AI for Agencies, Content From CEOs... What’s Actually Worth Doing?

0:02So this was interesting. We've been getting some emails and calls from people from venture capitalists in the United States. more so in the San Francisco-ish area. I think one of them came from New York, but it was mainly San Francisco-based VCs. And I wouldn't say they're the biggest funds. I wouldn't say they're the smallest funds either. Assume they can write check sizes from 50 to a few hundred million. And when I say 50 to a few hundred million, they would lead around and they would bring in other people. So then that way, you know, you can end up having more firing power. but I don't know exactly what check size they wrote, but most of them say, hey, we want to lead around, right?

0:43And when we're talking to them, and I'm more so the one talking to them, and we're not trying to do anything. I'm just curious to see what they're seeing the market going or they have a different perspective than us. No joke, we're seeing a common trend in which people are like, yeah, we just want to take AI and automate what a lot of people are doing, and we're going to make your agency double or triple more profitable. And to clarify on this, they're not saying the next day we're going to be double or triple, you know, increasing in profit. That would be their goal, and they're trying to figure out if they can help us do it, and they're not sure yet.

1:18And go ahead. It's just – it's funny how, like, to assume that you aren't doing a lot of this stuff already, and to think that a VC firm knows what's better to do from an AI standpoint is kind of funny to me. Well, they're asked us our margins, and our margins are low. And that's one of the indications on there and that they think they can do better. But one of the biggest or actually the biggest reason our margins were low is because we've been reinvesting a lot of our capital for future growth and expanding to different countries, which is expensive. You guys are C-Corp, right? No, S-Corp. Okay.

1:52Keep going. That itself is a problem if you ever want to raise money. Yeah. But going back to it, or at least with VCs, right, I think most of them prefer C-Corps. But either way, when I was talking to them and I was like, so what do you have in mind? They're just like, oh, you know, a few of them technically out of the four we talked to, two of them specifically said, you guys spend a lot on account managers. Why can't we automate a lot of this with AI? And the first thing I said is, have you ever dealt with a service-based company and worked with enterprise brands? Both the responses were no.

2:26and I said a lot of what your account manager is dealing with is politics and both of them are like what do you mean and I'm like when you're dealing with fortune 100 companies a lot of times you're dealing with internal politics and you're trying to figure out how you can actually get something done and convince people to not be a roadblock and they're just like oh you know how can we do this with AI and I'm like I don't see how you can do this with AI you're just dealing with internal politics. And I hate to say it, a lot of big corporations work with outside consultants and agencies because they got to deal with politics.

3:03Look, I think the one thing or things that aren't going to go away as easily are relational capital. And so salespeople have to maintain a relationship. Client services people have to maintain a relationship. I don't think an AI is going to, at least for the next couple of years, take that away immediately. And so I think for some things you can say, okay, why can't AI just do that for other things where it's a little more intangible, at least for the next five years, probably can't touch it beyond that. I don't know. It's anyone's guess. And so I think the angle is the correct angle. But I just, again, I find it hard.

3:39This is why you haven't necessarily taken VC money or PE money yet. It's because one, you want to have control. We've talked about this before. Two, it's like, you know, you want to have control to do things your way. You don't want to have someone telling you what to do. And plus, like you're kind of doing this already. So what is the angle? What is the value add here? The value add, I guess. Go ahead. No, it tends to be mainly Ivy League number crunchers. These people tend to go have gotten degrees from Ivy League colleges. Number crunchers telling me how they have a better way of operating a business when most of them have never operated a business.

4:19I'm not saying I know everything. I actually think there's a lot of things we can improve upon. So many, I can't even count on two, three hands, right? But I want to hear it from people who have tried and tested these things versus someone who's looking at a spreadsheet and just saying, you can cut here, you can cut there. Business doesn't operate based on a spreadsheet. Yeah. Wisdom comes from experience and actually being in the trenches. And so, for example, if Marc Andreessen reached out to you directly, you would take that call, right? Like he started Netscape. So he's been through the trenches.

4:52Yeah. And he did another company after that sold as well. But Marc Andreessen is amazing operator. Same with like Ben Horowitz. I don't think most VCs are like them. That's just my two cents. Yeah, no, 100%. So there's there's anyway, I don't want to belabor the point here. So I'm assuming you're you took the call and you might take more calls in the future, but you're probably not looking to do anything imminently. Yeah. And for anyone wondering why am I taking calls is because it's not even the money. Some of these people, if you do 20 of them, 50 of them, a hundred of them, some of them are going to give you some amazing ideas that you can run with.

5:28And they may have thought of some things that you never did. And that could change your business. The reason for doing meetings is not because you expect every meeting to be a hit. A lot of meetings will be duds and you don't learn anything. Very small percentage of them will be amazing. And you know what? Those make up for all the duds. Speaking of this, so we're talking about operators right now, but we saw that acquisition.com. So again, Alex did a very successful launch with his$100 million money models book,$105.5 million for the weekend or something like that. But recently they made a hire, Sharon Srinivasan, who spoke at the YPO Global Marketing Summit.

6:07So he joined as their president. And what I'm noticing is that he's actually creating a lot more content. And so his Twitter is starting to get going now. And I've kind of noticed a pattern here where Sharon, this guy ran a publicly traded real estate firm, and then now he's the president for acquisition. I think they started like a venture arm or something. But he's creating a lot of content. There's a lot. He was already creating content for Instagram. I think, you know, Alex and Layla are helping him level up his content game in general. And I see his Twitter growing, right? And he's kind of posting like, I don't know, call it seven to eight times a day.

6:38And a lot of it's like philosophical stuff that I think that can ward a lot of engagement, right? So the question I'm really posing here is, if you're gonna hire an executive, should executives create content overall? Is that a net positive? And I just got this idea just by looking at his Instagram because he does a good job and he's actually a very good speaker. I think there's nothing wrong with having people create content and I think he can help you out, but it's what type of content. So I've seen his content. Have you watched a lot of it, Eric? I've only seen the Twitter stuff. So if his goal is to run acquisition or acquisition.com or venture, I think creating content is great, but I think he's creating the wrong type of content.

7:23His content is too broad and it's the type of content to go after entrepreneurs who are just starting versus people who have established companies and are growing. And I think that's the mistake. People create content for views and reach instead of going after your ideal audience. Now, if you look at Alex, Alex's content is going after people who are starting off as entrepreneurs. People are trying to scale as entrepreneurs, right? but more the S &B crowd. But that's who he's selling the book to. I don't see enterprise companies wanting to buy his book. I'm not trying to throw shade on Alex. It's just a reality.

8:02And I bet you Alex knows this. So he creates content for his ideal audience. That president, the guy you're talking about, I've checked out a lot of his content. I don't think his content is the right type of content if he's looking for venture deals or private equity deals. If you've ever built a website, you know how tough it can be to keep a strong design while ensuring site performance is fast. That's where Framer comes in, and it totally changes the game. Framer is the design-first, no-code website builder that lets anyone ship a production-ready site in minutes. I recently built a custom landing page in just a few hours, animations, fast load times, responsive layouts, all without writing a single line of code.

8:40It was easy to use, and the end result was polished enough to look like a developer spent days on it. One of my favorite things is that Framer's AI handles translations with a single click, so your site can be up and running in multiple languages almost instantly. And with real-time collaboration, your whole team can jump in and work together. No issues with versions or miscommunication. Whether you're starting from scratch or using one of their templates, Framer lets you focus on design while handling the technical side for you. Animations, responsive layouts, search optimization, and all the things that matter.

9:10Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at framer.com and use code MS to get your first month of pro on the house. That's Framer.com, promo code MS. Framer.com, promo code MS. Rules and restrictions may apply. When I first started my business, the overwhelm was real. I didn't have the tools to help me scale. If only I had Shopify from the start to handle all the behind-the-scenes work. Shopify is the platform behind millions of businesses globally, from huge names like Mattel and Gymshark to the smallest brands just getting started. The best part about it, it has everything you could need.

9:45Say you're ready to launch your own design studio. Shopify has hundreds of templates to create a beautiful store that matches your brand style. Or if you need help with content creation, Shopify has got AI tools that write your product descriptions, craft page headlines, and even enhance your product photos. Shopify lets you easily create email and social media campaigns to reach customers wherever they are, whether they're scrolling or strolling. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into a game with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash marketing school.

10:18Go to Shopify.com slash marketing school. Shopify.com slash marketing school. Yeah, by the way, I'm looking at his Twitter right now. So, Sharon, you can feel free to reach out to me. Neil and I are happy to talk anytime. I hope you don't think we're throwing shade. We're not. No, this is more so to help you out and hopefully your content starts generating you more revenue. So it's Sharon Shurvatsa. I think you would know better than I would, Neil, how to pronounce his last name. So here's what I see him posting right now. So three truths about work ethic. It's harder than it looks. It takes longer than you think.

10:54And he's starting to get a lot more likes. This is stuff that people can get. Anybody's going to engage with this philosophical stuff. So 147 likes, 2 ,400 views. And the next one after that is the best investment you'll ever make is in yourself. It's the only asset that can't be stolen, taxed, or devalued by markets. Now, he's posting in three-hour increments. I think he's posting seven to eight times a day. I think the problem that I'm seeing, look, if you're Marc Andreessen or if you're Ben Horowitz or even if you're Gary Tan or let's say you're Alexis Ohanian from Reddit, they're all venture capitalists now, right?

11:21And they're only posting about stuff that they're working on, stuff that they're investing in. They're talking about their investments. Maybe they're talking about things that they're building. Even Chamath Paliha Patia, sure, he's got a new SPAC going on, right? Does he really? Yeah, he has a new SPAC going on. People are like, why are you doing another SPAC if he's so rich already, right? But my point is they're posting on what they're working on in the venture space. They're not posting this high-level philosophical stuff that I think can get views and followers. But I think if we're trying to get – if you look at all these people, the patterns are already there on X.

11:50These are what the venture people are doing. All you need to do is emulate them. That seems like a – I hate using the word first principles because I think it's used so much. But that seems like a first principles thing to me. yeah but if his goal is to get mass following and go a different route or sell books or something like that then the type of content you're posting is great and you should do more of it yeah actually so here check this out real quick i know we can move on to the next topic but i want to share my screen because uh you know we can share our screens while we're remote so do you see this while eric sharing his screen because we don't see it yet but um keep in mind we're giving this feedback assuming his goal is to be a venture capitalist or do deals like private equity stuff?

12:33Well, dude, it literally says VC at Acquisition Ventures. So I'm managing partner over here too. And so it says my next billion, which is kind of a spin on my first million, but then it's like my next billion. So maybe this is the angle, but I think, again, like I think on Twitter at least the VCs have already mastered the playbook. And so in my mind, I'm just like, I'm just going to copy what the VCs are doing. And Sharon has a lot of great stories you can tell around that. And I'm looking forward to it. So anyway, that's my feedback. Again, hopefully that's no shade. But in my mind, I think if we're going to have executives creating content, it should be focused on driving business results.

13:07And who knows, we could be wrong here, but at least that's my feedback and that's your feedback. And one quick thing I would love to give feedback is because I want to end it on a positive note. If you are going and, you know, you've already done publicly traded companies. I think he's done one or two publicly traded companies. It could be two. Either way, you've had success. What I would love to see from content perspectives, if you shared what it's like going public, running publicly traded companies, how to grow, what to deal with when things aren't going your way, like sharing all of those insights.

13:43I think that's going to be really helpful and that's going to cause you to get more deal flow than more of the broader TAM content. Dude, okay, here, let me just read this off real quick and we can move on to the next one. So he has had, so he's a four times Inc. 500 entrepreneur with five exits in the last 19 years. And he has helped build$2 billion companies. And then he's worked at Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs. So very smart guy, very good speaker. He actually ranked number two when he spoke at the event. So I'm very grateful for that. So I'm actually interested in his experience shares and his stories that you can tell.

14:16I think those will get a lot more views and they'll get the right views. Yeah, and even if it doesn't get a lot more views, he's going to be engaging with the right type of customer, right? And I would love to read or watch content that breaks down what it's like to run two multi-billion dollar businesses, the ups, the downs. He created tons of content about that, working in the corporate world and how he transitioned to entrepreneur or when he knew it was the right time to go do a startup or whatever it may be, right? That may be a little bit too early unless you're doing early stage checks. But I do believe he can just experience here and a lot of us would love that content.

14:56Cool. All right, guys, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you later.