2464 - The Podcast Strategy Behind Successful Fundraising with The Aebli Group's Justin Starbird

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0:46Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, it's Justin Starbird. Justin, you are the CEO and founder of the Ablee Group. It's A-E-B-L-I group.com. We've got that all linked up. Justin, it's great to have you. Hi, Josh. Thanks so much for having me today. I appreciate it. Yeah. Hey, before we get going, talking about the work that you do with the Ablee Group, I always love, you know, most leaders are multi-passionate. And my goodness, you have got to tell us about your card collection. Yeah, we were talking offline and I think I have about 1.5 or 2 million sports cards right now.

1:38Now, it sounds like a lot. I know. And it is a lot. It takes up a lot of space in one of our closets. But, you know, I also I went through every single one of them and pulled out about 100 ,000 of them, maybe 150 ,000 that are all, you know, the Hall of Famers, All-Stars. They're worth something. They're parallels or numbers or some sort of color or a rookie. And so that was a really interesting, a lot of fun. I really enjoy it. Yeah. Well, and where do you get them all? so I was I mentioned I was going through a divorce several years ago and it was uh pre-covid and I had seen a couple of and but like only like a couple of months pre-covid and I uh had seen on Facebook marketplace folks were trying to get rid of large lots and so I just remember one like one guy was pouring rain and he pulls up in his Subaru station wagon and unloaded probably 500 ,000 cards and he was just trying to get rid of them.

2:46I think I got them for like$250 or something crazy. And it was just so funny to me. I just needed something to take my mind off of the stress of what was going on. And I went through them and came out with, you know, Michael Jordans and Tom Brady's and all kinds of fun cards for me. So it was such a wonderful release. And so that's how I got most of them. Amazing. And then are you going to be, are you going to open a card shop? Are you going to go to a meets? What are you going to do with this? My wife is like, when are we going to start selling them? And so actually over the course of the summer, I have slowly been going through and doing that.

3:27So I had a pretty, pretty large Shohei Otani collection recently that I got rid of. And some 1986 Fleer basketball cards where, you know, a lot of Michael Jordan rookies were included in that. So, you know, really, that's been something that to fund our next venture. I'm not ready to share exactly what that is yet, but, you know, trying to trying to to do something like that again. And it's just a fun outlet to have. Yeah. OK, so tell us about the Abley Group. Yeah, thanks so much for the opportunity to share. So the Abley Group, we've been we're a B2B marketing agency. I've been around actually 12 years this year, and it's been really fascinating.

4:12I don't know about you, but our business has evolved pretty considerably in the last 12 to 18 months, and really since AI became a lot more part of everybody's workflows. And, you know, traditionally, we've always served regulated industries, things like med tech, life sciences, biotech, transportation, logistics, those sorts of things, and been very successful. So very fortunate in that regard. But recently also started working on capital campaigns, helping founders and startups get funded that had run into issues with like venture capital or private equity. A lot of those opportunities had dried up and they've turned to crowdfunding.

4:56And we've done a lot of recent campaigns. In fact, that we've raised, I think, about$15 million in the last 18 months. One of our clients just had the largest crowdfunding campaign of all of 2025. And so that's been a pretty unique pivot for us. And so we're doing a lot more in that space. I'd say it's close to a 50-50 mix now after 10 years of really focused on one area. Yeah. And so, well, I notice as well, I have to pull this out. So obviously marketing strategy, that sort of thing. But you, in some cases, you recommend a podcast. Tell me how you use podcasts. Yeah. So it's really fun to be on this side of it.

5:51I'm on your side, having to come up with the answers or questions, the answers of my guest. And so, you know, it helps you think quickly on your feet. Well, we've been producing podcasts for our clients since 2014. And right now, I think we have 10 active shows. I think there are 30 in the archive for different clients over the years. And we've always used podcasts as a mechanism to make more efficient use of founders and leadership's time. Often when we work with a company, especially say manufacturing or med tech, there's always, you know, the guy on the floor, Dave or Susan, who's running the business really for the company.

6:35And if you just talk to them, you get everything you need to know about the company from them, right? What's more information about product services and those sorts of things. So we came up with the idea of creating series for our customers so that we could use 20 to 30 minutes of time and ask eight or 10 questions and get longer form content that we could then splice up and use. Of course, this is not a new idea. Gary V did this. He wrote books about it. So many other people have done it. But what we try to do is make most efficient use of their time so that we can actually create not just the strategy, that's what they hired us for, but then also execute on campaigns and build content out across platforms.

7:21And so, you know, that has been something that we go to as a foundational block when we engage customers. And it's even more important now with you have large language models, you have ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, whomever you use, and people are looking for all sorts of different answers in different mediums. And so being able to do that and use this platform to do that and to create that content really goes a long way in helping the success of the campaigns. So in the age of AI, you're working in a space where, you know, AI is definitely making some impacts in the world of marketing and branding and web design.

8:07And, you know, it's, you know, there's a lot of great tools out there that folks are using. What's your take on where we are right now? We're in the middle of 2026 and, you know, life can completely change in a month or so or a week or so. But as of right now, what are you, I guess, you know, on that issue of the intersection of AI, marketing, design, branding, that sort of thing, and you're talking to a room of leaders and, you know, a lot of founders, what are you recommending right now? so a lot of yeah our job i mean thinking about this i mean you can create a prompt in gpt or a cloud and get 75 80 of the way there on just about everything um and and i feel like if you you know weren't using ai properly or wasn't embedded in your business to start the year then you've lost a ton of ground um i i feel like we've been at the bleeding edge of it since the But since the jump, I remember November 30th, 2022, when GPT went live, we had one of our clients was one of the beta companies testing OpenAI as on the business tools.

9:19And so we were aware of it really early and saw its potential. So for us, it's actually been an element of having to reposition to be more strategic and that we're guidance on execution or capable of executing. And, you know, that's been a huge differentiator for us. I think in terms of the actual intersection in the market as a whole, I think that's one of the things that you see a ton of people on LinkedIn right now looking for work or, you know, trying to, you know, get work because they've been outed. Right. And, and so I think that there'll be a little bit more of that. I think that being able to effectively actually, you know, it's one thing to put a prompt in and it's another thing to be actually be able to actually do it and have it and see it through.

10:14I think one of the elements that we see is that people will create that strategy or that plan and then not do anything with it. I think when it's so easy to get to the idea of things, it's really what separates the ones that are going to be able to make it and the ones that aren't are the ability to actually stay focused and continue to do it. Because you can change strategy every single day. Yeah. Yeah. And trust me, based on how you ask the question of your AI, your AI will tell you to change your strategy every day. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just what you put in. It's also the parameters that you create beforehand and make sure that you, you know, you edit the AI out of the AI, right?

11:03Like there's still this human element that's so necessary because otherwise you get into this, you know, the cycle of AI swap. and then you can't figure out which, you know, how to get out of it. And, and so anyway, that's where we are with our clients right now is working really hard to not just create the strategy, but then have them stay to, you know, keep them pinned to it and execute against that because that's where we're seeing the success is when you, yeah, because the prompt is such a short-term thing. You can get that back in 30 seconds or a couple of minutes, depending on what you're feeding into it.

11:40And then, then you got to do something. Yeah. Well, tell me about, so Ably Group, I've got your website all linked up. Who are you typically working with and what does that engagement look like? Yeah. So I'm glad you have it up today. Today, June 30th, we're recording this. By the time this goes live, we'll actually have our new site up that repositions, you know, who we are and what we're doing. So our targets really are, we have three legs of our stool. I mentioned the capital messaging for fundraising and those things. Then the legacy, you know, B2B companies, manufacturers, medtech, regulated businesses, transportation logistics, heavy machinery.

12:24We've worked really well with them for a long time. Our third leg of a stool is something we haven't talked about and that's the TAG Awards. It's a little bit of a play on the Abley Group. It's based on technology, achievement and growth. And we started off with the TAG Awards for MedTech, which recognized and honored innovators and companies in that space. And then this year, we just had our second most successful year ever. And then just launched the B2B Innovation Awards to recognize those businesses that are helping companies that they can't talk about. often that in between or you have a company that's the secret sauce to the success of another business.

13:05And so this is an opportunity to give them this platform and be able to do that. So when this goes live, we'll be continuing to accept nominations for that. Very cool. All right. So that is ablygroup.com, A-E-B-L-I-G-R-O-U-P.com. and Justin anything else that you'd recommend our friends do from here where do they go next yeah I would you know if anybody wants to to talk you also connect with me on LinkedIn and pretty public profile there of course go to the site and you book time with me as well our team is passionate about what they do and frankly in my opinion we're really good at it so So if you need help thinking about that strategy, putting the campaigns together, that sort of thing, then we're here to help.

13:55Justin Starbird, CEO and founder of the Abley Group, found on the web at ablygroup.com. Justin, thank you so much for the conversation. I like this, Josh. I really appreciate it.

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