A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:48:59 · Pablo Srugo, Isaiah Granet
[00:48:59] S2: And then the last thing I want to touch on quickly is, tell me about getting Soulja Boy to run an ad with you. [00:49:06] S0: Oh, yeah, this one was recent. So for any listeners that don't know, basically we ended up licensing Soulja Boy's voice and what that means is you can actually call, and talk to, and use Soulja Boy's voice on Bland's platform. This was a really fun advertisement. So the reason we went with Soulja Boy was twofold and was one, we basically, we knew the song "Kiss Me Through the Phone." And we thought that that was relevant for Bland because we do AI phone calls. And two, Soulja Boy's peak of popularity aligns really tightly with our current enterprise buyer segment. And when, they were basically growing up and listening to music like what Soulja Boy produced. And so we got in touch with his agent. He was awesome. Soulja was a pleasure to work with. We filmed this ad and we licensed the voice, and put it up on a big phone number, and it just got a huge amount of engagement. And it just comes back to like the reason why that stuff works is because you're buying attention in a different way. You're not forcing people to look at something. You're saying, I will trade you a little bit of entertainment if you give me a little bit of consideration.
00:50:08 · Pablo Srugo, Isaiah Granet
[00:50:08] S2: People want to be entertained. That's the thing you can always count on. AI, no AI, and if you want to have crazy reach, you can't just push your product because nobody cares. That's the thing about whether it's Cluely or you guys or whatever. You watch the content, even if you're not going to buy the product because you're not ICP. You actually like the content. You're like, this is good content and everybody actually kind of wins by that. And by the way, that's what gets you crazy ROI on your spend. Where you actually are like, wow, we only spent whatever and we got a crazy amount of ARR. Yeah, the delta there is because you entertain a lot of people. [00:50:40] S0: Exactly, you're trading entertainment for eyeballs instead of cash for eyeballs and it's all some sort of form of trade. And the people that think about marketing in any other way are wrong. You are trading something for attention. [00:50:52] S2: So let's end on this question. What would be your top advice for early stage founders that are somewhere where you were in YC?
00:50:52 · Pablo Srugo, Isaiah Granet
[00:50:52] S2: So let's end on this question. What would be your top advice for early stage founders that are somewhere where you were in YC? [00:51:01] S0: My top advice for a founder who finds themselves, you know, a year or so into the journey and things just aren't working or they feel like they found their new idea but nobody believes in it. Is keep your head down and just do the right things, and do it with focus. And everybody says keep going, you'll hear that advice, but I don't hear a lot of people say do it with focus. Your job is to pick one place that you can win and throw everything at that. And for the founders that are going through that stage, just know that it does eventually get better and there is a way out of it. Even though you can't see it, even though it feels like your situation is different. I've seen it through myself, I've seen it through so many of my friends. Just keep your head down and keep going, and find your spike. Focus on that and throw everything, and good things will come. [00:51:48] S2: Isaiah, thanks for jumping on the show, man. It's been a lot of fun. [00:51:51] S0: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, man.
00:51:51 · Isaiah Granet, Pablo Srugo
[00:51:51] S0: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, man. [00:51:53] S2: You remember the first person who told you about Bitcoin? The first person who told you about Uber? You want to be that person because being first is cool. So be a cool person and tell your founder friends. Send it to them on WhatsApp. Put it in a WhatsApp group. Put it on a Slack channel. Let people know about the show. Let people know about this episode. Don't let somebody else beat you to the punch and share it with your founder friends first. Remember what Ricky Bobby said: "If you ain't first, you're last."