Episode w Dave Gerhardt (B2B Marketing Expert and Author of Founder Brand)

Hello everybody. Welcome to yet another episode of Build in Public Podcast. I'm your host KP, and today I am super stoked to have Dave Gardart, DG, on the podcast. One of the OGs in the podcast space, one of the greatest storytellers that I know in the B2B space. And I mean, yeah, he's smiling, but I actually, I genuinely mean it. I looked up to him and David Cancel, the combo, the duo that Kind of set the podcast and the company building on fire in a way back 2016, '17. And so it's an honor for me to invite him and talk about his book. Welcome, Dave.

You stop that. That's amazing. No, I think one of the really cool things about like what we did in the early days of Drift was just like to connect with people, you know, like you, for example. And I think it's a perfect example of when you can create a brand and create something that's bigger than just a SaaS company. 'Cause like at the end of the day, like, did you really care about conversational marketing? Probably not, but you—

Not even your target audience. That's the funny thing. I was just a guy who had, I mean, I had my founder dreams and I had this community dreams that I had. But frankly, if not for Drift, I say this all the time to a lot of people who want to be storytellers, who want to talk about niches, like, guys, it has to be bigger than your company.

Totally has to be bigger. Yeah, it totally has to be bigger. And it has to be because people need to have some like selfish reason to like, why do I follow what you're doing? And like, you know, I never really wanted to be a startup founder, but like I was really into like early stage startups and SaaS and stuff. And so like I used to love like a company like Buffer, for example. Remember back in the day Buffer was like— Transparent. Yeah, they kind of disrupted like the landscape because they were transparent and they shared all this stuff. And there's lots of pros and cons to that approach. But as me early, like, you know, 27-year-old Dave, like that was a brand that I talked about a lot, even though I wasn't a founder, even though I probably didn't even buy their product, I referenced them as a brand because I liked hearing their story and like hearing how they were building stuff. So, and I think that's what happened for a small amount of people with Drift, right? It was really cool.

It's definitely percolated and kind of created ripple effects all around beyond B2B SaaS for sure. I mean, let's talk about— Can I ask you a question? Yes.

Have you kind of like blown up a little bit?

I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of my experiments blew up, but I'm still the same. I'm still the same kid trying to send the same message. One thing I was just— I was chatting with somebody earlier this morning and we talked about how, like, it's— they say it's always like the message that's important. I disagree. The message is eternal. It's the messenger and it's the credibility and the volume of work and the trust behind that messenger. And you can't fake it. You have to earn it. And that's one of the things I loved about you guys, you and even till today with David Cancel, like he earned his stripes, you know, by being open, by being vulnerable. And I think a lot of founders do that. But the sad part is they don't go back and like narrate their story while it's happening or ever. The worst part is ever. Like there are some iconic companies built and we don't even know what the founders think.

Well, like, I think I agree with you, but I also— I think that— I don't think it's the only way. And obviously I wrote a book about it. I think it's an advantage and it can be used. You can do things in an authentic way without having to be like, what? I need some crazy marketing ideas where it's like, wait a second. Well, If your story is you just worked in B2B marketing as a CMO for 10 years, and now you're starting your own content business about B2B marketing, wouldn't it help bring people into that message by telling them about who you are and why you did it along the way? And so I found that it can be an advantage because oftentimes it's not like, oh, this is KP and he's starting this business because he just wants to get filthy rich. It's like there's usually some story, some why, some interesting catalyst or whatever. And so it's already baked in. And so like, oh wow, there's already something interesting. So let's use that. to our advantage and let's use that to build credibility and trust and use it as an advantage to build our audience. But I think you can still build a brand without it. Like, you know, look at— look like Slack, for example. Like, I couldn't tell you one name of one executive or person at that company. And even in the early days, you know, people might have known Stewart Butterfield, but he wasn't like the face of the brand as it was marketed to customers. And so I don't think it's the only way, but I think in a world where like I'm not the smartest or most creative person in the world, I think that I've just found that it can be an advantage that plays well with a lot of companies.

I fully agree. I mean, it leads us to this— the first question I I bought the book. First of all, I want to say congrats. I said this before the podcast started, we started recording this, but I know it's a massive undertaking to write a book. I wrote a couple of eBooks and I broke my back and I'm like, this is huge. So congrats on the work.

Thank you. That's really kind of you to say that. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to come and do your podcast because I think there's just a certain of like, could the book suck? It could completely suck. But just that you appreciate what goes into creating that and the That was also the reason I want to do it. I care about the message, but I also was kind of just like a personal challenge to do it and put a book out in the world. So it's really kind of you to notice that.

Of course. I mean, it's funny because I think my podcast is now turning into like a new tradition of inviting some of the authors. Like I had Sahil Lavingia, I had Andrew Gazdecki, and I had a bunch of these people who just launched their book. And so I'm loving this new sort of sub-niche. But one thing I took out from reading the book, by the way, it was such a breezy read. I loved it. Some people might say it could have I don't know, like different people have different tastes. And I think at a certain level, a lot of your content is subjective anyway. Not you, like anyone's content. So to me, it's like,

look, you can call it what it is. It's not— it's not— I'm not writing a novel like I wrote.

Yes, exactly.

And I wrote it. It's 180 pages written in the same way that I would talk like on social media.

And I love that about—

I was— I figured that like either people will critique me for that or they'll say, I bought this book to get a message. And for me, it's like, did you get the message? Like, I'm not a poet. I'm not that great of a writer.

I love that about it. Actually, to be honest though, I mean, it was very refreshing. And in a way, again, I'm not hyping you up. In a way, it was really super inspiring to know that, okay, just like how back 2017, '18, you guys inspired me to start the podcast, you kind of again reinforce the message that if I have something powerful and profound that I want to say and I believe it, I should write a book about it. And don't worry about the language and the vernacular and the, oh, it has to be like a New York Times critical. You know what I mean? Like, just be me because that's what people want. People want resonance and relatability. So one thing, let's talk about the first thing, the thesis of the book, the theme of the book. All in all, like overall, you reinforce it over and over again, is that every founder has an interesting story if they choose to tell, open up and talk about it. Now I'm curious, like, why? Why do

you believe that? I would say my theory is oftentimes founders do have a story and you can use it to your advantage. There are a lot. They're definitely boring. There's definitely boring founders out there and boring stories. This isn't some like, you know, mirror. This isn't 6 Minute Abs. But

yes. Well, if you put it that way. But no, I'm saying, I mean, I think I'm just, I'm still curious, like, why do you think this book needed to exist? What was missing from your point of view in the marketing, in the storytelling? What was the void? Well,

like, none of, none of the ideas in the book are new. And like, you know, I've clearly borrowed them from other people, books I've read and been influenced by and, you know, things you just suck up online. But I think what, what nobody had talked about is pointing Taking that focus, that thinking of marketing and social media and community building and audience building online and pointing it specifically as founder brand. Like I had initially, so the initial idea for the book was going to be about like building an audience because I've seen multiple times the power of building an audience in your personal career. Like I had a podcast called Tech in Boston that like jumpstarted my own career unintentionally where I interviewed founders in Boston. I built my old email list. I saw the impact that building an audience had at Drift. And so I was like really going to write about that, the advantage that having an audience creates. It kind of got even more specific than that. And I was like, well, what did you know? What do we do at Drift and what do we do at Privy? Well, we at Drift, we told the story of David kind of specifically, and he was the CEO and the front man of that brand. And then similar thing with Ben at Privy. And then I had kind of been sort of doing the same thing for my own stuff. And I just was like, you know, nobody's kind of talking about this as the founder brand. And I think that we get in these cycles of just like, we're so interested in the tools and so interested in the tactics and the growth hacks and like the, should I be on Web3? Like, and it's just like, you gotta sometimes the marketing strategies that work the best are the back to the basics stuff. And it's like, let's get back to telling the founder story. But today you have this cheat code, even if you're selling enterprise software, which is like you can build an audience of your dream customers online without having to spend a dollar. And so I wanted to focus it on as a tool specifically to help startup founders build their brands and achieve their goals. I'd say it's probably not the most applicable book to founder of a, you know, to a $500 million company. But if you're either a startup founder, like just getting going, or maybe year, like, you know, crossing the $1 million ARR mark. I think that's the target for this. And it's based on a lot of stuff that we did. It's not groundbreaking stuff, but like we, we did this at a couple of companies and it worked. And it's kind of my point of view on a marketing strategy that I don't see enough marketing teams focus on because they focus so much on marketing the product when you can create an advantage by actually telling the story of the founder and building your own audience and trying to go direct to consumers through marketing, not just in like an e-commerce context.

One thing that you open the book with is this concept of, you know, brand being— I mean, combination of attention, trust, and credibility. And I think let's go back to the example of, you know, the stuff you did at Drift, especially around the podcast. I know there's multiple experiments, but let's talk about that. What did you feel was like in a slippery slope, or what was like the tension you had when you think about attention versus trust? Because I feel like that's been one of the things emerging in the last 3, 4 years where I'm noticing a lot of people are slipping into this trust enough. I mean, sorry, slipping into the attention hole and they're just like trying to say something provocative or do something outrageous just to grab attention and eyeballs. But I don't know if necessarily they're thinking through if they're building enough trust.

Yeah, I guess I think of attention differently. I don't think of attention in the way that you framed it as it's like a— it's not a, hey, look at me. It's not a stunt. I don't think attention as a stunt. I mean, like, do I— like, am I in places where I could actually be aware of your message? Like, am I on your email list? Am I following you on social media? If Put messages out, will I be able to pay attention to them? I don't think it means provocative. I think that, yes, we live in the world of social media and I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter for many different reasons. But I think we live in the world of like, yeah, people want— people try to take swings and have like the most binary take and go in such an opposite direction or make a huge claim. That's one way to get attention for sure on the short term. But ultimately the measure is— I also think they're not all— they're kind of like phases, like awareness, attention, and And so I think trust is like how you pay off on that. And so like you can get my attention, but if I think that you're a scam or I think that you're a jerk or whatever, or like, you know, you don't live up to this claim that you make, then I don't ultimately check box number 3, I guess, which is the trust bucket. And so I think they have to be— they're like different steps in a funnel almost.

I fully agree. So I wanted to ask you the other question around your favorite marketing experiments that you had, let's say at Drift and then eventually at Privy.

Sure.

Or the ones that you most The ones you learn the most from.

Okay, well, if anybody who's ever worked with me knows, I'm not the growth experimenter type. I am the go to Google and Google statistical significance calculator. Like, and so I'm much more impulsive and that's my gift and my curse. And I know this will contradict a lot of marketing advice today, but you know, a lot of what, a lot of the decisions that I've made in marketing have not been based on some perfectly quantifiable growth spreadsheet that says like, we want to improve this thing 2%. And I don't know, maybe, maybe that's why things have worked out. Like I've gotten just lucky, but, or maybe, but like, I think I don't have like the super methodical approach to marketing. For me, it's much more about like audience building and community building because in each different scenario. And so I've come up from like, there's kind of always, always been like these feedback channels that like I could get feedback on before we went and did something more broadly. And so like instead of specific experiments, I'm more proud of, and I love this playbook of like, for example, Yeah. For example, at Drift, one of the early— one of the ways that we like built an early audience was by creating this podcast, Seeking Wisdom, right? And that's how we got connected with you. And Seeking Wisdom had nothing to do with what Drift was trying to sell, conversational marketing SaaS software. But it was a podcast about that we were— David and I were sharing like, you know, here's this like seasoned CEO, David, he has a bunch of success under his belt. Here's this like, you know, young guy who doesn't know what the hell he's doing and me in marketing. And we're kind of talking about what we're doing building the company. We're not really selling you on things. We're talking about learnings and books and, you know, routines and habits and kind of just mental model type stuff. And the content of that podcast, it just like after a year we had done 100 episodes, the feedback that we got, it was unlike any other channel. It wasn't obvious in spreadsheets, but people were emailing us. They were talking to our investors, advisors. The word-of-mouth factor on Seeking Wisdom was so tangible that nobody ever worried how we're going to justify it. But instead of an experiment to give you, here's another example. We took David said, okay, we want to do an event. We feel like the response to our— after doing 6 months of this podcast, like, man, there's something crazy here. This is not just like a marketing line. It's like, I bet we could do an event. And so I was like, David was like, we got to do an event. I'm like, great. How about 200 people? And he's like, why 200? And I was like, well, I looked up how much this other company got in their first year and like they're comparable to us. Let's do 200. He's like, no, F that. He's like, 1,000. And I was like, are you kidding me? But he was right because we had already built this audience. We had this podcast, we had this feedback and connection. And it actually— The event The event connection works so well because how do we know what to talk about at this event? How do we know what content to put? How do we know what the event should be called? What the theme should be? Who should speak? We kind of had already felt our way through that through the podcast. Okay, now we go and do this event. Wow, this event was really interesting. This one wasn't great. This one wasn't. The number one session that people went out after the speaker was this. Okay, let's do more things with this person. And so like, it's not so much that I'm like this methodical experimenter, but I think when you understand how to use the channels that we have today, like through social media and podcasting and content, you can use those not just as hardcore ROI conversion rate pieces, but as feedback channels. And even the power of David Cancel having a bunch of Twitter followers. One time he tweeted something about how he never hired product managers with master's degrees, which is insane. People were so mad and he got all these comments. And I was like, we need to turn that into a podcast episode. And then we turned that into a podcast episode and that podcast episode does better than any other podcast episode. Then we turned that into an article. And so I think that's the most powerful ingredient that we have. And that's what I like to take to companies, at least that I worked at. And this is all Revisionist history. I didn't like, you know, I wasn't like, I'm taking this playbook. Like, of

course

I've done and I've learned along the way, but that's the world where I come from, which is like much different than someone like Guillaume Cabane, who was VP of Growth at Drift, and he was at Segment and a bunch of other companies. He's more of like crazy growth experiment type of stuff. My stuff is much more rooted in that. But the learnings that you can derive from that, from a community and content standpoint, is like an absolute cheat code for delivering content to people that they actually care about.

Now take that and kind of run with it in terms of like some other playbooks or experiments you tried at Privy?

Well, so the Privy was a little bit different because there they actually— like when we first were getting going at Drift, the company was being created and it was like zero. And like there was a couple of product directions and ideas, but it wasn't really committed. Privy— and we didn't have any audience. It was like, how do we get people on our email list? And Privy was more of like the company had been around for a while. They had already been at about $10 million in revenue. They had a couple hundred thousand stores using their product. They were like one of the top-rated apps in the Shopify App Store. And so there it was like Okay, how can we take all of those ingredients and turn them into something that's already there as opposed to coming up with it out of thin air? And so there was an exercise in storytelling, which is Ben, who's the founder, he was like, I think we have this opportunity to own— nobody really owns the small business corner of the market. E-commerce is huge right now. It's booming. There's a billion Shopify stores. There's all these other SaaS companies, but nobody owns Small business ecommerce marketing. And I'm telling this story because I think what's so important is this concept that like your story is your strategy. And so Ben at the highest level said, as a company, we want to be the leader for small businesses in ecommerce marketing. That was like the strategy for the company. And so from there, now I can go build a marketing strategy, sales team can go build a sales strategy that, you know, all those things are based off of that pillar. Okay, so you want to be the leader in small businesses? Well, what do you need to do? Well, small businesses are a little bit different, right? The person who you're trying to reach is not an expert marketer. They're the founder, they're doing 15 other things and they're on these channels. Right. And so what was amazing was like going there and creating this story that Ben had in his head about like owning small business, but then playing it out across using all of our own channels. Like we didn't have to hire a PR agency, we didn't have to hire people to try to pitch us and bring attention. We created our own assets, our own channels to basically shape that message. And so like a lot of companies will change their messaging, but they just go change it on the website. Well, in that same year, Privy not only just changed the website to be all about leaders in small business marketing ecommerce, right? So whatever we call it, and but we created masterclasses for small brands, we created a podcast for small brands. Ben sent me a text the other day, it's been downloaded 500,000 times now. And we learned that it first started off as like hour-long interviews with me and like kind of like sexy name, like ecommerce founders. But that's not what people wanted, that people wanted 5 to 10, like really tactical episodes, like here's 3 emails you need to be sending. And so Ben started the pod— like Ben was like, I'll do the podcast. And he was the one talking to customers every day. And so he would just batch record these short episodes. And sure enough, we started putting out a daily 5 to 10 minute podcast about ecommerce marketing tips focused on small businesses. We wrote a book on the topic. We were going to do a huge in-person event on the topic right before COVID But basically we shifted the whole kind of brand marketing and content strategy to be, how do we reposition Privy as the leader for small brands? And then that kind of like plays out in our marketing. It doesn't just— it's not just like a website message that gets changed. We became our own publishing company. It was our own email list, our own events, our own podcast, our own book. We didn't have to wait for others to write about us. We became that company. kind of mini media, media company, that mini publishing company that's attached to the business to help grow awareness and ultimately drive revenue.

You've done this like a couple of times now, and I know you, whether intentionally or unintentionally, you end up building a media empire in a way for your niche. And you've done that a couple of times. So, and I know outside in, it feels like it, like, for example, Drift, conversational marketing was not a thing. Like, I don't even know what the heck that meant.

Right.

But you guys built sort of a— when I say media empire, I mean like newsletter, podcast, Telegram Yeah, whatever. And blah, blah, blah. And the speakers on the topic and over and over and like content guides, ebooks, and almost made it like such an aspirational learning topic that even folks who were not in that niche were like, huh, this is fascinating. This is interesting. Right? Like leaning into it. And like, I wonder how much of that was intentional, like leading, like creating and owning a category. Because, you know, that's something, you know, like, you know, a lot of people talk about.

Yeah.

Was this like, it just serendipitous, but

also it was intentional because I think we believe I still believe this. I think that the best marketing is education and expertise. And especially in the niche that I've been in, which is B2B, you can do all the channels, all the tactics, but nothing works better than being the trusted resource on X topic.

Right.

And I mean, this has been true for a while, right? I think look back to Gainsight created basically customer success and they They had the blog and had the website and had the event that had their dream customers separate from their software saying like, yep, this is the blog that I read. This is who I follow. And I think that also matches like our own, our own lives and our own personal behaviors. Like if you listen to a comedy podcast and your favorite comedian, all of a sudden she starts selling like clothing or tickets to something like you're going to buy those things because you've kind of already seen you've gotten some value, you've gotten the body of work. And I think it works really well in B2B when you can kind Most of the B2B functions are marketing, sales, HR, finance, payroll, IT, security. There's someone who has a job and needs to get smarter and better or more educated about that job. And the way to eventually get them into your product is by being like, look, we clearly already have something in common. You're not just talking to anybody. I'm like, you're in customer success. We make customer success software. If I want to ultimately tell you about my customer success software, first I have to get you reading my stuff and on my email list. And blah, blah, blah. And I think that's the— that to me is like my favorite playbook because then you're turning on who are the internal experts, who are the— why did we start this company? What interesting things are we doing? What takes do we have? What things are we challenging? And so I think the playbook is like focusing on education and expertise.

I love that. And a little bit of BTS too, behind the scenes. I think another thing that shines across your content is I love the inclusion of kids. I love the inclusion of like, you just like, you know, it's the real you. You know, I know part of it is on Instagram, but even Twitter, even on LinkedIn. I think it's got its own magnetic effect of being relatable and real. And something that I love a lot is knowing a person 360. What is it like to be—

Yeah. I think I've changed my tune on that a little bit. I see—

What was the tune before and what's now?

Not changed my tune, but just I'm less willing to open up publicly more and share my kids and share that type of stuff than probably 4 or 5 years ago. However, There's still an important ingredient there, which is to be authentic and to be personal. And so I think you know when you go to somebody's social media page, if it's just kind of all pre-scheduled auto tweets. And so I think the way that I try to do that now is just injecting my actual personality into my writing and into my— you can't reply to everybody on social media, but every now and then to make the same joke that I would make to my friend or whoever. And I think there's different ways to insert that. that other than having to be like, here I am being an awesome dad. I think that works and that can definitely be important to people. But for me, I've wanted to peel some of that back and just separate. I'm not doing my life in public. I'm talking about marketing in public. And when I'm talking about marketing, I can inject my personality into that stuff. But I don't think it has to mean you're documenting your life 24/7. You don't have to do that. That works really well for people, but you definitely don't have to do that.

And it's a spectrum too. I mean, that's something that keep getting all the time is a question like, KP, you talk about building in public all the time, but I have financial regulations. I can't document. Then don't. The answer is just don't. Nobody's putting a gun to your head and asking, give out every transparent bank transactions. That's not the point. The point is, can you come up with an interesting story about what you do that can be relatable? And as you reflect on it, there are so many aspects of your day-to-day that you may think are dumb and obvious. For example, if you pick up an advertising book, that's something I loved about— I don't know, early on I saw a bunch of advertising Books mentioned by you. I don't know if you still do that early on. I used to love advertising in college, and I really liked like there were some books that I loved that you mentioned. I'm like, oh wow, that's cool. I gave no shits about B2B marketing, by the way. I was like, wow, that's so cool. Like you know, one of my big mentors was chief creative officer Sachi and Sachi. So he and I really bonded many years ago on that topic, and I noticed like you and Dave talking about DC talking about that, and I was like, huh. So not traditional B2B marketing. Something a little different. You know, I think that's something that I think about is infuse a little bit more than what people can, you know, people would expect.

I think, you know, every— people like to talk about this line a lot. So like, this isn't a revelation, but it's still people and it's still people interacting online. And I think what happens is a lot of people, at least what we saw like in the B2B marketing or B2B SaaS space, would be like, I'm a B2B SaaS company. And so I must interact on these channels like a B2B SaaS company. We're like, no, no, you're going to the people's mediums. And so you have to So, so like, if you want your message to actually be seen and resonate with people, you have to press pause on the fact that you're a B2B SaaS company and first be like, okay, well, how do I say things in this world? And how do I need to communicate in this world? And so I think what, what David really understood and like kind of passed on to me is he was never thinking about B2B SaaS. He was like, this is how I'm looking. He's like, you know, he's looking at what's happening on Instagram and TikTok and, you know, different messaging apps and channels. And he's like, look at what's happening on, you know, look at this YouTube channel, look at how they're blowing up. He's not like thinking about like, you know, what's, what is outreaches, right? You know, YouTube content strategy. He's like, no, look at— I'm into yoga. Why does this guy have a million views on his video? Obviously, we're not selling, you know, yoga, it's much different. But like, what are the principles in that? And then how can you take those things and then apply them to the niche that you're in? I think I was talking about this with somebody, Kevin Dorsey, this guy KD, you're KP, he's KD. And he was— we were talking about Dan Kennedy, who's a great, you know, old school, like direct marketing copywriter. But he basically says like the number— he has this line, it's like the number one rule to know before writing was like, do they have their own language? Does who you're trying to write to have their own language or way of, you know, talking about things? And I think what we miss as marketers in the B2B context is like, yeah, Twitter is different than LinkedIn is different than YouTube is different than—

Rules of the room, right?

And so you can't just like take your, you know, very average content on its own and then just slap it on those channels. And I'm saying this because I've done this. I've been like, make content for B2B SaaS Put it on Instagram, put it on YouTube, put it on LinkedIn, send out an email about it, and nothing really is happening. When in every example, the way to actually grow something is to focus on one or two core channels and really understand that channel and grow that channel, and then use those learnings to then go to channel number 2 and channel number 3.

It's the same philosophy behind niches too, right? Picking a niche is, you can't ever be everything for everybody. You may become a breakout star about a niche, And the world will talk about you from that lens. And then yeah, you can expand to other things.

Can I give you a real example of that?

Yeah, I love that. I was gonna ask you.

I'll give you a real example of it. Like, personally, for me, I go through this internal struggle of like, I don't want to— I don't just want to talk about B2B marketing. However, I'm really interested in building my own business and seeing what I can do building my own business. And so I have goals, and I said, I'm building a business. And if I'm building a business, the best thing for me to do is to focus on B2B marketing and own and try to like own the niche of B2B marketing versus like, hey, follow This, you know, follow this guy, Dave, go to his website. Sometimes he writes about ecommerce stuff. Sometimes he writes about B2B. Sometimes he posts pictures of his kids. You're gonna love it. That's fun. That would definitely be fun. And I want to do that. And I'm like, I wish I could talk more about consumer stuff. But from attracting an audience standpoint, it is, it is way— the truth that the riches are in the niches is like the truth, right? And so focus on— in my case, it's like, no, dude, focus on B2B marketing. Don't take on these other things. This is where— then there's already, there's already something there. There's already a there there. There's, you know, a couple thousand members, you have this other thing like the signal are there, own the niche. And like even early days of Drift, we knew that we wanted to sell to all of the, all of B2B SaaS. It wasn't just going to be a market.

You write about this, actually, I want to hear about this. Like I was, it was, it was mind-blowing to me because it didn't feel apparent as an outside in. But the way you describe in the book where you niche down to one category, I want you to go finish that.

So I remember very specifically David Cancel was like obsessed with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Charlie Munger always has this quote about invert, always invert. And so like when you're trying to tackle a problem, like you kind of just flip it and look at it the opposite way. And I remember one We— he was like, we need to just pick one persona. We need to pick one niche because right now we're trying to market to everybody and it's like not really landing. We need to stick with one. We need to land on one persona. And his hypothesis was like, it should be product marketing because we need to— in order for Drift to work, Drift can't work if it's not installed on somebody's website. Okay. If there's no code installed on somebody's website. Okay, well, who owns the website at most of these companies? There's demand gen, there's product marketing. We kind of knew a lot of product marketers in like local Boston startup community. We're like, oh, I bet, you know, we know a bunch product marketers, product marketers can get it on the website. And so we're like, let's focus this down on like telling the story. Let's build an audience of product marketing people, because if we can build an audience of product marketing people, they can actually get Drift on the website. And if we can do that, then we can take those learnings and apply that to demand gen, to sales, to BDRs, to whatever. And that was just like, I think one of the biggest learnings of my career was just like that type of thinking. And I think I see it a lot. I work with a bunch of different startup founders today and everybody in that moment wants to— but we know we can't talk about that because we leave out this audience. And Tam, yeah, they're all

worried about the TAM, right? They're all like, oh yeah, our TAM is so big. And I love that you actually say— what was— you talk about it saying, what is the minimal, like the least amount? What do you call that? Is there something— there's a phrase where you say the minimum TAM that you can get by when you think about, you know, the niche.

I don't know, maybe it was minimum viable audience, but that sounds too smart.

Yeah.

But also, like, you know, it's not always— it's not even just a TAM thing, though, because you don't have to do this forever. I think like, you need to use this as a way to build learning and build success. And then It's your wedge to get going, get some momentum going. Like you're trying to go to 5 different personas, you got nothing going. Let's— we can, we can grow the TAM bigger, but like let's nail one use case, perfect that, take the learnings, boom. And this can all happen over the course of weeks and months. It's not like years of just focusing on this one persona.

But you know what I'm going to steal from that though, from that page or from that chapter? I just loved where you said it's today. The focus is on today. It's what— who is the ideal customer your current product in the current version, current iteration can satisfy, can solve For today. Yes, you can lock that in. That could be your niche, and then you can expand later. Oh my God, such a great solve, because this is a common question that I get too. People are like, and they're trying to build it for everybody. And it could be content too, like everybody. No, you can't, you know.

Well, it's often—

You're not Kanye.

Yeah. And Kanye didn't build for everybody, right? Not at first, he didn't.

Yep.

But I think, you know, the other thing is the today piece is important because it's often Oftentimes it's the company or person or whatever with no traction that's saying, but we're trying to go to these 5 different personas. Like if you've gotten traction and that's working, then you're marketing to 5 personas, whatever, God bless you. Keep going. I, you know, you've already got it figured out, but it's usually like, how do we get this thing moving? Like we don't have, we need to, you know, we don't have any inbound interest right now. Okay. Well then like, that's where we're going to say like, let's focus on this persona or let's focus on this niche and build from there. And who knows, you might even learn like, this is the niche that there is, you know, this is the whole business. It doesn't need to be, you know, need to expand, or there's so much more we can go vertically in this.

So you've built audiences on both Twitter and LinkedIn. And I wanted to ask you, like, how's the experience different for you as a creator? How is it different? There was both these 2 rooms, I have to imagine, because I have zero presence on LinkedIn. I have a decent presence on Twitter. And it scares me going into LinkedIn because it feels like there's a lot of flexing, humble bragging going on. And I don't know how I can discern between what's what, but I know I have to be there, be present. And this is the concern that a lot of people who are on Twitter have. And also the easy thing is they shit on LinkedIn saying like, yeah, it's just this. But ideally you would of course want to be present both ways, both platforms. What were your lessons from building an audience in both?

Look, on the LinkedIn dunking thing, I think Twitter people like to do that, but of course there's going to be that. Most of the people, LinkedIn is kind of like a B2B-specific platform and it's people that are tied to some work identity on LinkedIn. Like on Twitter, even if you are marketing manager at Company X, you're more often KP who likes Nikes and is marketing manager at X. Whereas like on LinkedIn, you're like, this is KP, head of demand gen at Oracle. And, and so like that, you kind of go to that platform with that persona and it's a business platform. And so yes, most— it does feel like, you know, posting all these wins or whatever, it's because that's That's what people often talk about when it comes to business. I also don't have a lot of patience for the complaining because I think that the opportunity on LinkedIn, it's an incredible place to build an audience if you can do it. And there's no rule that says the only way to build an audience is to do it that way. And so if you think that everybody's doing it that way, you could do it completely differently. And so I don't know, I think I just defend LinkedIn because I've seen the crazy— LinkedIn has fueled, I would say, almost 100% of the growth of DGMG. And there's 5,000 roughly paying members. And that's fueled through— obviously it's grown from other sources now, but like when I first launched it, when I first launched on Patreon, I got 200 paying members in one day solely from what I posted on LinkedIn because that was the only place that I built my audience. And so what I've seen is, especially in B2B, it can be— it's a really powerful platform to talk about a specific thing. And now people don't like people who talk about just one thing. And so, yeah, of course, like, you know, I expect you to be tired of me talking about marketing or tired of so-and-so talking about sales or copywriting, But that is what that platform is. You can definitely change up the content mix. But I think if you're in B2B, it's the number one content platform to be on. It's more important to me, I think, than having a blog, than even having your own website, because I think the reach that you can build and get from LinkedIn will allow you to do all those things later. Twitter was much weirder. I've been on Twitter since 2009 and taken a really long time to grow followers. And I'm not into the growth Twitter game of Threads and all that stuff. I think they're great. I'm not dunking on Threads. I know people do that. I just mean, I'm not actively trying. I'm not trying hard to grow a Twitter following. And so it basically took a decade to get to 30,000 followers on Twitter, but I saw a period of 2 years where I added 100,000 followers on LinkedIn. And I think that wasn't so much of like, it wasn't that I said some groundbreaking things. It was more just like the, I think content match, content audience fit is really important. I'll give you an example. I'm doing this live event with the DGMG community. And it's about SEO and how to measure SEO and what to— what you need to know about SEO and biggest mistakes and myths. And it has almost 1,000 people signed up and it's like, which is like 900 more than any other event that I've ever done. And it's not because we came up with some genius hook or title or promotion strategy. It's just so clear. Like this is like the— so it's such an obvious thing. It's just like the audience of who the audience is, which is mostly B2B marketing, B2B SaaS people. So clear that SEO is a sore spot, is a hot topic.

And that's why they're coming. Yep.

And so, and so I think that part is just like very underrated in content. And I think LinkedIn is like the perfect— B2B SaaS specifically is like the perfect niche to build an audience with LinkedIn. That said, I also think it can be used for anything. If I was an e-commerce founder, if I was— because I would say every investor, every advisor, every partner, every employee is going to be on LinkedIn. And so I think if you're tied to something at work at a company, huge value in being on LinkedIn And you don't have to tweet about B2B, you don't have to write about B2B marketing. You can be, you know, you could share your e-commerce journey, your whatever. The reach that you can get from the platform today is still huge. And it's just, it's just much different than Twitter. But I do kind of take signals from each to sometimes create content.

Would you say like if you have to pick out like 1 or 2 specific tips from your journey on LinkedIn, what would those be for content creators?

Niche, our favorite word of the day, which is niche. And so for me, when I was talking about what I was eating and my workouts and my kids and this marketing lesson in this book and this random idea. My following was growing, but it wasn't like, you know, it was not on this pace. When I just kind of lasered in on just kind of only talking about marketing and B2B marketing, I'd say that's when— and doing that really consistently— I think that's when things really start to happen. And so again, the more you can focus on a niche— a friend of mine sent me his like new website last night. He said, what do you think of this? He's like, I'm starting a blog and I want to talk about building businesses and being in entrepreneurship and Fitness and wealth, and I'm like, you sound like every other person who wants to build an audience on Twitter. Like, what is your hook? What is your story? And so, like, he's trying to work on some type of like a name for that. And I think that's just it's it's so powerful. It's like

food and wine might be demystifying Wikipedia articles. Just

kidding. Yeah, yeah,

right. This is like I feel like we should be get some kind of money back or credits, you know, for reading shit like that. It's just wild to me sometimes. You're like, come on, the lowest hanging fruit. I see it's like the listicles on I don't know ten years ago. Like every blog had a listicle. Like BuzzFeed blew that up. We know it works, but it's just not intellectual, or I don't know, I just feel like it's just dry to me. But I know it works. I respect the hustle.

So you got to focus on a niche, you have to commit to publishing consistently. Because I think the number one lesson is that you should be using social media to, at least for the first year or so, to find your voice. It's not about growing a following. It's about like actually figuring out how to condense, how to like turn your brain to thinking about this a lot, and then condensing those into short, witty, quotable, or rants. That's a habit that you have to build up over time. Very few people can just start posting whatever they want and it's just going to land with people. And so I think it's just as much of a writing and finding your voice exercise in the first 6 to 12 months as it is of like, I'm going to build an audience.

So it's funny you mentioned voice because my next question for you on the lineup was around podcasting and literally about voice. So what were, as you reflect about all the podcast episodes you created, what were some key lessons that, you know, you wish you knew, like when you first started? Like, what would be your top 3 tips or pieces of advice that you would give to 27-year-old Dave about podcasting specifically?

I don't know, a lot has changed, like in the timeframe. I think like, just like in general, one of the things that I didn't expect with the benefits of podcasts, I think one of the huge ROI on having a podcast is learning. And I feel like I've learned so much about B2B marketing because I've spent hours and hours and hours getting to interview CMOs who are way better than me and ask them questions and figure out how they think about things. And so I think that podcasting can be an amazing cheat code for learning. Now you can't dress it up and disguise it as free consulting, but I think if you can, it always works better when you're genuinely interested in the topic as the host and that And that kind of leads to another point, which is like, I even just like the way you talk on this podcast is really, really good. Where like a lot of podcast hosts, they're like, all right, next, next question. And like, I'm like, hold on, did you listen to— did you hear anything that I just said? Because like, I actually like, we should have a conversation. Like, and I think a lot of times it's not—

I left a clue for you to expand on something. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Like, what, you know, it's— and look, it is hard over Zoom to like not cut somebody off and then try to play that game. But I think to do it, to be genuinely curious and to actually see like, yeah, look, I got my prep notes, but I don't know what— this could go in any direction today. And I want to have the freedom to do that. I

didn't come prepared for your LinkedIn rant, man. You just went off on a rant and I'm going to clip that out. I'm going to put that on Twitter because it's really a thing that a lot of us who are super active on Twitter, it's so easy to joke and razz on LinkedIn, but you're pointing to the surface area that we're missing out on. And I think something that's definitely weighing on a lot of the Twitter creators' minds. It's just they haven't articulated it. And I think that could resonate well. We'll see. But—

Or just makes for good content to be on Twitter complaining about LinkedIn. Makes for good Twitter content.

Exactly. That too. I want to ask another thing about podcasting before we wrap that up on that topic. Where did you ever feel like you were not asking enough smart questions to the other guests? Like, especially when you interviewed some really famous or CEOs or—

All the time.

How did you like grow your IQ? Like, what I'm worried about sometimes is like when I interview Gary Vee, interview like, you know, Alexis, and sometimes she's in there, I'm like, I can't I'm interviewing some of these people who had hundreds of thousands of interviews like CNBC, all these great hosts, and I'm just a guy asking the dumbest questions in my view. So I'm like, how can I be smarter?

Well, I think you got to figure out what you really want to ask. I think for me, it's not about the smart question. It's like, why, if you had an hour with Alok Sohani, what do you want to get out of that?

It's a very selfish thing. I

truly agree. But I think what happens is it's very easy to be like, so you first invested in this company and like, oh, you dropped Dropped out of college, like, skip all that. Like, what do I really want to talk about? Like, if you have Gary Vee for an hour right now, what do you want to talk about and get out of that? And so I think anytime you go back to like the where'd you grow up, history type stuff, that can be good on some podcasts. But I think for the most part, like, if you, you know, the best questions— and I think Tim Ferriss actually does this really— it's very different, but he does this really interesting thing where he finds like, he starts off his interview with some like super, super, super super deep random question that like only he knew. I think like Howard Stern used to do this or something like this.

Even the guy on the, um, what's— who's the guy with the— I mean, the hot sauces guy. I forgot his name, but he does the same thing. He finds out like— he does the most research and finds out about like the 2001 version of whatever you did.

And so, and so I think that that's a— the reason that works really well is because it instantly gets somebody comfortable and like talking. And I think even I've heard people talk about like, you know, they start off like, like You and I, we had some background and so we had some kind of natural small talk, not forced, like, how is it in Vermont today? But I think anytime you can get somebody going, I've seen people like, hey, what did you eat for breakfast today? Or what's the last book you read? Because I think a lot of times people just are kind of in interview mode and they're just waiting for you to be like, okay, did the interview start now? Okay, first question. Versus you really want to get people talking. Sometimes I wish that I could eat and I even do like, like when I have people on my podcast, I wish that I could just record like the second somebody comes in because something happens when like you do the natural talk and then you're like, all right, all right, cool. So yeah, so we're gonna go for about 40 minutes and I'm gonna hit record right now. And then you hit record and like this person just like transforms completely into interview mode. I'm like, I want to interview, I want to have a conversation with you. And so I think the more— Yeah. Also, the other thing that I do, and this might be annoying to the other person on the end of Zoom. And Zoom is a weird interface. Obviously, it's challenging. But like, I do this because I think there's things that I know that my audience or whoever's listening wants me to hear, or like, oh, he glossed over that really thing. I'm— I know this is going to be annoying, but I'm going to interrupt him. And I'm gonna say, hold on, KB, KB, hold on. You mentioned that you had this doc that listed out X, Y, and Z. Can we actually go back to that for a second? Because I think like, the more you don't— like, I listen to interviews sometimes, I'm like, ah, I wanted to know that more. Like, I wish— like, don't let that gloss over just because it's like a conversation. Don't just go to next question. Like if you said, if something interesting, like ask somebody to come back to that.

And

you don't have to do it in an annoying way. Be like, well, how much was your salary at that job? Like, but like, if there's things that you are genuinely curious to know, don't let them go by. Be like, hold on, I'm gonna ask this. And I'm gonna go back to that. And I found that that's where a lot of like the really good nuggets were. Like, I remember interviewing some, it's like you're interviewing someone, they're like, yeah, my first boss, you know, told me blah, blah, blah. Okay, cool. Now I'm gonna be like, wait, your first boss told you what? You know, like, I want to hear that. I want to go into those things. I think you have to bring that to that level of it. And this is also just one style of podcasting. You know, you can make kind of more storytelling, like narrative type shows too, right?

Right. I mean, do you ever feel like you could just be podcasting for a long, long, long time? Like, do you?

Yeah, every other month, and then I get burnt out and I don't want to do it anymore.

It's really hard for me to believe that you would get burnt out with podcasts. Someone like you, a natural conversationalist.

Yes, but I'm like, I'm also naturally introverted. And so like, there's some element of like, getting up for this and like wanting to do it. And it's like, it's, and it's also, it's easier to go on somebody else's podcast sometimes.

I feel the same way. Because also there's post-work, which I hate.

Yeah, there's post-work. But like, you know, you can use like Hatch, you can use my homies at Hatch or whatever. But like, yeah, I think it's the, it's kind of like working out for me. Like whenever I'm doing it, I'm like really happy with it. And I'm like, wow, that was awesome. That conversation was so good. I'm like a crazy person. Like literally, I take notes, like I stop people and I'm Scribbling down notes. Not—I haven't done it on this, but like when I'm hosting, I scribble down full pages of notes and like.

And what happens to them?

I actually. So I have one right now. I took a picture of it on my phone, and then it's on a Trello card with that episode because it's on my backlog. I don't. I need to write this episode. I haven't like relaunched my podcast yet, so I have a bunch of backloads and so backlogs. And so I need to like batch in a week or so, go and write headlines and descriptions, and then I also pick out like which clip that I want to. And I have a team that helps me do the podcast production and that stuff. But that's the stuff that I don't outsource, which is like, what's the title? What's the podcast description? Because like, I scribble down things like, you know, all throughout the show. And so I just take a picture of it. And so then when I go to write the notes, I like remember the things that we talked about. And that, that's actually my favorite system right now. I used to try to like be way more complex than that and like try to write, you know, write in a Google Doc or do something. But I found like literally scribbling on this.

Yeah, I do that a lot too.

Yeah. Because it's like, even though it's like barely legible, it just Something like a mind trick that will bring my back to like, oh yeah, I remember what he talked about in that section. And I'll be able to—

It's also fun. It's usually the dumb words. It's never like a very glossy definition, description of what happened. It's always like the thing that I didn't expect you to say is what I document. It's funny.

I'm trying to find—

it's so funny how our minds work. But

yeah. And it just like, it also helps because like to the point about like being curious and being an interviewer and stuff, like I will also make notes like while you're talking. So I try not interrupt you. And then I'll like make notes or mark down things or like oftentimes when I'm— when you're talking about something, I might think of the thing that I want to ask you next, but I don't want to lose that train of thought. And so I'll be like, ask, you know, I'll make that note and then can go back to it, you know?

Yeah. So, well, it just reminds me of one thing that I wanted to ask you a few minutes ago. Having a CEO— I mean, this is something you cover in the book, but like having a CEO who gets it in terms of marketing and brand is a huge weight off your shoulders. And I mean, it has to be, but I'm curious, having a CEO who gets it too much? How does that feel? I bet you nobody asked you that.

Who gets it too much? Oh, man.

This is a direct attack on David Cancel. Just kidding.

I think it's— look, it's a positive thing. It's like, do you want to play, you know, do you want to play with LeBron James? Or do you want to, you know, fit, like put up 30 points a night on a different team? It was an amazing learning experience. I think, you know, one of the— comfort is the enemy of growth. And so like, when you have somebody who gets it on a better level than you do, you're going to constantly be pushed to do more, to do the next thing. There were many times where I was just like, man, I wish I just had an average CEO and worked at an average company. And this week I just want to come into work and do 2 average things and go home. And that's not a snipe at anybody. It's literally like, it just felt like the pressure to do something great. Right. Always challenged. I mean, how much I grew from learning that stuff is just insane. I feel I hear myself explaining things on calls with clients or helping other teams or whatever. And I now see that what I've learned is the fundamentals, or not the fundamentals, but the principles. And so the tools and technology are going to change, but I feel like I have some of my own principles now that I've learned through that process to be able to make decisions. And now I feel like I could do anything. I could put on a 10,000-person event or launch a high highly produced podcast or do billboards or create some new like revenue campaign because, you know, you're forced to learn and get outside of your comfort zone. I think the pros outweigh the— definitely outweigh the cons. However, I'm also like incredibly biased in all of the advice that I give because I can only talk about the experiences that I have. And like, I happen to have been, you know, as far as a marketing leader, 2 for 2 with CEOs and companies. And so like, yeah, I have total empathy for like people who like— I just get— it's just like a catchy line that I get to say on Twitter. Like, you know, life is too short to work for a CEO who doesn't get marketing. But that's like not the reality for most people. And there's plenty of CEOs who don't. And like, what are the chances that I just picked 2 in a row and now I'm done? And so it just happened to work out that way. But yeah.

Do you think you are currently employed by a CEO who gets it? Yeah, myself.

Yeah, my CEO.

How difficult or easy it is to play both roles now? Because now you're both the main sort of like the main person, but also you're the marketing leader together in the same—

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's— look, I'm very fortunate and like what I do is not a grind and it's not challenging. And so like, I don't have a huge operating plan, you know, like, and so I'm very fortunate from that standpoint. But there are definitely some times like I had to have a talk with myself over the weekend about like, what are my priorities? Like, what am I focusing on? What, what are my 2 goals? And like, because I started to have a bunch of things creep in that were not core to what I'm going to do. And, you know, there's nobody else To keep you— and that's just one example, but like, or just, you know, spent like an unnecessary amount of money on something that I don't need to be doing right now. There's nobody that's keeping me in check. Right. And so like all the things that I hated as an employee, like the CEO seeing like the budget and being like, we spent 10 grand on that. Nobody's doing that to me now. And so like, you know, there's definitely big trade-offs of that. And so I had to have a talk with myself this weekend and just do a little bit of like reprioritization. But I've never been a big goal setter. Like my goals, like the goals that I said are like 3 or 4 bullet points in a year. Like I have 2 specifically for like this year, for example. And like, I don't have—

Is that something you shared somewhere? I'm curious, like, would you mind sharing those 2 bullet points? Or—

I mean, they're very silly. But one of them is a revenue goal for DGMG. And then one of them is a golf goal. I got really into golf. And I have a personal goal of wanting to qualify for the Vermont State Am, the state amateur tournament. So like, that's because this is where I'm at in my life. And this is I'm working on. And so those goals are much different. 3 years ago, my goals were like, be CMO, buy a house, do this or that. I just use these 2 guiding principles as like, this is the thing that threw me off track this weekend. I got off on a bunch of different ideas and I'm like, hold on, are these things bringing you closer to either one of those 2 goals? And by the way, the weighting on those goals is probably 80/20 on the first one, but it's really fun to have a non-work goal and it's mentally satisfying to be working towards that. Right. And so I just use those 2 bullets as like, right now they're just on a Post-it note under my computer. And they just give me a reminder of like, as I'm about to go on some random, like say yes to some random project or something that I really shouldn't be doing. And then I go look at those and I'm like, does it map back to those? Or like, and so I'm like, okay, my goal is to grow DGMG to X. Well, biggest pillar that I have right now is I'm going through a rebrand and I need to get that done. And that's my blocker right now. And so this week what I'm working on is making progress on that. And those just 2 things act like kind of north stars to just make sure that I'm working on the right stuff as defined by me. So, you know. I could be very wrong, but that's how I operate, at least.

I mean, that's, uh, those, those two sound like pretty impressive, silly. I mean, depending on how you look at them, but also meaningful. That's what, at the end of the day, right?

Yeah, it's not, it's not silly. I just, I just didn't want people to be like, this, this guy putting golf as his goal, you know? But like, I work for myself now. I set my own rules. I set my own hours.

That's the freedom, right? That's what you get. Yeah.

So I've also, I've really set two on purpose. I've like, in years past, I've been like, I've tried to set too many goals that are just not real goals, like revenue This goal, family goal,

audience

goal, audience goal, you know, wake up at this time every day goal and like—

45 books a year goal.

45 books a year. Like, exactly, KP. Exactly, exactly. I'd be like, read at least X. Now, I think what's more important for me is like habit, building habits. And so like, I don't have to put goals for that because like, I am with my kids every morning, I'm putting them to bed every night, we're having dinner at the table every day together. Every morning I do read, I read for 10 minutes a day, right? I have workouts scheduled on my calendar. And so like, I've, I've changed, like, I think I think systems, for me at least, are so much more important than goals. Like,

yeah,

that's just on my calendar.

I mean, yeah. Well, I mean, it's somehow— I think it's probably a character flaw. Like, I've always had— every time I had a daunting, like, ambitious, like, $100K goal or whatever, like followers or something, I sucked at it. I gave up, like, within a month, within a week. But every time I said, I just want to have a great conversation with one person a week, or 4 DMs, or something like that, and it felt such an easy achievable thing, I outperformed 100%. I think it's my own bias. I mean, I could be a weird person, but every time I had a massive goal like that, when I announced in public, people say accountability in public, I actually never worked for me. In fact, so New Year's is like the worst time for me. I'm like, I'm just like zoning out those 3 days because I don't want to be part of any of this parade of everyone ballooning up their goals just to show that they have ambitious goals. But I think deep down, to your point, the reason why I asked about podcasting is I think I see you I just love it. I know it's probably— it's still— I feel the same way in terms of like, God, the freaking tax on it. But I don't see you quitting.

Once I get into it. Yeah. Now once I'm warmed up.

Yeah. So I wish you all the best on that journey and all the creator journey and the DGMD journey and on the golf journey too. Hopefully I'll see you on national news. Is that the goal? I'm just kidding. But I just wanted to say thanks for being on.

And that's actually a perfect example. Last thought on that is the marketer in me keeps struggling like, man, I should maybe like— I should document this golf thing because I think that'd be content and that would help me get into the golf niche. And then I'm like, no, have a hobby.

Yes,

for this, having your hobby, have your own thing. Because next thing you know, then I got to be like tweeting about it and I can't even be like present. And so it's like a— take a discipline to just be like, how about just have a hobby for your own like, yeah, inner satisfaction?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, don't we all? It's just such a struggle, but it's a good place to be, you know, because you got the other thing going. So yeah.