rebundled into different like cults, communities, run clubs. Like so much of the fitness industry is built on having almost like a cult-like thing in community around like whatever it is, whether it's, uh, I don't know, like you're in like hybrid athletics. Like I run and I lift. I feel like that's become a really big one recently. 100%.

I think every— that's such a good point. Every aspect of fitness in terms of community draws similarities to religion. It's just spoken about in a different way.

Yeah, totally. I want to talk about physical environment for a second because I remember it was like 4 or 5 months ago and we went on a walk and I went back to your office and took a call. And my first impression, a great office. I think you were sharing it with a bunch of folks or it was your investor's office or something. And big, beautiful space in Chelsea, right?

Or West Village? West SoHo, technically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big beautiful building on like the 4th or 5th floor with huge huge windows, all this natural light, all this modern tech. And I started verbatim with like an Amazon desk in the corner next to my bed. And even over time, I'm still working remotely, and sometimes I'll find myself in like a WeWork or something. And like, I'm not a big fan of WeWork. I think it's where like startups go to die. Yeah, I'm not sure any startups there are doing real things. There are some, but I've never seen any of these. So I— yeah, some respect. Yeah, but you're different.

You broke away from the religious piece. Now you're breaking away from—

WeWork sucks now. So they— WeWork kicked me out first. They shut— we were in a WeWork in Chelsea and they shut our WeWork because they were— they had gone bankrupt and they shut a bunch of them like last fall. They didn't shut ours and then they eventually shut it in January. And so we bounced to another one and they shut that one. And I was finally like, fuck this. So I like posted on LinkedIn like, hey, I'm looking for an office. Like, if you have like extra desks you'd sublet, sublet me me and my co-founder hit me up. And that's ultimately how I found this one. And I will say it's much easier to find office space and get a good deal on it right now in New York than it is like apartment space. That's brutal. But yeah, we found, so we found really good space there, but initially we were just like in a WeWork like everybody else grinding.

But I wanna talk about the impact of that on your day-to-day psychology. 'Cause I remember we did that and then the next day I went to WeWork and was in one of those old phone booths that looks like, like the wood panels. Yeah, it's super dark. And I was on back-to-back calls there and I still remember the, the back and forth of, or the juxtaposition of like that beautiful sunlit office. I felt like I could do anything. I was in a really good mood. All the calls I hopped on, I was in a good mood. People around me and then just being by myself in like the basement of a WeWork. It's hard to think big when you're literally surrounded in like a basement. And so how has that changed your psychology? Why is it important for founders who are stressed a lot of the time? To have a good space, to invest in it, to spend the money there.

Yeah, I think like, I think the— so the way I think about it is I— all I do is work for the, for the most part, is like the majority of my life. And so even apartment, like I work in my apartment enough on, on weekends or whatever that like I really— I was in an Upper West Side apartment that had like no light. And so we recently moved and I made a big priority of like we are going to have natural light. Um, and same with this, uh, with this office, like we spent slightly more than we could have, mainly because it's relatively de minimis compared to our burn rate and how much money we'd raised. And I just saw my co-founder came in and he was like, dude, that is the most productive day I've had in 2 weeks. And so I just saw that because we tried it before we officially moved in. And then the other thing is if you want to record content, this is a great space. I know it's kind of apartment and office for you, but you can record content here. You can have people over. You could have a business meeting here and it would feel good.

I do a lot of business meetings here.

Yeah. And so I think same at our office, like we have our investors over, we'll have like we've had customers over and it's like a— I think it's, it's also nice too to like when people come over it, like they feel like we are bigger as a company than we actually are. 100%. Not even just because like there's more people than just our company there, but also because like the space is so nice. And so it's like I think if it makes you more productive and it's a relatively like small amount of money to spend to be more productive and happier on a day-to-day basis, Fuckin' do it.

What else should founders spend money on?

I think there's a lot of things you shouldn't spend money on. Um, I probably spend a lot of time not thinking about that. I actually think one, always spend more to get, like, don't like save $20K to get a like worse, worse person. Like always spend on talent. Like we, we very clearly early on, like we, so we went from like, it was me, our company has been around for like barely over a year. It went from just being me, like, It was mostly an idea, trying to make it more than an idea, then a couple customers, then a prototype, then my co-founder joined, then like we raised money. And so we kind of hit this point where it's like in January, it's like, okay, this thing is real. We have money, we have some customers and we have like a massive roadmap and we just got to go build all this stuff. And we had to like make some pretty intentional decisions about how we were going to hire. And something we decided to do is to spend— a lot of companies right now I think are not going this direction, but we decided to spend more like hire more senior people, hire fewer of them, and then pay really fucking well. Including like our head of tax is probably the best in the world at what he does. Like literally, like he's built multiple, he's like one of the only people in the world that's built multiple different tax engines from zero. Like he was at a company that got bought by Stripe for almost $1 billion. It's like their first hire, like almost doing something very similar to what we're doing right now. So he is, He was very, he was expensive. He was like, he was very good. He's at a later part of his career, but he was like clearly the best in the world. And I interviewed hundreds of people before we found him. And it's like, am I going to spend an extra $50K to get the best in the world? Or am I going to like go lower? Cause like this, this, this person's good, but they're not the best in the world. And we have consistently paid more to get the best. And we would rather have fewer people and try to do more with less, but like, we know we have the best people in the world. And so I think that's, it's just almost always worth spending on that. I think there's like other similar things like that, but like mostly if you look at what we spend money on, it's people.

People, nicer office.

Honestly, like even that is like tiny compared to— Slightly nicer office. Slightly nicer office. Um, spend on people, like get good healthcare for people to the extent you can. Like ours is not the best in the world, but it's not awful. Um, like, like spend on the things that let people just fucking like work and do their best work, including yourself. And then just like try to not spend a ton of money on everything else. So even like this, we did this like chicken dinner stunt recently. I spent no money on that. Like, Ro sponsored it. Like, shout out to Justin and Ro.

Justin has his finger on the pulse. He is—

anything pops off in like New York tech and he's just like, he's— he somehow gets involved.

I think it's a really interesting question that you ask because I also am curious to just see how the answer evolves depending on like where you're at in that journey, right? Like you raise $0. I raised less than a million. You raised a couple—

just shy of 3— couple million.

Yeah. So I imagine that, like, and if we continue to go up the ladder of like $3 million, $10 million, $20 million, $50 million, the answer will vary because I know for sure way too many founders who have raised more than all of us who are spending money on the most ridiculous things. Because when you see $100K leave the bank account, you don't really think it's that big of a deal because there's a lot of zeros in there. And then all of a sudden, you know, you're in this situation where you're raising down rounds, you're Totally laying people off, et cetera. I think for us, something that's been really important, it's striking the balance between like, what are the things you should be thinking about nickel and diming over? And like, where are the areas where it's like, dude, you're trying to build something bigger. Like, stop getting so deep in the weeds, like spending $1,000 instead of $800 on this thing or that thing. But ultimately, I think for us, the philosophy has always been like, raise money or spend money to double down on solutions versus trying to solve problems. So when you find something that's working, like, go, but don't just be recklessly spending money to try to figure out how to solve that thing is how we've operated in terms of like how to spend. So I think a great example for you is like hosting, you know, dinners are like a really big thing that a lot of people do now where they'll just like bring— for us, it's like bring together 25, 30 brand founders and like host a dinner and get a couple other partners. It's like I was very clear from day one, like, I'm not spending $5K per dinner and doing 3 of these a month. It's not because we can't afford it. It's like I want to actually see that it works first. So get scrappy with it out of the gate, and then if it works, fine, we'll double down. Whereas I see people who raise a lot of money, they all of a sudden just default to like spend the money on it and then we'll figure out if it works.

I think people like are too easy to pull the trigger on spending when you can just do a little bit of work upfront. Like if it's $100, maybe it's not a big deal, but like even like buying software, like we just made like what'll be one of our biggest like infrastructure spends. And I know those sales reps hate me because, God, I was like, I like, we uncovered every single little detail and I negotiated like hard. As you should. And it's like, 'cause it was gonna be a big spend for us, but we also had conviction that we bought the right product and that we got a good deal when we spent. And I think on most things, even like talent, like we knew we were gonna make a big bet on hiring like our head of tax, for instance, but we could do that with conviction 'cause it's not like he was the first person I met. Like I had met hundreds of people over like several months and we knew the space, we knew what we were hiring for really well. Like when you, when you just do the work, it's like actually not that hard to know, like when— also too, if you know your business, like you have to know your business. Like every business is different. Like our hiring philosophy probably just wouldn't generically work for somebody else's company. But if you know your business and know what like matters for you specifically and you do the fucking work, it's actually not that hard in my opinion to decide like, is this actually worth allocating dollars to?

You know, we just did actually last month for the first time was we switched a lot of software to the annual plan to get like the 20% savings. Webflow. It was like, uh, you know, Figma, Asana, like Slack, like the big tools that I'm like, if these are going away, it's because our company went under. And it— we started doing that when we started to hire very aggressively. And it's like, all right, well, how do we think about from a long-term perspective, where can we save a couple dollars here and there? And so I sat down with one of my co-founders and we— I think like 10 tools or something, we just like switched to the annual plan. So for one month, like, we got hit pretty hard, but in the end, like, financially it made sense for us to do it. Yeah, I got to do that.

So a little spring cleaning. Yeah. Yeah.

And also, like, I'm curious, like, do you guys let people— do you give everyone else cards that can they just like spend?

No, no. We— I mean, I think it's also probably dependent on the size of your company. Yeah. Right. So we're 22 people now. Our like 3 co-founders, we each obviously have a card and then I mean, my director of growth has access to my card, but he'll just like tell me before he spends on it. But no one else in the company today has a card. Interesting. I also just don't really know why, at least where we're at now in a remote company, like what— why do people need cards?

Like what? Yeah, I don't know. It's different. People have different philosophies on it. We, we also just like founders, the founders have cards and then like even like my co-founder and I, like if it's over $100, like we'll like talk to each other about it before we pull the trigger, even if it's just like, hey, heads up. But if like, if one of us wanted to be like, yo, why are we spending on that? Like the other would have a chance to almost like try to veto that decision. Same. Yeah. I like that.

How do you balance— you're talking about product for a bit. How do you balance very, very early stage, like design partner phase, focusing on product versus focusing on go-to-market? Because the amount of venture-backed SaaS companies that come to Verbatim and they're like, Adrian, I want to do content. And I was like, okay, how many happy paying customers do you have? They're like, none. Yeah, but we need more in the pipeline. And I'm like, don't you have like 6 design partners? They're like, yeah. And I'm like, are they paying and happy? They're like, yeah. I'm like, okay, I don't know what to tell you. You do need to focus on product right now because they're not that happy and they're not converted yet, but they still do it. Like getting ahead of yourself on pipeline is something you should focus on. You do a lot of content. You're making sure that your pipeline is healthy when the time comes. Yeah. But how do you balance that constant back and forth?

I mean, I definitely haven't fully figured it out. I think I do the way I actually pitched you guys, 'cause I definitely like, I do my best to hype you guys up all the time. Um, but whenever I like see people even interested in doing something like the work that Verbatim does, I think product marketing and, uh, like case studies and all this stuff is like really, really powerful when it's working. Um, you do have those happy customers. And you've also got like some kind of like more brand engine going on above that. Like I think it's great like middle to bottom of funnel content to drive people down to like make a buying decision. But if you like don't have any customers or they're not happy or you just generally like no one's ever heard of you, it's like, but like I had an argument with one of our, not argument, but with one of our investors about this. I punched him in the face. 'Cause I was like, they were like, they had some consultant that they worked with, that worked with a lot of their companies and they were like, you should just do like product marketing. And I'm just like, no one's fucking heard about us. Like, why should I do like product marketing? And this was like 6 months ago. But even now it's like, we do have happy customers that are paying us, but it's like, not like, I think I care, product marketing will just fucking work so well when our brand's out there and like we've done a good job of telling our story and our products further along. It's gonna be amazing then. Like what I care about right now is getting distribution and getting attention. We've kind of started with my brand initially and I had something of a following already. And then in a few months we'll like officially be, God, I hate this term, out of stealth and like we'll have like launched and be in general availability and we can onboard anybody. And so it's like, I think eventually you start like tacking on these other things, but I think the, like, yeah, I think the real thing is you have to be driving pipeline somehow. And, but I think how you do that is more nuanced and every business is going to be a little bit different. But I don't know, like, I think you just have to go fucking tell your story. Like, I think a company I get inspiration from is called Equals. They're like— Called what? Equals. It's like a— it's like a— they're trying to kill Excel as like kind of like their, their, their tagline. Those founders have been blogging, doing podcasts, like posting on LinkedIn and Twitter, and they were not marketing guys before. Like the guy that one of the founders was a finance person before.

Did Matt Hodges join that team?

Yeah. He's like a marketing guy. He was marketing. He joined later, but the founders, they started, they were doing not as much as they're doing now, but they were blogging and writing on social from before they had any product. And so I think not enough companies, like for us, we could very easily justify like not doing anything until like Q4 or something like that. And I made a conscious decision a few months ago to like not do that because you, you have to get one. It's, if nothing else, it's reps. You're gonna get better at doing content. And then two, as your name gets out there more, it's like, even now, like, I will get texts from like a controller randomly. I, I don't even post about our like specific— I've posted a little bit about what we're doing, but it's very, it's, it's still a bit more vague than we're gonna be. And so, but like, this person who's, uh, just like a friend and he's like a customer, just like texts me. He's like, hey, I loved this thing you said that had nothing to do with like tax software. Um, but it's like you're staying top of mind, you're getting better at content, and you do it also too if you're meeting people that are like in your ICP. It's like, I think half the battle is just like getting people to resonate with you and getting people to like, because especially early on, maybe you don't feel this way, I'm curious. I feel like most of your early customers, your first like, really a lot of that first million in revenue is going to come in, at least in B2B, from people like resonating with you and taking a bet on you as a team and like the service and the product that you're you're building, more so than the fact that like on all of your own merits, you are the best thing in the market for like every other thing. A lot of it is how much they like and trust you.

I feel like my philosophy on this is you need to be doing both always. Totally. There's not— it's not 100%. Why, why have co-founders? Why have employees on your team if everyone's just doing one thing? It's like my co-founder has been building products since the day we started, and I've just been building our brand since the day we started. Right now our top of funnel is larger than what we can handle. So we're on a hiring spree to like solve that. I've joked like, let's get to a point where all of our team members are twirling their thumbs and bored because there's not enough work to go around. Like, put the ball back in my court. It's kind of like this joke between the two of us. I mean, there's three co-founders. Two of us are more on the sales marketing side, one's on the product side, and right now he's drowning. Like, I'm trying to now get you resources so you're not, but you're always brand building, you're always selling, you're always marketing. There's so many brands and people that I meet now that aren't a good fit, but like 2 years from now they might be. Yeah. So I think that like all because they're not becoming a customer today, the fact that they hear your name, the fact that they hear your company's name, they're talking to people about you, like that subconscious work actually matters. And so to me, I don't think you should only be building product or only be marketing at any point in time. There's just a way to go about doing it where like expectations are set. So like you can still be marketing. It doesn't mean you have room for them. It's like, and then you tell them there's a waitlist. They want you even more, but like, don't. Don't sit there and build this crazy product, be like, all right, now let's go figure out how we're gonna get people to use it. And also don't just like get all these people to use it and be like, we have nothing to give you. I think you always have to be doing both, is my opinion.

How do you navigate sales in long, longer sales cycles like that where you know at some point you like each other, you'll eventually work together? Any like specific things that you've learned there through Platter?

I mean, I think there's, I think it's partially a science and partially an art in terms of like we've had scenarios where we've intentionally had to like drag out sales cycles because we're like, we don't really have capacity for this today. But you can very easily be like, oh, I need this one more thing from you. Oh, I'm busy next week. Can we book for the week after? Like, there's ways to kind of go around that. And then there's also just radical transparency of like, here's where we're at. And we've had people who just really want what we offer and they're willing to sacrifice like a couple days, a couple weeks. Ultimately, I think we're in a position where the offering we have, it's not something you're going to get tomorrow anyways. So if we're being realistic, like your timeline being delayed by a week or two, it's really not that big of a deal relative to what we're doing, right? Like our pitch is we're rebuilding an entire storefront. So if you're coming to me being like, I need a new storefront in 2 weeks, like we're probably not your partner anyways. Yeah. So like timeline in that regard hasn't really been like a blocker unless it's like, you know, 7 months instead of 2 months.

I think when it comes to that full transparency in sales conversations, I want to get your take on this too. I feel like the best, the best, like, reframe that someone told me was imagine they're like your oldest friend from like kindergarten or middle school. And however honest you are with that oldest friend, again, don't give them a discount. But if you're talking to your oldest friend, you wouldn't like upsell them on something that's not ready. Like you would be completely honest about timelines. You'd be upfront with pricing, you'd be upfront. I'd be like, hey, I've known you for 10 years. This is not a good fit for you right now. It may be a fit for you in 4 months. Does that resonate with either of your pitches?

I think having high conviction while being honest works even with bigger, bigger logos, bigger customers or prospects. Having conviction in what you say and why, I think people respect that versus just like trying to give them the runaround and playing a game where it's like you're making a promise that you don't actually think you can fulfill. Like, I think in the early days we were guilty of that. Like, we would just say we were yes-men, right? We would say yes to anyone who was willing to give us money in exchange for something. And now it's like, if I don't actually think I can give you what I'm saying, like, I'm going to be honest with you as to why and how that's going to be affected. And I'm okay with you walking away if it doesn't work. I love that.

Yeah, I think all of this is easier if you have that like positive sum, like it's a big world out there, there's lots of business to be done mindset versus if you're in just like I got to survive and like then, then everything feels like it's life or death. Like I have to get this person to buy, I have to sell this person even if we're not ready for it, even if it's not a good fit. But yeah, no, like similarly, it's like I think we actually run into a lot. Like I've turned down more customers in the last few months or said not now or said that's going to have to be in Q4. It kills me. Like, sometimes I walk out of calls and like want to like pull my hair out. But just by nature of like still getting our product to market. But also like I had a meeting pretty recently actually with a controller at like a very large company. Definitely be like one of our largest customers yet if it works out. And the only reason I think she came in a little bit skeptical. I think the only reason we've like moved forward is because I was like aggressively honest about exactly where we were at. Like, even, even down to like, that's not built yet. That is like 50% built. This, this, this is what like this thing is going to look like. We're not going to get to that until like Q1 and just being honest about that. And then, and then obviously, like there were things that were good, there were things that I could help her with and whatever. But I was aggressively honest. I think that's the only reason she trusted me enough to move forward. Um, and so I don't know, like, I think, but I think you have to be, you have to kind of trust, like believe that there's just a lot of opportunity out there and then just be able, I guess, like it takes maturity to be able to walk away from a carrot that someone's dangling in front of you.

It's a real thing. It's like, in a way it's the shiny object thing, right? Like this big logo wants you, but you don't, you can't take them right now and you have to tell them that. Yeah. Um, Andrew, we're almost at time here. I want to leave you with one last question, which is double-clicking into the turning pro moments in your life. So What is a moment for you where you feel like you took things to the next level? Looking back at it, it was something that, you know, changed the trajectory of your career.

I, I knew this question was going to come up. I don't, I don't even know if I have like— there's almost like sub-chapters that could be an answer, but I, I guess one that I think will be relevant to, uh, to like founders and a lot of the folks that listen to this is, uh, actually telling my personal story was, was probably— that, that was a big one in terms of I think I started having more success when I just got one, comfortable with what my story was versus what I wanted it to be. And then two, just like being willing to tell that and being more vulnerable about it. Like it was very helpful for fundraising. It's been helpful for getting job opportunities. It's been helpful for meeting friends. It's been helpful for marketing. But just being like, being extremely like open and vulnerable about like saying exactly who I am, exactly where I came from and exactly where I stand for and being okay with some people not liking that. I'd say like that has completely changed the trajectory of my career in many ways. And a lot of like the wins that I've had in the last couple of years have been because of it. I love that.

Damn good answer. Yeah. Can you speak to that camera on the left and tell them where they can learn more about you and your company?

Yeah. Twitter. You can find me on Twitter. I think it's like @AndrewRay_ or something like that. I'm on LinkedIn. I have a blog that you can follow and then we're at TaxWire.co. I'm going to have the.com in like a year or so. Give me, give me some time. And yeah, you can find me on all those places.

I'm pretty easy to get a hold of. Oh yeah. Thanks for coming on, man. Thank you for having me. That's the pod.