Why 99% of Startups Fail and How the Smart Ones Beat the Odds

Most founders won't talk about because, you know, everything, everybody's perfect. You've been brutally honest about losing money, making mistakes.

I lost a lot of money by making the assumption that other people would want my help. Feeling good and being good are different things. If good is measured by profit, right? Like, you're not going to be a global anything if you don't dominate a local something. There's more money in being, getting 80% of a small market than getting 1%, you know, of a larger market. Yeah, just learning to also say no to bad clients is a big, it's a big flex because, you know, you're the— we're on clients who will ask for discounts. It means that our talent is really good and that if you hire somebody who stays with your company for 2 years, it's not the exception, it's the norm. Um, and that's kind of where I, I like, you know, I didn't think that I could build a billion dollar company just because of having really good talent.

What's your take on AI replacing human vetting?

I think it's this, okay, it's never going to replace the, the relationship. It'll just replace the details to get there. And I think, I think that's a curveball I threw to you, but get on a fucking plane, go network and meet your clients face to face.

So welcome back, guys. We got Amir Ryder on the show. We're going to jump right into it. So today we're talking a little bit about the iteration signal. And that's building category leadership through losses and learning a different bit, a little bit of a different angle. So look, Amir, you've been on, you were one of the first guests on the podcast 3 years ago when it was sales driven. Um, you've shared your story on the last year's version about robotic sales, now building CloudTask. And since then you've done something most founders won't talk about because you know everything, everybody's perfect. You've been brutally honest about losing money. Making mistakes. You always talk to me about it. I think it's quite valuable, but iterating your way to category leadership. I have not seen anybody right now doing the marketplace play like you. And today, online, in that, in base view, CloudToss is the market leader for global talent. It's a cost-effective price. You help companies scale. And it's without the recruitment overhead. Like, I've used the service. It's fucking great. So the real story on this, though, is not about success today. Okay. We all love it, but I want to learn about Amir and what you learned in those losses. So if it's all right with you to dig in, you ready to go?

I'm ready to go. Yeah, I'm ready to go.

All right. So it's been 3 years since you were on the last show. Like I said, what's the biggest thing that's changed? Not just in CloudTask, but how you think about building this business?

Uh, the biggest thing that's changed is that we made the decision to focus on talent and talent only. And I think, um, well, some of my biggest failures was was just like, you know, thinking that because I had XYZ intentions and because those intentions were something that I would like if I was a sales agency owner, thinking that other sales agency owners would like it too, right? So I think I like made this assumption that sales agency owners would be happy that there was a marketplace trying to get them more visibility, more branding, more SEO, more revenue. And software companies too. And what I found was that they didn't, they didn't really want that help. They didn't really want a community, right? Like, you know, I remember I put like all of the sales agency owners into a WhatsApp group and like, it was not a fun place to be. I think everyone, you know, like everyone was looking at each other like, enemies when I was adulting. You guys are all, everyone does a different thing and everyone's like, you know, and like everyone just didn't like each other and they didn't like me 'cause of that because I like brought everyone together and they were like, oh, they didn't see the marketplace as like, oh, here's, um, a company investing in, you know, trying to bring us the right clients. They're like, look, this is a company that's bringing our enemies together. And, and, and, um, I lost a lot of money by making the assumption that other people would want my help. And originally a lot of the success for CloudTask was just really good talent, right? And really good people. And, you know, it took me 2 years to get back to my roots, right? And, you know, look, if I cut my losses earlier and just focused on talent, we would be in a different place. I try to get, you know, and obviously this happens to bigger companies. You don't hear Meta talk about the metaverse anymore, right? And their whole name has changed, right? And, but they had to go to college to make billions of dollars in mistakes, right? I didn't. And, it was a very humbling experience and very much aligned with reality, right? Like this 99% of businesses startup fails. So it's like, don't expect, you know, every business to succeed. And statistically speaking, I think you need to, I think you need to be like really real with reality, right? And if it's kind of funny because people are like, oh, all these lead gen agencies that their campaigns fail. I'm like, no shit. Like, If 99% of startups fail, why would not 99% of lead generation agencies, like how could it even be that like 80% succeed but 99% of the companies fail? So like I think people have to just kind of look at the data and, and learn how to, to cut their losses, cut their idea fast, right? Like if your idea feels good, it's very different than feeling good and being good is, are, are different things. If good is measured by profit, right? So yeah, I learned the hard way that, that, you know, not focusing on one audience was a very costly mistake. And, you know, even with what you said today, you're like, hey, the marketplace has a lot of good global talent for low cost, right? And like, if somebody chose to hire somebody in America, it wouldn't be low cost, right? It's low cost because you access the filter of Latin America. But instead of correcting you, I'm like, great, like, come to us for low cost, right? We could build a huge company of,, you know, 20,000 people getting hired just in Colombia. It doesn't have to be global, right? So like your urge to be global sometimes might not align with what your customers want and you need to like kind of focus on what they really value, right? So if you really value low-cost, high-quality talent, well, that's great, right? That's the niche I need to focus on, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So look, with that point, I want to peel that back just a little bit. So a lot of founders will hide that. I've lost a shitload of money. I've made the silliest— I wouldn't say they're the silliest mistakes. I've made some good mistakes, right? But they're character-building mistakes. They've been positioned so well that the aftermath of that mistake has been exponential growth or exponential income. But walk me through one specific moment. I know it was one of it you just mentioned, uh, not focusing on the exact avatar that you believed in, but One specific moment where you lost money and what you learned from it that changed how you operate today.

Man, it's just the focus, right? I think the biggest learning is that it's this learning that we all knew is that especially when you're in a startup, like you're not gonna be a global anything if you don't dominate a local something, right? So I think the biggest thing is like, and it's written in a lot of books, right? Like the Cold Star Problem, it's documented all over the place, right? So I think, Yep. The biggest reminder, 'cause I kind of knew this already, was just to focus on dominating one area first and before expanding. And any company you knew about, right? Like we talk about Amazon, they had a really good day today. They're up 10% in the stock market. Go Amazon. They dominated books first, right? Like nobody thinks of Amazon as a bookstore, right? Yep. We think of it as like either— Barnes Noble. What's up? Robotics, right? All this stuff. But they were a bookstore. They dominated being an online bookstore first. So just dominating one thing first before expanding and realizing that like, there's more money in being, getting 80% of a small market than getting 1%, you know, of a larger market that pulls you in different directions and, and, and, and you become known for that. And so that's a big, that was a big learning focus, focus, focus, focus. But it, it sounds so amateur, right? But I think, That's why it's good for people to have advisors and people that remind you of some of the things that you already think you know, because sometimes you need to be told because you just kind of fall into that pattern of, you know, being an entrepreneur makes you see the future and it also is a person and a, and a, a problem, right? And I think that's why it's really good to find a partner or co-founder who's maybe less visionary to kind of get you focused in on like your, the vision, why he's there to, to support you in the first place.

That makes sense, you know? Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Would you be open to sharing what was it that you tested that failed and how much it did cost you as a business?

It was bringing business to service providers, right? Like they even got upset with me when I called them an agency, right? Like I'd be like, hey, you're an agency. And they blocked me off that, which was strange. And then selling software, right? Like for me, the idea of like, hey, I'll sell your software is a no-brainer. But like, man, I got, you know, shout out to Jeremy from SalesBot. Like the conversations I had with this guy about like selling his software, right? Like it was like very much friction, right? Like, you know, like they'll take your introductions, they'll take your email deals, but God forbid they take a customer through you. It's very, and I thought it was a very easy concept to understand, but they looked at me like I was insane when I said I was a software marketplace. So just assuming that people would see that, that was the two things.

Yeah, I thought, look, I thought the software marketplace was, it was interesting. You do have a few players in the market that do do that.

I think it's gonna take time. We didn't remove them, right? It's just more of an upsell, cross-sell type thing where like people hire talent and then we're introducing software and services. So there's a big difference between a soft, a talent software service marketplace versus a talent marketplace with software and services, right? So that makes sense. So I do see a future, but it's also a future at size, right? I think the biggest thing that I had to realize that like they're, they're, once you do $50 million of revenue, they're all gonna want to work with you. But until you're then, they don't. So it's understanding that it's like dating where like you're 20 years old, you're gonna get nothing. But when you're 40 years old and you've already won the race, you get everything. If that makes sense, that's probably gonna offend people. That's how the world works, right? Yeah. So timing, right, is very important.

Yep. You know? All right. So through those stages though, so you've been running your agency for like a long time, mate. And Through those stages, you come out stronger. Through those failures, you come out stronger. So what does stronger actually mean to Amir though? What capability or insight do you have now that you didn't have, let's say, 3 years ago?

I have a huge ego, but also egoless at the same time where I'm like prepared to execute or walk away and I don't see myself as like, okay, I have to have a billion-dollar company to be successful. So I think just being fortunate and lucky for what you have in the moment, it, it, you know, uh, you know, I'm 42, I have an awesome wife and amazing kid. I, I got really good people, I have really good family and just being lucky for what you have versus living in a bubble where like, oh my God, if I don't create a billion-dollar company, I'm a loser. So I just think like, uh, yeah, having more, or being able to like separate your ambition from like defining your, your success in life.

No, it makes a lot of sense. Do you ever pay attention much to fulfillment when it comes to that?

Like being happy and grateful? I definitely do. Yeah, I definitely do. I definitely am happy and grateful. And I realize that sometimes the things that I wasn't happy and grateful for was actually my business. So it was like, those are the things that were bringing me unhappiness in my life.

And yeah, you gotta flip it, right? It's all about perspective. So I want to talk about the power of no. So even the other day, I liked it. I was sitting at a restaurant, I was having my lamb bryony. Money, extra portion of lamb. And I was speaking to Amir and, uh, uh, we had a conversation and a no came up. And I, I respect the no because no is control. No is power. No gives you room to do the things that are important. And you've built CloudToss by saying no to things that don't serve a purpose. That's hard for a lot of people though. They wanna say yes to everything. I've met and worked with people that say yes to everything. But what's one thing you said no to then? In the last year that would've made you money but would've hurt the business long-term?

Uh, I think I didn't say no enough. Um, that's a great question. I, you know, I think, I think I was the one saying, I think I was the one who was me. People need to say no to me. So I guess what I'm like thinking about is like, I wish my team said no to me about software and service. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You know, I think I needed to hear no. Um, you know, I, I think now I made that change and, and, and the team is rallying around it. But I, um, I think, and this, I think, I, I think I did until I made this no to say no to software and services. That's the big no, uh, in my life. And then, um, yeah, just learning to also say no to, uh, bad clients is a big, it's a big flex because, you know, you're, you're the, the wrong clients will ask for discounts. I had a guy the other day, I'll give you an example, they, they hired a candidate, uh, and the candidate's working there for 2 years and they want to do a circumvent. They want to circumvent the marketplace, which is a small fee. If you want to take someone off the marketplace, it's 20% of the first year salary. And the guy wrote an email saying, because this person worked for 2 years and you collected 8x% for small fees, we think you should waive the circumvention fee. And I'm looking at myself, I'm saying, This is like backwards world. If I got you a rep that lasts for 2 years and is awesome, wouldn't you want to like double my circumvention fee and say good job? Are you like, like, like literally like documented the fee being like, because you did such a good job. So what I realized is like, that's how a company that doesn't have a lot of money thinks. Because it's like, even when you're tipping somebody, you're not like, hey, you took care of my car. There's no scratches on it. I'm gonna take back that $5 tip from you. And it's like, so like, you'll never get that from a company that's like publicly traded or has the income. Like, wait, that's my reward? My reward is a, is a punishment. So, um, staying away from like startups and companies that like, you know, have to kind of have to negotiate that. And that, that actually even happened with, um, yeah, it happened with a company called Warmly that like affected our relationship too because they were like, doing the same thing. Hey, we hired somebody who's doing great. We want to give you 50% less. It's like, you gotta stay away from these startups that like grind you, you know?

You gotta look—

They're assholes. Yeah, you gotta look at companies that like, you give them a price and they're okay with it 'cause they value your quality. 'Cause anybody who like, anyone who wants a long-term partnership that partners with discounts, it's just not gonna really be a good partnership. You know, that's kind of what I found out.

I would agree with you. I would agree with you. So let's talk about category leadership. I wanna shine a light on CloudTask. So there's been a load of work done on CloudTask and the, the audience that I'm putting you in front of right now may not have any idea. They might be looking to hire a big sales team. So you are not just the talent marketplace though. You are a category leader in that marketplace, especially in Latin America. What does that actually mean?

It means that our talent is really good and that if you hire somebody who stays with your company for 2 years, it's not the exception, it's the norm. Um, and that's kind of where I, I like, you know, I didn't think that I could build a billion dollar company just 'cause of having really good talent. I thought there had to be something different. But you've also interacted with, you know, you, you are actually ironically a client through our marketplace.

You've engaged one of the agencies.

Yeah, I've hired through it. And the person is good. And the reason why the person's good is 'cause I built a relationship with him. So I, I, I realize that the power of, you know, building a community, um, is separating us from other people where like we kind of like know the people we built, we, we help people regard like even if someone's not working with CloudTask, let's just make pretend like someone's like not even employed by us and they ask me a question about career, I help them. So like I'm helping people that are working at different companies every day. I'm helping people that don't work through our marketplace. So I think by, I think what really makes us really better is our, the quality of our talent and why the quality of our talent is better is because the culture of our company is AI speed, innovation, and everybody who comes to us is also in that kind of culture. That's the people we attract, right?

Mm-hmm.

That's, that's kind of what we're doing. Like the person that you work with in the marketplace, like he's from Venezuela, he's from a country that's like not doing too well, but like he's tech savvy, he, he studies, he knows, you know what I mean? Like he's not perfect, right? He's a powerhouse, but he's like a hardworking guy, right? You know what I mean? It's like, it's like that I could build a company on hardworking, dedicated people. People, right? So I think— absolutely, I think that was like the big aha moment, right?

If that makes sense, you know. All right, cool. So you help companies scale. So there are companies out there— I think there's a couple of, a couple of people watch this that want to go really fast. You do it with a cost-effective price without the recruitment overhead. For those that don't know who that means, break that down for me. What is the actual cost comparison between hiring through Cloudtask versus traditional—

It's, it's also liability, right? So like, like you, like we, we take, so basically the old way of hiring would be you put a job opening on LinkedIn, you get, uh, AI and auto, you, you get people applying to your job, they don't even know what it is, right? They just apply to everything. And with CloudTask, we've already gone through 1,000 applications to get one top rated, right? And with us, you are paying a small, um, payment fee of $199 a month plus the person's salary, and you're, you're able to, um, actually have no liability globally, which is great, right? Because, um, there's a lot of nuances when it comes to contractors and employment, right? So all people are contractors, they're being paid through our marketplace. So we give people, companies, the peace of mind to hire fast, hire top vetted, right? Uh, and also know that if you're going to release them, you're not going to have any liabilities or lawsuits, which is actually something that's a big deal for a lot of companies because companies want to— they don't want to come down to Colombia and open an office. They don't want to pay taxes. They don't want the liability. They want a credit card and just pay monthly, right? So we make it really easy for people to hire and low cost, 'cause at the end of the day, when we do a 20% of the 12-month salary, that's because a person chooses to circumvent the marketplace. They're like, we want everything, but we want you to be a recruiter, and then that's that fee. But it's much cheaper when it's being paid through the marketplace. So it's basically, you know, we basically take that, instead of that lump sum fee, we spread it out on the seller over time.

Absolutely. All right, cool. Well, you cracked something that a lot of marketplaces struggle with. So it's the quality at scale. How do you, when those that want to come to you, they want to understand this, how do you vet talent globally or in Latin America and how do you maintain that quality when you're moving so fast and you've got so many candidates to go through?

It's because nobody can get an approved profile without us verifying it human. So it's really the system we have of how they sign up their profile and then we have humans that are actually verifying, like we have AI that checks for things that are like, hey, profile complete, you know, it's checking the things that are, that, that don't need that touch. But then we have a position called the remote career coach where we actually reach out to people and like we find out their real story because you'll have somebody who, you'll have a guy who worked at a company and, and sold a 7-figure deal 10 years ago, but his last company was a, a customer success person for like a cleaning company. And instead of just talking about the 7-figure deal that he sold 10 years ago, he'll talk about the, the customer success role. So we help people understand how to storytell their career. We help tell people, understand what people care about versus their full story, right? You give a guy, he might open up a video and say, hey, you know, my name's John. I went to school to be a biologist, but I couldn't find work being a biologist, and now I'm in sales. And, and to, and to the viewer, it sounds like you're not living your dream. You're just doing sales. And that's a lot of people's stories. So it's common. So we help people understand like, what is your actual story? What are the softwares that you've used that are actually in high demand, right? That happens is that you get better matches and you get people that they, they, they don't know what their best job is because they don't know what their highest value is, right? So we know what demand's out there, what position's out there, and we can tell them, you know, what to focus on. And that's why we call it a remote career coach because it's kind of like having like a guide. Did your guidance counselor ever help you with your career?

No, no, but it wasn't necessary. They helped me pick up, they helped me pick my colleagues.

By the time you talk to a guidance counselor in a job, they're like two separate worlds, right? With us, the remote career coach is like a guidance counselor, but it's at the point where the person's actively looking for a job, right?

So we're bringing— that makes a lot of sense.

We're bringing that guidance when they're interviewing, right?

Yeah.

So it's like taking the thing that worked or the idea that worked and bringing it into our business and adding value. But instead of being like, I'm your guidance counselor, go to university and spend $80K, learn about activism, right? And go get a job after that. We're like, today, these are the AI tools that are in demand. This is the difference between an SDR and GTM. This is how you automate your workflow, right? So it's bringing that guidance to the people. It results in really good talent.

I really like that. So I'm a CEO. Let's play a scenario very quickly. I'm a CEO of a large company, whether you're in the range of $10 million to $100 million. I've got a large team. They've not been working out. I need to cut costs. They waste months on recruitment, interviewing. HR, you've eliminated all of that effectively with what you just said. So walk me through an actual process. I'm a CEO of a company. I've just told my HR guy I need SDRs today. What happens in the next 24 to 48 hours with you?

You book a meeting on our team. You, you meet with one of our account executives. They input your job opening, which is 7 questions on our marketplace. You approve the membership, um, via email, and then you start getting matches handpicked to you same day. And then you show up to the interview, you do your interview process. You ask for whatever questions you might need, follow-up things, follow-up tests, questions, and then you make a job offer. So just, you know, it's, it, it's not that you don't need an HR team, it's that we have an HR team baked in here. So if you have an HR team, we're just gonna accelerate their work to move faster. We're doing more of the auto— we're doing more of the busy work so that they can focus on the interviewing, right? Because your HR team has to do a lot of stuff, job openings., screening applications, calls, references, right? And then an interview. So we're just letting you say, focus on that interview, focus on the actual onboarding, the interview, the things that, you know, we're your, we're your, we're your partners, right? We're, we're, we're doing this, right? Like before Airbnb, you'd have to like find a local person, find the— they made it easy to find. It doesn't replace the fact that you need to look and pick something. It just allows you to focus on quality. So like, we're not saying, hey, there's something wrong with your HR process. We're just saying that like, look, if you work with us, you can focus on the quality of the candidates. You can focus on the quality of the onboarding. We're not involved in your onboarding. We're not involved in making the selections for you. So we're just making sure that you can focus on that.

Absolutely. So look, there are other marketplaces out there. I've seen a few. I've heard of a few. What is your unfair advantage?

What have you built? I think it's our SkillBridge program and how we have a relationship with over 10,000 GTM-related SaaS products. And we have an eye on their, um, universities, their training. I think our unfair advantage is really combining software with talent focused on GTM, which is broad. GTM is sales, marketing, operations, product, UX, touches a lot of things, right? So we have 104 roles. Um, and, and an unfair advantage is just our, our very close relationships with the software companies and their universities that, um, I think just gives us unfair advantage.

One thing that I appreciate more than anything about you is your understanding of unit economics and the way you, you understand your numbers, markets. I, I would like to talk about numbers with you. What are the unit economics of Cloudtask in terms of how you think about customer acquisition cost versus lifetime value in a marketplace business?

I think that the higher the acquisition cost, the longer the LTV needs to be, right? And I think that a lower customer acquisition cost can only work in a world where you're basically have a 3-to-1 ratio, right, of cost of acquisition to, to, to, uh, net profit. And, and I, I look at it more the lens of, um, the network effect. So like, while our margins are not super high, they're scalable, and happy candidates refer more candidates that are high quality, and happy buyers refer more buyers. So for me, I look really down the line of like, who's a repeat buyer, who's referring people, because it changes What's that gonna cost? And that's really how our model works. So just having a vision on the fact that you're going to, you're going to scale at a different number. It's not, it's not about, hey, I'm gonna have 100 customers. I need to have 10,000 candidates actively working through our, our marketplace, right? So I, I, I guess my opportunity is, is really how do you get people to keep coming back for more? And that's why having people, giving people good jobs and good talent, and it multiplies. The economic, like when you get a customer that costs you, call it $1,000 to make $3,000, when you get that customer to refer his friends and, and his client refers people, you can 3X it. So I don't know the best answer, but I look at it more of like, are my customers and my sellers actually sending people our way?

And they are, which is great. You're balancing supply and demand. I think those are the two, like the two-sided challenges of having a marketplace. So which, Which side is actually harder to scale and how do you solve the challenges?

Buyers side right now is harder to scale because it's like you, you're building buyers and sellers, right? So the way that we are working now, how I solved it is by having a candidate-led growth where I focus on getting candidates first and then I market the candidates so that when people see a candidate, they're actually active to hire, right? They're available to hire. You've seen some of this where it says like available candidates, you, you've seen some of my stuff. So I, The way that we decided to kind of, instead of focusing on the buyer and seller side, we decided to focus on the seller side and let the seller side propagate the buyer side by who they see as a real person that they can really hire. Not like who they see is this fake person that doesn't exist.

Now you're in my system.

Now, like, we want, like, I want Maria. And we're like, cool, we're gonna tell Maria. And like, there's a 75% chance Maria's gonna be ready for the interview. Unless she turns the job down or got hired already, right?

Yeah.

That's kind of how I look at solving the problem. It's like by like focusing on quality candidates will drive quality buyers versus let's focus on buyers and let's focus. It's like instead of focusing on both separately, I'd rather drive buyers through candidates. And you've seen that because you reply to good candidates. Like whenever I post a good candidate, you're like, you're like, I want to hire that person. Like you're like, you know, you don't even want to hire the person. You're just like, they're good. So you're like, you just say you want to hire them, right?

It's true. Look, I cannot lie. I had the best performing rep in our business was what was Maria from the marketplace. And if she sees this, she'll be upset because I didn't do too well by that. That was one of some of my learnings in my business. But in hindsight, the owner has to take responsibility. These owners who do hire these people, they really have to be careful. They have to take responsibility for what they're getting into and manage this relationship really good because at the end of the day, you are either changing somebody's life for the better or the worst. And, um, obviously the worst is not good. So AI, you have been pumping AI content out and it's changing how companies hire and evaluate talent. I think you probably know Mercor, I think the hiring company, the recruitment company.

I know they're a billion-dollar valuation, but I've never met any of their clients and I've never seen their product.

Have you? I have absolutely not seen any of that.

I've logged into their website. Let's find a review for them.

G2 Crowd. Uh, G2. Let's do that.

So while you're doing that, I always hear about them. I never, I never actually met any of their clients. It's gotta be cool to be able to be a billion. Like, I think more people know me, you know what I mean?

And I don't have a billion-dollar valuation. This is, this is the only reason. The only reason I know them is from 20 BC. How do you spell it?

From the M-E-R-C-O-R. Okay, well, let's see if they have any reviews. Uh, I'm looking. They have 4. Okay, so like, that's what kind of makes me a little bit— I, I don't wanna share my screen on here.

I could, but you can, you can share it.

Why not?

Oh, look. Yeah.

Like, it could be the— is somebody here? Does anybody know what Merkur does? Because people bring it up to me all the time., and I'm like, I just know that, okay, Merkur, right? An AI vetting, brings the same level, right? Uh, right.

Okay.

Let's see. So Merkur is a great company to work for and very well paying. So that's bullshit, right? Uh, competitive pay and provides valuable technical assistance. Okay, great. That's a, that's a, that's a company works for them. That's, this is not the place to leave that. Easy to use interface., easy UI payment was easy to receive without hassle. So they're, they're also, this is another person that's getting paid through Merkur. Their site's extremely easy to use. You can hire engineers within just a few clicks.

Um, Calvin B, no picture, looks very reputable.

Um, Merkur people are super fast and responsive. I don't have much to say about dislike.

Great. Okay.

Verified commercial. It's like, I, I, all right. Billion dollar company, 4 reviews, 2 of them are sellers.

I want to—

that is very interesting. Can you do me a favor? Can you meet with them and see what they offer? Because other than like AI technology and recruitment, I don't know what they do.

Well, this is what makes Amir a very different character. Amir, he's very, very— let's just say he's able to react off of anything. So let's ask— let's dig deeper into that though. CloudToss is way more proud of Maybe I can bring them clients, Mark. We'll do that. Let's do it. Let's, let's do a post, we'll do a post-interview on it. But on that, on the cloud task piece and, and cloud task using AI, what's your take on AI replacing human vetting?

I think it's this, okay, it's never gonna replace the, the relationship. It'll just replace the details to get there, right? So it's just meant to make it faster for us to have these relationships, if that makes sense. Uh, for now, right? Like, I don't know what's gonna happen later on, but for now I think it's like, hey, did— is their video look good? Is it high quality? Did they say their last name? Is their profile filled out?

Right?

But like, actually meeting somebody, it'll just help us know who to meet faster so that when we're working with people, we have less, you know, it's like 9 outta people that we meet with, 8 get hired versus you gotta meet 30 people. So it's like, I look at it as a tool of just making sure that the one-on-one meetings increases the amount of hires per one-on-one meeting.

Absolutely. So look, most founders are going to struggle with this. I've had, look, hiring a team is, that's why I quit my agency because I hated it. Like I hated being an agency owner. So CEOs that are doing this, should I found this, sorry, should I hire an agency, use a marketplace like CloudTask or build an in-house team?

How should I make that decision? Based on what you got going on. If you don't have a, if you don't have the people in the right places to manage, onboard and measure success, work with an outsource agency. If you have all the tools, the messaging, build it in-house or work with an agency that focuses on market validation and then copy what they're doing 'cause they let you and execute it. But we have a lot of companies that are doing both. A lot of companies, like, go talk to like any billion-dollar company, they have like 10 agencies and hundreds in-town reps and they're all adding to the pipeline. So—

Absolutely.

You know, I think if it's either or, then you don't know the math and you're in the beginning. But if it's both, it's 'cause you know that you know both numbers, right? So it really depends what your stage is at, but we can help you with that, helping you answer that. So if you ever need any help, you know, anyone's listening, feel free to ask a question publicly, privately, we'll answer it.

Okay, so those are— Absolutely, okay, well look, some of those, some of our guests are building a playbook right now. You've scaled CloudToss very fast. Very quickly, what's one thing you did to scale that most founders skip, that most founders skip or underestimate?

Hiring really good people that follow your vision. And that's why Cloudtask is on the uptick now again, now that we're back, because when I was working with software recovery services, they weren't my people, right? They, they, they, so now it's like, okay, it, it's knowing your audience, knowing your super strength, and, and finding really good people.

That makes sense. All right. So if there's an investor out there looking at a portfolio company's hiring process, what's one red flag that tells you they're going to struggle?

If they have to do 6 interviews to make a decision, um, they're going to struggle because they're not going to get the best talent fast enough.

Uh, people are going to— why, why is that number? Why did you pick 6 and not 5?

Because I've had people who've done that. Well, you know, we've had people that like get really good talent. Don't make them make an offer, make them wait. Then they get hired, then they get pissed at us. I see it all the time. So like, and then also a company that doesn't know the difference between, uh, a passive candidate versus unemployed candidate. If you have an unemployed candidate, they're gonna say whatever it takes to get a job. If you have a passive candidate, they wanna be impressed. Why do I— so I had a passive candidate once, she had a good job, she was working somewhere else. She was, and, and she talked to the CTO and she's like, the CTO didn't really sell the product good. And like, I wasn't really impressed. And then the company was insulted. They were like, She didn't like the CTO. I want to go because she's got an awesome job and she's looking at you like, will you be a place for her to grow for next 5 years? There's a big difference between hiring an unemployed person versus an employed person.

Right. That's very true. So we're wrapping it up now. Got 2 more questions. 3 years from now, when you come back on the podcast, well, let's hopefully it's a year. What will have changed about CloudToss?

What's the next evolution for you? Awesome question. I think, I think the biggest change next year is that you're going to start seeing candidates showing off the tools they're using versus the college, right? So like, you're going to start seeing candidates being like, my name's, you know, Shane. I'm an SDR who uses Salesfinity. I'm certified in using it. I make 1,000 dials a day. This is how I do it. So the big change you're going to see is that you're going to see talent That is vocalizing how they're gonna bring AI to your company versus how you are gonna, you know, look at your team of 5, pick the best person, teach him AI. So I think the big thing you're gonna see is that all our people are gonna be talking about how to, how they use leverage AI so that they're irreplaceable.

That is a, an awesome way to present a candidate. So last question, you built category leadership by being open about losses. Saying no to distractions. What's one tactical challenge you can give to our listeners, founders, or investors for them to do in the next 30 days? Okay.

Last tactical challenge in the next 30 days. I would say look at, look at all the events in your industry. And go to the mall because the next 2 to 3 years are gonna be the last years that big meetings and events are gonna be important. And I think, I think that's a curveball I threw to you, but get on a fucking plane, go network and meet your clients face to face.

I think that's a fucking great way to wrap it up. So guys, that is the pod. Amir, where can people find you, learn more, see CloudTaskView?

Where can they do all this stuff? CloudTaskView.com or Amir Reiter, A-M-I-R-R-E-I-T-E-R. I use my first and last name on all social media. There's no like, like weird nicknames where you're gonna find me. I like me. Yeah, I, I have to deal with that because all these candidates, you know, their names are XYZ and then their WhatsApp is like a smiley face picture, right? I'm like, make it harder, you know? So I use my first and last name for everything.

I don't have a crazy nickname. Cool. That's it, guys. That's the wrap. That's the show. Thank you very much for taking the time to watch this episode and staying here the whole way through. If you like what you saw, click subscribe. It'll take you 2 seconds. It helps me reach amazing guests and deliver valuable content for you. And if you ever want to find out what we do as a business, go to www.gorevintel.com. And that is the place where we help you make decisions that are backed by intelligence, and it's for founder CEOs. That's it for me for now. I'll see you on the next episode. Bye.