Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:17:59 · Lenny Rachitsky, Hector Serrano
[00:17:59] S0: Awesome. And then also capping the downside so that they can actually spend time doing this versus being worried that they... They're not gonna make a living. [00:18:06] S1: Yeah. Exactly. Because a lot of the times these creators have to... They end up having to constantly be negotiating with brands or working with new companies, learning new things. And it's like, not only are these creators all power users, but they get to work with the same company every single month. So just think about, like, the compounding effect of how much better their videos get over time instead of, oh, you're this brand who's running a new... Maybe launching a new feature and you're like, okay. Let's scramble to find new creators. And it's like, if you already had that internal group of creators who already know your product and already believe in you and, like, some of my creators understand the product better than me almost, and they come up with ideas I never could have came up with. So if you just have that internal group already, it's so easy that when we launch a new thing, whether it was, like, the Wispr notetaker or all these different features that that we release, it's so easy for me to just drop it in the Discord and be like, hey, Let's make a video on this instead of having to go chase around and find all these different creators and brief them, and then the next month they're gone, and then two months down the line, you have to go find them again. So yeah, it it just makes for a great experience both on the brand side and the creator side.
00:18:06 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:18:06] S1: Yeah. Exactly. Because a lot of the times these creators have to... They end up having to constantly be negotiating with brands or working with new companies, learning new things. And it's like, not only are these creators all power users, but they get to work with the same company every single month. So just think about, like, the compounding effect of how much better their videos get over time instead of, oh, you're this brand who's running a new... Maybe launching a new feature and you're like, okay. Let's scramble to find new creators. And it's like, if you already had that internal group of creators who already know your product and already believe in you and, like, some of my creators understand the product better than me almost, and they come up with ideas I never could have came up with. So if you just have that internal group already, it's so easy that when we launch a new thing, whether it was, like, the Wispr notetaker or all these different features that that we release, it's so easy for me to just drop it in the Discord and be like, hey, Let's make a video on this instead of having to go chase around and find all these different creators and brief them, and then the next month they're gone, and then two months down the line, you have to go find them again. So yeah, it it just makes for a great experience both on the brand side and the creator side. [00:19:04] S0: And this again comes back to the product itself has to be awesome because it'll be very hard to find creators that love your product if the product isn't awesome.
00:19:04 · Lenny Rachitsky, Hector Serrano
[00:19:04] S0: And this again comes back to the product itself has to be awesome because it'll be very hard to find creators that love your product if the product isn't awesome. [00:19:11] S1: Yeah. And and it's just easy to burn out as well as a creator. Like, if you're talking about something you don't believe in, it can get boring really quick. [00:19:18] S0: Yeah. It's almost a test of product market fit. Can you find creators that are excited if I [00:19:21] S1: can see someone Yeah. That was that was honestly... Because I guess some context as well. I was actually at Wispr. I was the one making every single ad for, like, a year and a half, so I made hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ads, which I guess that's a testament to how much I I loved Wispr. I didn't go crazy. And and... [00:19:41] S0: Do you think that is actually really important for the person that takes this work to have been the person creating the ads before asking creators to create the ads? [00:19:47] S1: A a thousand percent. Because it goes back kinda to to a point I had mentioned earlier where a lot of people who've never worked in content or or who have never worked with creators end up being the ones briefing them and telling them what to do. And it's like you would never have someone who's not an engineer telling the engineer... Like, I would never go up to the engineering team and be like, hey. You guys need to solve this problem like this and do this and this and this. They're gonna be like, what is this guy telling me?
00:19:47 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:19:47] S1: A a thousand percent. Because it goes back kinda to to a point I had mentioned earlier where a lot of people who've never worked in content or or who have never worked with creators end up being the ones briefing them and telling them what to do. And it's like you would never have someone who's not an engineer telling the engineer... Like, I would never go up to the engineering team and be like, hey. You guys need to solve this problem like this and do this and this and this. They're gonna be like, what is this guy telling me? [00:20:07] S0: Okay. So let's go down this tangent of to find someone like Hector. What what are... What does a profile look like if you were to find Hector to lead this work at your company?
00:20:19 · Hector Serrano
[00:20:19] S1: This is one of the most interesting conversations I have with a lot of my friends, especially Tobin, like I mentioned earlier, because we both couldn't be more opposite from each other. Like, if you look at both of our resumes lined up next to each other and I ask you to pick one or the other, a, you probably in your head will think it's pretty clear which one would be the right answer, but at the end of the day, both are the right answer. And, like, I had a 2.5 GPA, Tobin had a four point o. I didn't go to a reach school. Tobin went to Waterloo. I played division one sports. Tobin didn't. And, like, there's all these different things, but at the end of the day, we both ended up being great marketers. But that wasn't really evident if you, like, looked at the face value of our resumes. But I think Wispr has done a really good job of, like, seeing one or two really key things and also, like, being able to see, okay. Is this person a good state for the for the culture? Do they seem hardworking? If they have the same values or the same culture as people already at Wispr, like, I feel like Tanay, Daniel, and the rest of the team are really good at not only spotting early talent and seeing what are those key things to look out for, but also seeing, okay. Is this a good person that good humans have on the team? And I think Tobin and I, obviously, might be speaking a bit too much for myself, but I think we we embody those character traits perfectly. And might be asking, like, okay. Well, what are the traits I need to look for in a good marketing hire? And it's like, honestly, it's not that complex. It's like, has this person grown an account even if it's, like, 10,000 followers, and do they somewhat understand what they're talking about in terms of creator and they've made content? Like, that's how basic it is. Like, as long as they have some experience in building a following, even if it's a small following, it shows you that they understand the consistency it takes to, like, grow a social media following. It shows you that they understand trends and how to make a video and how to edit and how to film, etcetera. And, yeah, I think that, like, it comes down to that. Like, do they seem like a hard worker? Are they a good person? And do they have those, like, minimum, like, 10,000, 15,000 followers?
00:22:09 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
And then taking a shot on them, and you can't just bring a young person in and then be like, okay. Like, you're not where you... Where I want you to be. Like, you're gone. Like, Tanay and Daniel, again, and the whole Wispr team always gives us a lot of time to learn and fail. And I know for a fact for the first seven months at Wispr, I was kind of I was kind of all over the place. I mean, I still joke about it with Daniel how, there was some hard conversations here and there where you're like, what's Hector doing? But, yeah, they gave me the freedom to to keep experimenting, keep trying new things, and it didn't really matter if you failed as long as you're con... Consistently, like, learning and getting better and getting better, and, like, that's the same for Tobin. Tobin came in. They gave him some money and some time to experiment, and after, like, two months, he found something that worked, and it stuck. [00:22:52] S0: Okay, this is extremely valuable. There was this tweet the other day that came out of just like the hardest role to hire for right now is basically someone like you, someone that can talk about the product, the technical aspects, get people excited, make the product compelling. You're telling us what this profile looks like. So just to reflect back what you just said, one is evidence that they're very hardworking, evidence they're a good person, that their values and culture kind of aligns with your company. Three, they've actually grown a platform to at least 10,000 followers, and this could be any platform like Instagram, TikTok.