Buying Shopify Apps, Seeking Wisdom, Startup Marketing Lessons (with Henry Johnson)

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Exit. Exit. Exit.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of the Exit 5 podcast. This is a little bit of a different interview. It's not explicitly about B2B marketing, but a friend of mine, Henry Johnson, tweeted something out about starting a podcast and I was just messing around and sent him a note and said we should start one together. Let's record an episode. So I don't know if this is going to actually turn into anything long term, but there's so much overlap. I would say 90% of this conversation is so relevant to B2B marketers and everybody in and around the Exit 5 community that whether we do the podcast or not, this is a fun 45 minute to an hour conversation where we talked about. I talked a bunch about like career stuff and lessons from the early days at Drift and going to Privy and just doing the different things that I've done in B2B marketing. Henry talks about quitting his job as a sales rep at Oracle and buying a Shopify app and trying to grow it and becoming an entrepreneur. And so just was a fun conversation that I think a bunch of people here will appreciate. And you can tweet at me. Tweet at me and Henry. I'll put our Twitter handles in the notes. If you enjoyed this conversation for whatever reason and would want to hear more, then holler at us and let us know. All right, I'm out of your ears. Here's the conversation with myself and Henry Johnson.

Henry Johnson is my name. I am a ex account executive at Oracle. Well, I guess I'm still an account executive at Oracle for the next like seven days or five days. I. I just quit. So I'm done on Friday. And I recently purchased a Shopify app called Izzy Gift and I'm going full time and running that. So been doing a lot of side projects and I was like, you know what, time to go all in on this entrepreneur thing. Do I have the money? Like revenue wise? Not quite yet, but you know, sometimes you just gotta jump, baby. That's who I am.

I love that. Do you have the money? No. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But you have something. I think you're gonna figure it out. I would bet on it.

Hey.

Okay, so That's Henry. I'm Dave. Dave Gerhart. I. Let's see, I work for myself now. I've spent the last decade. You and I got connected when I was working at Drift. I was VP of marketing at a company called Drift. Then I was CMO at a company called Privy. And then I went back to Drift for a little bit last year. And then in January, I started going full time working for myself. I run a community for marketing pros called Exit 5. Exit5.com I do a bunch of consulting and advising for SaaS, companies, startups. And one of the fun parts about working for myself is I have lots of ideas and lots of things I want to tinker on. And I've kind of only been doing B2B marketing, but as you and I know, we've messaged each other for years now. Like there's always kind of more. And I can't put my finger on what. Like I want to do something outside of B2B marketing and I've for a little bit, I've want to just have a podcast where I can just talk about kind of not others. I think most of it's still related to marketing, but, you know, personal growth, development, marketing, business startups. I think one role model we, we really like is what Sam and Sean have done with my first million. You. You happen to tweet? Henry tweeted this thing out today. What time was this even at? Let me see. So you tweeted this out at five hours ago. So that was what, 11am Are you in Jersey?

I'm in Jersey, yep.

Okay. I'm in Vermont. Thinking about starting another podcast to grow this business. I think at Dave Gerhardt would approve decisions, decisions. And I saw that, I said, let's co host. And here we are.

Yeah, make it happen fast. Yeah, Action. Just action. Straight up.

Okay, so you were going to start a podcast. So wait, tell me more about this. And this will go anywhere, but you're going to quit. You quit your job at Oracle. You bought a Shopify app. How did you buy a Shopify app?

Yeah, so we'll start with how I bought the Shopify app. So this is my second Shopify app I've actually purchased, right. So I purchased one back in, I think it was June of last year or May of last year with a partner I did not know how to code. I knew very, very little about like doing the actual Shopify app part. And he was like, yeah, you'll just come on, you'll be the marketing and customer success person and that kind of stuff.

So what do you mean a partner? Like, did. Did this person, like, what. What did they bring to the table?

So we split the cost 50. 50.

This is a friend. Like somebody you met through Twitter or.

Met him on Twitter? Yeah, met him on Twitter. Yeah. I mean, somebody else's people on Twitter. So we met on Twitter. My boy James. That's his name, he's a developer. I'm like, a marketing salesperson. So we had, like, aligned talents right, where, you know, he did one thing, I could do the other. We bought that. It went pretty well, essentially, but we're both doing a lot of different things. And he has actually has another project that's, like, started taking off, so he hasn't had the time, like, to kind of do it. So I was like, you know what? I want to do it all myself. Like, eventually, like, I'll hire, like, somebody to kind of be, like, more of a lead dev than I am. But I knew how to do the purchasing process. I knew, like, the. A little bit of the tech part of it. The way I typically do it is I take, like, my sales gene, and I, like, just start cold emailing people. I go through the Shopify app store, and I'll just cold email people. Like, hey, you ever thought about selling? And, you know, a lot of people are just random developers, and they'll just be like, actually, no, but you know, how much you want to offer me? Actually, this one came. Somebody tweeted it out. He was like, I'm thinking about selling one of my Shopify apps. And I just DM'd and was like, yeah, I'm down. Like, how much? And we came to a purchase price. Like, I said, I'm not a coder, a developer. But I hit him up. He said, he's down to sell. I knew how to kind of go through that process. I tweeted out like, hey, I'm looking for a developer coach. Somebody messaged me, was like, hey, I'll coach you on how to develop it. So now I've been through the process of buying it, and me and this coach sit down, like, twice a week, and, like, we code it together. I've been working on coding.

Hold on. You're coding?

Yeah. Yeah.

That's amazing. Have you been studying outside of what this person is coaching you, or you're literally going line by line with this person?

Well, so at first, it was line by line completely. Like, we'd get. We'd meet up. He'd, like, show me how to do things.

But did he explain like, from the beginning, like, this is the code. This is the type of language that it is. Like, where did it start?

Well, so I knew that actually, I'll take a step back. So what happened was after me and James bought that one, I knew I wanted to do my own. I ended up actually having somebody in India build me one, and it just was not good. And what I. What I realized through that was like, it's really hard to, like, hire people to do things that you have no clue, you know, what they're doing. Right. It's like I just couldn't speak the language of, like, how to, like, even manage them, you know? So that. That, that was like, that got me to the point I was like, I need to kind of learn from square one. When I started taking, like, a little bit of courses on YouTube and things like that, like, in my free time. So I had, like, a little bit of a base. But so what I did is once, once I bought the app, like, I. I hired this guy, and we spent a few hours going through the code of the app, of the app. Like, you know, what do you think about it? He's like. He's like, it's well written.

He's like, man, this is a piece of shit.

He's like, like, is it good? But, yeah, he did. He's like, there's things I would definitely make better. And I'm like. I'm like, look. He's like, what's your priority? I'm like, I want to make money, man. Like, I don't need it to be the best written code in the world.

Right?

He's like. He's like, we'll get there. We'll make it better. But I was like, yeah, I need to make cash. Like, you know, I'm spending a lot of cash on this. Like, I need to make cash. So, yeah, that's what we're doing, man. It's been cool. It opens your eyes. Like, your mind, like, your mind thinks differently once you, like, can code.

That's crazy. I mean. Yeah. And you. You already have a background in, like, I would say. I would sum up, say your sales and marketing thing is like, one word, which is like, more communication.

Yeah.

You can already do that. And even if you don't do it long term, what you said, I actually scribbled this down. You said it's really tough to hire people when you have no clue. Couldn't agree more with that. Like, as. As, like in my previous life, as somebody who, like, hired people in, like, a marketing job, it Was like I was better at hiring the people that I knew that were in the realm of the thing that I had done before I was naturally good at. And it gets harder when you, when you don't know that thing. But it seems like what you're doing is smart now because whether, however way this goes, you're kind of doing all the things now and then you'll be able to like remove some of the things as you go versus like not know everything and then try to cobble things together. What's a revenue goal that you would be happy with?

So I have like short term and long term revenue goals. Right.

So happy with is such a bad, is such a bad question. Like I'd be happy with a hundred million.

Yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, yeah, I've got short term and long term essentially is the best way to put it right now. Like I said, it's not making that much revenue. It doesn't make enough nearly to pay for myself. It doesn't make enough even paying for my coach, right. So I pay my coach probably like a thousand dollars a month all in. And I'm close to that. So that's like my first short term goal is like cover my coaches cost like every month and I have money like saved it to pay my, like my personal expenses, you know. So essentially like that's number one and then like number two, me and Chrissy want to move to New York next summer. So like next May or so. So I want to get to like 6,000, $7,000 MRR by the time we're moving to New York so that I can like pay the rent.

Pay for a studio apartment.

Exactly, yeah, yeah. Because New York is expensive and I, I'd rather not come out of my savings, you know, try to pay New York rent.

And then if you got to 6,7k a month, would you also be able to recoup the money you put down on this project?

So would I recoup it? It would be paying my expenses over the month. Right. So I don't even think about the recouping of the, of that money. I mean.

Got it.

My long term is to resell this app, right. So what I've, I've done the math. It's like if I can get to 20k mrr, like I could probably sell for like a million bucks. That would be a nice thing to get to if I, but if I get there, you know, who knows, I may just say, hey, I got, I've got 20k coming in monthly. Like what's the Point of selling at this point, let's just keep. Let it. Let it run. So, yeah, I don't know.

Depends on what it comes into. That's cool. And then why did you go down Shopify ecosystem.

So, like, you mentioned my first million. Right. That. That's kind of what led me down that route is. So on one of their podcast show, on the shows, Sean was like, he's gonna give away an app or giveaway, like business from the micro acquire website. I don't know if you're familiar.

Yeah, I signed up. I don't know why, but I just wanted to donate. Donate 500 and get emails that I'll never read. But.

Yeah, so I wanted to win it. I wonder how that's actually going. Because I talked to the kid one and I asked him all the time and never responds to me. But whatever. So I tried to win it. I didn't, But. But on it, Sam was like, yo, you should give it to Henry Johnson. He mentioned me on. On the podcast and then like, get out of it there.

That's amazing. Yeah, no, I didn't. I didn't hear that. But I do always see, like, I see you and Sam, like, replying to each other.

Yeah. So I don't know. He believed in me, so I was like, it's like, man, maybe he's on to something. Maybe. Because I was doing a whole bunch of, like, random side projects and I had one and it was making money, but the Churn was terrible. So I was like, I always knew I need to get out of that one or, like, change it to make the Churn better. And I was like, you know what it was? It was like, it was a newsletter and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, I don't like writing every week. This is. This is not the treadmill I want to be on. So I was like, all right, maybe I'll go this route. And that's when I ended up buying that first one. Like, probably two months after they mentioned me.

But they didn't give you that. They mentioned you.

They didn't give me that. No.

Okay.

But I went and bought the other one. And then from buying the other one, I was like, oh, man. Like, this is like, if you can code, this is easy. Like, Shopify, like, pretty much is going to pass you customers, a few customers, like a day or a month, like, depending on how big your app is, how much traffic you're getting, it's going to pass you customers. All you have to do is keep making the product better. So that they don't churn. It's like building a SaaS on easy mode and then I'll go try to do it like, you know, maybe outside of like the Shopify ecosystem.

We'll see, but nice. Yeah. So you're betting on like the. On the. The distribution in the App Store to start. Yeah, to start. I think I. Yeah. Which is. Which is smart. Like, I think the last company I worked at was called Privy. You know, that obviously for. For people who ever listen to this and they're in this, the same space. Shopify app ecosystem without like spending a ton of marketing. They got to. They were getting, let's just rough numbers. Let's say like between 10 and 15,000 trials from the Shopify. Directly from Shopify, which is amazing. Granted, Ben built the company 10 years ago and it takes time to get that distribution, but they were in there and it. And the distribution that you can get from the App Store is crazy. And I like the framing of SAS on Easy Mode.

Yeah, man. So it's funny you bring up Ben. So I was listening to your book this weekend, actually. So I'm listening to Founder Brand.

What did you think of the narrator?

Yeah, he's okay. Pretty. Should have hired a professional.

Welcome to founder. Yeah, it has some accent, like a British accent or something.

Yeah, that would have, you know.

Yeah. More people get there or no, you know, you know that like, what is it called, that audio. They were talking about my first million recently. The, like the AI audio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should have had Gary Vee do the whole. Do my audiobook.

How crazy is that going to be? The world's just going nuts.

It's interesting. I have.

Wasn't great.

I have mixed feelings about it, but I guess like, anybody could go back in time and like, say, oh, look at this. Used to be this way. But like, it is a little bit unsettling to think that, like, there will be no. I know that everybody says the role of the creator will change, but like, man, I love music so much and like, I love art and people who create stuff so much. It is kind of like, damn, someone can just go to some site and like, you know, Google, like basically the same as Google. Like, type what you want and you get it. And it's like, ah, that. That hurts a little bit. I'm not as excited about it for that reason.

But anyway, creativity will always still prevail, you know, I mean, because like, yeah, they'll have the AI version. Like, you know, you put in all of Dave's podcasts. In and then you can have it create its own next episode. And it'll be okay. Right? But it will never be, you know, like, you're. What you actually came up with because you're living it, you know, so you'll notice the laziness of it.

For someone, like the audiobook, though, like, if I could have like, paid, you know, whatever, like, reasonable cost and, like, had the audiobook come out, like, my voice, I would have written that check all day. And I didn't have, like, a long book. The book is like 120 pages or something like that. There's two days of in, and I was in some woman's house because in Vermont, they were like, oh, we'll fly you to this studio in LA and you can do it there. And I was like, I don't want to travel. There's got to be somebody who can. I'll record it in my house, like, with the podcast mic. Because, like, would people really. Would people really know? Like, probably not. And then the. The audio people will say, like, yes, you could. But anyway, I found some woman up here and literally drove to her house for three, three mornings in February. Drove to her house and was there for eight hours, like, reading off an iPad and did that whole thing.

I heard it sucks. I heard it sucks.

Yeah, it wasn't. It was not as bad. I mean, it gives me appreciation for, like. Like a 900 page, like, fiction type book would be crazy. Anyway, you were saying, you were saying you listen. You listen to Founder Brand.

Oh, yeah. So I was listening to founder brand, and on it, you were like, you should have role models. Right? And Ben's always been, like, a role model of mine because he's built that big, you know, Shopify app. Right. But you also say, like, you should go listen to everything they've done. I was like, all right, pausing Founder bread. Then I'm going down a rabbit hole. Yeah, I started going down, like, a rabbit hole of all his stuff. Now I've talked to him a bunch on Twitter, like, randomly on DMs, and like, you know, just stuff like that. He's very approachable. I forgot where I was going with it. But essentially he gave me some key tips, like, and through. Well, he didn't give it to me, but through listening to it, like, I got some tips. Like, one he talked about, like, the free plan was really big for them. And right now I don't have a free plan. And he's told me to make a free plan and I didn't do it.

Yeah.

Now I'm like, all right, cool. Free plan on the way. Yeah, he talks about, like, giving support to the free users, which a lot of people don't do. So, yeah, I was always going to do that anyway, but coming and then integrations was like, the third one he talks a lot about. So I'm like, all right, I'm not ready to do that because I'm, you know, but once I'm ready to hire somebody, like, that'll be something that I'll, you know, I'll really focus on.

Well, from. Yeah, from a distribution standpoint in. Within the App Store, you know, people are going to definitely be more likely to try something that's free. And if that thing comes up in a search and it's free and then you're in there, then integration just make it huge because you can be connected to things that people are already using. Can you talk about what the app does or no?

Yeah, yeah.

Just because I need more. I want more context.

No, no problem. No problem. I have no problem shilling my app, man. So it's called Izzy Gift again. And what it does, it's a. It's a gift card app. So when I bought it, all it really did was it was like, as a customizer. So essentially, you can customize the look of and feel of, like, the digital gift cards that you're selling to your customers, right? So a merchant would download it, they'd be able to make a custom gift car, be able to, you know, the people who they're buying from, who buying from them could see that. So during the negotiation, I was like, look, that's cool. But it needs to also be able to send the gift card directly to people. The native Shopify doesn't do that. You know, if you buy it for somebody, it gets sent to you, and then you have to email it to them. And I'm like, that's just not a good. That's not a good workflow. And every other one in the. In the Shopify App store does that. So I was like, all right, that is something that I think I can actually sell. Like, that's something that. If I'm talking to you and you're a Shopify merchant, I can be like, look, it does this and this. Like, this is worth paying for. So I was like. When I was doing negotiation, I was like, I need you to include that for me to buy this. And he was like, all right, cool. So. So it does those two things. That's customization. And also you can send it directly to the person that you're buying this gift card for and then I'm add more features over time, but that's what it does.

Currently I'm looking at. You're already making memes for it, so you're, you're all the way in. Okay, so I didn't mean this to turn into me grilling you for 20 minutes about your Shopify app, but it's interesting and I haven't talked to you in a while, so.

Yeah, I'm good.

All right, where should we go next?

Yeah, so I mean, you were at Privy man, so I've got questions for you, like just being that you were so close to what I'm trying to do. You know what I mean? I don't know if you want to go down this that long, but in all seriousness, I talked about the three things that I learned from Ben. Right? You know, free integrations and then great support. But you came in, I mean, later into the process. But like, what did you see that like really, really worked there in terms of growing like that Shopify app, so.

Much of the growth.

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Go check them out in the within. Shopify had happened already prior to me being there. They were really early and so I think they got a lot of. I think it was like the lesson for me was like early mover advantage. Like basically Ben first iteration of the company, they ran out of money. They kind of pivoted to do this thing from brick and mortar. So I worked there back in 20, 2013 and I was account manager. They didn't have any marketing jobs. I got connected to him through my cousin. I closed one deal, I closed one deal. But my friends at Drift would tell you that I could, I could close a deal, I could close a deal or two there. They would say no way. So I was working, yeah, I was working at this, this company called Constant Contact. I got into Privy because I got really interested in startups and my cousin knew Ben and he was like, I don't know, he saw my name through somehow through some social media thing, through constant contact and he reached out and I was like, well you know, I really want to be, I'm really interested in marketing. Like I want to be a startup marketing person. This is what I'm writing. He's like, I don't have any marketing jobs but you could do customer success. I was like, cool, I'll join in and we'll figure it out. And the company, they were doing like basically coupon redemption for like quick serve restaurants. And so like you'd see an ad for like $2 off pizza. And you'd see it on Facebook and you'd go and redeem it in the store and they would track that whole thing. But it didn't end up working. But what they learned from that was there was a huge piece of it that they already had, which is like this whole kind of idea of a coupon. And then all of a sudden like e commerce explodes. And so like early 23rd, early 2014, probably Ben made a bet on Shopify and he was like, you know, in hacker news threads and Reddit threads and Quora and answering questions. And they kind of had like one or two key integrations. And they were probably one of the early, like email pop up, email capture free tools on Shopify. And so they gobbled up a huge portion of that market. And then when I joined, they had maybe like 500,000 merchants that had used Privy. And so when I was there, it was more like focusing on telling a story that they already had, but amplifying that and like repositioning them as the leader in this space. But I think all of the growth was being early on Shopify and then learning how to do marketing within that ecosystem because there are ways. And so it's like you got to learn what the guardrails are and you got to learn how to do SEO. You got to learn how to do. Then they added advertising. Like you could pay to promote your listing and pay for different keyword stuff. So it's like learning its own funnel. Like, you might know website really well, but you got to know what moves the needle in Shopify. But also, you know what moved the needle a lot? Having a product that people liked and something that worked. Like obviously ratings and reviews and real signals. I'm sure Shopify has a ton of data on what these apps are doing and like how people are using them. That matters a lot. But today it's really crowded, super crowded. I think you got to be like the liquid death of like Shopify apps.

Create a crazy, crazy brand kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, that should be your move.

So, yeah, so that was going to be my next question. Like, if you were me, you were getting started with it. Like, like I tweeted about starting a podcast, right? Because I'm like thinking about ways that I can do this, right? And like I said, I'm learning to code, but I'm not great. So once I like my guy gives me homework, I start doing it and then I run into like a roadblock that I can't do anything more. And I Just go back into marketing mode. I'm like, all right, I'm going on Twitter and I'm going every place I'm going to start doing stuff. And today I was in that. One of those places. I'm like, I'm going to start a podcast. Right. So that's how I got there.

Yeah.

So. And because I think it'll help me make more content, help me grow the brand, et cetera. If you were me, would that be the route that you would go, like, start a podcast? So I'll tell you what I was going to do with the podcast. It was going to be. I was going to call it Cash, I think Cash flow cowboys or something like that. And I was going to interview, like, people who have. Have DDC brands. Like, and specifically, like, trying to, like, focus on, like, generating cash flow. Not like everybody talks about, you know, we tripled revenue. Like, revenue is cool, but, like, I think the harder part in DTC is cash flow. I wanted to really talk to people about that and specifically target people who I would want to use the app.

Right.

And kind of grow that way. Yeah. So that was kind of how I was thinking about it, obviously doing all of the basics that are already part of Shopify, like getting reviews, talking to my customers, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, just curious, what would you do? You were shaking your head. So doesn't like, you would do it for podcast. I'm curious, what would you do?

Well, I think it depends. You. I think. I think you can be successful with it, with many approaches. I shook my head initially. I podcast because I think it. I think the opportunity is probably to be closer. You could do it. You'd have to have two different motions. So one, one school of thought could be, I want to build an audience in this space. And if I build an audience in this space, I will raise awareness for this thing that I'm building. But I think, like, what you have right now is. So it's such a niche. Like, you are focusing on gift cards, right. You're not trying to be like, automation, marketing automation platform. And so, like, I think you could do both, but, like, I think there's something around, like, you have this really tightly defined niche. Like, and is it, like, how many people are there other gift card companies? Like, what's this?

It's probably like 10 others, maybe. Okay, so. So it's a. It's a competitive niche.

I would use marketing to, like, do something nuts. And I don't mean like gimmick, gimmicky nuts, but I Would, like, think of a way to. To differentiate the brand in a very, like, interesting and compelling way. I think. I think one of that. One of the ways you're kind of starting to do that, which is, like, you're. You're building and you're building in public and you're. You're sharing what you're doing. But, like, I would be like, what are. What are, like, some crazy ways that I can get attention? And maybe. Maybe you're like, you know, you seem to have a good pulse on, like, on social media and Twitter and TikTok and LinkedIn and whatever. Like, maybe you're funnier than those nine other apps and, like, your strategy is, like. Is memes and humor and content, but I think, like, trying to be intentional about, like, one or two things that you're doing. And, like, I think brand and trying to, you know, take these kind of big swing, like, every month, you're, like, taking some kind of swing. And, like, how are we going to get more people talking about us? It's like, I talked to Pep from Winter a lot, and, like, Winter's become a great product that a lot of people in B2B are using to, like, to test their copy. And he's a pretty smart guy. I'm like, what do you. You know, what. What keeps you up? And, like, what are you working on? He's like, I need more people to know. Like, plain and simple, like, the product does its thing. I need more people to know about us. And I just like when people break down things into that term, like, I come from B2B marketing, and everyone's got to talk about all these acronyms and this and that. He's like, I'm trying to increase the awareness of this. And so I think if your podcast, if you think you can do it that way, that could be one way, but you're probably gonna have to do 15 different things anyway.

Yeah. What Pep says is kind of how I think about it. So something that you and DC used to talk about on Seeking Wisdom a lot. Right. It's like, I don't exactly remember how you put it, but. But essentially, like, you don't always have. I think he said, like, you don't have to. I think it was, like, recreate. You can just, like, innovate or something like that. I don't exactly innovate.

He used to say. He used to say innovate, Don't. Innovate, don't invent.

Yeah, innovate, don't invent. And the idea, like, my thought behind that is, like, I can have an app that's fairly similar, like, in terms of, like, I mean, their gift card app. Like, I mean, there's so many, especially right now, like, my app is maybe playing a little bit of catch up in terms of some of the capabilities. But, like, one thing I can do better than. I think a lot of what I'm seeing out there is, like, I can get my name in front of more people. None of the people who are doing this have, like, any personal brand behind them. Granted, I go back and forth in terms of, like, personal brand, but in terms of personal brand, like, having one in my niche, I don't mind it. So. And I think I'm good at it. Like, somebody asked me the other day, like, what's your skill? What's your superpower? I was like, I don't know. People like me. That is my superpower. And I. And I know that sounds like, that could sound, like, cocky, but, like, I don't, I don't do it. Like, I don't, like, I don't like, you know, being like, hey, man, you should like me. You should like me.

I think it's. I think it sounds good for somebody who doesn't know. For somebody who doesn't know you. Yeah, if you, if you wrote that on LinkedIn and just text form, people would blast. You'd get roasted. But I think people know. People that know, you know that. That's true. So that's an interesting approach. And, like, I think that's a. To me, that's how you can, like, simplify, like, what is your marketing strategy at this phase? But I think I would just want it, like, aligned around something like, oh, people like me. Okay, well, how, but how can you channel that into something? And so maybe that. Does that mean, like, you're gonna start your own podcast about this? And just remember that it. It does have to, like, relate. I think it has to. I've made this mistake of, like, it has to relate to what you're gonna sell, right? If you do cash flow cowboys and talk to all these people who generate revenue, what's the overlap of that gonna be versus, like, if you.

So I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why I thought about that, right? Because gift cards, like, the real benefit of a gift card when you're selling on a store is it helps with cash flow, right? I mean, it's essentially a free loan, right? If somebody buys a gift card from you until they, you know, use it, you just have money sitting there and that's what Starbucks has done. Amazingly. They have a, you know, every year.

Yeah, that's true. It's like, it's a.

It's a purchase.

But they haven't come in yet. Right.

They haven't used it. And then at the end of the year, right, if, let's say you have a profit of, you know, I don't know, $100,000, and then at the end of the year, somebody buys $10,000 worth of gift cards that give. Those gift cards are kind of as a liability. So, yeah, now your profit goes down to 90,000. So your taxable incomes, only 90. It's just things to help your. Your actual bottom line.

Okay. It makes. It makes more sense. Yeah, it makes cool.

No, I think that that's why.

Yeah, you could do. You could do basically, like, you're the guy and you happen to run this. This app in this space, but, like, because it could be like cash flow cowboys, like, brought to you by, you know, Izzy Gift. Exactly. You should do that. Separate of this. You should do that.

Yeah. Separate of that. Yeah, separate of this. For sure.

For sure. Yeah.

Yeah. But that's how. That's how I was thinking about it. I'm just like, oh, man, like, how could I.

And what about, like, ridiculous? What about, like, a ridiculous brand? Like, imagery? Obviously, I don't, you know, you don't want your company to be a gimmick.

But, like, yeah, I think about that stuff, man. And I've always. I'm envious of people who do some of that kind of stuff, but I don't know if I have it, you know, I mean, like, that's not like.

Like to come up with it. Like, that's not a thing that, like.

You know, some people are like, they're very. What do you call, like, controversial on social media? Like, like, what's the guy? Nick Huber from the sweaty startup thing. He's always tweeting something that's, like, super controversial. And, like, he goes viral because everybody's like, oh, yeah, you're wrong. And then sometimes I'll try to do it. I'm like, yeah, I'll say something controversial. Like, yeah, man, I agree. Like, it wasn't controversial. Yeah, so. So it's like, you know, or like, I'll tweet some.

I'll tweet something that's not controversial at all. And someone would be like, well, look at that. Listen to this guy. Yeah.

I guess as you get more followers, like, you're just controversial by nature.

No, I don't think I Will. Yeah. I don't think you have to be. I don't mean controversial, but anyway, there's lots more that we can. We can figure out.

Yeah.

Yeah. Wait, can I tell a funny story? I just. I want to tell you a story because I think we have a cool connection, and I've. I've actually thought of, like, separate from this idea that we had today. I've thought of, like, I was just gonna hit you up and. And see if you could, like, tell this story on Exit 5 podcasts or some other way. But we have a cool story, and I think it shows the power of, like, you know, yes, this is just SaaS and just tech and startups, but, like, there's actually a cool story where, like, you. The way we got connected is very early days of drift. Like, first 10 customers. Ish. Like, you were somehow listening to the podcast, reading the blog. You were one of the very first names. It was you and this other guy, Joe Jerome, who would, like, always comment on stuff and email stuff, and we just always would see your name around. And then, like, you started coming to some of the Drift events in the area. Weren't you, like, not living in Boston, but then you were living in Boston, and then, you know, you came to a bunch of Drift events, and you got to know the other Drift people, and then you and I had lunch, and then I started this Patreon thing. Dmg, you're one of the first members there, and you're like, you should. After being on Patreon for a couple months, you're the one who I've given credit for, who is like, you should. You need to add a Facebook group to this community because, like, it's cool to hear your stuff. But, like, we. Hey, Ego. Ego, man. We want. We want to talk to you. We want to talk to each other. And I was like, cool. Where should the group be? And you're like, I think Facebook groups. I know. I know a lot of people. I know. Like, that might sound lame to you, but, like, I'm telling you, I'm in a bunch of Facebook groups. And whatever it is about Facebook groups, it's great. So add it. That was April 2020, and the Facebook group has been like, now that is the entirety of what my community is. I've moved everything off, and it's just in there. And I'll give you one more thing. This is like, so we got Drift. We got DGMG Facebook group. Then you're like, I post this thing. I'm like, I'm looking for Somebody that can help me part time. I just have a bunch of kind of random like dgmg exit 5 things I need help with. I'm looking to meet people that might be interested and you message me and I think you're like, I think the message was like, you should talk to my girl. And I'm like, who is this guy talking about? And I'm like, oh, I was talking about his girlfriend. And he's like, chris. And so I have this call with Chrissy. She's amazing. Two years later, Chrissy's like the one person who basically has helped me out with DGMG Exit 5 membership stuff. She's helped me with so much. And now I have you and we're connected. And so it just was a cool example of a connection and relationship that was made from the power of a brand, like making a real, you know, having a real connection with somebody. And I think this is just one cool story that like speaks to the value of like building a brand and what you get from it. It's pretty cool. Beyond one company now, right?

You want to know something funny? You may not even know this. I actually originally found you when you were doing your podcast before Drift Tech Tech in Boston. Because like you, you were, you were. I was super interested in tech and startups and stuff, but nobody was doing anything about Boston startups. And I was trying to join a startup. I was at EMC now Dell, and I was like, man, I gotta like, you know, how do I find, you know, you know, Venture Fizz and all these other random places? But I'm not, I don't. Like, I read a little bit now, but mostly audiobooks and I was like, I need to hear it. Like that's how I learned. Like I learned through conversations, I learned through like listen to audiobooks, podcasts, etc. And I found tech in Boston. And then I think I found out you went to Drift or something. I don't know. I listened to one with Decancel and I started following you guys and no, actually my friend Marcy who was at HubSpot, told me about Drift after I had listened to Tekken, but I didn't even know you were there at first. I just heard about that and she was like, just followed Dave cancel. Like he's somebody, he's going to be awesome. I don't even know what they're building, but Dave's the man, so just follow that. And then you ended up being there. I was talking to you and Kevin. I was trying to get in there. It didn't work out. But hey, look, here we are, you know.

What do you mean? Like, did you have an interview?

No. So I didn't go hard enough, man.

As I was saying, like, I feel like, I feel like at that, at that phase, if you had, if you had gone hard enough, like you could get a. Because there's really no. I feel like at that stage of the company, if you had gone hard enough, you could get a sales job.

I was so the problem. That was the reason I, I think I didn't. So I was, I was between two things at that point. Like I was either going to go work with my father on the home theater company or I was going to go to Drift and me. And like I hit up Kevin Carner about it and he was like, and he wasn't like, I feel like he wasn't willing to put his name out on me. Right. So I was going to the wrong person. Like, but if I would have like came at you, Ed, like D.C. ed Lilias, like, I probably would have got it. But like at the end of the day I was like, I also wanted to help my dad. So I was like, ah, whatever, I'm just gonna go help my dad. Like, I don't, I'm not tripping about it, you know.

Yeah. And I think obviously would have been amazing. But you'll, you'll never, you'll never regret going to help, going to work with your dad. I'm sure as now, as now having a son of my own. I can see that.

So.

And for context, for people listening, he said this name, Kevin Carner, he was the first salesperson that we had at Drift. So that's why they would have been connected. But you mentioned tech in Boston. So when I was working at Privy before I was. I tell the story. But like when I was just basically marketing manager Dave, I started tech in Boston and that was the thing that really catapulted my network and career because I was just the 25 year old like account manager and it was cool because I was at Privy and I had, I said the same thing that you said, which is, I said, why is nobody. I started getting really into startups. I listen to this week in startups all the time. And you know, Jason Calacanis, he's great and annoying at the same, at the same time. And then, then I was like, man, why, why does nobody have a show? Like, he only has tech, you know, west coast companies. I'm in the Boston startup community and Ben is a founder in the Boston startup Community. And I'm watching him go to this event and that event and then we have this dinner and we're going to this other event. He starts his own thing. I'm like, there's totally an appetite for that. And I said the same thing, why is there no podcast about startups in Boston? And I tweeted that out and he replied back to me and he said.

You should start this.

And that was like, not to be like corny but like that was an amazing moment in my career to have like a manager, a boss who was like, he, he never was like, don't.

Let this distract from your day to day job.

He was like, this is cool, this is a cool opportunity, you should do it. And you know what, you should record right here because I think that if this will also be good for, for privy, if people know you through that. And So I did 50, 60 episodes of that. And that's actually how I met David Cancel. I had heard of him through HubSpot. He was a chief product officer at HubSpot. Him and him and this founder, Elias. Him and his other guy, Elias, they, they sold their company to HubSpot. He was this mythical figure. Not to mention that like as a, as a founder in Boston, there are not many like non white founders of companies. And so like, and he was like very active on social media, but I never saw him anywhere. He was like this myth, he's like this mythical person. And through tech in Boston, he DM me on Twitter when they were starting Drift and he was like, hey, can you help promote this event that we were doing? And I was like, cool, this guy thinks I'm like a media company. But then I obviously took my shot when he, when he reached out, I said, yes, I'll promote it. By the way, I'd also would love to have you on my podcast. And he's like, come over the office, let's record. So I have him on my podcast, Tech in Boston. Best interview that I've ever done. I think just as far as like connection with, with somebody and like being on the same page like philosophically about brand and marketing. And that night I was like looking up their page, like do the write up for the show. And I'm looking on angel list and I see that they have a opening for marketing manager. And I immediately sent him an email. I'm like, I know we just met today. I saw you have this opening. I gotta apply for this job. I was working at HubSpot across the time, which was directly across the street, like the, there's literally Canal street in Kendall Square in Cambridge. The buildings were right across from each other. So I walked over, walked across the street maybe seven yards. And I was doing an interview with Drift and they weren't gonna. I went to the interview, they weren't going to make an offer. They were like, you're going to get married. Go get married, have your honeymoon, come back and we'll talk. We really like you. We'll talk. And I just. Something felt like, man, they raised $15 million without having done anything yet. They're two really well known founders. I know who I am deep down inside and I'm like, they're going to find someone much better than me. Like if they're interested in me, we need to do this now. And so I remember being like, what the heck? And so I literally Keith, who I love and we're good friends now, but in recruiting, he was like, yeah, you know, we'll come back after your honeymoon and we'll chat. And I was like, no, no. And I emailed David and Elias directly and I was like, if you want to hire me, we need to do this now. And they were like, come back in tomorrow and let's chat. And I think somewhere deep down I think they like that. I was like, no, I need this. And I think the rest is history. But it all did start from getting that first interview with tech in Boston, which is pretty crazy.

I tell people all. So that, that's something like I tell people all the time and Chrissy did it like, so I always tell people like, if you want to get a job, like move into marketing or you're not in marketing yet, you're doing like sales, you're doing, I don't know, customer success. You're doing, you're like office admin, anything. Just start a podcast and like have the people on that you would like potentially see yourself working for or just period, like start doing things. And I always point them to you. I'm like that like, because everybody's like, look at Dave, like he's a cmo. I'm like, yeah, but he started just with a podcast, you know, and like you start just showing people that you're a self starter. And then also I always tell people send cold emails, like, so send like you went directly to Elias and D.C. or whatever. And I think that's another thing like people like to see like that you're, you're willing to like reach out and like go for what you want. So I use your story a lot when I'm Because I used to do the rocket ship jobs, right. And that was like. That was like one of the stories I would always tell people. Like, you look at what Dave Gerhardt did. Like, this is how you can easily get it. Not easily. Right. But it, like, starts to have the conversation and like, maybe the first one you won't get, or second one, but, like, they'll. You'll have the conversations and people like, you need to improve this, blah, blah, blah. But you'll start to get closer to, like, whatever your dream job is, whatever you want to do. Right?

Yeah, I give that advice a lot. If someone's like, I want to break into marketing or I want to do more, and I'm like, well, I think one of the. One of the coolest parts about. And this. This is not true for every job, I don't think. But I think specifically, kind of like the world that you and I are in, like marketing, sales, tech, you can basically start a side thing. Like, one of the best marketing people that I work with, prior to hiring him, he had an amazing blog and he ran a Facebook fan page for the office. And it had like 100,000 people that like that page. And it's like, that's not directly related to marketing, but it's like little indicators of, like, oh, you built the side project. You want to hire someone to do social media for your startup, and you find out that this woman has had a TikTok about, like, reading. And the TikTok has been super popular about reading. Like, I would make a bet on that. On that person to go and do that thing. And so for me, it was like, it was starting that podcast. But it could be a podcast, it could be a newsletter, a blog. I love that advice.

Yeah, I'd say, I think marketing people, really, it works better with, like, sales. I mean, that was one of the reasons. Look, I love sales. I made great money doing sales. You know, it was. It was good to me. But I don't think they value that nearly as much and understandably so, right. Like a side project, you can't, like, show that you can close $100,000 deals. And if you can show that on your side project, you're probably not going to come work for somebody else. So, like, I don't know if it's like, if it works as well for sales other than, like, the fact, like, cold emailing to get your jobs. I think that does work because that's literally what your job's going to be. But, yeah, I think that's what I Love about marketing is like, just like, just go do it. And like, any project you do, you're going to have to market, so you're going to start to learn well.

And it means so many things. It's a combination of so many different things, like social copywriting, whatever. And even if I didn't get any job from that, like, I think it forces you to learn on your own. Like, I had to learn how to build a website on my own, how to set up a podcast on my own, how to do artwork and, you know, get guests and send email pitches and sell sponsorships and do all that stuff on your own for the first time. Like, that was a great way. Even if nobody ever read that or listened, I would have had a learning experience just based on, like, building something outside of work on my own. I recommend that all the time now.

It also is probably the gateway drug to, to where you are now, where you're like, I got to do my own thing, man. I. I can't just work for somebody else. Once you get that, once you get the taste, you start to want to do it, you know, Right.

Okay, everything has gone south. So we're gonna. I'm wrap this up, but I think we need. I think we need to do part two. I have an interesting idea about how we could test this, and I'll send it to you later, but hopefully you'll hear from Henry and I again soon. And I'm going to go handle this. And we're out here.

All right, man, I'll talk to you later.

Hey, thanks for listening. Listening to this episode of the Exit 5 podcast. If you're in B2B marketing and you want to grow your career, you should also go and check out everything that we have over@exit5.com. We've got articles, we've got videos, we've got templates, plus we have a community. A community of over 4000 B2B marketing pros. Whether you're deep in your career and want to connect with your peers or just starting up and you want a place to go where you can see what people are talking about, get smarter about B2B marketing in your own time. Time to grow your career and help grow your company. Go and check it out. It's exit5.com you can get on the email list there. You can join the community. There's 4,000 marketers in the community. We have a job board. We're always adding new stuff. It's really becoming the number one place you can go if you want to grow your career and learn more about B2B marketing outside of what you're doing inside of your company every day. So check it out. Exit5.com and I also want to make sure I give a shout out to my friends at Hatch. That's Hatch fm. They produce this podcast. It sounds amazing because of the work that they do and they work with B2B companies just like yours. They offer unlimited podcast editing and strategy for businesses. You can get unlimited podcast editing and on demand strategy for a low monthly cost. All you gotta do is just upload your episode and they take care of the rest. Go and check them out. It's Hatch fm.

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