WEBVTT
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:01.163
Hey, what is up?
00:00:01.163 --> 00:00:04.431
Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
00:00:04.431 --> 00:00:27.103
As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and today's guest and fellow entrepreneur is someone who I've been so excited to have and chat with here on the airwaves, because we are all going to learn so much about how this guy he seemingly can take technology and just whip it into something cool that makes the world a better place and that helps businesses drive more business and revenue and serve even more people.
00:00:27.103 --> 00:00:28.768
So let me introduce you to today's guest.
00:00:28.768 --> 00:00:30.231
His name is Robert Chen.
00:00:30.620 --> 00:00:41.502
Robert is a retired army veteran, he's a former fintech software engineer and he's now playing heck of a lot of volleyball yes, even though he lives in New York City while entrepreneuring full time.
00:00:41.502 --> 00:00:58.976
He has built a very cool company it's called supportsalesai, where their sales software 100% automates B2B customer acquisition, from lead generation to auto-crafting, custom-tailored emails and even auto-replying to incoming inquiries.
00:00:58.976 --> 00:01:01.064
Now, robert loves this stuff.
00:01:01.064 --> 00:01:21.641
Even leading up to him and I chatting here on the air, he's been screenshotting me how the tool works and sending me login information, and it is so cool to see a really practical use case of AI and automations that actually helps us to decrease our workload while also increasing our ability to make more revenue, to serve more clients, to do more good in the world.
00:01:21.641 --> 00:01:27.676
So we're all going to hear some cool applications of AI as Robert introduces us to all the things that he's building.
00:01:27.676 --> 00:01:29.421
So I'm not going to say anything else.
00:01:29.501 --> 00:01:32.126
Let's dive straight into my interview with Robert Chen.
00:01:32.126 --> 00:01:38.444
All right, robert, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
00:01:38.444 --> 00:01:39.266
First things first.
00:01:39.266 --> 00:01:40.189
Welcome to the show.
00:01:40.189 --> 00:01:42.284
Hi, yes, thank you.
00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:43.061
Heck.
00:01:43.061 --> 00:01:43.402
Yes.
00:01:43.402 --> 00:01:51.522
Well, Robert, you and I have obviously exchanged some emails in the lead up to today's conversation, but I'm excited for you to give listeners a backstory beyond the bio.
00:01:51.522 --> 00:01:52.144
Who's Robert?
00:01:52.144 --> 00:01:53.727
How'd you start doing all these cool things?
00:01:54.829 --> 00:01:59.587
Oh man, yeah, so I started my first company straight out of college almost 10 years ago.
00:01:59.587 --> 00:02:02.212
I came out of a war.
00:02:02.212 --> 00:02:04.644
I was in Afghanistan when I was 21.
00:02:04.644 --> 00:02:08.473
I finished my degree when I was 23.
00:02:08.473 --> 00:02:11.025
And then I started my first company, fluta LA.
00:02:11.025 --> 00:02:18.768
It was a crowdfunding influencer platform, so at the time it was kind of novel.
00:02:18.768 --> 00:02:20.612
This was 2017.
00:02:20.612 --> 00:02:24.842
But I was fresh out of college, I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know how to code yet.
00:02:24.842 --> 00:02:34.733
So I spent all my money, all my savings, on that startup, worked on it for two years full time and eventually decided I need to learn some skills.
00:02:34.733 --> 00:02:36.616
So I chose to learn how to code.
00:02:45.045 --> 00:02:47.775
Did that for six years and now I'm attempting entrepreneurship again with more wisdom.
00:02:47.775 --> 00:02:48.979
Yeah, I love that, robert, especially.
00:02:48.979 --> 00:02:51.062
Well, first things first, thank you for your service.
00:02:51.062 --> 00:02:58.008
That is obviously such a core part of the way that you develop your mindset and develop your resilience, and obviously all of those are traits that feed into your success as an entrepreneur.
00:02:58.008 --> 00:03:01.883
But I also know a lot of people's ears are going to perk up at the sound of wait.
00:03:01.883 --> 00:03:10.062
A tech entrepreneur who didn't learn how to code from a young age, who didn't go to school for coding Talk to us about that, because obviously you have the ability.
00:03:10.062 --> 00:03:14.625
I know, because I know that you've pivoted and transitioned your business and built different tools along the way.
00:03:14.625 --> 00:03:19.503
But what did learning to code look like to the point where now you get to launch tech companies?
00:03:20.646 --> 00:03:24.817
Yeah, actually in college I took an intro to coding and I got a C.
00:03:24.817 --> 00:03:30.784
I thought I was not smart enough, but it turns out no, it's not true, it was just the way college taught.
00:03:30.784 --> 00:03:32.109
Code is very dry.
00:03:32.109 --> 00:03:46.342
So when I tried again as an adult, I took online classes and it actually came pretty naturally and I was invested enough to pay for coding bootcamp and that's when I flew back to New York.
00:03:46.342 --> 00:04:08.549
After the startup in LA didn't pan out and because the instructors gave them more hands on like build something from scratch instead of just concepts and theories, it was actually very enjoyable and it was fun to learn and it was quick like I learned how to code in three months and then I went on to corporate and got even better and now I'm starting my own software company.
00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:10.346
Yeah, that's very cool.
00:04:10.346 --> 00:04:20.209
Talk to us about that software, robert, because what I really appreciate about your company is it's not just software that we can look at or that we can toy with it's software that actually does something.
00:04:20.209 --> 00:04:24.552
Now, I obviously know about support salesai, but introduce listeners to it.
00:04:24.552 --> 00:04:28.084
What is it, what is the gap that it plugs and how does it actually function?
00:04:29.007 --> 00:04:33.103
yeah, so, uh, for me personally, sales is the hardest part of starting a company.
00:04:33.103 --> 00:04:34.507
Like I can build the thing.
00:04:34.507 --> 00:04:45.047
I built many apps, but getting it in front of people's eyes, that was where I struggled and like, sure, I could go to networking events and talk to people, but never like it doesn't scale well.
00:04:45.047 --> 00:04:50.735
So, you know, ai is now the thing, and I was actually building a different company before I pivoted into sales AI.
00:04:50.735 --> 00:04:57.086
But, yeah, same struggle, it was hard to get customers.
00:04:57.105 --> 00:05:20.408
So then I started working on this and what I built is the ability to reach like hundreds of thousands of contacts through the software and generate personalized emails for each one of them with AI, and all you have to do is type a prompt, select the businesses that you want to contact through my lead list, and we're generating about 600,000 per month.
00:05:20.408 --> 00:05:25.362
So in a few months, we'll have millions of contacts that you can choose from, and they're all B2B.
00:05:25.362 --> 00:05:37.730
So, yeah, you just select hundreds of thousands, tap send and it'll auto follow up and you can even enable auto reply, and this is all integrated with Gmail and OpenAI.
00:05:37.730 --> 00:05:51.492
So you essentially yeah, you could automate one of the toughest parts of starting a company now could automate one of the toughest parts of starting a company now, and we recently just got accepted into the Antler Accelerator, so things are going to kick off fast.
00:05:52.519 --> 00:05:54.225
Yeah, I love that for you, robert.
00:05:54.225 --> 00:06:16.690
I think it is so cool what you've built and what you're continuing to build, especially because I feel like this is really two sides of the coin that I'm excited to go into with you here in today's episode and conversation is because one obviously you've built the technology that enables this, but the second and more important side of it, which you've called out already a couple of times, robert, is the fact that we all in the business world we know who it is that we want to serve.
00:06:16.690 --> 00:06:18.523
We know who our ideal customer is.
00:06:18.523 --> 00:06:20.949
We always throw that term around customer avatar.
00:06:20.949 --> 00:06:30.617
We all are aware of that, but I'm not sure where along the way we weren't coached into go after them, just get their lead information and proactively go after them.
00:06:30.617 --> 00:06:37.906
Talk to us about that approach, because you've seen firsthand how hard it is to find them, or, even worse, I'll say, to have them find you.
00:06:37.906 --> 00:06:40.456
I love the proactive approach that you're powering.
00:06:40.456 --> 00:06:41.360
Talk to us about that.
00:06:42.562 --> 00:06:43.303
Yeah.
00:06:43.303 --> 00:06:50.146
So what really me to to make the pivot into this company is like I saw so much potential here.
00:06:50.146 --> 00:07:07.473
It's like I could reach like 10 000 x amount of people that I could reach without this, like with this software, because without it it's hard, like you have to create that lead list, you have to manually send out the emails even if you don't use, like you don't manually personalize, you send out just a generic email.
00:07:07.473 --> 00:07:09.560
Like you have to pay for software to do that.
00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:15.112
That's like it's pricey stuff, uh, and it's not as effective because it's a generic email.
00:07:15.112 --> 00:07:19.874
So I started building this and, uh, like it just makes a lot.
00:07:19.874 --> 00:07:29.274
It just makes the job so much more easier and, especially as a new entrepreneur, like you have limited resources money-wise and also personnel-wise.
00:07:29.274 --> 00:07:40.511
To do what this software is doing you need a team of five to ten salespeople and marketing, but with the software it starts at $99 a month.
00:07:40.511 --> 00:07:43.548
It actually can even start for free, it's just there will be a cap.
00:07:43.548 --> 00:07:46.041
So it's really powerful stuff.
00:07:46.966 --> 00:07:47.807
Yeah, I love that.
00:07:47.807 --> 00:07:53.829
I love the fact that you also call out the real life implications of costs and resource considerations.
00:07:53.829 --> 00:07:56.499
It affects every single one of us as business owners.
00:07:56.499 --> 00:08:03.120
Even massive enterprise level companies all have a set of resources that they have to make the most out of.
00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:09.033
When I think about that, I think about how difficult it is to compete in the ads marketplace, For example.
00:08:09.033 --> 00:08:19.468
You are bidding for ad space against massive companies, whereas a solution like what you've built and especially cold outreach in email we all use Gmail, we all use our email inboxes.
00:08:19.468 --> 00:08:21.413
What are those costs involved?
00:08:21.413 --> 00:08:25.711
Because, Robert, a lot of people will hear about your tool, for example, is 99 bucks a month or free.
00:08:25.711 --> 00:08:26.904
I love that you have a free plan.
00:08:26.904 --> 00:08:30.069
What are the other costs involved with this type of outreach?
00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:33.384
That's essentially it.
00:08:33.384 --> 00:08:45.033
We provide the leads, like you're able to upload your own lead list if you have one, but if you don't, we could provide the lead list and you're all like 80% precision match.
00:08:45.033 --> 00:08:48.168
So they're highly qualified, also highly responsive leads.
00:08:48.168 --> 00:08:51.889
Yeah, it's really a low-cost thing.
00:08:51.889 --> 00:08:58.145
This is only possible because AI made the hardest part of it, which is the personnel cost.
00:08:58.145 --> 00:09:08.750
It cut that or it limits that cost, so we can bring down costs significantly, and also timelines, because the AI operates a thousand times faster than any human can.
00:09:08.750 --> 00:09:21.192
The only downside, though, is, like I'm aware, this is going to eliminate jobs, and that is something that I'm aware of, which I have a plan to make up for that, just for my own conscience.
00:09:21.192 --> 00:09:29.287
So I do have a strategy to like offset that, I guess, in a way, the negatives of pursuing the software.
00:09:29.287 --> 00:09:36.821
I also think it's inevitable, so that's why it's like, if someone's going to build it, I'd rather be the person and I'll try to be responsible about it.
00:09:37.442 --> 00:09:41.381
Yeah, talk to us about that more, robert, because I love the fact that you call out that it's inevitable.
00:09:41.381 --> 00:09:48.774
I mean, it doesn't make sense for you to hold off on building great technology that's going to reach more people, because if you don't, somebody else is going to.
00:09:48.774 --> 00:09:53.504
So I love the fact that you called out You're glad that it's you, and I am as well, robert, just having had the chance to interact with you.
00:09:53.504 --> 00:09:56.400
Talk to us about those considerations for the long term.
00:09:57.243 --> 00:09:57.423
Right.
00:09:57.423 --> 00:10:12.164
So, while this is probably going to eliminate sales positions, it also opens up a lot of opportunities for anyone to pursue entrepreneurship, because we just brought down the cost significantly and reduce the amount of time that you need to invest into sales marketing.
00:10:12.164 --> 00:10:18.150
Um, so if you have, like, you just focus on building a great product and let the software take care of you.
00:10:18.150 --> 00:10:24.428
All the other stuff, like your gmail account, could be automated for the sales, even customer customer support.
00:10:24.428 --> 00:10:26.011
It's the same AI.
00:10:26.011 --> 00:10:27.625
It's aware of what your business does.
00:10:27.625 --> 00:10:29.206
You can upload documents to train it.
00:10:29.206 --> 00:10:37.625
You can interact with it to train the emails, what needs to improve, what types of email it should respond to or ignore.
00:10:37.625 --> 00:10:40.892
So it gets better over time the more you use it.
00:10:42.076 --> 00:10:50.019
For many use cases, um, I found it even works for uh recruiting or, on the flip side, if you're applying to jobs, this software will also work.
00:10:50.019 --> 00:10:50.701
Like.
00:10:50.701 --> 00:10:52.886
It's very flexible because you can train it.
00:10:52.886 --> 00:11:03.222
Um, but yeah, so I think there's a lot of uh potential for people to start new businesses and I think that is kind of the core of, like, the american dream.
00:11:03.222 --> 00:11:07.101
That's that's why what makes america so different and special?
00:11:07.755 --> 00:11:11.104
Yeah, you're definitely you're preaching to the choir here, robert.
00:11:11.104 --> 00:11:21.044
That is so in line with our mission behind the scenes and I very much resonate with your messaging and the reason why you view the possibilities that come from building such a powerful tool.
00:11:21.044 --> 00:11:43.456
On that note, you brought up training, and I'm so fascinated by that side of the world because obviously, any AI tool we use we're not just talking about support salesai right now but any ai tools only as good as the inputs that we give us, talk to it or talk to us about the training and how we can get this thing to actually understand what's our business, what's our tone, what are the things that we wanted to say?
00:11:43.456 --> 00:11:45.258
How, how do we want it to outreach?
00:11:45.258 --> 00:11:46.599
What is it pitching?
00:11:46.599 --> 00:11:48.181
How the heck do we train this thing, robert?
00:11:49.162 --> 00:11:52.403
Yeah, so what you can do is upload documents.
00:11:52.403 --> 00:11:58.929
That's where it starts, and then, as you start sending out emails, it will suggest emails to you.
00:11:58.929 --> 00:12:01.652
This is pre-auto mode, so it's kind of like co-pilot mode.
00:12:01.652 --> 00:12:06.400
So then it will suggest emails to you and you can make edits to it before you send it.
00:12:06.400 --> 00:12:16.905
Then, once you do, uh, hit send, it sends a copy to open ai, and then it could match the difference of what it suggested and what you ultimately sent, and then it'll adjust itself.
00:12:16.905 --> 00:12:18.857
It'll figure out like oh, this is what you change.
00:12:18.857 --> 00:12:21.666
Here are some improvements that I can make next time.
00:12:21.666 --> 00:12:33.947
Uh, and you know, if you do that enough times, then it'll learn your voice and it'll it'll basically imitate you yeah, that is so cool, robert, just knowing a little bit of behind the scenes.
00:12:33.988 --> 00:12:46.413
I'd like for you to talk to listeners about the evolution of your platform, because when you and I first started talking over email, I know that the platform was an events and social media platform a little bit different, obviously still incorporating the key ai ingredients.
00:12:46.413 --> 00:12:51.956
What did that process look like of transitioning from one idea to another, which I'm very glad that you did, robert?
00:12:51.956 --> 00:12:56.489
I'll say that here, publicly, on the air yeah, I made a total pivot.
00:12:56.649 --> 00:13:07.102
It was a events, uh, social media and I started in looking into ai, like researching how could ai help improve what I had built with the event, social media and stuff.
00:13:07.102 --> 00:13:12.240
And it turns out like actually there's a whole new opportunity there that maybe it makes more sense to pursue that.
00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:44.912
And I'll just put what I'm building on pause Because actually the day that, the first day that I went out like into the real world with the events Well, actually I had been getting users to use the event software but it wasn't like it wasn't a b2b yet and I I started going to businesses and trying to pitch my software and I found it so hard like I was walking to buildings and just like trying to introduce myself and suggest something that wasn't like you, they weren't even thinking about, not top of your mind.
00:13:44.912 --> 00:13:48.697
It was like how do I convince someone to now even think about this and then consider paying for it?
00:13:48.697 --> 00:13:49.741
That was very tough.
00:13:50.985 --> 00:14:04.484
And then I went home that day and I had already done two weeks of research on AI and I started thinking maybe the problem that I could solve is what I just experienced today how do I make sales with AI easier?
00:14:04.484 --> 00:14:06.488
So I started building.
00:14:06.488 --> 00:14:17.534
I first started with the auto reply to Gmail because that was kind of like what was missing from the market, like a lot of people were doing outbound, even if it wasn't fully automated.
00:14:17.534 --> 00:14:23.534
It was just like there's AI and outbound, but no one was doing AI and replying to emails.
00:14:23.534 --> 00:14:40.386
So I started with that just to differentiate, and then from there I expanded to the general personalized outbound emails and then bulk personalized outbound emails thereafter, and between those three features that's a full sales cycle.
00:14:41.235 --> 00:14:42.277
Yeah, for sure, robert.
00:14:42.277 --> 00:14:53.086
I love the fact that cold door, going door to door selling is the thing that pushed you and said, holy cow, I actually need to fix this, because that is a painful activity.
00:14:53.086 --> 00:14:55.081
I've totally been there myself as well.
00:14:55.081 --> 00:14:56.640
You bring up personalization.
00:14:56.640 --> 00:15:02.943
That's obviously so core to your approach, and part of what makes this so special is that it's not just a generic script.
00:15:02.943 --> 00:15:05.195
It's not just a generic copy paste.
00:15:05.195 --> 00:15:08.160
I think is the worst thing that we can all do when it comes to sales and marketing.
00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:14.602
Talk to us about that personalization, because a lot of people are probably thinking well, it's AI, how personalized can it get?
00:15:14.602 --> 00:15:16.365
Is it researching this person?
00:15:16.365 --> 00:15:17.908
Is it going to their LinkedIn?
00:15:17.908 --> 00:15:18.990
Is it googling them?
00:15:18.990 --> 00:15:22.682
Talk to us about that personalization element yeah, so it does.
00:15:23.082 --> 00:15:24.144
It does research.
00:15:24.144 --> 00:15:41.015
So every email is a business email, at least has a domain attached to it, and so just by having that email, we can then have the AI go to your domain research, to your landing page and then use that as the context for how to like personalize this email.
00:15:41.015 --> 00:15:42.357
And it will.
00:15:42.357 --> 00:15:44.221
It does a fantastic job.
00:15:44.221 --> 00:15:44.402
Like.
00:15:44.402 --> 00:15:45.264
It surprised me.
00:15:46.285 --> 00:15:59.629
Well, I put in a bunch of the different companies that are just like off the top of my head and same, like the same goal of um reach out to this company and convince them to go to our landing page, uh, and, and start a free trial.
00:15:59.629 --> 00:16:05.596
That was, that was the prompt, and it would go research these companies and come out with very different, custom tailored emails.
00:16:05.596 --> 00:16:11.464
Like it'll take a copy from their page and use it as one of like.
00:16:11.464 --> 00:16:16.777
The the triggers to like I guess like relate to that person and it was.
00:16:16.777 --> 00:16:17.177
It did.
00:16:17.177 --> 00:16:18.282
So good I was, I was.
00:16:18.282 --> 00:16:27.091
That was what really drove me to like keep pursuing this when I saw that there is potential here yeah, for sure it's very cool, I'll say.
00:16:27.150 --> 00:16:36.400
As a podcaster, I get 20 to 30 pitches in my inbox every single day and I can tell the ones that have never been to my website ever before and they just copy and paste.
00:16:36.400 --> 00:16:47.975
Sometimes it's awkwardly bolded in the wrong size, robert, because people don't have a good template and that's because it's just a human copying and pasting and hitting send on a bunch of emails and there's no way for them to scale that.
00:16:47.975 --> 00:16:50.219
So I think it's really cool to apply technology to this.
00:16:50.219 --> 00:17:02.029
Obviously, within the world of AI and the world of software tools, a lot of people are a little uneasy still about where their data goes and how it's handled, and especially when it comes to emails, we all get so many sensitive emails.
00:17:02.029 --> 00:17:07.247
I'm always amazed at you technical co-founders or technical founders, and how much you think about these things.
00:17:07.247 --> 00:17:11.405
Talk to us about the data architecture and the privacy considerations behind the scenes.
00:17:12.016 --> 00:17:15.205
Yeah, I thought about this so much because this is sensitive stuff.
00:17:15.205 --> 00:17:22.321
So my approach is we don't want any, we don't want to hold any of that personal information so that we're not held liable.
00:17:22.321 --> 00:17:24.281
So all the Gmail stuff stays in Gmail.
00:17:24.281 --> 00:17:36.236
The stuff that goes to OpenAI, like maybe there's an email, like a copy of the suggestion that OpenAI suggests that you use, that you then send to gmail.
00:17:36.236 --> 00:17:40.268
It'll hold on to that in the open ai thread history.
00:17:40.268 --> 00:17:44.442
But never, ever do we store any of that content in our own database.
00:17:44.442 --> 00:17:52.604
That way we limit a liability on ourselves and also the security of a gmail and open are significantly stronger than the startup.
00:17:52.604 --> 00:18:02.060
So I want to leverage that as much as possible so the two will communicate through us, but at no point in time do we save the contents of that information to our own database.
00:18:02.755 --> 00:18:07.161
Yeah, I love that, the more and more I'm starting to ask that question to a lot of technical founders.
00:18:07.161 --> 00:18:23.142
And, robert, I love that response because I feel like that's the way forward, because a lot of times when we use tools I'll call out all of our favorite social media platforms our content is on their platform, and so it's really cool to hear how many software tools are saying "'No, you have your own data.
00:18:23.142 --> 00:18:24.125
You keep all of that.
00:18:24.125 --> 00:18:27.762
"'we actually don't even want that'", and it makes sense from a liability perspective as well.
00:18:27.762 --> 00:18:30.796
So super cool to hear those considerations behind the scenes.
00:18:30.796 --> 00:18:45.344
Sticking with that theme of being a technical founder, robert, I'm so fascinated by all the things that break, because when we talk about just business in general, things break all the time, but when you're sitting on top of a software solution, things literally break.
00:18:45.344 --> 00:18:46.528
You literally have bugs.
00:18:46.528 --> 00:18:51.986
Talk to us about some of those twists and turns along the way and how you keep your sanity amidst all the things that come up.
00:18:55.095 --> 00:18:56.520
Oh yeah, it's a problem, no matter the size of the company.
00:18:56.520 --> 00:19:01.337
Like I've worked at a 10 billion dollar plus fintech company before and bugs still happen.
00:19:01.337 --> 00:19:11.340
It's just part of the job, um, so be prepared for it, I think, is the best uh approach, like be proactive about preventing bugs.
00:19:11.340 --> 00:19:29.223
The way we do it at Software Engineers is we write something called unit tests and basically we're testing hypothetical situations or edge cases for when things go unexpected, and if we could catch it before the customer does, then we could fix it before a customer finds it.
00:19:29.223 --> 00:19:38.704
So I actually made that highest priority starting last week, because now we the features are built, let's stabilize, let's uh, let's write unit tests.
00:19:38.704 --> 00:19:43.865
That that's all we're working on moving forward for the next few weeks yeah, I love that.
00:19:43.924 --> 00:19:51.172
I have a friend who works at spacex out in los angeles and his only job is to try to get things to explode.
00:19:51.172 --> 00:20:03.484
That is literally what he's tasked with every single day, and then obviously there's a team trying to have it not explode, and so it's really cool how committed companies are to those fail safes and to those edge cases that you called out.
00:20:03.484 --> 00:20:18.135
Robert, I wanna switch gears a little bit I knew that time would fly by with you and I wanna squeeze quite a few more things in and I wanna talk to you as a fellow entrepreneur, because obviously the technical side of your business is one thing, but the business strategy, the actual implementation, is an entirely other thing.
00:20:18.135 --> 00:20:27.996
I'm so curious to hear how your army background plays into your entrepreneurial mindset, the way that you see the world, the way that you balance your short and long-term strategies.
00:20:27.996 --> 00:20:29.558
I'd love to hear that side of your brain.
00:20:30.701 --> 00:20:48.375
Yeah, I think it kind of like I separate short and long term, uh, with different approaches and goals, and even, like, um, in personal life, like I take working out very seriously, like still, uh, something embedded during the army, but like there's no lessons to learn from just going to gyms.
00:20:48.375 --> 00:20:56.609
Like consistency, um, uh, keep going through the hardships, forcing yourself to do the thing even if you don't feel like it.
00:20:56.609 --> 00:21:00.285
Like all that stuff is applicable to being an entrepreneur too.
00:21:00.285 --> 00:21:07.722
There are very extreme highs and very low lows when you're an entrepreneur, and you got to be able to push yourself through those low lows.
00:21:07.722 --> 00:21:26.525
So, in terms of, like sales and marketing strategy, like I have a plan for sales which is I'm going to use this AI and have it sell itself, because we are generating 600,000 B2B contacts, like they're all qualified to use our own service.
00:21:26.525 --> 00:21:31.960
So that's our sales strategy and that could be that's something that will work long and short term.
00:21:32.339 --> 00:21:44.507
And then, for the long term, there's a feature that I'm going to build, starting in April, that I'm calling auto referral, and it's a unique thing that is only possible because of the foundation that we've built so far.
00:21:44.507 --> 00:21:57.140
So the basic idea is everyone's Gmail account gets spam, yes, and that spam is actually the ideal target audience for our software too.
00:21:57.140 --> 00:22:35.095
So what we could do is we could allow a user to toggle a switch that then embeds an AI engine into their Gmail account to decline spam and counter offer them to sign up for our software, in which, if someone does, then our user will receive a 20 commission monthly, uh, for just enabling this feature, and I think, if this works the way that I intended to, it would spread very quickly, because we're talking about clicking a button and turning any past and future spam into income, and I think that could be huge, like.
00:22:35.095 --> 00:22:39.945
It'll help our business grow, it'll help our users make free money, basically, and it's ethical.
00:22:39.945 --> 00:22:42.824
So that's a long-term strategy.
00:22:43.394 --> 00:22:47.346
Robert, I love that because you just revealed part of your long-term vision and goals.
00:22:47.346 --> 00:22:59.347
You talked earlier on about the important human component of replacing jobs and creating more opportunities, but now I'm also hearing that long-term goal of yours to make email a better place, to make our inboxes better places.
00:22:59.347 --> 00:23:01.061
I love that part of your mission.
00:23:01.061 --> 00:23:04.556
I'll tell you this, having been in business for more than 17 years now.
00:23:04.556 --> 00:23:06.560
I started my first business when I was just 19.
00:23:06.560 --> 00:23:11.740
And a lot of people ever since 2008 have been saying, oh, email is dead.
00:23:11.740 --> 00:23:12.742
Email is dead.
00:23:12.742 --> 00:23:17.540
Which here we are in 2025 having this conversation, and email is still the king.
00:23:17.540 --> 00:23:23.048
It is still the number one communication channel for all of us and all of our businesses and our personal lives.
00:23:23.048 --> 00:23:30.377
Talk to us about that, because I'm sure you also hear that macro noise about things going to spam, things going into the promotions folder.
00:23:30.377 --> 00:23:32.967
When Gmail rolled that out, everyone was terrified of that.
00:23:32.967 --> 00:23:38.244
I'd love to hear more of that, because a lot of listeners probably aren't aware of all this noise around the world of email.
00:23:39.234 --> 00:23:55.619
Yeah, there are protections against getting into spam, like the third-party service that I'm using is called SendGrid and they have these protections where they limit the amount of emails that could go out if you're getting flagged too often.
00:23:55.619 --> 00:24:00.698
It's dynamic, uh, they have algorithm that figures it out so it prevents you from getting into spam box.
00:24:00.698 --> 00:24:08.099
And also, if you're, like, signed up as um, like a heavy marketing uh company, then you also get more protection.
00:24:08.099 --> 00:24:10.726
So there are methods to protect yourself.
00:24:10.726 --> 00:24:19.424
And also, like, as long as you're providing quality to like to the people that you're emailing, they're not going to mark you as spam as likely.
00:24:19.424 --> 00:24:32.185
And then there's the ratio too If more people are finding value in your service and then there's a smaller percent that does mark you as spam, you're not going to get marked as spam as likely.
00:24:33.195 --> 00:24:34.261
Yeah for sure.
00:24:34.261 --> 00:24:39.566
So many considerations when it comes to email deliverability, robert, I want to ask you about.
00:24:39.566 --> 00:24:52.121
You talked about edge cases with regards to software, but I always think about all the listeners and entrepreneurs that I hear from that believe that they are an edge case, where they say this sounds really cool, but it wouldn't work for my industry, but it wouldn't work for my service.
00:24:52.121 --> 00:24:54.914
But it wouldn't work for my industry, but it wouldn't work for my service, but it wouldn't work for this specific use case.
00:24:54.914 --> 00:25:04.166
I love how much you think not just about your technology, but you also think about those use cases, the customers that you're serving, all those real life uses for it.
00:25:04.166 --> 00:25:09.540
Talk to us about some of those and please directly speak to my audience and convince them that they are not an edge case.
00:25:09.540 --> 00:25:14.077
None of our businesses are that special that things won't work for us Right edge case.
00:25:14.077 --> 00:25:15.632
None of our businesses are that special that things won't work for us right.
00:25:15.652 --> 00:25:42.963
So actually, I I think at this current time, uh, everyone is too afraid to to take that jump and just entrust your business with uh ai, like it's a scary thing, I'm, I, I'm fully aware, um, and I actually think it's a great opportunity too because, like, the software is way ahead of adoption right now, what it's capable of doing is actually significantly better than hiring a new employee or hiring a new grad.
00:25:42.963 --> 00:25:46.644
That is a risk and we have taken that risk before.
00:25:46.644 --> 00:25:53.527
So if we're comfortable with that, it's like an emotional gap that needs to be covered.
