Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:51:52 · Hector Serrano
[00:51:52] S1: Yeah. So the way I look at it is, like, I was basically a in house UGC creator, and it got to a point where ad spend was getting too high. And, like, I'm only human, and I couldn't I couldn't make that many videos. And I was also getting into, like, a year plus of making ads. So, naturally, I was getting pretty burnt out being a one man show. And, I was like, okay. I have the skill set. I'm a decent creator. I can spot, like, good creators as well. Why not just build a team? And that's, like, an extension of myself. And, yeah, that's that's basically what we did, and we're able to scale a lot faster, test more ideas. Since we have more ad spend, we obviously want more concepts running. And, also, like, once you get to a pretty high budget on ads, your ads are typically gonna reach fatigue a lot faster. And especially with Andromeda now, ads reach fatigue even a lot faster. Because before... In 2024 when we were running ads, I could have an ad running for twelve months. And I mean, my my output would be a lot less, but now an ad with not only the new updates, but also how much ad spend we're running, an ad... Once it hits, like, a $100,000 in ad spend, will be dead, and that can be hit in, like, a month or in two weeks, three weeks. So we constantly need more output, more volume, etcetera. And I think that if you look at our ad library, we might have, like, 5,000 lifetime ads and maybe, like, 800 live currently or something like that or 900 live currently. And it's because, again, they reach fatigue, and then we have to turn them off. But our ad our ad set or our ad library isn't only full of UGC videos. There's a lot of different things as well. And, yeah, everything from, like, statics to, like, high celebrity slash influencer videos to in house ads to, like, launch videos that we package as ads to, like, founder led things. So there's a lot of variety in there, and this is just basically, I I guess just having as many formats as possible because, again, we have a lot of ad spend, and we want... The more variety, the better at the end
00:53:44 · Lenny Rachitsky, Hector Serrano
[00:53:44] S0: of the day. Okay. So this is just a a core leg to the stool of paid ads as EGC. Exactly. Clearly working. Do you think this will work for every company? Is this something most BPs... I don't know. Yeah. Does this... Do you think this won't work? [00:53:58] S1: I think this works for everyone. It's like it goes back to what I was saying. It's just finding those users that can speak to the users you wanna acquire. And at the end of day, one thing that we look at at Wispr is, like, the b to b side and the enterprise side is all made up of individuals. And if you can find a way to make your content speak to an individual who's part of those teams, and maybe you get them as, like, a solo... How would you say? Like, a solo customer or whatever to download the app, then use it, then they tell a friend in the company, and then more people in the company start using it. And then maybe you chase down those enterprise clients and actually close the deal. Like, that's realistically how most companies can approach that at the end of the day. And it's not like, oh, like, who from x company is gonna watch my video and, like, hop on an enterprise call and, like, wanna close or whatever. But I think if you, like, approach it from, like, companies are made up of people and you just look at it like that and you think, okay. How how do I wanna sell to these people and how would these people respond well to getting sold to? I think you just have to break it down super simply and you're like, oh, yeah. This would work for anyone.
00:53:58 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:53:58] S1: I think this works for everyone. It's like it goes back to what I was saying. It's just finding those users that can speak to the users you wanna acquire. And at the end of day, one thing that we look at at Wispr is, like, the b to b side and the enterprise side is all made up of individuals. And if you can find a way to make your content speak to an individual who's part of those teams, and maybe you get them as, like, a solo... How would you say? Like, a solo customer or whatever to download the app, then use it, then they tell a friend in the company, and then more people in the company start using it. And then maybe you chase down those enterprise clients and actually close the deal. Like, that's realistically how most companies can approach that at the end of the day. And it's not like, oh, like, who from x company is gonna watch my video and, like, hop on an enterprise call and, like, wanna close or whatever. But I think if you, like, approach it from, like, companies are made up of people and you just look at it like that and you think, okay. How how do I wanna sell to these people and how would these people respond well to getting sold to? I think you just have to break it down super simply and you're like, oh, yeah. This would work for anyone. [00:54:57] S0: Okay, that makes sense. Also what I'm hearing though is it's probably most effective for kind of product led growth, bottom up sort of products, not like a Workday or a Salesforce, more like a, yeah, Wispr Flow or Notion and [00:55:10] S1: things like
00:55:10 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:55:10] S1: things like [00:55:11] S0: that. Awesome. And you know, like if you think about it, it makes so much sense why this would work. An influencer innately is someone that influences you to do something. You're basically getting influencerscreators to create content that pitches the product, and then you put them in people's feed through paid ads, and I get why it works because they're there trying to convince them how [00:55:31] S1: awesome also think that a good distinction as well is, like, it's not just an influencer or a creator. I almost think that creators with no following end up being better investments for brands because influencers kind of were seen now as sellouts a lot of the time and like when you see a big face or a big celebrity like selling a product, it's like, oh my gosh. This person has been selling me things for like the last ten years. I know she's just getting a bag or he's just getting a bag, and they're not really genuine. And there's something about, like, not really knowing who the person is, and they're not famous. They don't have a lot of followers. And if you have, like, these partnership ads coming from their account, it just feels a lot more genuine as well. So [00:56:06] S0: just wanted It's feel that like the less they look like an influencer. [00:56:09] S1: Exactly.
00:56:09 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:56:09] S1: Exactly. [00:56:10] S0: The less they look like they're trying to convince you and they're just talking like a regular human about how awesome your product is. I get why that would work. Like what I think about right now is there's that survey that someone did a while ago of just what do want to be when you grow up, and for young people it was like creator, influencer versus [00:56:26] S1: Yeah, like stream. I think a lot people were saying they want be a streamer, a live streamer. Streamer versus [00:56:30] S0: like astronaut or lawyer. Yeah. And so you know, this is a career path is what you're describing. This is a way you're making money doing this. A lot of people are actually making money, being a So creator for people listening that are like wait, maybe this could be a career for me someday, maybe I should explore this creator life, Any advice for someone that's embarking on this? Because for many people, it may feel like I will never be as great as Hector just talking off the cuff on a video and looking interesting. Any advice for someone that's trying to explore this path and do better?
00:57:00 · Hector Serrano
[00:57:00] S1: I think the best advice would be to stop looking for advice. It's... It sounds it sounds dumb, but a lot of times I'll have a lot of friends reach out and be like, hey. I wanna get started. And I've had this happen for, like, maybe the last three years where people are like, hey. I wanna get started, I wanna start making videos like you. And I hop on a call with them for, two hours. I send them over a bunch of different guides, PDFs, things I've made, etcetera, for how they can get started, and they don't do anything with it. And it's like, at the end of the day, if if you're a person who's gonna ask before doing, you're probably not gonna succeed. And even the best people... I've I've had the privilege of working with a lot of the most famous podcasters or influencers or celebrities. And a lot of these people also stutter, and they also have to refilm things. And they have, like, specific things that they do to, like, lock back in, whether it's, like, weird noises they make with their mouth or, like, they fidget with their hands or they have, like, a phrase they repeat over and over again. Or I've I've even seen some creators where they start stuttering a lot after they've been doing the same script over and over again, and they'll put a pen in their mouth and will, like, open their mouth bigger and, like, talk and announce... Annunciate. Is that how you say it? Annunciate the words. Mhmm. Like, I guess, more. And then when they stop and they take the pen out of their mouth, then they would have pronounced it better. So it's like it's like a a natural thing as a creator. And, like, even if you're doing this for five, ten, fifteen years, there's gonna be moments where you have to cut the video or you're gonna stutter and you're gonna have to refilm for 10 times, and you might cuss out your camera and turn it off, but it's just like turn it back on and keep filming sort of thing. Yeah, that'd be my advice, just get started and stop looking for more advice. There's no better way to learn to get creative than just turning on the camera and posting.