Lessons From A Private Founder's Retreat

All right guys, we're going live. It's another episode of Marketing School. It's 4 AM where Neil is. It is 7 AM where I am in Florida. And I'm here in Florida for a founders retreat. We're in Palm Beach right now actually, Neil. The hotel I'm in, let's just say it is a ripoff for what it is. I'm not going to name the hotel, but it's a nice hotel.

Wait, you're in the Surfside? Is that what it's called?

No, no, no, no. I'm in Palm Beach. Surfside is where Surfside is. That's north of Miami. But we're here for a retreat. You know, some of our mutual friends are here, like, you know, Saya, Genevieve, a couple other people, Al, Al Doan, Quilt Guy. And so, yeah, it's David Hensel. I think you met him as well. So yeah, it's a good group of people. We've been doing this retreat since 2018 or so. So we actually did a fun reflection. So Actually, Syed was the one that, you know, planned this out. So it's been amazing. And, you know, he had us do a YPO exercise, actually. And I'll kind of talk about the retreat. You can ask questions around it. We'll talk about AI as well. We'll talk about marketing. I'll reveal what I can without revealing any confidential information. And we could talk about the retreat first. There's some other stuff to talk about this week, but—

Let's first go to the exercise that Syed had you guys do.

Yeah. So the exercise was And this will be fun if you do it. You're not the type of person to do this, but it'll be fun if you do it. Okay. So, and I don't think he was actually the type of person to do this exercise before either. So it's called Then, Now, and Later. So you basically reflect on 10 years ago and then— so 10 years ago, like, what were you doing? Where were you in your life? Like, how are things going overall? Am I making sense so far?

Yeah.

Okay. When you look at now, it's like, okay, how are things going now? Like, you're 40, I'm 39 years old. We're around the same age. Like, you know, is our life— did it turn out the way we expected it to be? How's it going now? We're married, we're with kids, right? And all that. Then you do 10 years out, like what's going to be happening in 10 years, right? Are you doing like $2 billion in revenue, $3 billion in revenue, whatever, right? And so, it was really interesting because, you know, some people shared a lot of pictures and I realized mine didn't have any pictures in it. And so, everyone had reflected on their pictures because you just look at your Apple Photos, right? And I looked at mine, you know, it's interesting, Neil. 10 years ago, you, Yaniv, and I were speaking at his conference. And at the time, you know, yeah, um, there's a lot of things that were going really well, um, I think in all our lives, but I think things were going really well at that time. I'm not going to go into details, um, whether it's on the personal side, whether it's on the business side as well. I think we're all on the very right track and, uh, we just never knew where life would take us, right? Um, I'll just leave it at that right now without revealing anything. So I thought that was a great exercise because people really got to Reflect. And the one thing I'll share with you, and then we can talk more about the retreat itself, because, you know, literally I'm supposed to be playing tennis right now, but I'm, you know, we're recording podcasts. So that's how committed we are to you guys. So, you know, Walter, who's a really smart marketer, very good with copywriting, I don't think you've ever met him before. But, you know, he has, you know, an amazing family, amazing kids. And this is public already. So this I can reveal. He did. He's been recording these short-form clips and posting to Instagram. One of them got 21 million views. I got to send it to you. One's really funny. And the other ones were like he's playing his kid basketball and his kid ends up beating him, right? Like, this is where like the son surpasses the father. But he always makes sure to integrate his family and everything with everything. And like faith is first, family is second, right? That type of stuff. And so anyway, it just proves to you that, you know, despite you being like 40 years old, 45 years old or whatever it is exactly, you can still play whatever game you want to play. And he proved to his kids that Daddy can get lots of social media views. They're like calling him like, oh, you don't know anything about this. You need to have a good hook. He's like, bro, like, are you serious? Like, I'm a marketer, right? So I thought that was really fun. And then a lot of NBA players, a lot of basketball players actually reached out to him after he put up that video. Everyone's like, man, that really brought me back. And so all that to say is like that, I think the lesson for everyone here is like the then, now, later is a fun exercise. The other piece is, you If you can somehow, if you have kids, if you can do social media and really participate in your kids' lives and try to bring them along with you, I think that's the ultimate reward. And I can see that with him. So. Quick break. One of our ClickFlow users just told me that they're saving 90+ hours a month on content alone. ClickFlow is our AI SEO product that actually does the work, not just here's what you should do. It does it. It creates content in your voice. It helps you with other areas such as finding the right internal links. and creating FAQs. We spent years making it, perfecting it with our clients so it doesn't just sound like AI slop. You can get a 14-day free trial at clickflow.com. If you're serious about AI SEO, you should check it out. Back to the show.

Yeah, I've never done the, uh, what is it called? Then, now, uh, later. But I've done something similar and I actually do something similar not every single day, but multiple times a week. Where I think about all the mistakes I've made from 24 years ago when I started as an entrepreneur to even 10 years ago or 5 years ago. And I break down what I would do differently to be much further off 10, 15 years from now.

Okay. So do you want to reveal anything?

Sure. So some of the big lessons that I've learned over the years And I'll start really broad and then I'll get really specific. The first big lesson that I learned was from an investor named Tony Conrad, and Tony Conrad was one of my early investors. I think he was on the board of WordPress, which is Automattic, right? The parent company is Automattic. He sold a company, I believe, to Yahoo. He sold a company to AOL. He is also— was also an investor. He's a— he is an investor, but he's done well as an investor. I think he's been like Uber, Peloton, you know, Blue Bottle Coffee, and the list goes on and on and on. And I remember Tony Conrad used to always tell me, you need a big TAM, you need a big TAM, and would just shove it down our throat. Okay. And I remember some of my earlier companies I believed were companies. Like for example, when we started Crazy Egg, it was a heat map tool and it would just show you where people click, where they don't. And Tony would always say, you know, like, hey, you need a big TAM. You don't want to just build a feature or two. And when you look at that product, at least the original version, it was just a feature. It wasn't pure web analytics, and back then there was a lot of detailed web analytics companies out there, including Google bought Urchin. Urchin ended up turning into Google Analytics, and they ended up making it free. But one little feature isn't a product, and the bigger the market you go after, for example, when you think about market, most people think about quantity of people that it's applicable to. That's one version of TAM. Example of that is toilet paper. Another example is CRM and being Salesforce. It's not applicable to everyone, but the people who it is applicable to can spend a lot of money on it, and it's worth a lot of money for them. So from a dollar perspective, both toilet paper and CRM are big markets, and you can make billions and billions of dollars doing anything that's big. If you go after a niche, it's really hard to make money because the riches are not in niches. They're after really small markets. No matter how much energy you spend marketing, it's roughly the same effort. And I remember speaking on a panel with Rich Barton, the Zillow founder, Expedia founder. I don't know what else he did. I think Glassdoor was his as well.

Yeah.

And I remember Rich saying, if you're going to Whatever market you go after, it's pretty much the same effort, right? So if you're going after a niche versus a really big broad market, it's pretty much the same effort from a marketing perspective. And the analogy that he used is the energy it takes, and this is a baseball analogy, the energy it takes to hit a single versus a double or triple or a home run is the same energy. You're still going up to the plate. You're still swinging and giving it your all, so might as well go for a home run each and every single time. And I personally agreed with it, and that taught me to stop building niches— businesses in niches, because all marketers are like, riches are in the niches, and it's just a big misconception. So that was the first big lesson that I learned, but it took me probably 12, 13 years to really understand and figure that out. A little bit too long.

So what Neil's saying in business is absolutely right. The same energy goes into a business. You might as well go for a home run. But in physics, in actual baseball, it does take a little more energy to hit a home run than a single.

Yes.

So just wanted to flag that. But you know what's interesting, Neil? So I guess I'll reveal where I'm staying because there are some lessons around where I'm staying right now, I think from a marketing standpoint and a supply and demand standpoint. So we're staying at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. So You know, famous hotel, been around for a while. This is this, um, Flagler family, I think, owns a lot of the properties around here. Um, it's not a cheap hotel. So why, why is it that the hotels are—

Wait, what's not cheap? What's the cost?

So, I mean, it's public, but, um, it's— so for the room that I'm in right now, I'll tell you the room I'm in and then I'll tell you the cost. I think this is like a 300 square feet room. Okay, like, look, don't get me wrong, it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's a nice room. Like, look, they put Icelandic water in here and like you did, they put like, they give you these pellegrino water, right? For free? Or do you gotta pay for the water? It's free. It's free. You know Cocofloss? The $15 floss that I use?

Uh-huh.

The really— yeah. So they have that in there. So they give you like nice things and all that. It's $2,200 a night for this room, okay? For like 300 square feet.

Water view?

No water view, dude. I have like, I can see like the courtyard, okay? Um, so that is expensive, right?

Yes.

And I thought I would get like a Four Seasons Surfside view where it's like water view, it's huge, it's super modern and all that. Now, I'm like, okay guys, like, why is this so expensive, right? And it's because it's a very legendary— it's the brand. Like, you know, you look at the people walking through, it's very— have you seen Palm Royale on Apple TV? It's all about Palm Beach. Have you seen it?

I only saw like 10 minutes of it and I couldn't keep up.

So it is literally Palm Royale where it's like people are wearing like, you know, those really nice sweaters, you know, draped over them and then like everyone's dressed really nicely. It's totally that. Like, Yaniv and I were talking about, we're like, dude, this is so Palm Royale, right? Now let me tell you this. The tennis court that we go to, we're like, the membership pre-COVID for the tennis court was $200,000. You pay $250,000 for the privilege, okay, of paying $35,000 a year. So you don't even pay $250,000 for the membership where you can sell it later. You're not buying equity, okay, for the privilege. Now, how much do you think that membership is post-COVID?

$500,000.

$700,000. You're paying $700,000 for the privilege. And don't get me wrong, it's a really nice tennis court. But that's a whole supply and demand thing. Because, you know, with breakers, People want to be associated with the brand. It's legendary and all that, right? And then the tennis court, because the supply is so low now, everyone wants to play tennis, they want to play pickleball and all this. That's how much it costs now, right? It's no different than the LA country club that, that, you know, I've talked about, right? The prices for these things, because they're scarce, just keep going up. But the difference is in LA, you can sell it, you can, you got to get to buy equity there.

I didn't know that you could sell it at LA country club.

I don't know about LA, but the LA tennis club, my friend bought in for like $8,000, like pre-COVID, and then now it's worth like $50,000 and he could sell it.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah. So anyway, all that to say, I thought that was interesting. But, you know, there's— I think the— we did do like a lot of presentations where people were talking about their business. So usually the agenda for these things, just so everyone knows, because I think live events— we've been talking quite a bit about live events. I think this is the type of live event that people should be considering because I think it's, you know, if you're— whether you're in business or like you're working for someone, it's good to have a peer group, right? And so our agenda for this one is like tennis. Like, you know, I'll tell you the agenda today. I'll just make it simple. So it's 7 to 9 is like, you know, solo activity. So typically I'm playing tennis with Yaniv and Walter and we have a tennis coach, right? And then at 9, we typically start 9 to 12, we do exploration. So, Neil, you might be presenting on like a business problem and we maybe we go for an hour or so and we kind of go around sharing our experiences in the room. So everyone gets a problem to solve, right? And then, then we have lunch and then we go back and we do AI chairs for about an hour or so. And then, we play either pickleball, basketball, or today we're playing cricket, which is, I guess, your country plays that quite a bit, right?

Yeah.

So, we're playing cricket today at Syed's house, right? And then, we're going to have dinner. And then, we're basically done at 7:00 PM every day and you get alone time. Today, it's a little more leisure. We'll hang out, but today we get to do some massages. We go to Syed's house. But that's how it's structured. And it's like a 3-day thing and then we try to go to a different place every year. But I highly recommend that everyone If you've never done events before, you want to know how to do events, you should start something like this because this is when I did the then, now, later exercise. This group was started basically 10 years ago or so, and 8 years, let's call it, and it stayed consistent and it's really fun to see how people have grown over the years. So I'll just leave it at that and I'm happy to share around the AI stuff too.

But yeah. But before we go back to you and I discussing some of the marketing lessons we've learned over the years, When you did your then, now, later, what are some things that you reflected on for the last 10 years that you did that you may would've done differently from a marketing aspect or a business aspect?

I'll give you one from the personal aspect first. There was a lunch we were having. It was your now wife, myself, you know, there was a gal with me, should have married her.

More like 4:00 PM, 5:00 PM in Arizona. Yes.

Yes. And then Yaniv was there too. So at least one of my personal lessons is I should have just married her, right? For me, that's one. I think lessons-wise also, I mean, obviously I learned to focus a lot better, right? I think that's a big one. I think had, you know, actually I'll just leave it on me. Had I stayed focused, I think, you know, things would be different. I'm still happy with the outcome in terms of, you know, what I've learned over time. And I think it's really those 2 things that stuck out to me. And then also, like, I will say I had a lot of pictures of the office that we got back then. Having people in person is— it's very difficult to beat that, especially with some of the topics that we'll talk about today with AI and all that. We did have a fun discussion. So that's the then. But Neil, I'll throw you something that maybe we could come back to. So I had brought up— we had a debate point around this on when universal basic income is going to happen for the majority of the population. How far do you think that is away, Neil?

Extremely far because we can't afford it. We have issues getting budget approval for anything right now.

Pick like a range, like 3 to 5 years, 5 to 10, 15 plus, 20 plus. What do you think it is?

I don't think it's going to happen.

Okay. Is it a 0% chance?

I don't know for certain, but if I had to pick a number, I would say it's not going to happen at all.

Okay. It's really interesting because everyone across the board had different answers. And then obviously some people are way more opinionated than other people, so they'll like Put their opinion down way harder, but it's interesting. Like I can see that answer coming from you, and you know we'll see what happens overall. But even when I put a poll up on Twitter yesterday, it's like all over the place. Like nobody really knows. My guess is five to ten years. Syed's is fifteen, which is actually pretty fast still. And then everyone else was actually some people were actually more aggressive than I was, like three to five years. I don't know about that. Yeah, yeah. Yaniv was actually three to five years.

So. Oh, wow. Yeah, I look at AI as more of the change we had from things like agriculture, manufacturing, and humans in general. Yes, a lot of them lost jobs, but then we adapted and there was new jobs that were created. I look at AI as the same thing in which— and I'm a big believer in Peter Thiel's camp, and Thiel talks about how A lot of people talk about AI and all this stuff it's going to do. And then you got the doomsday people that talk about how it's not going to affect anything. He's somewhere in the middle. I'm with him. I'm not saying he's right or wrong. I love his viewpoint because he is an investor in a lot of these AI companies. So for him, he actually makes more money if it succeeds. But for him to state that a lot of it's overblown from a job perspective, and I do believe it. Like when Heineken says, we cut off 9,000 employees because of AI. I'm not saying AI can't impact employees. I doubt Heineken actually cut 9,000 employees because of AI. From a marketing perspective, that's a great narrative to pitch to the market. If you pitch the narrative of, hey, we had all these employees, we weren't able to perform and we weren't doing well, so we had to terminate them, that's probably going to make your stock tank because people are like, you're not doing as well. Using the AI narrative is much more advantageous. And I remember CNBC was at a conference, or there was a big AI conference or a tech conference. CNBC, Bloomberg was all there, and they're interviewing a lot of these founders, both the Perplexity founder and the Anthropic founder. And both of them said most of these job losses have nothing to do with AI. Everyone's just using AI as a scapegoat. That doesn't mean AI won't impact jobs in the future, but as of now, when people are like, yeah, we're at Heineken, we're in manufacturing, and, you know, we have all these people in the back office, these big organizations move really, really slow. I don't know if you've seen any organizations the size of Microsoft or Heineken or Coca-Cola move extremely fast like a startup, Eric. I don't know if you have. I haven't.

Yeah, I haven't.

I'll take that as he hasn't either.

Yeah.

So I doubt that they adapted that fast and they were able to eliminate 9,000 jobs. But so I just believe that universal basic income is probably not going to happen. One, because we can't afford it as the United States. And I'm assuming when Eric asked this question to your peer set, I'm assuming you guys mean mainly United States because some other countries already have universal basic income.

I think everyone means the United States.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the United States being more capitalistic is probably not going to do it. But I could be really, really wrong here.

So I'll give you my take on it. So wait, did you finish yet?

Yeah, go for it.

Okay. So my take on it is I think in the long run we're going to be okay, I think. But when you, when you look at, when you look at the industrialization or when you look at when we move from kind of most people being farmers to, you know, most people becoming factory workers, that change took about 30 years and there was definitely job displacement during that.

time.

I don't think it's going to take 30 years this time. But to your point, people are slow. I think these things happen. I mean, there's going to be job displacement. Maybe that job displacement happens for a couple of years or so, then I think we even out. But during that time, maybe, you know, people realize maybe there does need to be UBI because there's going to be so much job displacement. Right. And the reason why I'm saying this, too, is because we kind of went around the room and nobody's actively hiring right now. We'll just put it that way. Right. If anything, some people are looking to cut. And I think that that's kind of what we're seeing. across the board right now and even with like other friends that I talk to too. So that's why I think it's 5 to 10 years because to me, this is bigger than anything I've ever seen. Like the internet was already pretty big. I think this is bigger than the internet. And like even the things people were showing, like some people, like everyone's at different levels on the AI side over here in terms of their shares. But I think that's kind of where like my take is, yes, there's going to be some short-term job displacement. And then I do think UBI is going to happen too. Because why? Because America, I don't think the money printer ever turns off. And so, you know, and I do think this is going into a little bit of politics, but I do think that because we were talking about worldviews and I'll just give you one of mine, I do think we're going to see like the rise of socialism, like really, really push in the next couple of years. So I think, and what do people want in that situation? People want UBI, right? And so the government, you want, you want people to run on a ticket where it's like, oh yeah, We're going to give UBI to everyone, right? That's a president that can win to appease the majority of people.

So I agree, the majority of people would probably vote for universal basic income. I think the majority of the US would be very happy with that, even though there'd be drastic consequences for us to just print that much cash.

Yeah. And Neil, one more thing. I think like this stuff, like, okay, let's say this costs like what if you were to buy it retail, maybe like $5 or something like that at a hotel?

Icelandic water, one can, or are you talking about a whole case?

Just one can.

Yeah. $1, $2.

Okay. So I think because of AI and robotics and everything, I think it's going to bring downward pressure on pricing. And so maybe the price itself doesn't come down, but you're— if you're making $35,000 a year, it goes a lot further because you can, you can do more with that money. That's, that's my point.

Yeah, I definitely agree with you. I think the Icelandic water example is maybe not the best example because companies like that with manufacturing, a lot of it is pretty automated. I do see AI helping in the back office, but with a lot of those companies, their real cost is just manufacturing, and most of that stuff is already using robotics and automated, and it's pretty cheap. But if you take that same example, what Eric's talking about, and you implement it with things like building SaaS products, right, which are very labor intensive, and the people that you're paying for engineers— I don't know what engineers go for, Eric, these days, but hundreds and thousands of dollars sometimes. you know, $200,000, $300,000 for really amazing people. It's very rare that you're hiring good engineers for $50,000. I'm assuming you agree with that statement. He's nodding his head. You know, you give them Claude Code and Cursor and let's say it improves their productivity by double, triple, right? It's now way cheaper for you to end up making these SaaS products, which then makes it easier for you to give it away for cheaper or even freemium or even free. And that starts pushing a lot of downward pressure and just makes the whole market more competitive.

And we will see you, we'll see you next week. Goodbye.