You don't need to be a surgeon to find your brand DNA; with Pete Sena of Digital Surgeons

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James. And today Pete Sena is joining us, and Pete is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Digital Surgeons, and he's all the way over there in New Haven, Connecticut. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, good to be here.

Pete, we're gonna hear from you. You've got experience of, you know, over 20 years, and you're an entrepreneur yourself many times over. And we're going to talk about how an entrepreneur can find their DNA for their business and also How they can become in a category of one. Tell us, how do you help the entrepreneur to get noticed? Yeah.

So I think the first thing that I always think about with entrepreneurs is I ask them to tell me their story and to tell me about their company and what they're aiming to do. And ideally, I would be able to get that question answered in like 30 seconds or 60 seconds or 2 minutes, but typically it takes me like an hour or more to sort of unwind the story that they're trying to tell me. And ultimately what that comes down to is positioning and understanding, like, how do you put yourself in a category of one is something that I really think about a lot because there's so much noise out there today. Right. You know, there's so much, you know, Uber for dog walking and this business that's kind of like that business. So I think with so much noise out there today, consumers are so easily just mulled over with messages every single day. So one of the things that I think about a lot is how can I help them tell their story in a way that's going to resonate, where it's going to resonate with their internal staff, where it's going to resonate with their customers, and more importantly, how it's going to resonate with the market. So that's ultimately where I start with folks.

Great. And, you know, you talked about the digital noise. I mean, entrepreneurs are as receptive and victims of the confusion from the market as well, which is maybe why they take so long to get their story out. Tell us, how would you guide an entrepreneur that can't describe their business in a minute? How would you help them to do that?

Yeah, so I'm a really big fan of simplified frameworks. I feel that we've got a series of different exercises. We'll share more about that today as well. But I think taking them through a series of exercises, having a number of conversations with the key stakeholders. So what I mean by that specifically is, let's assume it's a small product company. We work with a lot of software as a service companies. Typically I'll interview the CEO and the founder. I'll interview like the head of technology or head of product, you know, again, depending on the size of the company. So when I say stakeholders, anyone that their opinion or the things that they're doing would largely affect them based on how we communicate the product and how we communicate the vision of the company. So I'll talk to those folks. And what I'm looking for is what I call the intersect. So what I always look at is, you know, what is the pain point that the market has that the customer has? And then ultimately, what is the promised land when they deliver their product on their best day? And that vision comes true for that CEO or that founder. How does the vision of the founder and the pain point of the customer intersect? And that promised land, that unlock is what I often search for. And then I find a way to help them communicate that in short order. And then the goal of my engagement, if I'm successful, which I like to think I'm fairly successful with typically about Sometimes 6 to 8 weeks later, when I ask the same question I started with, it takes a little less than 2 minutes for them to tell their full story. And hopefully they can say it in a sentence or 2. And then that sentence or 2 can be used on their website, can be used in their branding, can be used in all the different things. So I'm trying to simplify it as much as I can here, Jim, but hopefully that tracks for you and the audience.

Yeah, no, I love the idea of the intersect between the vision of the founder and the pain point of the customer. Pete, why is it so difficult for the entrepreneur who started the business to solve the customer's problems to articulate those? What would you say is the number one bottleneck that you see repeatedly?

Absolutely. Well, what I say about problems is when we make problems personal, it's a lot easier for us to articulate them in a way that matters. What I see a lot of times with CEOs and founders is that they're solving a problem for a large TAM or total addressable market. And they're looking for that product market fit. So like, what's the thing that like everyone needs in this large market, as you know, as an example. So a lot of times what they end up getting stuck with is a lot of jargon. You know, we're in the business of innovating on transformational communication platforms that unlock new paradigms of growth. And it's like, no one talks like that, right? So I think being able to unwind that and say, We make it so people can talk to each other easily on a program. You know, like that might be a simplified version of that. We all know what that means or might ask a question or lean in with curiosity. So I think a lot of times the CEOs and founders kind of get stuck in their own smarts. I work with a lot of very smart people. Sometimes they're PhDs or they're academics or they're, you know, entrepreneurs. So a lot of times because they're all over the place, they speak in non-human communication. It's a lot of jargon. And they get lost in themselves. So I think that's oftentimes what I see happening a lot.

Yeah, really interesting. You say an entrepreneur in a way doesn't want to limit the scope of the business, so they don't limit the scope of the vocabulary. And then ironically enough, it becomes counterproductive, doesn't it? So do you have a framework then that you help the entrepreneur to go through in order to identify their category of one?

Absolutely. Yeah. So we have a framework. It's called the Brand DNA Framework. We've actually recently released it as a, like a free download so people can just play with it themselves. One of my visions, Jim, is that I believe that creativity and curiosity in the world are broken and they're definitely broken in business. And what I've seen just myself and my own story and the story of many of the entrepreneurs I've worked with and for over the years is that when you are living a curious, creative life, you have a much higher chance of being happy in that life. And, you know, happiness in many ways often leads to success if done properly or with curiosity and creativity. So I say that because we've got this framework We want to release it to everybody. It's called the Brand DNA Framework. And essentially that framework is 8 steps that we take people through. So in each of those steps, there's a couple of different frameworks. I'll give you the more simple one just on the discussion today. So we use a framework that we call ACT, which is basically just an acronym, A-C-T. And that framework lets you figure out who is the audience that you're talking to? What are you communicating? So A, C, what are you communicating to that audience? And then what are the triggers and the touchpoints that are going to ultimately reach that person? So just to sort of simplify that for a second, this morning, I was rushing to get to my office so I wouldn't be late for our podcast here today, Jim. And I usually go to Starbucks in the morning. So if Starbucks was this particular brand, and someone came to me with this vision before they were the Starbucks we know today, I would say, okay, who's the audience? The audience is really busy entrepreneurs that don't have a lot of time. That need a boost in the morning. That's the audience, right? Getting really niche because everyone wants and needs coffee, right? But if you're marketing to everyone, you're marketing to no one in some cases. So by just picking that one niche, I often say, Jim, the riches are in the niches, right? So let's take that niche. Okay. So I'm a busy, time-starved entrepreneur and I need that extra boost in the morning. So that's the audience. What are you communicating to me? Well, you're communicating to me that you've got a fast, consistent caffeinated beverage that's going to get me excited to jump out of bed in the morning. And then where are you going to reach me? What are the triggers and the touchpoints? Well, you're probably going to hit me with a Spotify ad, or you might hit me with a billboard ad, or you might hit me with an Instagram ad or a TikTok ad showing me other time-starved entrepreneurs and how much they love it. And then I'm going to identify with those entrepreneurs, and I'm going to want to buy Starbucks. So that would just be an example. I do this with students all the time. I do this with venture-backed CEOs. That's the ACT framework or ACT. What's nice about that is I like to do it with a printout or you can do it digitally too. But the nice thing about a printout is you can just quickly fill out a bunch of different hypotheses. Then you can crumble them up and it's impermanent. Because a lot of times what I find, Jim, is people need to serve multiple different types of audiences. Some people call that an ICP or ideal customer persona or customer avatar. There's a lot of buzzwords in our space. I like to keep it simple because my goal is that I believe that all humans are storytellers. You know, we go back to the times of being, you know, in caves. So I want to arm people with the tools to do that. So the ACT framework is one of those tools. What the Brand DNA Toolkit is, or the Brand DNA Framework is, the 7 steps are, I won't go into all the details, but I'll just quickly fly through them because I think that, I know this is a short podcast, but the 7 steps are name and architecture is the first step. You know, what is your name? Name says a lot about you. What is the purpose? So number 2 is the purpose. 3 is the vision. What is the clear vision that you have? So what does the world look like today? What will the world look like in the future? What will it feel like in the future when you've achieved that promised land? So that's the vision. Position. How do you position yourselves in, you know, in the category of one, as we talked about earlier? Personality. How do you express that personality? You know, that's the 5th step here. Rituals. What are the things that you think about? You know, Starbucks, it'd be tall grande venti. You know, if it's Google, it's, I'm going to Google that. If it was Uber, it's, I'm going to Uber that. So what are the rituals? The language frames that people use. What's your voice and tone? So that's the 7th step in the DNA. And then last but not least is the visual language. So what that DNA is, and again, I'll, we'll include some stuff in the show notes later, right? But what that is, you can download it, is it's a set of questions and prompts that the founder and their team can go through. And by answering it, it helps them get to that clarity. And by going through these different exercises, like the Brand DNA Framework, like the ACT exercise, Jim. What it then gets them to is what I like to call the intersect. Some people call it the North Star. I like to call it the intersect, which is, you know, where does that pain point of real people, real humans that have customer pain points, where does that intersect with that promised land that you're going to deliver? And then what does that unlock look like? So that's typically how we get them to that. And it's a pretty quick and efficient way to do it. And we've refined it a lot over the years. I hope that answers the question.

Yeah, it does. And obviously, I will include the links to all of this in the show notes. So people that are driving, don't please try and drive and take notes at the same time. Pete, I have a question. You have a podcast called Forward Obsessed and you're helping entrepreneurs to always be thinking ahead, but entrepreneurs also have to sort of plan for customers today and customers that might be thinking about buying them in the future. You know, how do you reconcile this need as an entrepreneur to always be If like looking ahead, the forward obsessed, and you're also addressing today's customer and today's employees and today's partner requirements. How do you reconcile that duality there?

I love that you said duality and I'm going to, because I think of it as a duality. So let me answer that question. So I believe that a brand or a company's position should likely focus on a 12 to 18 month time horizon and that a brand or a startup's vision should be permanent and the vision should be this thing that you're always chasing. So I'll give you an example. You mentioned, you know, internal combustion engines. So I'm thinking of cars, right? One of my favorite examples of brilliant positioning was Volvo. And again, I had nothing to do with this, but I like to tell the story because we all know who Volvo is. So Volvo's vision early on was to be a safe automaker, right? And make cars. And obviously now they're getting into electric, they're getting into all different things as every smart car company should be doing at this point, because who knows if we'll even be driving our own cars in the future, right? But interesting thing is the positions can change, visions can change, everything can change because, you know, change is the only constant we have in life. But what I like to do is separate the position from the vision and what that allows us to do. So in Volvo's case, Volvo wanted to be the safest car company in the world. They were one of the first people to put seatbelts in automobiles. The 3-point harness was something that Volvo invented. And an interesting thing that most people don't know is they could have kept that technology, that intellectual property for themselves and had the safest cars and said, hey, we're the safest cars. But what they did was they said, we're going to release this almost like Tesla released a lot of their patents open source. What Volvo did early is they released it to everyone. So now everyone could have the benefits of safety. Volvo's always stood for safety. So if they were doing a particular position where we said we wanna be the safest automaker that makes internal combustion engine cars, right? If that was a thing, I'm not saying it was, but if that was a thing, the nice thing about vision is the vision for them is to a world where they're in service to the drivers, right? They wanna protect the drivers of these cars. So when they start to make it personal, make it emotional, and have that sort of story around that. Their position can change, can pivot, but their vision can remain consistent throughout the years. And the example that I always give there is like, it doesn't matter if Volvo's making an electric car, a hover car, a self-driving car, whatever. What matters is that Volvo is the safest car company. And that's both their position, which they've owned for a number of, a number of years, but it's also tied into their vision. So what's interesting with entrepreneurs Car companies are a little bit different, I think, in some cases than like a software as a service, right? So I have companies that are solving problems with software for businesses like workflow problems, or like one of the examples that I would sort of give, right? I'm trying to think of how to not give too many exercises for the audience for those that are driving. But one of the things I like to think about in a positioning exercise is a classic elevator pitch exercise. Right, which we've all probably seen. But it's a simple thing, and I'll just we'll include a link to it. But at the highest level, it's very simple. It's for insert target audience who insert statement or need your product is a category that statement unlike and then the product name. So an example that I give a lot is like for people who get a ton of email. And spend over an hour of their day laboring in email. Superhuman, which is a product, is the fastest email experience that lets you busy entrepreneurs spend less time in your inbox, more time building your companies and changing the world. Unlike other email platforms like Gmail and other things that will slow you down and keep you FUD down with Inbox Zero. Superhuman gives you the shortcuts, the speed that you need so that you can move at the speed of the market. So I just made that up, but one of my example products that I've spent a lot of time with these days is Superhuman. And if you haven't tried Superhuman as, and you're an entrepreneur, you're gonna wanna try it. I don't own the company. I'm not, I don't work with them directly. I just love the way that they've positioned themselves. So I say that because 5 years from now, email might not be something that we still do potentially. You know, we might be getting downloads to our brains through some chip in our head. Now, that being said, the position of Superhuman today, their positioning might be all around, we are the fastest email experience. We are the best email experience. The vision of the company is much bigger than that. If I was to state it, the vision of Superhuman Is to get entrepreneurs spending less time bogged down in correspondence and more time transforming their company. So 5 years from now, if email goes by the wayside, you know, Superhuman has a choice. They can keep chasing that vision, they can change that vision, or they can just shift the position, evolve the position into email going away and being replaced with what, that type of thing. So that's just an example, real time on the fly. I hope that tracks, but. You can see going through that elevator pitch exercise, those are the ways that I think companies can start to understand how to be in a category of one. What are the problems you solve for your customers? And then how do you find that unlock through language that gets you there?

Pete, you do. And obviously we'll put links to that in the show notes as well. Pete, you're an entrepreneur. You've been running Digital Surgeons for over 18 years. You've got a team, I think you mentioned over 50 people and you I have been involved in many other startups. How have you got yourself noticed? Because, you know, I always like to ask fellow entrepreneurs how they're getting themselves, you know, into the market and be known.

Yeah, no, for sure. So one of the things that we talk a lot about at Digital Surgeons is that what makes us different, there's a million agencies and consultancies out there that do branding and brand experience and marketing. I mean, you can Google it. I checked a couple of years ago and there was over 50,000 or 60,000 service providers in the United States alone. And that was just by some study. The number's probably much higher than that when you think about the gig economy and solopreneurs and single shops. So when I was thinking about that a couple years ago, I was trying to find our differentiation and our sort of strat line was all around this concept of we design demand. And what I thought a lot about was what is the proof?

Like what?

So the answer to your question is proof. People need to see proof. If you know, they first, they need to know you, then they need to like you, then they need to trust from you. And then if you're lucky, maybe they'll buy from you. So in my case, I'm selling to founders. I'm selling to brand and business leaders at challenger brands and enterprises. And our promise is all, you know, we're going to help you design demand. We're gonna help you grow your company. Now that's great, but every other agency can say the same thing. What not every other agency or consultancy can say is that they are makers, marketers, and entrepreneurs. And what I mean by that specifically is we have built and launched software ourselves. We understand what it's like to make things. Physical things, digital things. We are marketers, both for ourselves as well as for our clients. And then last, but most importantly, we are entrepreneurs. And as experienced operators, you know, I've been an angel investor for a number of years. I've helped a number of companies get to IPO. I've helped a number of companies acquire companies or sell to an acquirer. And I think the proof of being able to have done that and be doing that is what sets us apart. You know, a lot of people can make you a website, can design you a brand or a logo or a marketing campaign, but not a lot of them have done it for themselves and built a business. So I think what that does is creates a tremendous amount of empathy for me and my team because we think of your money, the customer, as if it's our own money. And I think that sets us apart in a big way. And I say that, and it's easy for me to say, but I'm saying that based on what many of our clients have told us. Right? You know, one of the things that I always say is, a brand is the space that you occupy in the hearts, minds, and wallets of your customer. It's the thing that people say about you when you're not in the room. That is what a brand is. It's what you believe, it's how you behave. And there's a lot to that, right? Like, if you go back to what branding is, which we could talk a whole nother episode on that, but I say that in closing, because that is ultimately what I believe everyone should do if they're trying to become a noticed and not an unnoticed entrepreneur, which is listen to the market, listen to your teams, listen to your customers, understand what others are saying, listen to their pain points and think about how their pain points and your promised land can come together. And what does that promised land look like?

Wow. Pete, thank you. And you mentioned that's the closing comment and it's a really deep and thoughtful one to close out with us. So Pete Sena from the Digital Surgeons over in New Haven, Connecticut. Obviously, we could carry on for much longer, but we have to leave it there. So thank you so much for sharing really so many things about becoming the category of one, this intersection between pain points and visions. And you're plainly someone who's experienced the pain point as an entrepreneur and solved those problems yourselves. And so that's why you're doing it so successfully for your clients. So thank you for sharing that with me today.

Thanks so much, Jim. It's been great to be here.

So you've been listening to Pete Sena over there, Digital Surgeons in Connecticut, USA, and I will include his details and all the links in the show notes as always. And until we meet again, I wish you the very best and encourage you to keep on communicating.

Thank you.