Jakub Czakon - founder of Developer Markepear and former CMO of Neptune.ai (acquired by OpenAI)

You've had this kind of moment. You guys sold to OpenAI, kind of bit of a dream situation. And this whole time, you've been writing a developer marketing newsletter on everything that you've been learning. You've been doing a podcast and running a community. And so you've been very, very immersed while being CMO of a really successful DevTools startup. Do you think there's been things that, like, you've really taken away from that?

They were both on product market fit, right? And that's one of the big learnings for me, you know, the, so something that you sort of know, but then you internalize it. It's basically that if you market a product to a, you know, market that is hot, and that the wave will basically get you so much farther than if you market it, you know, in a market that is is colder. And it's not necessarily about being a niche or not. I actually love niche markets because then you can actually service people way better if you're focused within the niche market.

Right? So there could be like, you know, sub pockets of the market that is hot and growing, but generally finding a good market, you know, is going to be a big chunk of of the win. So, you know, we've been around for a for a long time, Nepten. Right? I mean, now we're getting, you know, immersed. We've we've joined OpenAI. Actually, we're winding down. Right? As a as a company, as a, you know, our our external services. But but it was around for a long long time, eight years.

You know, I'd say eight years marketing marketing to MLEs, machine learning engineers, data scientists, AI researchers, those those different personas over time, they sort of like, you know, change definitions in a way and or, you know, some emerged as more important, where at the beginning, maybe they they weren't as important. Right? But we've had those different moments where we pivoted or shifted our, you know, our focus. Right? Or really doubled down on, let's say, the research side of things or production side of things, or, you know, more recently, the foundation model training side of things.

Right? Like, we really doubled down with messaging and the product and everything on the labs training, furnished models. Right? And, you know, you're looking at that that that market is is hot, but there weren't that many of those labs or companies. That way more than people would expect, because you have different verticals of like, you know, things in in AI for science or material or, you know, all sorts of inter internal, you know, use cases, etcetera.

But anyway, you do that and then, you know, you see that, you know, a certain market being really well funded with, you know, a lot of money going in there and and those problems being clear and expensive. Right? And and you just pulled in. Right? You you you you you were just pulled into that market.

And I think that's yeah. It's just a it's just a learning that, you know, you could have if you picked well, sometimes by sheer luck, thought then you could have done, you know, all the marketing and and all the messaging, all the positioning, all the channels, all the campaigns, everything could have been so much easier, you know, if you if you just focus on an on an easier easier market, if you will. So, yeah. So like that that was one thing where I'm completely with you, and I think it's easy to forget that or easy to like get sucked in into, you know, this is my vision for the product and and and this should be, you know, great for those groups or, you know, or or people like me or whatnot, but then you may be missing some of those opportunities or moving too slowly into something that is just there's so much pull that, you know, if you just were in that market, you would just win, you know, because or or or at least win for a while. Right?

Because something is is is very hot. And and and so I I I do do believe this is this is very, very, very, very important. Obviously, it's, you know, there are other parts of that equation. Yeah. But this is important.

But there's a caveat that I wanted to touch on actually there, because I think, yeah, like market is important. Right? So obviously, when you talk to investors, investors will push for for a good market. Good market typically is going to be measured by, you know, it being big, you know, so so the TAM, and, you know, whether maybe not not so much at Neptune, but with, you know, I often see that with advising clients or or talking to people, talking to founders who are who have those those problems. It's like, you know, you talk to to to investors.

Investors are pushing for a big big, you know, big market, big TAM, and and obviously big vision. Right? So, you know, you as a founder, you go, yeah, so let's do that. Right? Like, it's, you know, you're looking for a big TAM, which is, you know, obviously just, you know, the numbers are often taken from thin air ish, you know, to create that TAM, and you, you know, you you you wanna, you know, present it, you know, you want to align with investors, etcetera.

Right? So they they they push for that big time. Right? And big time and big vision. Whereas your actual markets, the pocket that you are servicing, you know, people you can reach, people who come to your website and want to potentially use your DevTool, they want they don't want a vision.

They want the, you know, positioning the perk you have right now, and they want it small. The bigger it is, the worse, you know, most of the time. Because then it means it's a big big migration, big platform, big pro you know, like, it's a it's a big project. Right? And and obviously, like, those there are situations where this is good, but early on, it's almost never good.

You know, so we have those two, you know, two parts of the spectrum. Right? On on one hand, big vision, big TAM. On the other, positioning, you know, niching niching down good positioning, tight positioning, and and and a good product that you have today, not the vision, but the product you have today, which is obviously way smaller than the vision, and way small, and the the, you know, the market you're servicing is way smaller. So, you know, that's a that's that's tension, you know.

And and oftentimes I see people falling into that because falling into that, you know, investor or generally like first principle thinking way of solving this, which is, you know, so yeah, like, what is the, you know, what is the solution five years, blah blah blah, and, know, it should, know, you should, you, how do you get there? So you wanna, you know, so let's look at at BigDevTools, what do they say? Or are they, you know, they they're talking about big markets and blah blah, right? And then you you fall into going, okay, so let's, let's talk about the biggest possible vision of this on our website, and, you know, let's, let's push this as our, our messaging, which to me is a big mistake. Almost up until you are about to IPO, I I think it's it's a really bad idea.

Because basically what it you know, what from my perspective, right, I would say it could be, you know, wrong, but from what I see is like, you are missing out on people you could actually get, retain, make happy, monetize, etcetera. Right? Because you're talking the big picture. And the big picture, you know, like, there are many people who could talk a big picture. There could be, you know, adjacent verticals and and big products there.

It's like, it's very hand wavy at best, and with devs, it's never good. And, yeah. So you're so you're missing out, because you're you're not getting those people now, and then it's hard to grow, and then you don't learn about adjacent use cases for them. You don't build adjacent products for them, etcetera, etcetera, and you basically are missing out on on this entire vision that could have been true had you gone step by step. Right?

And, you know, step by step as in solve the problem you are actually you actually think you can solve today, extend, maybe extend by persona, maybe extend by use case, maybe extend by, you know, additional features, additional, you know, products over time, and grow into that vision. And I think it's yeah. Like, but but it's a real challenge for founders. Right? Because you hear, you know, you talk to investors and investors are like, yeah, like, okay.

So this is too small. How can you talk like this in the header of your website? You know? Because this is this is so small. Right? And you're like, yeah, like for you, it is. And but like, why would you, why should you write the website for the investors? You shouldn't. Right? But they have a point.

They have a good point, investors, and they should be pushing you for the vision and that big picture, and the big time and the big market, because, yes, the the market wins over the product, over the team, in my opinion. But it's not as simple as, you know, claiming the market and then, you know, and then then then you're good. It's you you have to go those small use cases, small small things from my perspective and grow unless you are going, you know, for the entire platform end to end, etcetera. But it's a completely different bet, and very rarely do people win doing that.

The more enterprise you go, the more in the future you can go, as in, you know, because, you know, whatever the big big enterprises where they, when they buy you, you you have, it takes time, you know, it takes a few quarters to buy, so it takes a few, you have a few, you know, sort of extra quarters to build, right, the things you claim in that presentation with a big, you know, dollar sign at the end. Right? But but but you have a bit more time. Right? But still, it's, you know, it's it's sort of based in, you know, in in what we have right now.

And again, the more more yeah. More more more more tech, more data you go, then the the, you know, the the more based in reality it should be, the more PLG, the more to the you know, the position should be more about today and what you have now. But at the same time, you want to have that vision for for the future. Right? That you and sort of like your outlook on where this should go or where this could go and what's your, you know, depending on how the market, you know, what what are the things that are happening in the market, in in the ecosystem, where this could go.

Right? So you want to have the vision, you want to have that communicated to investors, but it doesn't mean you should be saying that on the website. Right? Or, you know, not necessarily in the, like, could say it on about about us page, you know, but not on the whole page. And oftentimes, you know, I see people, you know, try and basically align all the messaging to what, you know, that having the same, you know, messaging for the investors and for the customers and for the and for the employees.

Right? Or people you want to to to to join your your journey, but it's not good, in my opinion. Those are completely different things. And and yeah. And they they they cost you.

They cost you, you know, like going too, yeah, too much into the future when you should be talking about what you have right now and actually messaging what you have right now will cost you. That's that's what I think. Mhmm. So that's that's a part there. And there there's a really good good thing that you could, you know, any founders listening, and and it's it's a funny it's it's a funny test I they run so many times, and so so often it is it's just other things.

So anyway, the test goes like this. I, you know, I talked to founders, so founders, you know, the I see the the header, So, you know, we have the h one, we should have the subhead. There are some words in there. Right? And and so they should, in theory, explain what the product does or what it is or or whatnot. Right? And I ask founders like, what is the product? Right? Like, I I ask them, and they they give me an answer. Right?

And probably like nine out of ten, eight, nine out of 10, this answer is completely different from what is in h one and and Salford. It's not even, And then I asked them, so why why don't you use this explanation? Your h one and, you know, democratizing whatever you're democratizing or, you know, like, streamlining some why why would you explain it in a way that a real person would explain to a real person here and not there? And Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, you know, oftentimes there's, like, it's either a push. It's either, you know, yeah. I wanted to put something here that resembles those big companies that I admire. And, you know, so you're basically copying, I don't know, Stripe, GitLab, whatever, you know, you you you copy that and or a decent flavor. Right?

And and and you put it out there and and you shouldn't. Right? Like, you should especially early. If anything, if you're comparing to Stripe, look at Stripe in 2000 what is it? '14 or '15?

Go to Wayback Machine and look at that messaging. It's promise you it's different than what it is today or or GitLab for that matter. And, you know, pretty much everyone as that, you know, as they change, they grow, the brand changes, the goals change, etcetera. Makes complete sense. It just, you know, you are not doing that.

Oftentimes as a founder, you're just taking, know, just, know, swayed by investors potentially, or swayed by the heroes that you have, right, in those companies that you love, you just go for for that messaging that that hurts you, you know, because it doesn't really talk about who you are, what you do, how you are different, and, you know, and and then it does make it easier for people who go on your website to understand what you do, and does make it easier for them to try it out, to does make it easier to compare to other companies in the space or or whatever if they're doing an evaluation. Right? It just you you put all the burden of comparing or figuring out the differentiation or figuring out what it actually is. You put it on on the person looking at the website, you know, and that's that that doesn't help. Right?

That doesn't help you, in my opinion.

So you should just copy that to an extent, especially when you see patterns of people explaining certain features in in certain ways. It just becomes clear that maybe there is one, you know, benefit or one feature that you have that everyone just focuses on that in the way they explain it to other devs. And then you know that this should probably be somewhere in the subheader or the header, because if everybody is actually somehow out of 17 different things that they could have said, they always say this. I mean, that's a that's a signal, you know, that Yeah. Maybe maybe you should have have it there, you know, make it easy for people.

Right? Like, be be on the inside, right, of a particular meme. And, yeah. So like you can, if you're a founder who's like deeply embedded in a community, deeply embedded in in, you know, in a particular niche, then oftentimes you actually know a lot of those things. They just come, you know, natural.

But for for me, you know, as a as, you know, sometimes I'm I'm farther away from a particular niche, I I really like to go on those subreddits and really see what people are talking about there, how do they talk about it, what memes do they use, you know, what are the concepts that are, you know, using, and then you can sometimes copy and adjust, you know. You copy a particular idea and then you adjust it to, you know, to to whatever niche you're in or or whatever you're trying to communicate and and, yeah. And you basically do that old trick of, yeah, of you don't write, you point. Right? There's the copywriting idea where basically copy good copywriters, they copy most of the time.

Like, you don't you don't actually write too much. Like, you you actually try to copy what your users are saying. This is the best converting copy pretty much always. So you you look for what people are saying, what your users are saying, in what words they are saying it, and then you copy that into your copy, you know. And so there's an awesome video of my favorite copywriter, I think, Harry Dry from Marketing Examples.

And and often, you know, marketers and founders, you know, fall for, let me let me actually create an idea here. Right? Like, let me put it in words better than anyone, you know, would put it in in our subreddit because it's gonna be more complete. And those are the actual words that you should be using here because this concept though maybe 5% of people actually knows this concept, but this explains it way better than, you know, anyone is And explaining it then, yeah, like, you may be right, but it's not gonna resonate. It's not gonna be easy for, you know, people will not connect it to what they already know.

You know, it's it's it's not gonna click for them, etcetera. Right? So you you want to point. And the best, you know, the best marketing is often just copying those stories in in some some shape or form, you know. You you just just look what people are saying. What are the pains are they they're, you know, they're talking about? And and you just, yeah, you just you just copy it. You just look for those pains and you copy them. Right? So, yeah.

So I do, like, write, I do, like, hacker news for that. You know, you go go through those threads about a particular category of products, and you look for, you know, for for ideas there and and and things that people are saying and and see if perhaps this is actually something that you are better at, you know, or you actually focus on, and maybe you can talk about this particular thing. And when you do, then use the words that those people are using and you'd be better off.

What else is important? This is the kind of the final thing in what we really wanna get to.

I think one thing that is is really crucial, and it would have killed us if we didn't think think that way, is which also connects to those ideas around product market fit, is what's special about you and how do you win? What do I mean by that? So everybody is dealt different cards, you know, different set of things that you have, whether maybe you're a second time founder, maybe you're in the Valley, or maybe you're in Europe, or maybe you're, you know, hyper analytical, maybe you're great writers, maybe you have awesome video people on the team, or, you know, folks who are fantastic at arguing on Twitter, whatever that is, you know, like, you have the set of of cards. Right? And and you have two options, basically.

Right? One option is you try and and you play the same game as your competition. Right? So for example, for us, it would have been we had a, you know, fantastic competitor that we competed, you know, throughout this this entire journey, Weights and Biases. They got acquired by CoreWeave. Huge respect for them. I really like how they played their cards as well. They were in a valley, well funded. They actually went in the direction of going for the the researchers early on. Right?

They were partners with with OpenAI very early, sort of, you know, partnering on on building the product. And and generally in the Valley, very well embedded in the Valley and, you know, playing the meetups game, conferences game, you know, stuff

Right? And and, you know, so if we play the same game, if we wanted to play the same game and go for, you know, meetups in the valley, we you know, our seed round wouldn't get us very far, you know, as compared to them. Like, you're losing that game. Right?

And, you know, so we went heavy on all of those different things. And we crushed it. We absolutely, you know, crushed that part, right? And it helped us grow and it helped us get a lot of the success that we got. But how do we, you know, the idea of going in that direction was, hey, they're not doing this because they have other things that they could be doing with their time and their, you know, doing those other things.

So that that's our window. Right? Because if your competition is not doing something because they should be playing other cards that they have, right, then that's your room. Right? That's your that's your spot.

That's your opening. And and and I think it is important to figure out how you want to win and why you would win in a particular, you know, thing. Like, have have at least some sort of a bet. And, you know, so we did that, for example, and that was that was really, really valuable. And, yeah, we actually did a lot of stuff on the ads front as well.

Ads, you know, I think is generally in DevTools, something that is very under under loved, if you will. You know, people love to hate on ads. But because of that, they're not really looking at the opportunity there a lot of the times, and they're missing out, I think. Not to say other things are not good. Of course, there are so many ways to to reach the devs and so many better ways, potentially, if you have the right cards.

Right? Or if you're, you know, you as founders are willing to play them. But otherwise, you know, you you gotta find the the way to to win. So but really thinking through that lens of how do we win. Right?

What are the things that we want to really do focus on, and what are the things that we're not doing? Right? And what are the games that we don't wanna play? Because if we play it, we're basically playing with worse cards, you know, underfunded Yeah. You know, on a you know, in a place that that that is just, it's hard to see why you would be winning a particular game.

That's that's not not what you wanna do. Right? And and so there are various moments where we actually thought about this, and we, you know, we we played whether with positioning and actually going more on the production side at a certain point and then the research side and then switching later when we understood our cards again, you know, and and and how the landscape shifted and how the things shifted and that we, you know, actually have a really good opening, and we should fight for for the research AI researcher persona, but before we actually went in the production direction, and heavy on SEO, and heavy on those things. Right? So so I think playing those cards is super important.

So that's one thing. Two is and those are sort of like two yeah. I definitely missed opportunities and two two big learnings for me. So one is one is that it's pretty much always better to do less, but more of it until you saturate. What I mean by that is like, you know, we we did do a lot with the, you know, with the SEO and and and the blog and and things there.

But we I think we started diversifying too early in in some ways. Right? I think we should have we could have owned it even more. We could have done more, and it wasn't saturated. And but just, you know, the idea of, yeah, like, trying those diff other different things and seeing if we can crush them too, yeah, was always there and, you know, fair point.

It it could have could have been there, but I think we would have been more successful had we focused more. I had a few of different few different situations where we put maybe too much effort on diversifying versus exploiting a particular thing that we saw working. And I think it would have been better to just, once we found those things that were working, really entire team on this thing, you know, until we saturate, or like really feel that we are not adding any marginal value by putting more resources into this. And and I think there were, you know, a few situations like that. So so I think, yeah, focus in that sense, and really doubling down until until you, you know, you really see that it doesn't make sense to double down is the way to go.

And and there's, like, search YouTube's you know, there's YouTube search, so we could have really gone for that sort of search, and, you know, and and and owned that, and we haven't. Yeah. But that that that's basically what I'm saying. And and it's in some ways, it feels counterintuitive, but because there are, like, green pastures, etcetera, etcetera, but you found something that works. If it works, if it really gets you, you know, good sign ups, good good pipeline, good activated, you know, devs using your product, being happy, you could do more.

You could do better. We could have doubled down on making every single freaking article 10 times better. And they were great, but they were not everything was great. Right? And and and it could have been something that, you know, you make that comparison, something that everyone wants to share.

And we know it's way more work, but we could have done this. And we were ranking number one, so we didn't, you know, we didn't didn't put that here, but then you don't get those additional elements, etcetera. And I think we should have we should have doubled down. Right? So generally doubling down and and focus is to me way to go, you know, and something that that that I think is like a missed missed missed opportunity to to an extent.

Right? Like, where we we tried a lot of a lot of a lot of different things, you know, and and most of them didn't work, and that's expected. Right? As a startup, I think if you find that moment where you're, you know, you found that, I don't know, the golden trade, if you will, you know, using that as, I don't know. I was a trader before.

So if you find that that trade that you can exploit, you should be you should be plowing as much money as you can into this until the market becomes efficient. And, you know, that's not an opportunity anymore. Right? So so I think there is there is that learning. And then, you know, sort of connected to this a little bit, but mostly separate is is taking more risks.

That's a marketing learning, definitely, is is a better way to go. What I mean by that is in marketing, the real failure is when when when it's silence, when nobody hears you. Right? When there are crickets. That's the that's the that's the failure.

Not when, you know, people hate on you on, I don't know, whatever, on Reddit or or, you know, on or or Huckers. That's not really that bad, know. It depends on what it is. Like it could be bad, of course. But but but, you know, or or or even if that was, you know, for that matter, you know, maybe, you know, you're doing something that is sort of like a gray area and maybe, you know, somebody is gonna feel that they're getting attacked and they shouldn't be getting attacked and there's like, you know, some sort of heat that you have to take on, you know, socials, etcetera.

Like, that I think in some in some spots, when there were good spots, we could have done, we could have taken more risk. Right? And we we stayed on a safer side, and I think, I mean, I never know. Maybe that would have been bad. It would have ended up in in some sort of like a tragedy.

But but looking, you know, you know, looking at the market, looking at at all those different campaigns over over this last, you know, eighty years that I am in in marketing, and I I really enjoy looking at all sorts of marketing that people are doing. I think, you know, it is heavily skewed game, and you should look for those things that really push the needle and and and that, you know, and and and and go viral. Like, you you know, I hate saying go viral, but like, it is something where, you know, like you take risks and if this pushes a chance of this becoming a top 1% result for you, then go for it versus pushing the the average result, you know? So like you do something that is like good, but it could have done something that is either shit or great. So it's almost always always better to go for shit or great, in my opinion, you know?

Like, especially when you, you know, you have your taste.

And and and I think, like, yeah, like, I I remember I I remember on on the last con well, one of the last conferences we went to, there were, we had this idea of of putting like, you know, stickers on on on pavements. Right? Or in places where, you know, there were like pedestrian crossings and stuff like that. And we knew that it's like, so we're, we could do it, but it's taking a risk of like, you know, fines, right? And you know, fines from the city and, and we're like, yeah, like it's, you know, we could do it, you could not do it, or like you could do it out in a, you know, at the, you know, at the venue as well.

Right? Like you, you know, like we're way beyond that that stage, but like people actually, you know, put some sort of like, you know, stickers in bathrooms where they shouldn't have,

So what's that fine? Right? And, you know, that fine was probably like a maybe a few thousand bucks. Right? Maybe, you know, for what they did.

And, but if I could buy, you know, if the venue offered me sticker locations, you know, sort of like on pedestrian crossing for, I don't know, $10,000 or something as a, you know, like, and I could I pro I would probably take it, you know? And and and so I think I think Yeah. You know, you could you could think about it this way. And and then then actually, I I I realized that during, funny enough, during the Comic Con, because that was the same venue as one of the, you know, conferences that we're preparing for. So during Comic Con, different hotels and stuff, they they put huge banners on their I mean, huge sort of, you know, billboards on the hotels.

Right? Like, the the huge stickers of different movies or, like, you know, Netflix movies or whatnot. Right? Then and and it turns out that it's illegal. Like, it's it's completely like, it's it's it's clear violation of city rules, and it's been going on for years, that they basically are paying, the hotels are paying, and, you know, they put the cost on you as well.

Right? But they they're paying like, I think it's like 10,000, up to $10,000 a day for this. You have to pay to the city as a fine. Right? But, you know, like you treat it like it's seven days.

So it's, know, it's 70 k or a 100 k on top of the, you know, like the, you you add it to the price, and then it may actually be a really good thing to do anyway. And then they are actually an important part of that sort of landscape of of Comic Cons or or, you know, or or whatnot. Or and and so I I wish, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is like I, you know, I wish I took a bit more risk in in certain spots. And whether that'd be, you know, something like this, maybe that's actually too much for for people, and I understand that. Maybe it's actually too much for me as well.

You know? Like, I I don't know. But, like, sometimes with even with the, you know, the the blog post you write, the ad you write, you know, like going slightly more, you know, maybe slightly more aggressive or maybe slightly more, you know, I don't know, snarky or something like that, where maybe, you know, this is, or a bit, a bit more personal, a bit more authentic, maybe, you know, I decided to to go go a bit more safe. I think that, you know, for marketing itself, most of the time it's better to to risk it or to go a bit more risky, because you have a chance of a bigger payout. And our attention is, and then, you know, generally, what you see online is heavily skewed toward those results that hit.

And, you know, you yeah. Like, you you can get, you know, okay results with, you know, doing normal stuff, but yeah. But but but having those things that that hit is is just a different just different, you know, story.

And your your speculative one is to be more ballsy, of just take the big risk. Be naughty, potentially. Are you are you happy with that as a as a

I'm all, you know, for it. I think nailing that differentiation is something that people underdo. You know? So you know there's a particular thing that you are better at, you are, you have an opinion on, you know, and you are not taking that risk of maybe alienating people who focus on a different use case, and you don't put it as a front use case for you. Right?

So that's also taking a risk. Right? You're just doubling down on something that you really see and you really believe, but it is, you know, sort of maybe making those other conversions less likely. So I think people are not doing enough of that, and it would have been easier, you know, to convert folks if you, you know, had you done it, had you pushed for differentiation a bit more? So that's one.

Two, something that I really flipped my mind on during this this this time is is events. I used to hate events, you know, as in I thought it was like a complete waste of money. And now I think, now with more people yearning that life interaction, I think if you do good events, they could be fantastic. And I'm really very bullish on, you know, different side events and those invite only events that you do during conferences. We had great success with that and and I think there's a lot a lot of value that you could do that that you can deliver through that to people by connecting the right people, you know, and then, yeah, and then just doing fun things while doing that, and, you know, putting your brand out there.

So events is something something I I really started to like over time. And at the beginning, I was I was very I I thought thought it was gonna be just a complete waste of money. But we also changed how we did them a lot,

So instead of just going for for a booth, maybe you can even take that money that you would have spent on a booth and do just something different there. Right? You're, you know, you do just events during one of those big things, or, you know, things that things of that nature. Right? Or, yeah.

So so you can you can take that idea and still apply it. Right? Just with a tweak, you know, with with various tweaks. And, yeah, so we we we've been to, you know, to to to lots of those different, you know, different conferences and and did great stuff there. Yeah.

But it's it's it's a good point where, you know, it's, I talked more about at the beginning in those first bets we made, right, like where where initial ideas was, hey, maybe let's go and go to those conferences early. And early we actually went full digital, full, you know, let's let's actually focus on SEO. Let's let's focus on done it, that that engine, you know, and then, you know, that that changed over time. But, yeah, it was an you know, at the beginning, was hard for me to see how there could be better ROI of doing that versus getting more more great folks to write great content, you know, and and so we so we did that. But I but I think there's a lot of value there, and I was I was a bit too too bearish on it, too negative on on events, I think you can do great events.

That's what I'm saying. And also, like the, I think the landscape, you know, with with all the AIs and and, you know, and and and everything changed a bit with, you know, people wanting more life things. Right? There was, remember, there was COVID on the way as well, you know. So it was during this time, there was COVID, you know, and and, you know, so so that that changed a lot of the things as well.

So that's one. And and there was a one last thing I wanted to say, and one one one thing that I think is very valuable that I wish people did more, and actually when I work with founders, it's something that I push for a lot, is front loading the information. So using something like blah formats or reversed pyramids. I know it's it's sort of, you know, all over the place with the way I explain things today.

We were under attack or something. Right? Yeah. Don't send, hey, how's your how's your wife doing or something. I don't know. Right?

Right? So you deliver, you front load that that the core information, and then you can expand each point. Right? Like, so you expand each point, and maybe there's like a few things that you can say you wanna front load again within a a particular, you know, paragraph or a, you know, or or a section of an article, and then you then you go for it. You know, it's way better, way easier to do that in written format than when you when you speak, but actually great speakers do that a lot, where they front load those points and then then you go for, you know, expanding, right, versus going for that long long long, you know, sort of tree of depth on the first point before coming back.

I think it's like an Oxford something. There's like an Oxford that no. There are competitions in going like really deep in those those those trees. I think it's like, yeah. Anyway, but yeah, like that that you you can actually do that with, you know, putting the most important things up there and then expanding.

Putting the most important things up there and and and then expanding when somebody gets there, and you don't run the risk of people just, you know, skipping the most important part. Right? Because they had energy to read the intro to the article, and they read the intro, there's nothing valuable, so they skip. Had you front loaded the summary really or, like, you know, you front loaded the information that you you put somewhere in there. Had you front loaded it to the intro, they would have read it or they would have read more.

Or if they, you know, had they just read the intro, still you would have delivered the information you wanted. Right? Versus you didn't deliver anything because you started talking about how enterprises today are struggling with whatever it is, you know? And and you don't say, you know, you don't speak like that to people anyway. Right? Like, you you do front load. So what's the headline? You know, this is the headline. You know, you do front load it. Right?

Like you would you would never survive. Oh, by the way, that's a really good test as well for for for people. I just I just had a discussion today with the founder and I shared that that with them too. Framework is basically something like, you have that article that you wrote, and imagine you are presenting it to your audience, to the, you know, to the people you're actually trying to reach. You're in a room with them, you know, it's like a maybe like a small meetup.

Right? You're in a room with them, you know, small meetup. You're talking to those people. So it's very personal. Right? And imagine reading this article to them. Imagine yourself reading word for word what you have there to those people. And, you know, very often, it's like there's zero chance I would read it, you know, to people. Like this is, like this is not, like I would just like, I'll be, you know yeah. Like, there's no way I could read this.

This is horrible. You know? Like, nobody speaks like that. I would look like an idiot. You know?

You know, people would just, like, boo me out of of that room. Mhmm. And, yeah, but then then for some reason, you write like that, you know. And I know you have so much value in you and so many, you know, valuable things that you can say. And actually, the article is good if you organize it differently, you know, like you, and dropped a lot of those those things that are there for no good reason, and you just thought about front loading that information and adding something new to people and generally saving people time, you know, saving the the readers time, it could have been great.

So, yeah. I mean, it comes from a book that I I recommend to people, Writing Without Bullshit, which I I I find very, very, very valuable and powerful, you know. Mhmm. So

He had some speech coaches, you know, or or, you know, presentation coaches, and and one thing that he learned from them was front loading, you know, and and it just like changed everything. So he would he would have let's say there's like five things he, you know, five different themes he wants to touch. So first he goes, one, two, three, I'm gonna, you know, so so those are the ideas I I will be talking about. And not only that, but there's like a hint of of the value in each, And then you go deeper, and then, you know, you hint you front load that information again, etcetera etcetera. And it just makes it easier for people to follow and and and get value from.

I do try to, you know, save people's time whenever I write, front load the valuable things up, almost like a TLDR in each each section. You can think of it almost like that.

And and I think right around that time you started pod and I loved it, you know. And yeah, I'm so happy that we've been, you know, creating, sharing those things with people and