Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Amazon jungle to startup CEO: Zack Holland’s story

Transcript

Amazon jungle to startup CEO: Zack Holland’s story · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
Welcome back to AI for Founders. I'm your host, Ryan Estes.
0:03
I am not AI, but this eye contact is.
0:06
Today's guest is someone who's not only been building since age
0:09
15, but has the receipts to prove it.
0:12
Zach Holland is the founder of Avery dot AIA, brilliant AI
0:16
marketing platform that bridges the gap between strategy and
0:19
action. In this episode we talk about
0:21
everything from the LLM wars and Apples rumored move on
0:25
perplexity to Stoic philosophy, personal branding, and growing
0:28
up barefoot in the Amazon rainforest with a pet toucan.
0:32
Man, that's cool. Zach doesn't just talk founder
0:35
life, he lives it. This conversation is funny,
0:38
wise, and filled with lessons you'll want to write down.
0:40
If you're scaling with no marketing or battling impostor
0:43
syndrome, this one's for you. So stick around.
0:46
Let's get into it. But first, some business.
0:49
This episode is brought to you by Kick Caster, the podcast
0:52
booking agency that gets founders on podcasts.
0:55
Whether you're launching a startup, raising around, or
0:58
building your personal brand, nothing converts like a great
1:00
conversation. Kick Caster has helped over 800
1:03
CE OS investors and creators land more than 14,000 podcast
1:08
interviews. Dang, turning their voice into a
1:11
magnet of revenue, influence and deal flow.
1:14
From talking points to media training to performance
1:16
tracking, Kick Caster handles everything.
1:19
You just show up and speak. Go to kickcaster.com and apply
1:22
in under 60 seconds. Kick Caster.
1:25
Your audience is waiting. It's Kick caster by MO Burst.
1:44
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
1:47
Of course, excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
1:49
Absolutely. OK.
1:50
I want to talk about your company.
1:51
I want to talk about your entrepreneurial journey, what
1:53
you're doing for founders right now.
1:55
But I want to begin with a little bit of news.
1:57
So today it was released that Apple is in talks with acquiring
2:02
perplexity. What are your thoughts on that?
2:07
Yeah, it's just the, you know, the wars have begun with Meta's
2:11
moves on their side, Apple being like kind of traditionally
2:14
behind on the AI curve because of just like their obsessions
2:18
with privacy and kind of trying to make sure that things are
2:20
done at a higher level. I'm a massive perplexity fan.
2:24
So it's obviously it's a huge, huge shout out to everybody
2:27
there who's done so many innovative things on trying to
2:29
make sure people are engaging and searching and using AI in
2:32
different ways and staying creative.
2:35
It's going to be the future, right?
2:37
Is it? You know, for a long time we had
2:40
massive SAS companies and they bought up smaller SAS companies
2:43
to make sure that they could stay ahead of their competitors.
2:45
You know, Facebook buying, Instagram being kind of like the
2:48
classic of that, you know, that kind of battle.
2:51
We're now in a new age where it's going to be the large AI
2:54
companies, which Apple, Google are still a part of that also,
2:57
of course, like open AI and everybody there are buying new
3:00
application layers for AI so that they can encourage people
3:03
to use AI in different ways on the consumer side.
3:05
And so it's interesting to kind of like follow the path.
3:08
But yeah, obviously, massive perplexity fan and big shout out
3:11
over there. Yeah.
3:12
Totally shout out to them like this.
3:14
These LLM wars are just fascinating because one,
3:17
everybody needs compute, OK, Now everybody has their own, you
3:22
know, chips to throw our compute, but everybody else has
3:25
different needs, you know, So Apple, to your point with their
3:29
privacy constraints, they need data, you know, open AI, they
3:34
need hardware, you know, meta meta's early to to hardware.
3:39
Their Ray Bans have been kind of a smash hit.
3:41
They obviously have tons of data, but then you have Google,
3:44
just the sneaky Google that's got everything.
3:47
They got hardware they. Got everything they have VO3
3:50
which is so good and so it's fun to watch and it's a fun space to
3:54
build in for software is enable so many more smaller application
3:58
layers to be able to build fast and to be able to get involved
4:00
and then the best got acquired by the people actually running
4:04
those clouds. It's the same way in AI right
4:06
now, where the better these foundation models get and the
4:08
more competitive that these big companies get against each
4:11
other, the better for all of us that are building smaller
4:13
application layers for it. Yeah, cool.
4:16
Well, I mean, Apple has to do something big now because, I
4:19
mean, everybody's over Siri. Siri Yeah.
4:24
Yeah, every people are over Siri, but you know, I think
4:28
we've learned time and time again and not count Apple out.
4:30
So yeah, they'll be around for a long time and they'll be coming
4:33
out with stuff. But yes, it certainly has felt
4:35
weird to see them behind the curve.
4:37
And I understand that it's not Apple's way to just take
4:39
something and toss it out in the market, but it's felt strange
4:42
that they're this far behind. Like Grok and X, you know?
4:46
Yeah. So totally agree.
4:48
OK. I'd like to speak about your
4:50
company, Avery Avery dot AI and maybe you could introduce us to
4:55
the company. And just to put a little
4:57
framework on it, I did some sit on you before our podcast and
5:01
you know, you said Avery is about closing the gap between
5:04
strategy and action. Maybe you could kind of just use
5:08
that as a context to describe what Avery does.
5:12
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, on my end,
5:14
lifelong builder and if I wasn't building a company, I was
5:19
supporting other startups and builders go to market.
5:21
And so in that space of all right, I have marketing on my
5:25
plate in a small company or in a mid sized company, I'm on a tiny
5:29
little marketing team trying to do a lot.
5:31
Or on the enterprise side, you know, enterprise teams are 40%
5:35
smaller than they were pre pandemic.
5:37
But the amount of work isn't going away anytime soon.
5:39
So you have this massive amount of work to get done.
5:42
And there's a lot of places into this like very disjointed
5:45
industry to find strategy of how you should grow.
5:48
You can asks an AI, you can hire a fractional CMO or an advisor,
5:53
you can go out and try to hire Acmo.
5:56
But the hard thing is very rarely getting the right
5:58
strategy lined up. It's actually taking that
6:01
strategy and executing on it consistently.
6:03
That's where everybody gets caught up.
6:05
It's oh man, I tried to find a freelancer on Upwork and they
6:09
they were OK. Then they disappeared or I
6:10
signed a year contract with this marketing agency that sounded
6:14
great and they locked me in and then they never actually got
6:16
anything done. You're trying to hire people,
6:19
they're leaving. It's the execution layer of
6:21
marketing that makes it so difficult.
6:22
We all know what we should be doing to market our businesses,
6:25
create a lot of great content, be where our audiences are.
6:29
But actually doing that in the day-to-day is so difficult.
6:32
With AI, we saw a massive opportunity gap to finally close
6:37
where you are analyzing your data, building the right plans
6:41
and strategies for you, and then actually being able to act on
6:44
it. For us, we take the approach of
6:47
AI can do a lot, especially in the content creation side.
6:50
So making ads, making blogs, iterating on things you already
6:54
have. But for us, just building like a
6:56
pure AI company didn't seem like the right fit for the marketing
7:00
space. It may work in engineering, it
7:02
may work in kind of other spaces.
7:03
But for marketing, so much of it is about the interactions you
7:07
have with creatives, with specialists who have deep
7:10
specialty in one, one or another thing that you don't on your
7:14
team. And so for us, we wanted to make
7:16
it a place where you could build strategy with an AI, you could
7:19
create a lot of content, but for all those things that AI is not
7:22
great for yet running APR campaign, getting you on
7:25
podcasts, anything that we have an expert, they are human pros
7:29
underneath that the AI would match you to based on your
7:33
personality and your business and what you do on board them
7:36
for you take the care of like giving them access to things
7:39
they need and then actually help you manage that person.
7:41
So the goal of the company is to take that person who is stressed
7:46
and and trying to market their business and bogged down with
7:50
like operational nonsense and inefficiency all day long.
7:55
And to be able to have them do in two hours what used to take
7:57
them 20. So that they can spend more of
8:00
their days being creative, being strategic, and fill the world
8:03
with actually interesting marketing campaigns and ads
8:07
instead of just kind of pushing stuff out because you knew you
8:09
had to do it on timeline. Love that and it's so true.
8:14
It's true to my experience. You know, you said AI
8:17
accelerates, not replaces. Buddy of mine Dave said that AI
8:21
amplifies what's best about humanity.
8:24
And maybe some other stuff too, but.
8:27
Yeah, exactly. Amplifies humanity for for
8:30
better, for worse. And I think that's why it's just
8:32
for us, it's so important that you combine the power of
8:35
amplification that AI has, but with the opportunity for you as
8:38
the user to instill your creativity and human editing
8:41
along the way. But also work with other taste
8:44
makers and amazing creatives so that we're using AI to get
8:47
better as a world instead of sloppier and more obnoxious.
8:51
Like you said, slop, I like that that's become kind of A tag of
8:54
just like AI. Yeah, AI slop.
8:56
I mean, you can tell. You can read it right off the
8:58
bat. You know, our whole newsletter
9:00
and content engines called Don't Feed the Algorithm, which is
9:02
just like, don't just do stuff just because you think you're
9:05
supposed to be posting and fill the world with more.
9:07
Take the time to be creative. But the only way you can take
9:10
the time to be more creative is if a platform that's actually
9:14
built in a modern way with AI really infused throughout the
9:16
process, not like sticking it on a legacy product you don't like
9:19
to use actually does remove you from like those little things
9:23
that take up all your time all day.
9:24
Yeah, you know, and this is a major pain point that you're
9:27
addressing for founders. Shout out to Hampton.
9:31
I'm a part of this networking group called Hampton.
9:33
That's fantastic. We got a core group.
9:35
It's like 8 dudes in there. You.
9:37
You're part of Hampton, too. Oh yeah, I love sandbar and the
9:40
game. OK, I'm surprised I haven't seen
9:42
you in there. Anyway, in our core group
9:46
yesterday, most of them are, you know, technical founders that
9:49
have very niche software. And so they, you know, they went
9:53
1002 thousand 3000 users with 0 marketing.
9:57
So we're in there. We're talking.
9:58
They're like, yeah, so I guess I should be doing something.
10:01
What should I do? And I'm just like pulling my
10:04
hair out, you know, with 16 marketing.
10:07
Yeah, exactly. You have so many people that are
10:08
like, what should I do to grow? And it's scary the amount of bad
10:12
response, how easy it is to get bad responses back, right?
10:15
You ask a friend, he gives you responses because he's trying to
10:18
be helpful, but those are responses that worked for his
10:20
business, not for yours. I talked to two founders
10:23
yesterday. One is advertising an API
10:25
product to a certain type of engineer in healthcare.
10:29
The other one is running a consumer business.
10:31
And you know, the ways that the two should approach marketing
10:34
are genuinely perfect, complete opposites of each other, right?
10:38
But they were chatting with each other and giving advice and
10:40
ideas back and forth. And you know, it's hard to get
10:43
good advice when you do actually get good advice, like from a
10:47
fractional CMO or an advisor who really knows his stuff.
10:50
It's really hard to take that good advice and then actually
10:52
make it reality. 100% So for a use case like this, I'm a
10:57
technical founder, I found traction and I'm scaling with 0
11:00
marketing. But it's like, OK, I'm ready to
11:02
commit. Walk me through what getting
11:04
started with Avery is like. Yeah, so I mean, Avery is
11:08
completely free to use and to start to engage with.
11:10
It's easy for people to get signed up through the onboarding
11:12
process. With Avery, you're going to chat
11:14
with the AI and talk to it about your goals and your product and
11:17
your brand. If you don't have pieces of it
11:19
like, oh, I don't know, ideal customer profiles and I have an
11:22
ICP built out, Avery will work with you to do so, so that you
11:25
get to the basics. And then once you have what we
11:28
call your brand core filled out, you can continuously train your
11:31
model with your Brandex and your financials, whatever it is that
11:35
will help train the model to be the best it can be.
11:38
Then you get Avery, what we call your AI marketing manager, who
11:42
you can chat with in your own ways.
11:44
It can drive you down conversations that it feels like
11:47
they're helpful for you individually.
11:49
We have a massive prompt library of other users who are like you,
11:52
what they've been asking Avery and what they found helpful.
11:55
So you can engage with AI, build a great plan easily, save that
11:58
plan to the model, and then get into the second step, which
12:01
always comes after building a good plan.
12:03
Let's start to create content for this plan, whether that's
12:06
plan docs, logs, website copy, or anything like that.
12:10
Avery's really Dang good. We have a create mode that
12:12
functions totally differently than anything else on the market
12:14
by combining AI drafting with online human editing.
12:18
So you know, it's like getting something you love from chat,
12:21
TBT Plus Word or Canva or anything like that right there
12:25
so that you have both pieces together and then can take
12:28
actions with that content right on platform.
12:30
Like pushing it to your website, pushing it to your ads, pushing
12:33
it to your socials so that you can do everything from I'm going
12:36
to make it, I'm going to edit it to I'm going to send it or push
12:39
it all in, you know, 5 minutes, which used to take me 5
12:43
different platforms and pulling things off 1 and put them in
12:46
another. And then sending it on Slack
12:47
somebody. And if there's any pieces in
12:50
there where I'm like, man, it would be helpful to find a
12:51
person or that AI will tell you, look, I'm not probably not the
12:56
right fit to help you with this. We should work with a person.
12:58
All you ask is for Avery to introduce you to an expert and
13:00
it'll do so in a couple hours. So, you know, the point is
13:05
hopefully everybody can figure out what they should be doing
13:06
best to grow. You know, a lot of marketing's
13:09
pattern recognition, the best marketers have seen enough
13:12
companies work or not work and seeing what they all do and
13:16
different types. And of course, like that's what
13:18
AI is so Dang good at his pattern matching better than any
13:20
human ever could. And so as more people continue
13:22
to work on aviary to the suggestions for folks like you
13:25
will just get better and better you better.
13:27
A question about just kind of tactics.
13:31
So I'm a big proponent, obviously a founder LED
13:34
marketing, largely because it's what works.
13:37
And the more perfected the filters get in, the more
13:40
realistic the AI gets, especially generative AI, the
13:44
more you're going to find people like feeling nostalgic about the
13:50
catcher's mid face that I've got right here.
13:53
You know, when everyone's beautiful, like, you know, I
13:56
start to look a little bit better, you know, 'cause they
13:58
want something else. Anyway, the point is, is that
14:01
like what I work with is a lot of people who are reluctant to
14:05
really step out in front of the brand.
14:08
And that's for a couple of reasons.
14:09
One, perhaps they're they, they don't want to be completely
14:12
associated with the brand because they're trying to, you
14:14
know, be acquired or whatever. They want the brand to stand on
14:16
its own 2 feet. But more times than not, what
14:19
I'm seeing is like people are just a little bit intimidated.
14:22
They have maybe a little bit imposter syndrome and they're
14:26
like, I don't feel comfortable in the camera and the
14:28
microphones and stuff. Now you're obviously an expert
14:32
in like founder LED kind of marketing initiatives.
14:35
But if I'm, if I'm reluctant, hesitant founder coming to
14:39
Avery, is it going to recommend things I can do to ease my
14:42
nerves? Will it back off from kind of
14:44
the degenerative content as far as kind of the founder
14:47
initiatives entirely? How will that kind of AI agent
14:50
handle maybe my personal proclivities?
14:55
Yeah, that's a really good question.
14:56
And I would just say, like, before we kind of get into how
14:58
Avery would handle it, if you're a founder and you're worried
15:02
about connecting your name with the business, I would argue
15:04
you're not really a founder. It's a pastime and a hobby.
15:07
I mean, a big part of being a founder is sticking your
15:09
identity and your soul onto what you're building.
15:11
Otherwise, it's a side project, which I don't know how to help
15:13
because I help founders. And you know, that second piece
15:16
of apostle syndrome is definitely a real one.
15:18
But just like everything, founders learn how to do the
15:20
good ones. Even the ones who are terrible
15:22
at it at the start and terrified of speaking publicly or getting
15:26
out and shaking hands or anything like that, they learn
15:28
to do it. And just like everything else,
15:30
the whole purpose of being a marketer is you're always
15:32
learning something new. There's always an uncomfortable
15:35
boundary that you have to keep pushing to be better.
15:38
You could be the best engineer on the planet and either you
15:39
have to have a great Co founder who deals the rest, or you got
15:42
to learn how to do it step by step.
15:44
I would say the third reason that people don't do enough
15:47
founder LED marketing stuff is just were some of the busiest
15:50
people on the planet and it takes a lot of time.
15:54
It's hard to just be in a workflow trying to make sure the
15:58
company's on the right path. You're working in product one
16:00
minute, finance the next. And then it's like, oh, I got to
16:02
post on LinkedIn today, right? And so a big hopes will help is
16:06
like an AI that that once you start to train Avery on you and
16:10
your business, that it also requires a lot less time for you
16:14
to go do those things. To your other kind of side
16:17
question of will Avery learn this and get better?
16:20
Yeah. One of the things that makes
16:21
Avery totally different than any other AI company on the planet
16:23
is our proprietary technology we called Synapse under our AI,
16:27
where Avery has legitimate archival long term and short
16:30
term memory. It's not like ChatGPT, which
16:33
will really remember the last six conversations you've had or
16:36
most AI products which are wrappers around that where the
16:39
LLM would call it like the genius with amnesia.
16:41
It'll forget what you were talking about like a week later.
16:44
Avery has genuine long term memory.
16:46
And so if knows that you want to shy away from something or that
16:50
the business is better advertised in a certain way, it
16:53
will remember that and take that into account when you ask it a
16:55
simple question six months later.
16:57
And so all those things kind of combined to like hopefully
17:00
absolutely will help founders be able to be better.
17:02
One, just you can do it a lot less time, and two, it'll
17:05
actually get to know you over time.
17:07
It's cool. And I'm going to take that
17:09
little rant you had there in the beginning.
17:13
That's a battle cry. I mean, a lot of people need to
17:15
hear that, you know, that like, as a founder, it's your
17:18
responsibility to take it on the chin, you know?
17:22
Yeah, I love founders. I spent a lot of time with them.
17:24
I've grown tired over the years of founders and people who like
17:27
have an idea for six years and talk about it at a party every
17:30
time you see them, but won't just go start it and do it
17:32
because as a founder on their Instagram bio or something,
17:35
there's some of us that like we build because we have to.
17:37
And it's like in our blood. And it's just like the only
17:39
thing that we like to do and love to do for works.
17:41
It gets at me when people are like, everybody's scared,
17:44
everybody has imposter syndrome, but if you want to be a founder,
17:46
you just got to go. Do it anyway.
17:47
Yeah, I love founders and really enjoy working with them on a
17:50
daily basis. What's some of your favorite
17:52
attributes of founders and maybe what's some things that's
17:54
irritating? Yeah, well, I mean, I think we
17:58
really just talked about kind of the irritation part of, like,
18:00
people who are like playing founder.
18:02
And a lot of us feel like we're playing founder even late and
18:05
after more success. But it's more of just like the
18:08
people who talk about it and don't go do it.
18:10
You know, what I love about founders and real ones is that
18:12
they're walking the talk. Every day is a new adventure and
18:17
mission and drama and roller coaster, but you find a way to
18:21
build enough internal resilience to find balance in all of it.
18:25
When I was a young founder, this is my fourth official run.
18:29
You know, when I was 23, I had a venture backed company that
18:31
failed miserably. And I had a massive amount of
18:35
trouble separating ups and downs in the business from ups and
18:39
downs of myself as a person. And you know, when things were
18:42
going well, I was the smartest guy on the planet.
18:45
And when things were bad, I was the biggest idiot in the world.
18:48
And when that company failed, it was a really tough mental health
18:52
struggle for me for a couple years afterwards of like the
18:55
company failed, I failed, I'm a failure.
18:57
These things are all the same. And when you start to meet more
19:01
experienced founders, you realize that they, of course
19:05
they still get upset at the up downs and they still love the
19:07
UPS, but they find a way to be more right down the middle no
19:10
matter what if things are going well or not.
19:13
And they find a way to separate the success or failure of the
19:16
business from the success or failure of them as a person.
19:19
And that's a really important thing that I think like the more
19:22
you work with founders, you can tell where they are on that
19:25
path. Because if you keep doing it,
19:26
everybody's going to learn that one way or the other.
19:29
Yeah. Is there some tactically you can
19:31
do? I had a very similar experience
19:33
because what we do as Americans particularly is who we are, you
19:38
know, so in in previous life. Yeah, first thing at a party.
19:41
Hey, So what you do? Yeah, yeah.
19:44
And. Yeah, it, it is.
19:45
And to be a founder, even more than that, you just got to like
19:48
so much of it becomes your identity.
19:50
It's what you think about all day long in the shower before
19:53
you fall asleep. It's just it's not a job that
19:55
you leave or can turn off, so it becomes a big part of who you.
19:57
Are Yeah for me, you know, in a previous life I was a touring
20:01
and recording musician and. A lot of the bands I came up
20:05
with blew up $1,000,000 deals. They lived the Rockstar
20:10
lifestyle. I had to put that all away
20:12
because I had two babies. And, you know, local music isn't
20:15
necessarily the fulcrum of commerce.
20:18
And making music was one thing, but like, not identifying as a
20:22
musician anymore was really challenging.
20:24
It kind of to your point, it did take a couple of years to really
20:28
integrate that. So, you know, as I started, you
20:31
know, pursuing these entrepreneurial kind of pursuits
20:34
and, you know, you have some strikes, but you get a lot of
20:36
gutters. You know, it was easier for me
20:39
to not. A lot more gutters than strikes
20:40
gutters. Yeah, I'm happy to hear you say
20:42
that, too. I worry about the people who hit
20:44
a home run right out, right out of the gate.
20:46
I'm like, oh man, it's can be hard for you.
20:49
You take a couple on the chin and you're like, you can.
20:51
I started my first business in 15.
20:53
I sold it at 17 for a pretty decent exit.
20:56
And so it was like I was like, oh, this is it.
20:58
It'll always be easy. This is how it works.
20:59
I love being a founder because you start a business, you sell
21:01
it a couple years, you get rich, you know, And then when that
21:04
next one failed, it was a much harder come to reality for me.
21:08
Yeah. So.
21:09
What else do you do that's hard, that help maybe helps kind of
21:12
like solidify like this resilience, yeah.
21:16
Well, I think there's a few things that have worked for me.
21:18
I can speak for everybody, but you know, the first was just
21:21
like people, a lot of founders especially are very focused on
21:26
developing their health. Mental health is a gym itself.
21:30
So, you know, for me, I mean, like getting into a meditation
21:33
practice, like Stoic philosophy especially is like a lot about
21:37
having balance and you know, but the obstacle is the way that the
21:42
struggle is the journey. And like when things are going
21:44
well, that's not because you're a genius and when things are
21:46
going bad, it's not because you're a failure.
21:47
You're just supposed to kind of stay down the middle.
21:49
So kind of getting into meditation, really focusing on
21:52
my mental health and and those things definitely help.
21:55
I think the other one was, you know, we kind of talked about
21:57
building a founder brand, kind of like founder LED marketing.
22:00
It's also that like the more you can build your identity as a
22:04
founder, not necessarily a founder of Avery.
22:08
And that way like when it, you know, if Avery is great or Avery
22:11
fails, like I'm a founder either way, like that's who I am.
22:14
And so like the identity doesn't need to be tied to the business,
22:17
but it's just it's tied to the pursuit.
22:20
And and that way there's a little bit of separation between
22:23
ups and downs in the business. And if it does fail, the best
22:26
founders have failed companies. It's like, you know, it's not as
22:30
easy as that, but it's like, I know I learned a lot from this
22:33
one and and as a founder, like I'm still a founder, that
22:36
doesn't change, right? And so like developing more of
22:38
the identity and when it's so important to have a personal
22:42
founder brand online that even can take you through different
22:45
companies over the years, you know, you want to build a
22:47
reputation more for like your personal pillars and your
22:51
mission, your values in life. And people can get to know you
22:54
not just as a founder of that one company, but just as a
22:57
founder overall. Any particular meditation
23:01
techniques that are helpful for you?
23:05
I don't know about a particular techniques.
23:07
I mean, like I've, I've pretty much torn through every one of
23:09
the apps I've been to like, you know, week long kind of seminars
23:13
upstate and things like that. I think it's like, I don't know
23:15
if there's a technique one way or the other, as I think the
23:18
technique is like making sure you do it every day.
23:21
It's, it's, you know, like they say it's better to do 10 push
23:24
ups a day than 100 push ups once a week.
23:27
And I think that's, that's the way it is with meditation.
23:29
I can feel for me, it's easy to get into a habit because I can
23:32
feel a marked difference in my brain throughout the day.
23:36
If I have taken just 10-15 minutes in the morning to
23:39
meditate before work. And you know, it's something
23:42
where it's more of just the practice, the obstacles, the way
23:45
just the practice is the benefit versus like one type or one
23:49
guided app or anything like this actually helps more.
23:51
Nice. I found similar appreciation of
23:56
Stoic philosophy. There is one particular quote I
23:58
just love. It's like if it can be endured,
24:00
endure it. I can't tell you how many times
24:04
I've been suffering and it's like, you're going to you're
24:06
going to be OK bro. Like go ahead.
24:08
It's. It does.
24:10
That's it. Yeah, I love just like Stoic
24:13
philosophy. It's crazy.
24:14
It's, you know, 1000 years old, but it reads like it.
24:17
They're talking to you today. You know, the letters from
24:19
Seneca. I keep Meditations back there.
24:21
And someday you just, like, open a page of Meditations.
24:23
And it's like, look, Marcus Aurelius was dealing with a lot
24:26
of crazier stuff that I am. And like she was able to find
24:29
balance and should be able to do it as well.
24:31
Yeah, totally. Seneca and Marcus Aurelius
24:34
amazing. OK, they're talking about
24:36
personal branding. You're very good at it.
24:39
How deep are you taking this? Are you like OK, this is my hat
24:42
and black hoodie day like it. Do you have certain iconic
24:47
clothing patterns the way you want to project yourself, or
24:51
there are things you want to say?
24:52
How far are you kind of crafting personal identity?
24:57
That's a good question. I definitely have organized
25:00
uniforms. I have like a it's definitely a
25:03
brand for me to have an Avery hat on.
25:04
It's the uniform. So I'll have an Avery hat on and
25:06
we got two colors, like damn, one or blue 1.
25:09
You won't see me without one or the other.
25:11
I keep them in the office. So when I get there, it's just
25:12
like, all right, I'm on calls. I got my Avery hat on, but as
25:16
far as I look, I couldn't give less of a crap.
25:18
I think there's pieces over time, like we were kind of
25:20
talked about earlier that I've decided or like this is going to
25:23
be for better, for worse. Like this is kind of how I feel
25:26
about the world and I'm going to put it out there continuously
25:29
through different companies. And I think, you know, for me
25:31
it's that humans, if given the right tools, can be incredible.
25:37
And we're not building to replace them.
25:40
We should try to arm them with the coolest creative tools and
25:43
capability possible, because I don't want to live in a future
25:47
where AI does everything for me. I want to live in a future where
25:49
I takes care of the crap and I get to work with amazing
25:51
creatives and interesting wise learned people and I can
25:56
continue to learn myself. And so like the fact that I want
25:58
to use technology to better connect people has been a big
26:00
part of my life through different companies.
26:02
And then, you know, the other one that just like on the
26:05
content side of just how important it is to to be
26:08
thoughtful about creating content that breaks the noise of
26:11
what else is out there. I grew up obsessed with like old
26:14
school ads and the old Porsche ads, the old kind of Mad Men
26:18
era. 5 people sitting around thinking about just one tagline
26:22
that could be genuinely different than anything else
26:25
versus like, let's iterate and get the AI to do 16 different
26:29
variations is one thing that they had created.
26:31
It's for me. I want to build in a way that,
26:35
you know, the, like, advertising is the largest consumed media by
26:39
Americans, right? You see far more ads than you
26:42
will TV shows and movies, right? And those two things have so
26:45
much thought and care and art behind them.
26:48
But ads have become more of an algorithmic boughter piece.
26:51
And, you know, I want to live in a world where where that medium
26:55
that isn't going away anytime soon of like companies trying to
26:57
communicate their dreams and their products to consumers can
27:00
be done in a way that's beautiful and interesting and
27:02
artistic. Those two things have kind of
27:04
like, you know, making sure humans can connect well and and
27:07
making sure we're building content that breaks the noise in
27:09
the static is I've been big pieces since I was like 18.
27:12
What's the line? We know that sex and violence
27:15
will sell anything. You know, where when does that
27:18
kind of vulgarity kind of transfer into art and creating
27:22
like beautiful, you know, to use your words.
27:27
This episode is brought to you by MO Burst, the AI first growth
27:31
engine trusted by iconic startups like Calm, Robin Hood,
27:35
Reddit, Uber and Google. MO Burst is a digital, full
27:39
service, mobile first marketing agency that helps companies to
27:42
scale and become category leaders.
27:45
Whether you're finding product market fit or ready to
27:48
accelerate growth, Mobers delivers creative, data-driven
27:51
solutions that help with scale and efficiency and impact.
27:56
At Moburst, we're not just guessing what works, we're
27:58
predicting it. As an AI first agency, Moburst
28:01
uses cutting edge tools to analyze user behavior, adapt
28:05
creative in real time, and uncover hidden growth
28:08
opportunities. The result?
28:10
Marketing that's faster, smarter, and built to convert
28:14
from early stage startups to global brands.
28:16
We've helped hundreds of companies overcome complex
28:19
challenges, unlock new audiences, and optimize every
28:22
metric that matters. At Mowburst, we believe that
28:25
creative thinking, advanced technology, and data are the
28:29
core drivers of success at scale.
28:31
If you're serious about scaling your business with precision and
28:34
purpose, it's time to talk to Mowburst.
28:37
Visit mowburst.com and Let's build something category
28:40
defining together. Yeah, I don't know.
28:45
I think it's kind of like the Canadian definition of porn,
28:47
Like you know it when you see it.
28:49
I think, you know, when something is vulgar to be vulgar
28:51
and when something's real art, you know, the difference between
28:54
just vulgar nonsense and a Scorsese movie, you know?
28:57
And there's levels to everything in a lot of Gray area in
28:59
between. You know, there's companies that
29:01
just do it right every time, like Yeti and their stories, the
29:06
many documentaries that they do, following people around
29:08
adventures. It's like they barely feature
29:10
Yeti products, but there's stuff that you would watch on Netflix
29:13
if it was on there, right? What Patagonia has done their
29:16
entire existence, you know, the companies that do it right and
29:18
what Apple used to be for whatever current nonsense
29:21
they're doing. You know, the companies that
29:23
take the time to be intentional and be creative and really put
29:26
stuff out there that is artistic and, and challenges the world.
29:29
And you know the companies that are like, oh, they used an AI ad
29:32
builder to have a 17th iteration of one ad where the products
29:34
slightly over to the side of where it was before.
29:36
Yeah, I mean. Red Bull like basically created
29:38
a whole genre. Red Bull Exactly.
29:41
Yeah, 100%. And it's so it's like, you know,
29:43
we need more challenger brands. We need more brands that are
29:46
adventurous and daring in their advertising.
29:49
We need that will put investment on the marketing side into
29:52
creating artistic content even when it's more expensive than
29:55
you know, just like using tools to generate a bunch of
29:58
variations. Nice.
29:59
You know, it's good to hear you talk about taking some else
30:02
because your bio wins that you're very successful person.
30:06
You know you created a company when you're 15, sold it when
30:08
you're 17. You've had multiple companies
30:12
raise. What I found online is you had
30:14
multiple raises with Avery, 2 million and 5 million.
30:17
You know, maybe you could talk a little bit how you went about
30:20
kind of approaching investors and how you found that success
30:23
while you're still in stealth. Yeah, I mean, anytime you're
30:29
talking to founders and like, LinkedIn is kind of obnoxious
30:32
because it's a lot like Instagram Stories, but in your
30:35
personal life, it's just the highlights.
30:37
It's just the top level good stuff, right?
30:40
What you don't see is, you know, before Avery, we ran a company
30:43
called Select Few, which was like a similar approach to
30:46
trying to connect customers that are marketers but with
30:50
specialists. But that's like few.
30:52
We didn't have an AI component. We didn't have a very well built
30:54
out software platform. It was really tech enabled
30:56
services. And you know, it's like few.
30:58
We battled at that company Bootstrap for four years of
31:01
getting to work with amazing teams and getting bigger, but
31:04
then the market making a smaller and then, you know, it was a
31:08
slog. I mean, I've had weeks where,
31:10
you know, my wife and I had to, like, sell our TV to make
31:12
payroll that week because we knew bigger things were going to
31:14
happen next week. I mean, the difference between
31:17
founders that are successful and founders that aren't is some of
31:20
us gave up and some of us refused to.
31:23
Can't tell you the number of times it's just been like, I
31:25
can't do this anymore. I want to go get a normal job,
31:28
whatever that is, and just get a paycheck every two weeks and not
31:31
have this burden. But then, you know, you take a
31:33
breath and you take a walk and you talk to people you love and
31:36
then the next day you get back to work.
31:37
My dad always says if you put your head down and chop wood,
31:40
like the work clears the forest and you know, it's just about
31:44
like put your head down and keep it on working on what you
31:46
believe in. And so, you know, that like,
31:49
kind of like just sickening level of persistence that most
31:52
people would think is too high risk and too crazy is what
31:54
separates every great founder that I know from folks that try
31:58
it and leave because it was tough.
32:00
And like, not just kind of tough, like really deeply
32:04
emotionally and financially, physically tough, but then if
32:08
you keep cracking at it long enough and you keep listening to
32:10
your customers, like the good things come eventually.
32:13
And they and they do for almost everyone who works hard.
32:17
And for us, you know, it was we had worked so hard at select few
32:21
to find what ticked customers off, what they liked, how to
32:25
work with great suppliers and great marketers on that side.
32:27
And so that when we had the idea for Avery, you know, and I knew
32:31
some investors that believed in a strike kind of out of the gate
32:33
that we were able to raise the precede really from the idea,
32:36
which gave us, you know, some runway, but not a lot,
32:38
$2,000,000 is not a lot to build an AI company.
32:40
It sounds like a lot of money, but AI is expensive to build.
32:43
And so, you know, we built and stealth for most of the year and
32:46
it wasn't investors that ever saved us, even though we're very
32:49
grateful to our investors. If the fact that from the day we
32:51
launched, like we've had very, very strong consumer interest
32:54
and even in stealth build a wait list of a couple 1000 people
32:57
that were excited to use it. And during launch, you know,
33:00
another 5-6 thousand more. And you know, it's, it's, it's,
33:04
it's, it's for the customers, It's not for investors.
33:06
Investors are a great partnership.
33:09
But way too often in today's era of startups, we glorify and
33:14
worship the Rays and the big round numbers.
33:17
And you know, a founder could put up, I raised 5 million or a
33:21
founder could put up, we just did 5 million profitably this
33:23
year. And the Rays will get more news,
33:26
more attention, more likes, more comments.
33:29
But but like I'm, you know, I want to be the second guy.
33:31
And so we've been blessed to work with great investors and
33:34
raise a couple rounds. But you know, my goal is not to
33:37
build a 6000 person business and raise 16 rounds and own 2% of my
33:43
business by the time I do anything with it.
33:45
You know, my goal is to, you know, with what we can do on the
33:48
productivity gains, both on the engineering and the marketing
33:50
side with AI to be able to, you know, build a business that does
33:55
a lot of revenue, but also has a small type A-Team and that has
34:00
higher revenue per employee numbers than, you know, was
34:03
humanly possible before this AI boom.
34:05
And that, you know, everybody at the company knows.
34:07
Like my personal goal is that everybody works for us down to,
34:10
you know, my assistant become generationally wealthy.
34:13
And my goal is not to like make our investors happy.
34:16
Of course that's that's their great partnership and it's part
34:18
of it. But I'm building for the people
34:20
who gave up much higher paychecks and, and could have
34:24
gone off to much bigger companies and, and came here to
34:26
Brooklyn, to our office every single day to try and build
34:28
something interesting and unique.
34:29
Revenue per employee? Is that the most important
34:32
metric to you right now? It's the only one that matters
34:35
really. It's because I mean, if you have
34:37
strong revenue per employee numbers, you'll be profitable.
34:39
You own your own destiny. You can raise if you want, You
34:41
can push it forever if you want. You can go and be acquired for
34:44
40X or you can run a business that I mean, honestly, I with
34:49
how great our team is with how interested in and what we're
34:51
building like I would be happy running every for 15 years.
34:54
And I think like wall too often founders get into a business
34:58
with like a very clear exit plan.
35:00
I'm going to start this, I'm going to sell it in 18 months
35:02
and good luck when things get tough.
35:04
It's not a business that I'd love to be acquired.
35:07
Sure, if that right partner and right operation camera like just
35:09
happened to you, I'd love to you know, IPO one day, it doesn't
35:13
matter. But like, I know that no matter
35:15
what, like I'm going to be happy running Avery the way that we
35:17
build the foundations and the way to be able to team for a
35:19
long time to come. So cool there.
35:21
It definitely seems to be like a new path emerging.
35:25
Like you said, the VC guys, we raised 200 million and they're
35:28
flexing. Or the bootstrap guys who are
35:30
like, ah, we're bootstrap, but there's this new thing now where
35:33
2,000,000 now could a lot farther than it did.
35:37
I mean, 2 million might now be the $200 million range.
35:40
We need a name for that. You know what I mean?
35:42
A. Lot of people are calling the
35:44
new movement seed strapping where you go out, you raise a
35:47
seed, you get enough to get started, build a team to get
35:50
your momentum to start to find product market fit, but you then
35:53
aren't tied to the around a year schedule moving forward.
35:56
And you know, investors are, I think it took them a while to
35:58
get used to it, but they're embracing it as well.
36:00
We were only raised from past founders like that was very big
36:04
for us. And so, you know, our VCs are
36:06
fantastic and kind of told us from day one, whatever path you
36:09
want to take, it's our job to back you.
36:10
You know, I'd love to get to a place where I can pay our
36:12
investors out who acts what they invested every year as a
36:14
dividend and they're happy as clams and we own our business
36:17
and can continue to run the way that we decide is the right path
36:20
forward. So yeah, with productivity gains
36:23
that are possible with AI, with being able to do things with
36:26
smaller teams, with dropping compute and cloud costs, you
36:30
should be able to do much more with around than you were able
36:32
to a few years ago. Amazing.
36:34
Seed strapping. I'm repeating it so the LLMS
36:37
know I'm putting an emphasis on how cool I think that is.
36:41
Seed strapping OK? Exactly.
36:43
Seed strapping, that's the path, that's the movement.
36:45
And it's like, you know, it'd be great to go Raisin A, but you
36:47
don't want to go Raisin A because you have to.
36:49
You want to go Raisin A because you can't.
36:51
Yeah 100%. OK I want to get into lightning
36:54
round but first lower your head, chop wood and the work will
37:01
clear the forest. Dude, that's legendary.
37:04
Would give me the story on your dad real quick.
37:08
Yeah, just a workhorse of a guy. You know, my dad's a doctor.
37:11
We had a little bit of a different upbringing.
37:13
My parents wanted to do something good with their lives.
37:17
And so they, as a doctor and a a social worker with two masters,
37:21
they moved to the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador for my
37:24
entire childhood and worked for free in the middle of the
37:26
jungle. So from when I was 5 to 12, we
37:29
grew up in the Amazon rainforest and both parents worked for
37:33
free. And so they, they're kind of
37:36
wild, crazy people in general. And, you know, even coming back,
37:40
you know, my dad, I don't know anybody who works harder at 65.
37:44
He still works like 100 and 2000 and 30 hour weeks.
37:47
So, you know, I honestly got into being a founder because I
37:50
didn't want to be a doctor and work as hard as him.
37:51
But of course, like now he's the only guy who like when I call
37:54
leaving the office at 9:00 PM, like he's still working himself.
37:57
So not that that's a good thing or a bad thing, but he has an
37:59
amazing work ethic and he does it for, you know, for us and for
38:02
the family. And so he has a lot of great
38:05
little Nuggets around like, you know, it's yeah, bad stuff
38:08
happens. Work through it.
38:09
You know, And there's a lot in Stoic philosophy and in modern
38:11
productivity about that of like if you're terrified of, let's
38:15
say, building your founder brand, the only thing that helps
38:18
with the sitting down and starting to type the first word
38:20
and getting moving on the work. If you're super anxious about
38:23
work, go sit at the desk and start doing it.
38:25
And that's the only thing that will really help you with that
38:28
anxiety. And so I think there's a lot to
38:31
like overthinking and as a founder and how terrifying that
38:35
can be, nobody ever has anxiety from just doing the work to have
38:38
anxiety from overthinking the work.
38:39
And so there's something to be said of like when you're in a
38:41
bad place, good, bad, anything like that, just showing up the
38:46
next day like a pro. Like the Stephen Pressfield book
38:48
for the War of Art, which is amazing, but he talks about how
38:52
there's dreamers and there's pros and the pro everyday is
38:55
sitting in his chair getting the work done, whether the day
38:58
before was a good day or a bad day.
38:59
And you know that my dad's version, I think, is just like,
39:02
head down, keep chopping wood. I love that.
39:03
That was great book. So you grew up in Amazon?
39:06
Your Spanish must be Immaculate. What was?
39:09
It yeah, it's pretty good. What was the day?
39:12
I surprise people when I'm down in Mexico and then can move out
39:15
the accent. You have an Ecuadorian accent
39:16
too? Yep.
39:17
Nice. What was the day in the life
39:19
like as a 10 year old boy in Ecuador?
39:23
Yeah, didn't, didn't wear shoes ever.
39:26
We had a pet toucan neighbor had a pet sloth.
39:30
You know, we went to a school. I went to a school with, you
39:32
know, four other American kids and 60 Ecuadorian kids and
39:37
played a lot of soccer. And, you know, that it was, it
39:41
was a cool life. It was a cool way to grow up.
39:42
I mean, it was, we lived in a little 200% village.
39:45
It was like, it was, you know, when we were kind of playing
39:48
games outside, it was capsule flag, but like in the actual
39:50
Amazon rainforest. And my dad built this incredible
39:54
tree house like 40 feet up in the trees and we had a trapdoor
39:59
and a thatched roof and had hammocks in there and stuff.
40:01
So it was a really cool way to grow up.
40:03
I think I grew up with a, I'm proud to be an American, but I
40:05
grew up with a little bit of a different mindset than somebody
40:07
who's been here their whole life.
40:08
Kind of came in at 13 is like. OK, like there's parts about
40:12
this country I love and there's parts that I think could use
40:14
work and could use kindness and humanity, but it was a cool way
40:19
to grow up. But it definitely still from the
40:20
very beginning, even down there, like everything was a problem.
40:23
But there's not Target or Walmart down the street.
40:25
I'm the oldest of three kids, so little sister's birthday parties
40:28
coming up. It required a project plan and
40:30
figuring out who was going to ship what from the United States
40:33
and figuring things out. I started a new dining business
40:37
down there. I wanted to help people from the
40:40
beginning, and the way that I wanted to do it was instead of
40:42
working for free like my dad, I wanted to start businesses that
40:44
helped people. Incredible shout out to your
40:46
parents. That's so cool.
40:48
OK. Yeah, some cool folks.
40:49
The lightning round. Here we go.
40:51
Are you ready? I'm ready.
40:53
Still OK, that's it's anticlimactic.
40:55
Sorry I had to build it up like that.
40:58
That's love. Is there something you wish you
41:03
knew earlier? Yeah, a lot everything, self
41:12
love, being kind to yourself. I think I was talking to a
41:16
founder friend who was struggling the other day and
41:19
it's he loves so much and other people.
41:22
It's like you got to find the things you love about yourself
41:25
and like hold those things dear and be grateful for them.
41:29
Because when life gets really crazy, like that's a life raft
41:31
of just like, you know, yeah, business isn't doing well.
41:34
Maybe things in my personal life are crazy, but like, I know that
41:37
like these things are like, you know, that I love these things
41:39
about myself and that I can love myself and that's OK.
41:42
I wish that younger in my life I was, I was easier on myself.
41:46
I was very hard on myself pretty much my whole life so.
41:49
You sell Avery tomorrow for a billion dollars.
41:52
What's your next project? I have been like a lot of
41:58
founders. I have a note with like 42
42:00
companies. I want to start it, you know,
42:01
next or afterwards or anything like that.
42:04
I have a lot of nonprofit kind of like for profit that involves
42:07
nonprofit ecosystems ideas. And so you would definitely be
42:12
like in a more impactful way, like helping people who are in
42:16
need and people who need lifts in the world.
42:19
And you know that second out, never checking an e-mail again
42:24
and grabbed my wife and our dog and like, do you know, going to
42:28
Scotland and living in the Highlands?
42:29
Love it. How do you organize business
42:31
ideas? Do you use like an ocean or do
42:33
you put it on a Trello board? Do you have a journal?
42:37
I have an amazing assistant. Shout out to Oceans.
42:42
They're the group that found me Rook.
42:45
Rook is incredible and I just brain dump voice notes all day
42:50
long in her direction and she organizes everything about
42:54
plans, about things I need to talk to people about, about
42:57
things we need to do and just also business ideas, whether
42:59
it's for Avery, which it normally is, or, or like when I
43:01
randomly have stuff outside of obsessing with Avery, I'm able
43:05
to just like RIP a voice note. If you haven't heard of whisper
43:07
AI to good friend today's company that just launched where
43:10
you get amazing dictation straight into any app.
43:13
So like, oh, whisper something to Rook and and she organizes it
43:16
and has it live in a system. You got to know your strengths
43:19
and know your weaknesses. I have a lot of ideas.
43:21
I am not the most organized process based person in the
43:24
world. And so you got to build, build a
43:26
team around your weaknesses. Totally considering we live in
43:30
the future to college right now. What would you study?
43:37
I don't think I would go to college right now, to be honest.
43:41
I think like the reason to go to college for me, even back when I
43:44
did was the network, the friends and the environment, learning
43:48
kind of getting out of your shell.
43:49
I think there's a lot of starting avenues to do that
43:52
nowadays. You know, at 18 you can join
43:55
great founder groups, you can learn to code and be a great
43:59
marketer on YouTube and use cursor and use Avery.
44:02
We're getting into a world where the traditional academia is less
44:05
and less important. And at least until they have
44:07
come to a real realization where the cost is astronomical versus
44:10
the value. I don't think if I was in
44:12
college now I would go, to be honest.
44:14
I'm still obsessed with learning, but I think there's
44:16
more efficient ways to do it. If I could study anything at
44:18
that age, I would honestly study what I studied in college, which
44:21
was philosophy and logic, which taught me how to think, taught
44:24
me how to argue, taught me how to break things down and think
44:28
about things in the right way, and to fall in love with reading
44:30
and to fall in love with the idea of thought itself.
44:32
You find after studying logic that people are disappointing.
44:40
I don't know. I'm an optimist and a humanist.
44:42
So I think that we've built disappoint humanity.
44:46
And I think of course, like we get caught in those traps,
44:49
streaming television and social media and these things that
44:53
we've built. I think of disappointed
44:55
humanity, but I still think people are fantastic and
44:58
creative and awesome. I love it.
44:59
You know, half of the folks I've asked that question to have said
45:02
the same thing. I don't think you'd go to
45:04
college, but it does seem like there needs to be this buffer
45:07
between your teenage years to your mid 20s.
45:10
Like some kind of offer that you can find build that exactly you.
45:14
Can something that builds community, something that uses
45:16
modern ways to learn? Maybe that's what you and I will
45:18
do next. I love it so.
45:20
Let's do it. Tell your assistant to put that.
45:23
On the list. But she'll listen.
45:26
She's always listening. Shout out.
45:28
Amazing. OK, I guess we'll just close
45:32
with this one. Is there ACEO or another
45:34
entrepreneur that you really admire and that you kind of
45:38
parrot or follow? That's a good question.
45:44
I have CEOs that I am a fan of, parts of them like public, like
45:48
famous CEOs, you know, you know, you don't want to be Bezos, you
45:52
don't be like Frank Slootman, You don't want to be like these
45:54
guys. And I don't even know if they're
45:55
like, because I don't know them, like what the persona and what
45:58
they write books about are like. But you try to pull pieces that
46:02
you like from different CEO's on the founder side.
46:04
I mean, it's one of the things I love is I get to work with
46:07
hundreds of amazing founders every day here in our office
46:10
today. There's two startup teams that
46:11
are small and don't have their own office here working.
46:13
And so I don't know if I can pick one out, but I like
46:16
founders who are just in the struggle and the battle are my
46:18
favorite people in the world. I'm offering a renewal for
46:21
Hampton. Should I keep going?
46:25
Yeah, sure, absolutely. I didn't end up renewing, but
46:29
it's just because I joined a couple other communities and I
46:31
feel like I can only focus on a couple of them at once.
46:33
But I was an early Hampton member and I love the
46:35
experience. We started recording our own
46:37
podcast here at Avery that hasn't come out yet, and the
46:40
first 3 guests were all folks in my core group.
46:42
Love it. Nice.
46:44
OK, where can people connect with you personally online?
46:48
Yeah, I'm Zach Holland. Twitter and Instagram, LinkedIn.
46:55
I'm just Zach Collins, founder of Avery.
46:57
But instead of looking me up, look up Avery and go check it
47:00
out. It's free.
47:01
It's just Avery dot AIAVERI and yeah, that's me.
47:07
Zach, thank you so much for coming on the show.
47:10
Hey founders, let me ask you this.
47:13
Are you building with AI or getting left behind by it?
47:17
If you're serious about scaling smarter, faster and bolder, you
47:21
need to check out AI for founders.co.
47:25
It's your go to resource for cutting through the noise and
47:28
actually using AI to grow your startup.
47:31
Each week, AI for Founders drops a sharp, no fluff newsletter,
47:36
dives deep with expert guests on the podcast, and hosts monthly
47:40
workshops where you can get your hands dirty with the real tools
47:43
and strategies. Whether you're precede or Series
47:47
B and beyond, launching something new or just staying
47:50
sharp, AI for Founders gives you the edge you need to win in 2025
47:55
and beyond. Hit AI for founders.co to
47:58
subscribe to the newsletter, tune into the podcast, and grab
48:02
your spot in the next workshop, and it's all free.
48:05
Build smarter, move faster, think bolder with AI for
48:09
Founders. Now back to the show.