Matthew Kobach - VP of Marketing at Slice

All right, welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today we are joined by Matthew Kobach, the VP of marketing at Slice. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Matthew.

My pleasure. And hopefully we get to talk about pizza.

Absolutely, man. No, it's so cool learning about Slice and understanding what the business model is. It's so incredible. And for those that may not know, how long have you been the VP of marketing at Slice? And what is it for people that may not know?

Yeah, so I've only been there for a few weeks now, so still relatively new, getting my feet wet. But I joined because there wasn't a marketing leader. There was kind of no one steering the ship and they needed someone to steer their ship. And I was. I'd known the founder, you know, kind of in a previous life, and we reconnected and, you know, we just both kind of decided this feels right and so we went for it. And for those of you who don't know Slice, I can't use this. So it's a B2B2C company. So it is a product for local independent shops, like restaurant, like pizza shops, but then there's also a marketplace for consumers so people like me and you can order from it. Before I'd ever joined, I actually thought it was a lot like uber eats, like DoorDash. I thought it was a marketplace. It turns out it's not. If you are familiar with HubSpot or maybe even Salesforce, it's actually more like that. So it's a CRM that runs automatically with a shop's data. So we digitize as many orders as possible, and then we've got all the data in one spot. And then we can send emails and, you know, specials and get people reordering from their favorite shops as opposed to those third party delivery apps which are more about keeping you in the ecosystem and they don't really care who you order from as long as you're using their app. So it's very actually complimentary to something like that. We focus on loyalty and they focus on new customer acquisition. Love it.

And you've been in the marketing world for quite some time. You revolutionized what the New York Stock Exchange does. Digital media, content, content creation. What led you to wanting to be a part of Slice and just walk us through that opportunity and how that came into your life recently.

Yeah, so it actually all started at the New York Stock Exchange. You mentioned that. I left there in 2020, early 2020, like right when the pandemic started, I think because part of my job at the New York Stock Exchange was I pitched founders who were going public to list their company on our exchange as opposed to our competitor, which is Nasdaq. It's really a duopoly. If you're going to go public in the United States, you go on the New York Stock Exchange or you go on Nasdaq. And so I'd pitched these founders and I'd been doing that for, you know, probably two or three years at that point. And I decided I wanted to be on the other side of that table. And I knew I didn't have it like in me at that point to like start a company, but I knew that I had it in me to like join a very early startup. And so that's what I started doing. So I've spent the past like three and a half years focusing on startups that have that IPO potential. Like it doesn't mean they're guaranteed going to go ipo, but they have that potential, those ambitions. And so to me that meant like a lot of tech companies, you know, something where you build it once and you can sell it infinite amount of times. And so that's what kind of my journey has been since then. And then Slice specifically, like I said, I reconnected with the founder and he walked me through kind of what Slice really is and really changed my preconceived notions again that I was a third party delivery app. Once I found out what they were really doing and like really building, I became a lot more interesting because the challenge ahead of them is a perception issue. Like they've even got some of their best customers and their customers are shops. To be clear, it's not pizza eaters. I mean that's the secondary customer, but main one is pizza shops. They don't quite understand what we're doing. And so it was a really interesting challenge. It's like we've got these loyal customers. Yeah, we need to expand across the United States, but we need like our current loyal customers to better understand what we do. And I need prospect shops to understand what we do. So it was like a fun challenge that we've already proven product market fit. It's now just like this different challenge to solve. So it feels very solvable. But it also feels like there's a lot of opportunity in front of us.

Absolutely. That's super cool to hear that. And I want to take us back to just all things marketing your world. I know we touched on New York Stock Exchange super quickly, but where did this desire and just path of marketing. When did that come into your life? Was this something that you've wanted to do since you were in school? Or how did the world of marketing come to your life as someone that was moving into their career?

Yeah, when I was in school, I was really into psychology and I was really into marketing, and I didn't know what to do with that. And so I remember I Googled what should I do with marketing and psychology? And I found a master's program that actually married the two. It was a program where they focused on media effects. So it's like, how does the media impact the way we think about politics? How does the media impact how we think about sex? How does the media impact the way we think about presidential elections? And that was really interesting to me. So I got a master's in that. And I thought for a long time that academia was going to be my career. I thought I was going to stay in there. I thought I'd become a professor, PhD, all that. So I started getting a PhD. And this is right around the time when social media had solidified itself as something that wasn't going anywhere. But it was still so new that in the academic world there weren't many experts. And the way to stand out in the academic world is you want to be like, the person to study this, like the go to person. So I remember thinking, cool. My niche can be social media and how social media impacts people. And so as I was doing that, social media was like, rapidly changing. But a PhD moves very, very slowly. For anyone who's listening, it's ever done it, hopefully you can sympathize. But it would be things where, like, you design an experiment, you'd write a proposal, you give it to your committee, the committee reads it for a few weeks, they give you notes, you fix those notes, you give it back to them, and they finally approve it. And this is like, you know, three to six months. And in that time, it's like all of a sudden, Instagram appeared. And so I just like the pace that the industry was moving at and the pace of a PhD just did not seem to mix. And I was like, absorbing so much by, like, kind of studying this and living this and breathing this that, I realized that, like, how businesses could start using it. Facebook advertising had just started. And I decided I'm going to, like, use kind of this knowledge. I freelanced for a little bit at a social media analytics firm, and then I opened my own social media, like, performance agency just because I was doing this so much. And I had like, kind of remember thinking Like, I could make better ads than this, or I could do better content than this. And it, like, the bar was just so low. It wasn't that I was good. It was that, like, no one kind of knew what they were doing. So I felt like an opportunity for me.

Love that When. When you were going through this phase of diving into social. Well, I think first off, which would be helpful is just like, what years were you, like, really getting into it? You say the Instagram's coming out.

Yeah, it was probably, like, 2010 to 2012 is probably the key, because I think I want to say Instagram came out in 2011. And the only reason I used that Instagram example is like, I remember that, like, being a thing that happened, and then they, like, quickly sold for a billion. And it was like, this is just moving way too fast for. For, like, environment that moves very, very slow and carefully. Yeah.

So how did the New York Stock Exchange opportunity come into your life?

Yeah, I'll give some career advice for anyone who wants any career advice. It came because I. So after I had started my agency, I realized, like, I really liked the creative end of it. I loved making content. I love coming up with ads. I love the marketing. I love understanding the customers, all that stuff. I did not love chasing someone who didn't pay a bill. I didn't like getting new customers. I didn't like all the operation side of it. So I was like, all right, let me figure out how to get a job where I can just do the stuff that I love. And so that, to me, was like, content and social media and stuff like that. So I looked at a bunch of jobs, and I think, like, anyone who is, like, first kind of looking for their job in corporate America, it was like, oh, I want to go work in sports. I love sports. Or like, HBO is hiring. Like, that'd be so much fun. And I quickly realized that everyone wants to do that. And so I kind of, like, I had this. Felt like this wide open kind of like, you know, map in front of me is like, I don't have to go down this route. Let me see what else is there. And I remember seeing a job opening for a company called Intercontinental Exchange, and they're. They were an energy exchange. I was like, I don't know anything about energy exchanges. They're based in Atlanta, Georgia. I was like, I need the. I need the reps. But, like, this could be interesting. I don't know. I'll apply. And so I remember I applied, I went through it, and at the end of the app. At the end of the interview, my future boss, not, not yet boss, asked me, do you have any questions? And I said, yeah, I'll be honest, I don't quite get the job. Like, do you want me, like creating content for like this energy exchange? And like you own like nine different energy exchanges. I don't really get why you'd need individual content. And she said, oh, is it not clear? I was like, I don't in the job description. I was like, oh, I guess not. I don't know, what am I missing? She said, oh, well, we recently bought the New York Stock Exchange and so a lot of what you'll be doing is creating content for the New York Stock Exchange. And that got me a lot more interested. I was like, oh, that, that, I know that sounds fun. And I was so naive. I didn't even know that the New York Stock Exchange was something that you could own. I thought it was like a public library. I didn't realize it was like a for profit entity. And so when she told me that that kind of changed everything. I remember I spent that whole weekend doing like an audit of all their marketing and sent them some ideas and stuff. And I think at that point it was kind of mine to lose. And I got the job. I moved to Atlanta. I ended up, because that's where the headquarters is. I ended up relocating to New York to focus more on the New York Stock Exchange and the rest is history. Wow.

So when you, when you got the job, thinking through the strategy behind that, like, what were your initial ideas for, you know, bringing that business into the world of social media that is now, you know, such an important factor of everything they do and you know, the information that they put out there.

This, I've always approached all my marketing this way is I don't try to do like what they were doing. I don't even care necessarily what they were doing. I would look at it and go, I don't get why they're not doing this. And so to me, for. And they have two very different businesses. And I want to focus on both because we actually were able to do both really well. The intercontinental, the energy exchange. I was like, so all these people want, they're looking for like daily oil price information or like what it costs in different countries. They're looking for like real time information. And then the New York Stock Exchange side actually felt more B2C. It was like, there's people like, this is an iconic building, is an iconic institution. And like people are interested. What's going on here. And there were celebrities coming in all the time. There were world leaders there, CEOs. And so for the energy exchange that I was like, let me just, like, be a thought leader, essentially. Like, we have really smart energy buyers here. So I tapped them, got them to, like, help me come up with interesting content. We publish that on a regular basis. And then the New York Stock Exchange side, I remember, I said, like, we've got all these amazing people here. Why don't we just film them? And my boss is like, yeah, let's do it. And so it was like, I guess, not knowing what I didn't know. It was like, all I was ever trying to do. And again, all I ever try to do in marketing is like, would this appeal to me if I kind of felt like if I put myself in the shoes of someone who's interested in this, would this kind of get my attention? And I'm not saying that, like, my taste is the be all and end all, but, like, I feel like I'm the first, like, sniff test. Like, does it. Is it good enough for me? And then let's figure out what's kind of next, or does it appeal to me and then let's see if it appeals to other people? But, yeah, I was like, we've got Shaquille o' Neal and the, like, you know, prime Minister of Australia coming in. Let's go interview him. Like, that seems interesting. And it was, like, groundbreaking. It was. It's pretty straightforward.

Do you know Peter Tuckman?

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. So Peter's a good friend of mine, and he's been on the show, and I think it was probably a year ago when I was in New York. He took me onto the floor of the Stock Exchange, gave me the whole tour. Now I've been able to go a couple times and bring some friends. And I remember the first time I went in there. The magic that you feel as an outsider, I should say, is just very special.

Right.

Peter is such a charismatic guy. He's telling you all the history of the exchange, bring you to all the spots, and really giving you the full tour. What was the. When was the first time that you walked into the New York Stock Exchange, and what were some of the feelings that you had? Whether that was going in there for the first day on the job or previously?

No, no.

Your thoughts on that?

Yeah, the first time I ever went on the floor was Alibaba's ipo. And so if you ever aren't familiar with Alibaba, this is like, this is like, one of the biggest companies in the world, and they're based in China. And so, like. And this was, I think, at the time, and maybe even still was the biggest IPO ever in terms of capital raised. I want to say they raised like, 25 billion or something. And so it was like. So I'd never been on the floor before. I'd never been in an IPO before. I'd never really, like, filmed anything. And my boss just was like. I think I was like, two weeks into the job, she's like, oh, there's this, you know, big. I hadn't even heard of Alibaba. She's like, you should go, you know, like, see if you can get pictures of this guy called Jack Ma. He's the founder and stuff. I was like, all right, cool. Like, sure, I'll go. No clue what I'm doing. And I remember, I go there and it was a zoo, like, you have, because, like, press is allowed on the floor and they can, like, you know, make requests to come. So it's not like there's some press that are, like, always there. Like, there's a CNBC set, but then there's press that only comes on special occasions. This is like, anyone and everyone who wanted. Who is interested in, like, the business world that day showed up. So it's, like, completely cramped. It's shoulder to shoulder. I'm literally just standing there, and I want to say it was like the CFO or someone just ended up kind of next to me, and next thing I know, there's like, a CNBC camera on him, and I'm just standing next to him. And so I'm in the shot and I'll just starts, like, buzzing and text messaging, and I've got all my friends and my family going, like, we're watching you live on CNBC right now. Like, we see you. Like, that's you. That's right there. And they sent me, like, screenshots and recordings and stuff. So, yeah, from day one, it was like, oh, my God.

Wow. So first day, you're standing right next to him. You're there, like, what did that day mean to you? Like, looking back, like, did you. You know when people say I caught the bug, right? Like, when I walk into that room, it's. You know, some days I. I see people filming. And of course, there was a time where, you know, so many people were on the floor at once back in the day. But, yeah, I would love to hear, like, what the floor means to you and, like, how some. Maybe some, like, a Story similar to that over your years of, you know, working there and being a part of the company. Just. I'm sure you've met so many incredible people, and I'd love to just talk about the impact that room and that building has had on you and whether that's business or personal or whatever it may be that may come to mind.

Yeah, of course. So I remember. So before I never wanted to work in finance. I was not a person who, like, ever had a dream of working on Wall Street. And so there was that surreal moment of, like, walking down Wall street because it's literally on Wall street. And that's the stereotypical straight of where you work, if you work in finance. And I was never a suit guy. And I don't know if there's video here. I'm not wearing a suit now, but I was a suit guy for six years at the New York Stock Exchange. But, like, I remember thinking, I. This is just never in a million years was this my life where I would be in a suit, walking down Wall street into the New York Stock Exchange. And looking back on it when I was first there with Jack Ma and, you know, sitting at the Alibaba ipo, like, it. It did not register to me, kind of the magnitude of it until after the fact. But it was one of those things, like, once you were there, you understood a little more. You understood how passionate this was, and it became this, like, really, you know, I'm the kind of person that's like, whatever you put me in, I kind of get passionate about. So that's why I, like, I worry when people are like, oh, I really love this one thing. I want to go work on this one thing. And it's like, maybe if you're just good at something, you'll kind of like it. And that's kind of where I've been. So it's like I had some early success just creating content for them. And so that felt really good. And I got really interested in it, and I got really interested in capitalism, and I got really interested in founders stories and really interested in, like, how this moves our economy and our country and stuff. And it was really inspiring. So, yeah, so, like, bit by the bug is probably the right word. I still am like a, like, bleeding capitalist now. I. I don't think it's capitalism's perfect, but I think it's the best system we've got by far. And so, like, that really left an impression. I've got now an unbelievable soft spot for founders. I know how lonely it is I know how hard it is. I know how unlikely it is to ever do that. And, like, despite all that, they still do it. And then I've also got a soft spot for immigrants. A lot of the founders that take companies public are immigrants. And to me, when you look at, like, the American dream, it's actually a lot of immigrants living the American dream. And so, like, all these things combined just gave me this new appreciation, a new perspective on life and the world, and I love it. As far as a, like, pinch myself moment at the New York Stock Exchange, Ferrari went public, and they brought, like, I don't know, eight or nine Ferraris to park outside the New York Stock Exchange.

Okay.

I remember I went there and. And the Ferrari guy's like, well, get in one. I was like, okay. And. Because I was just, like, shooting videos or something, and he's like, well, get in it. He's like, well, now close the door. Like, really appreciate it. And there's huge crowds outside, so there's like, I'm in a Ferrari. He's closed the door. So it's just me. So kind of like the outside world has now been, like, muted a little bit, but you can still see things. And you can see all these people taking pictures and videos, and I'm not anybody, but they're, like, taking pictures of videos of me in a Ferrari on Wall Street. And again, it was one of those, like, this wasn't part of the life plan. There was no, like, me sitting in a Ferrari on Wall street that was ever gonna happen. So that was. That was definitely one of those, like, that was a cool experience.

No, that's. That's incredible. And I imagine that seeing that, like, walking to the exchange of the Ferraris parked up front, they're going public that day. That's surreal.

Yeah. And you say you get to be, by the way, you get to all these, like, IPOs, the founder. The reason why you get the soft spot for founders is they all give, like, there's like, a backstage, essentially, and they all give speeches. Yeah, And a lot of the speeches are about, like, how they started this company or how they, like, immigrated the United States or how they went from, like, an idea to taking a company public. And they were really inspiring. And so, like, you hear enough of those, you kind of end up drinking the Kool Aid. They're just, like, amazing stories and people that just refused to quit.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even just having the show for almost six years now, interviewing founders and being a founder myself, it's. It's one of Those things that I was listening to this other podcast recently, and the guy said, if this idea of uncertainty as a founder is what keeps you going, if you were certain about things, whether that's good or bad, it would have so much less of an appeal because that's what people enjoy and that's what people chase is appreciation for the uncertainty that lies ahead, good or bad. And they still do it. Anyways, I want to take us back because I know you said just sitting in that Ferrari outside of the stock exchange wasn't in the plan. Take me back to the early days of your life, Matthew. What were some of the early ambitions and childhood memories you have siblings? What does that look like in your life? And just take us back to the early days of your life so that we can get some context of only where you come from, but what the path was and how you viewed the world.

Yeah. So I am a Midwest kid. I'm from Wisconsin. When I grew up, both my parents were working and I have a younger sister, so I was born. A few years later, my sister was born and my mom actually ended up with a white collar job. My dad was more of a blue collar guy. He was working construction. And my parents made a decision, I was probably like four or five, that, hey, this doesn't seem like we don't want to both be working. Let's make a decision and one of us stay home. And my mom's job had the, like, the. The better trajectory, the like, more earning potential. So my dad made the decision to then stay at home and raise me and my sister. And so, I don't know, it's hard to like, remove yourself from this, but I. It absolutely had an impact in how I view the world and how I view families and gender norms and stuff like that. But I remember as a kid going to friends houses and being like, why is your. Why is your mom here? Is it. Shouldn't your dad be here, like hanging out? And so like, that really had an impact. And then once we were a little older, my dad then like got back into work. Like, it was like always this temporary thing. And so he started a lawn mowing business. And as soon as he started that, that meant I was his number one employee. And so like from early on, it was like getting up at 6am to mow lawns with him and, you know, start a business. And like, honestly, maybe that's where this kind of like entrepreneur thing kind of came from. Was like seeing how hard he worked and how much effort he put into it and how Much pride he took into, you know, mowing someone's lawn. It sounds silly, but we were the type that if we had everything packed up in the trailer and all of a sudden we noticed we missed a spot, we would unpack everything or unpack whatever we needed and go over that spot so that it was perfect and that there was no. No way to ever complain again. I don't know what impact that had on me, but that certainly is, like, as I look back, kind of two things that really stand out to me.

Yeah, no, it's. It's. It's interesting that you share that. I think it's a. It's a unique perspective. Right? You know, talking about gender norms and your dad being there for you. When was the. You're saying you go into your friends houses asking, oh, like, where's your dad? At what point did you recognize this unique? I shouldn't even say unique, but just like, the difference. That's not the quote unquote norm. And how did that make you feel during that time? Like, what were some of the thoughts that you had? And how are you thinking about it?

You know, it's funny, it never felt different. It never felt like, oh, my family's weird that they do this. It just was like, oh, your family does this, my family does that. Like, I don't know how. Like, you were kind of born into it. So I never, I never had this realization that, like, oh, my family does it different than everyone else's, or like, my family's the only family that does this. It just. I don't know, it just never, like, set in that way. It was just kind of this. I just remember this one moment of being like, why isn't your dad home in the summer? This doesn't make any sense. Who's going to make us lunch? I don't get. Why would your mom ever make us lunch? Because my dad was the cook. But, yeah, I don't remember ever feeling different. I don't. No one ever mentioned everything. If anything, my dad was the one. He took us to school and he was very involved in school. And the. The way that I remember it is my dad was like, the one all the kids knew was a lot of fun. They loved to see him. Like, he was one of those guys that liked to, you know, like, play with the kids and throw around the football, whatever it was that the kids were doing. You was going to get involved and have a good time. And so I just remember it that way. And I, like, I don't remember. I was never Teased about it. I was never asked about it. It was just this, like, it just felt normal and it never felt normal. It never felt unnormal from anyone else.

That's great. No, I appreciate you sharing that. I want to dive into the whole just the world of marketing.

Right.

There's a lot of founders that listen to this show, maybe even people that are VPs marketing at companies. When you go to a new company like Slice and you're now VP of marketing there, how do you think about the marketing strategy? And you know, for someone that has so much experience and working at these large companies, like, what's your advice to early stage startups when seeking out someone to lead marketing efforts? And just what's your experience with, you know, like laying the foundation when going into a new company, from an early stage startup to a more formed entity like the New York Stock Exchange?

Yeah. The difference being is like a startup, you're building this ship and an established company, you're trying not to sink the ship because, like, no matter what you do at this established company, you can only, like, it's going the direction it's going and you're this small little rudder. And so maybe you can change it like 1 degree or 2 degrees, but for the most part, this thing is kind of a machine that's already doing its thing. And honestly, if you tinker too much, you have a better chance of sinking it than you do, like, making it go faster. But with a startup, there's just a lot more room for air. There's a lot more like, risk you can take. There's a lot of more like chances because you have less to lose. Like, I don't have the ship yet, so if it's sink, like, there's nothing to sink even I'm building it, I'm trying to figure out how to build the fastest ship possible. And so to me, what that means is I've always been wary. I just tweeted this the other day too. I've always been wary of people who are like, I've got a playbook, or I know exactly how to do this. I know exactly what this company needs. Because I'll admit, I didn't know what Slice needed until I was like knee deep in it every day, all day for, you know, four, six, eight weeks, whatever it was. And I still probably don't even know. Like, I just recently went on my first sales call where I talked to a shop owner for the first time. And that was eye opening. I thought I was like, I got this, I got this pitch, he's going to understand everything. I'm going to go and we do this thing where we offer to manage your website for free, and we do, like, online ordering and stuff. And it's like, it literally costs him nothing. I was like, I got this. He's gonna. He's totally gonna do it. This guy could not understand that I would do his website for free. I mentioned it to him five times. It's like, free. He's like, but how much does it cost? I was like, guy, it's free. It cost you nothing. You're gonna pay a per order thing when someone orders. But right now you have zero ordering online, so you're losing all those orders anyway. Like, it's just free. And so my advice is be wary of anyone who's like, I know exactly what to do. You want to hire someone who's going to, like, get in the mindset of the customer, who's going to, like, really understand your customer. They don't have to understand them ahead of time, but they need to understand them at some point to effectively message to them. And this is even also more important if you're hiring someone at the executive level. If you hire someone at the executive level and you've already got a, you know, sufficient team in place and they're going to come in and change everything. I've seen that ruined departments where all of a sudden they've now alienated the people in that department because they didn't really understand. You know, they kind of shat on all the other stuff that they were doing or other current stuff they were doing. And it's like, you don't know why certain decisions were made. Like, yes, maybe this is, like a bad website, but here are the seven reasons why it had to be a bad website. Or here are the, like, restrictions. And so, like, don't go in with a lot of preconceived notions. Don't go in thinking that you're smarter than everyone, because odds are you're not. Odds are they've thought it. And really take your time to understand what are the foundations needed to help set this at least marketing department in the right direction. And that's what I've been doing at Slice. I literally went in there, just tried to absorb as much as I could, and then came up with, here are the seven different things that I want to focus on for literally the next two years. Here are the five things we're going to focus on for the next year. And then long term, it's these two other things. Now this will likely change, but I wanted to create a roadmap. I wanted to identify, like, what our problems were. And then I also needed to, like, get on board with the other executives. Say, like, I want to make sure, like your goals are aligned with my goals. Because if all of a sudden I'm optimizing for one thing, but you're saying the business needs to optimize for revenue or something and I'm optimizing for new customers, we're not aligned and we're going to have a bad time and you're going to get sick of me or I'm going to get sick of you and we're going to butt heads. But when we agree this one KPI, this is our North Star, we're going to follow this one, we're going to do whatever we can to maximize this KPI. Now we're all rowing in the same direction, but it takes a lot of understanding the business, understanding the industry, understanding the nuances of the customer and their pain points to really come up with a strong strategic plan. And that's not copy and pasteable from one company to another.

Totally. No, I totally agree with you on that. And I think too just getting aligned on that. You said North Star KPI is super important and I would love to, if you are able to. In terms of at Slice, when you guys think about KPIs and those seven plan or seven key points for the next two years, are these things that you can expand on? If so, would love to just hear a handful of them. Just as someone that's in the space that is for people listening. Now that this is a newer role for you, just you're at the foundational stage of setting that roadmap versus if we were to have you on the show again in two years and to hear about what you've done at Slice and how it's played out. So I think just walking through some of these early moments can be super impactful to founders or people hiring marketing executives that I'm sure we can all learn from.

Yeah, I'm happy to walk through them. So the first one was, and we actually alluded to this at the beginning, we have not appropriately described our value to shops. So a shop, even our best shops don't quite understand what we do. So I need to figure out the way to explain what we do, not only in like an easy to understand way, but also in a way that resonates with shop owners. I come from, like, I've been in B2B SaaS for a little bit, yep. The way that you explain B2B SaaS to someone who, like, lives and breathes tech is different than someone who's a restaurant owner. And so, and again, I've seen this firsthand. Like, I've, I've now met with some of these shop owners and it's like, oh, I need to come at this a completely different way. So step one was like, was, how do we. Like, what's our elevator pitch? What's our elevator pitch if I'm going From like floor zero to floor 30, what is it if I'm only going like five floors? What if it, what is it if I'm only going one floor? We did not have that as a company. And we still don't. We're still figuring it out. We had different ways that different departments were describing it and different people were describing it, but we're coming up with like, one way that everyone can describe it because I believe this is especially the case in a startup. Everyone in your company is in sales, whether you want to, want to admit or not. Everyone who ever, oh, you work there, what do they do? Everyone needs to have the same answer. Everyone needs to have the same explanation. And that was something that just, you know, it just wasn't. It just didn't exist. And part of it was because they didn't have anyone focusing on it. Part of it is because you pivot as a startup in terms of like, how you go to market and stuff. And so they'd kind of had some like, starts and stops. And some of it is you just evolve and you get better at describing who you are. And you, you realize, like, old ways of describing who you are don't apply anymore. You need to upgrade those and change those. So it's a combination of that. The second thing, and it's very related to this value prop thing was product marketing. So we're, again, we're more of a B2B SaaS company, if anything, at least on the B2B side. And so we have a handful of products and we also, all those products have features. And so we didn't really have a clear way of saying what's a feature, what's a product? What is the definition? Like, what's the summary of these products? Who is our competition for this feature? Like, who else is doing something similar? Why would a shop benefit from this? Why does our company benefit from this? And just all these different things that we just hadn't really put pen to paper. And so now, so like, we're going through this process of like what's everything that we sell and offer and like how do we describe it? Put it in one spot and again so that we have customer success explaining our product in the same way that our sales team is explaining the product in the same way that our go to market team is explaining the product in the same way that marketing is explaining the product in the same way that our CEO is explaining the product if he's on a podcast or doing priority, like none of these things, like we just didn't have it. And so putting like that work in to make this like consistency across the company and across like how we describe ourselves, but also to do it in a really, really simple way. I'll give you one more. I don't want to go through that.

No, for sure, for sure. We don't need to go all three.

The last one is automation. There was very white glove. So we've got a lot of people who like call up shops, talk to them and stuff. But we did not automate our messaging and that was by design. They wanted this like white glove thing and I think we've outgrown that. I think now we're to a point like we still will have this white glove element always, that'll always exist. But we can automate a lot more of our communication, a lot more of like explaining who we are, a lot more of the onboarding and stuff. And so we got to build the muscles and the foundation to like just send those messages out on a regular basis.

Love that and I appreciate you sharing that, Matthew. And I think to just for founders, that idea of outgrowing certain, whether that's marketing channels or the way you build product or even higher. It's great to hear you say that. I'm excited to have you on and here in a couple of years to recap this initial, this strategy here. And I think from this idea of being internally one, I want to ask how big is the team?

The marketing team or the whole team?

Just the whole company.

The whole company is pretty large. So there is. So the founder's from Macedonia, so there's a decent contingency that's based in Macedonia. I think all in, we're at like 700, 800. Yeah. No.

Incredible. When it comes to working inside, I knew it was large, but when it comes to working inside of an entity that's, you know, 700 people versus super early stage startup, what have you found to be some of the challenges when it comes to the marketing messages, but also internally, how can a marketing manager improve their communication to, you know, their other executives or people that they're trying to communicate to knowing that it's such an important element of the business. But in this case, there's a lot of moving parts and would love to hear some of the pain points that you've dealt with and the lessons you've learned for maybe someone out there that you know is looking to go work at high up in a marketing role.

Yeah. So from like the marketing execution itself, it feels very similar. Like I've got the same kind of problems, no matter if it's like 80 people or 800 people. What's a lot harder is I need to tell everyone what marketing is doing and I need to tell them again. And I need to tell them again and again and again because they're doing their own thing. They, you know, they maybe care what marketing's doing, but that's not, they're not getting paid to care what marketing's doing. And so I've just got to like constantly reiterate what it is that we're doing, not to annoy them, but just so that if all of a sudden we end up kind of going a different direction. Like, you know, like, I think you kind of start out with like all these departments going, cool, we're all running that way. And then what you find out is, you know, sales went that way, but they kind of ended up going like three degrees to the right. And the marketing was going that way, but they ended up kind of taking like 7 degrees to the left. And so you want to like kind of constantly check in that like we're still running towards the same direction to recalibrate from time to time. And I find this actually more of an issue with remote first work than I ever did when it was in person. Because you kind of could just have those conversations a little more naturally. Like it's kind of like those 5 minute check ins. Like that's, I think to me the only benefit of in person work. And what's funny is I think you actually can manufacture those remotely. People act like, oh, it's a serendipitous, like you bump into someone at the water cooler and you start talking. I think that's kind of bs. I don't think that necessarily happens. But what I do think happened is I got a question and I would just go to someone and just ask them and we talk about it for 30 seconds or five minutes and it would be done. Whereas now everything's a schedule. Now everything like kind of doesn't seem like it happens in that kind of way. And I think it has to happen over a conversation. As opposed to Slack. I think there's kind of some back and forth in Slack that doesn't lead itself that great to real time solving it. But the so solving for like a big company is you're like constantly repeating what marketing's plan is, what their North Star is, what they're optimizing for. And I'm just assuming that it's going to take someone me saying it five times for them to remember it. And that's not like, that's like the whole company. Like, I just, everyone else, like what I do is the least interesting thing to them. So I need to make sure that they understand what it is that we're focused on and that it aligns with what they're focused on. So a lot of repetition, a lot of, lot of like, honestly, for lack of a better term, cheerleading. A lot of people going like, hey, marketing's going this way. I want you on board. I need your help. Because, because to be honest, like let's say I want to launch. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. Not a lot of slice people, not a lot of slice shops in Atlanta, Georgia. I say I want to do a big campaign in Atlanta. I need sales support. So I better get like sales on board. And I need my customer success team to be like upselling all the current Atlanta shops. And I need go to market to like give me the data and stuff. So I need everyone on board with what we're doing. So it's as much as like FYI as it is like, come, I need you to help me. I need you to go the same direction I'm going. So that's what I find is like the biggest difference when you're that big.

Love that when it comes to just outside of working at the company, you have such a strong personal brand Twitter community and following that you've built over the years. And therefore you're embracing your role in a public setting as on Twitter. When did that come into the picture of building your personal brand and how has that played a role in your role at Slice and your previous endeavors?

Yeah, so I, I, I started tweeting a lot probably about five years ago. And it, it started a little bit out of spite. I was told to make a, to like create a, like a game plan for the president of the New York Stock Exchange that like we wanted to do their social media. So I put together a whole plan, did it, presented it to whoever needed to see it and they said, nah, I Don't like it. Not gonna do it. Yeah, someone else is gonna do it. And I remember thinking, f you. All right, this was a good plan. I was like, all right, I'm just gonna change a few things. I'm gonna use it for myself. And so I literally used it for spite, I guess, prove this person wrong. And then what happened very quickly is I got very addicted to Twitter, and it just became something I enjoyed doing. I got a little early signal, I think very early on, I was retweeted by Jack Dorsey. And so to, like, sustain you, what did you tweet? I don't even remember. Something about small business, I think. I honestly don't even remember. And what's really funny is he retweeted me, and you don't get any new followers from that. Like, I remember thinking it was, like, gonna have this, like, big, profound impact on my followers or engagement. It didn't. But what it did do is make me go, oh, my God. I just put something out into the universe. And this person that I know who's like a top, you know, 50 CEO at the time retweeted it. Like, I just. He now read something that I wrote and enjoyed enough. What I wrote that he shared it with his own followers. Like, it was that part of it. Yeah, that was like, oh, this is interesting. And that's why I've always liked Twitter the best of all the platforms. Now I don't, you know, we'll see where it ends up going. I don't necessarily enjoy what the algorithm has been optimizing for. For the past, like, two or three years, but I also realize that I might sound like an old man kind of yelling at clouds. Like, I get. It just changes, and there's nothing I can do about it. But the magic to me is when you get really, really important or really, really thoughtful or really, really smart people on Twitter willing to interact with people who have a hundred followers, who maybe are anonymous, maybe who haven't put themselves out there or haven't achieved the same things. That, to me, was always the magic. And so that's what kept me sustained in the early days.

Yeah. How have you thought, as someone that's been. As you said, Twitter has been your favorite platform, power user. Love it. What do you think about X, the transitions recently? And just what do you think about the platform going forward? As someone that has been on it and that has been ahead of a lot of social trends? Just what's your viewpoint on X? Where it's going, how it's changed? And everything that it's now become, I.

Think Twitter or X, I think it's like a cockroach. I think it's like impossible to kill. So like, I'm not worried about it going anywhere. I think there are too many people like me who are just addicted to. And there's too many people that are kind of like, I don't know, thought leader feels like the wrong word. It's almost like news breaking. Cultural, cultural dictators. Like, like there's a lot of journalists, there's politicians, like there's people where it's like their opinion kind of ends up shaping the way the country goes or the culture goes less so with celebrities. But those people don't seem to leave. And so like they're still there and like there's some of them but have left but like there's enough of them on there that I think like, no matter what you do to it, you're not going to kill it because like, that's what really can't be recreated on any other platform. I think the name change is pointless. I'm gonna still call it Twitter. Everyone else is gonna call it Twitter. You can have it be X, sure. I don't know, but what's funny is like, I don't. There were like talks like, oh my God, you killed a $10 billion brand or a 20 billion dollar brand and all this. And it's like, yeah, kinda maybe. But like everyone's still calling it Twitter. Everyone still knows and the like. It's a very unique position that the business is in because it's not like the business just needs to survive or thrive or like grow a certain amount. It's like, no, no, there's a lot of debt taken out on this company. So like you had to slash headcount. You had to come up with like different ways to get new users. You have to figure out different ways to monetize. Like the structure of the deal is dictating some of the decisions. So it's not like they're doing necessarily what's behind best for the company or what's best for, you know, free speech. If that's true. It's that first and foremost it's a company that if it can't pay its bills, it's going to get, you know, it's going to go into bankruptcy and someone else is going to own it. So like a lot of the decisions just have to go to that X. This changing the name seems silly to me, but you know, he bought it, so call it whatever you want.

I think it's, I think it's going to be interesting to see how he transforms it into what he says is the everything app. Right. I think it's here in the next few years. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. But I appreciate your, it would be.

Funny if he was able to pull it off. Then he goes down as the world's all time best entrepreneur for sure. No, hands down, like there's no, there's no debate about it. But what's funny is like, is anyone new using Twitter because it's X. Like I don't, I still don't see how it attracts new users at like a significant clip.

I think one of the things they have going is the, you know, all creator have always, all creators have always optimized for YouTube ad revenue.

Right.

And obviously their subscriptions and all that stuff. But I think it's going to be interesting to see how he incentivizes not just celebrities, but true creators in this new age creator economy and how they're optimizing for revenue given the payouts that he's given out thus far and where ad revenue comes in. I think that's going to be super interesting to see and I'm personally just excited to see how that plays out.

I, I do, I do not get why you would not want to incentivize your people that are making the content on your platform. So I totally agree. I think he needs to come up with a solution that incentivizes people who are making interesting. Like you can't have it just be based on impressions and it feels like that's kind of what it's based on. There needs to be some kind of quality there because having like a really, really thoughtful journalist who's maybe on their own, like if that person can make a living on TW Twitter, like that's a really interesting dynamic that changes kind of the landscape of how people think about this. So if you can make it like part sub stack, which I'd like, I think that's the direction he's going. And part like if you could just pay someone, you know, like again, I don't know how to ever do this, but it's not my problem. I didn't buy the company. But you want those like really, really smart voices.

Yeah.

To, to get rewarded for that and you want to like, you know, I, I don't want the person who's coming up with the funniest memes to make the most money. Like that doesn't seem like the best use of money there and the best, like, incentives. And I don't want people who are like, creating the most outrage to get the most money because again, that feels like it's reversing the incentives. So, yeah, what the solution is, I don't know. I just hope they are able to optimize for quality over, you know, replies or whatever else it is they're doing totally well.

Definitely excited to see how that plays out. We'll follow up on that later as we have you on the show again. But Matthew, before we wrap up here, I've really appreciated this conversation and excited for you in this new role. What are you excited about moving forward? And what's something that people listening or watching can look forward to? Where can they follow you? But most importantly, what are you excited about looking forward.

So professionally, I'm excited to sell pizza. The reason I think you asked me this question, and maybe I didn't even answer it, but it was like, why did I join Slice? Is because if you live in the Northeast, you know about Slice or most likely know about Slice. If I walk outside again, I'm in Atlanta. If I walk outside right now and ask 10 people about Slice, I'd be lucky if one person does. But I've got this company, I've got this product that has already proven product market fit that is really exciting. And now I just need to take it to other metros. And so, like, that's what gets me really excited is like, this has already been done. Let me figure out how to make this work in Atlanta, how to make it work in Denver, how to make it work in Phoenix. And like, that is like, gets me excited. Like, I hope my team feels that. I hope the other people in the company feel it. And then personally, I have a kid I like. This is all my free time. My free time is work and my kid. And I've got another kid coming. So I'm going to have two boys. I love it. I think it. I think there's a little bit of a gap in terms of, like, what it means to be a father to boys. And so I don't know that I can fill that gap, you know, publicly, but I can at least do it privately in my life. And maybe someday when, you know, I've been at Slice long enough and my boys are a little older that I can talk about what it means to be a dad for boys. I think there is a bit of a, like I said, a gap and kind of like what that is what it means to be a boy, what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine. And I think that's like, kind of evolving and changing, and I would like to explore that as a father, son relationship. Love that.

Well, incredible. Well, Matthew, thank you so much for coming on the show today, for sharing all your insight, your wisdom. Where's the best place for people to stay in touch with you? I know we talked about Twitter here, but where's the best place that everyone should go?

Twitter, baby. Mkobot just. Just tweet me. DM me. I always leave them open. My DMs are a mess, so I might not see it, but DM me anyways. And, oh, and I always say this. Any podcast I'm on, if you DM me, I'll send you some free pizza. So you listen to this, I'll just DM me. I'll give you, I don't know, 5 bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks. It depends what codes I've got in front of me at the moment. But I would love to give you free pizza.

Love that. I appreciate that. And everyone listening. Go send Matthew a DM and I'll make sure to link it down below so you can check it out. And once again, Matthew, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure.