Troy Let me see. The Troy Munson. Daniel, what's going on, man? I'm trying to figure out how to make my, my phone camera work- Me too... better. Me too. This is, uh- Let's, let's see This is Troy and Daniel IRL.
First time meeting. It's, it's like a Tinder date. Yeah, yeah. It's- Where are you, where do you live? Where, like, do you get, getting a house built same place you're at now, or where you, you moving somewhere?
Yeah, so I'm in Madison, I guess. I'm actually in a town called Verona. Okay. And the house that we're building is literally, like, I can... It's right through this window. I can see them working on it. You can see it.
Yeah. Nice. But they haven't done any work for a couple weeks, so it's kind of annoying. Nice. Very cool. It is what it is. Yeah, and you're in- Yeah... Charleston? I am. I'm outside of Charleston.
I'm actually in Summerville, which I just found out is the number one booming, uh, suburb in the entire country right now. Uh, which didn't know that when I moved here three years ago.
Came from Chicago, so familiar with the Wisconsin. Um, my, my family was in Appleton for a little bit, uh, without me after I had moved out. But yeah, I don't miss the cold.
Unfortunately, it's been freezing, uh, here in the last few days. It was 25 degrees the other morning, which is- That is cold... particularly cold. Uh, yeah- That is cold...
for Charleston it does not get that cold, so I don't know what the deal... And now it's like 55 today, so it's much better. You wanna hear a, you wanna hear a fun fact? Yes.
Well, wait, before I tell you this fun fact, put the, uh, mic maybe like two more inches away. Okay. Like right here? I think so. I think so. Okay. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, that- That's- Yeah.
I think that- I never know if I'm too close or too far away, 'cause like- Neither do I... tell me, does that, does that sound bad if I'm way far away like this? That's, that sounds far. That sounds far. Okay.
So like right here? Say a sentence. Da, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Test, test, test, test, test. Right there. Right there. That's good. That's good. Because that's actually a lot more comfortable, so that's good. Okay.
Okay, perfect. Yeah, so the fun fact, my wife and I, we, we looked at moving to Charleston, so we flew out- Oh, wow...
when she was 36 weeks pregnant with, uh- Very fun fact Yeah, very fun fact, but an even more fun fact, we looked in Mount Pleasant. It's expensive over there, you know? Same. So like- Same... looked in Mount Pleasant.
We might, we might've been neighbors. We... Then we drove, you know, 40 minutes out to Summerville to actually look at homes. Yep. And it was like- Yep... "Whoa, we can get way more house for the price. This is awesome."
Literally what we did. Yep. But we were like, "We don't wanna live that far from Charleston," so we're like, it's just like this weird, it was this- Yeah... weird balance, and we ended up moving to Raleigh.
But we looked, we looked at so many houses in, in Summerville- Yeah... actually. Um, so I, I wish I could like pull up my emails right now and figure out which neighborhoods.
It was one of those, like, new build spec neighborhood, you know, like you go and you build a home, all that fun stuff. Nexton, like Nexton area, like probably Midtown or Brighton Park. Um- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm...
I don't know. I don't know either. You're in Madison now, like Wisconsin, right? Like- Wisconsin, man... what... So, so when were you in Raleigh, and then what take... I mean, now you're in the Midwest.
Are you Midwest at heart, or were you Southern at heart? Southern. So we'll, we'll do the breakdown real quick. From Texas- Yeah... kind of lived, born and raised in Texas, named after Troy Aikman.
Um, didn't really have the same skills as him, got into sales, and then- Sorry. All good. It is what it is. Um, all that to say is, so born and raised in Texas.
Actually, I went to high school in Connecticut, so that was a little different, but high school in Connecticut, moved back to Texas right after high school.
From there, went to college in Houston, met my wife in Vegas actually. There you go. That's a whole different story we could talk about. Yeah. Um- Fun story... met her in Vegas.
Actually, she was leaving as I had just flown in on a work trip. Met her, lived in the same state. She lived in Austin. I lived in Dallas. I told her, "If my company got acquired, I'd move to Austin."
Next thing you know, the company I was at got acquired. Nice. Moved to Austin, and then yeah, man, we ended up getting pregnant, or I guess we... Is that how you say it? We, she got pregnant?
We got- We, yeah, we, because, because we, you and I, did so much to, uh, to assist in the actual birth of the nine-month old baby. Yeah. You know, it's, uh, yeah. No, it's, it's, it's- Yeah... it's, it's interesting.
Yeah. I don't know why we say we. Yeah, we, we- I think we wanna feel included when we did one very specific thing, and then we're included at all. [laughs] Oh, yeah. Oh. That is, that is true.
Um, so all that to say, we were like, my, my whole family's in the Dallas area, and I was like, "All right, cool." Okay. "I'm gonna go move to Dallas."
We looked at homes in Dallas, and we were like, "I don't know if Texas is where we wanna live." So then we Googled best places to live 2023 for a family. Raleigh was on like every single list. Same with Charleston.
That's why- Yep... we visited Charleston. Um- Yep... and then we decided to go with Raleigh, and we had never stepped foot in Raleigh till the day before our house was built. Um, so we just- Mm...
drove there and decided to just wing it. Loved Raleigh. Loved that it's super close to Charleston, beaches, mountains- Mm-hmm... all, you know, everything like that.
But then when we got pregnant with number two, I got pregnant with number two, um- You personally... [laughs] once we got pregnant with number two, it was like, all right, I think...
We had no family in Raleigh, so it was like, let's go somewhere- Yep... with family. My wife is from Wisconsin, so. There you go.
So for ex- I never in my life thought I'd be in Wisconsin, never thought my family would be growing up mo- in Wi- Yes... in Wisconsin, but here we are, dude.
That's a, that's a hilariously similar story, although a lot of different places. Uh, my wife and I met in Clemson. Uh, we both went to school there. I, I was all over the place before college.
Uh, lot of fun stories there, but I'll skip over that for now. Wife and I met, we moved to Spain after. She was a Fulbright Scholar. Yeah, so that was fun. I was, uh- That's sick...
just, uh, I didn't wanna be on the other side of the world from her, so I was like, all right, I, let me get this, you know, go hunk job teaching English like 20 hours a week just to get me a visa to go to Spain.
So we were there for about a year. That was awesome. Then we went to Chicago. We were there for about five years.
Uh, during the pandemic, I was like working remote, but because it's a pandemic, let me find an actual remote job.
Jumped into tech, uh, in a series F startup, which is, I don't even know if you should consider that a startup anymore. This was at Tithely. Uh, and that's kinda what got me hooked on phonics, hooked on the tech world.
And so been jumping, uh, around advising startups, helping start startups. I had my own, uh, growth and, and marketing agency for a little bit. Now, of course, I'm at Beehive.
So in Charleston, we moved here right when we found out we were pregnant with our first because my wife's family is in Asheville. We actually looked at Asheville as well.
Uh, it's about three hours down the road, t- three to four, depending on traffic.Uh, we just didn't really wanna move to Asheville, and it was, it would have been specifically for the family.
So we're like, "Let me get the best of both worlds." We decided Charleston. We had some friends from college here, some different, uh, communities we were involved with already. Uh, and now we're in Charleston.
Three and a half years later, baby boy number two was born this year. We're not pregnant. Yes. [laughs] Uh, although I personally was pregnant with both. [laughs] So, r- [laughs] We're g- are we gonna get canceled?
[laughs] No, but I think we should. We- hey- No, I know. We- we're dads. We're dads. We did- Yeah... we did something probably. Let's go ahead and pivot- Oh, my... into this.
So Asheville, it's funny, I love going to Asheville. Do y'all visit- Yeah... often? We do, yeah. Actually probably on a good year, uh, been three years so far, probably every two months. Uh, sometimes more often.
Around all the holidays we go up for a weekend or a week. Um, I have an office at my in-laws' house. So they have- Mm... a separate part of their house that has, like, its own door, and a bed, and a room.
And so I, I work there. I have a set-up there. I just bring my laptop, everything's ready to plug in, and then I'm ready to go. So I, I've worked there for weeks at a time before. Ah, love that.
Did they get impacted by, uh- Super nice... by the hurricane at all? Um, emotionally, uh, it's, yeah, it's been really rough. It's been really, really rough. Uh, they, they were all okay.
Um, we have my, my wife's parents in one house, and then my wife's sister and her family in a different house, and then my wife's other sister and their family in another house.
All were okay and are safe now, but, um, the, the catastrophe is really not exaggerated. Uh, we've driven through, and some towns are just completely decimated. I mean, people- Yeah...
people were being rescued by helicopters. People were without food and water for weeks. Some people still, actually, like months, uh, into 2025 they're saying. So it's, uh, it's like a Katrina catastrophe for- Yeah...
for Asheville. Yeah, I saw a lot of the images and, and because I lived in Raleigh for a bit, a lot of our friends are like, "Yeah, my family this-" Mm-hmm... "family that." And it's, it's insane, dude. It's wild.
It's totally wild. Insane. Insane. Yeah. But it's good that the fam is, is... At least it sounds like- Yeah... they made it out, so that's- Yeah, I think in 2024-... huge thing...
and we're gonna see this more in '25, is people with the freedom working in tech or working remote, maybe not in tech, but from home, moving closer to family. I think i- it's, it's interesting.
I lived in China for a few months during college, which was amazing. And I lived in Guangzhou, and I traveled around China, went to Hong Kong, went to Macau a few times.
And something I, I studied history and philosophy as well in college. So a lot about Eastern philosophy and history of cultures, cross-cultural history.
What we don't do in the Western civilization, but also in America, that Eastern civilizations have always done and still do, is build their lives around proximity to family. Mm.
Right now it's, like, a cool thing to, yeah, y- I started a family, I moved to closer to the family because of the freedom of my job. That's, like, very backwards thinking.
In Eastern cultures, traditionally and still to this day, people build their lives, start their careers, make money, all to support the family dynamic.
So you see people living with their parents and their distant relatives for their entire lives in many cases. Yeah. And so I think it's interesting, you and I both being, you know, tech workers with families.
You're, you know, second's on the way. I have my second this year, or had my second this year. And we both moved recently to be with family.
I think we're gonna see more and more of that as the kind of culture of the world shifts more to, hey, you have freedom now to do and, and go as you please. Go to be where your family is. Yeah. I think we will see that.
And actually that, that leads me to a question. What do you think is gonna happen if this whole freedom thing, like remote starts to becoming hybrid, like Amazon's obviously doing it. I think JP Morgan- Yeah...
like January 1st you gotta come in. I was actually just at an executive dinner, and there was three founders that were like, "Yep, starting January 1st you need to be in the office at least three days a week." Yeah.
You think that's gonna come back?
I think it will for companies that had employees who were in the office before COVID, and who still maybe have those same employees who have since been remote but maybe were in an office at one point.
I think you're gonna see a massive drop-off in these return to office organization. I mean, we've already seen it with Microsoft, we've already seen it with Amazon, we've seen it with Apple.
Uh, people just, like, instantly just saying, "Well, I'm out." Like, I've- Yeah... in the last four years since you started work from home, I have built an entire life in this specific place.
A lot of people moved, they sold their houses- Yep... or property. Like, they have no ties to that headquarters anymore. And so I know I make a lot of jokes on LinkedIn and Twitter about this, but I'm like...
I've, I've said this many times, but every time I increase how many more times my salary someone would have to pay me to go back to an office.
Like, recently I think I said 12 times my current salary for me to drive to an office every day. Next time it'll probably be 18 or 20 times. Yeah.
But I just don't think r- realistically, I don't think there's enough money someone could pay me to wake up before my kids are up, drive away from their house before I see them in the morning, work, come home at bedtime, and then kiss them goodnight- Yeah...
for 30 years. Yeah. Like, I, I just don't think I would do that. I think I would i- instantly leave and figure out another option. Would you ever consider a hybrid, if that was a thing? I have considered hybrid.
Particularly having kids at home, there's, there's pros and cons. The cons are my whole family's sick right now, and I feel terrible for them. I'm not sick yet, knock on wood.
But it's difficult to split life at home when I know I'm actually needed right now. Obviously there's the additional con of if I wasn't here and I was also needed, I wouldn't be able to do anything. So- Yeah...
the pro is, like, actually I'm around. I can go do something in between meetings if I really have to.
The con is if I have meetings and two kids are screaming right outside my door, then sometimes it's like, okay, well, I have to figure out how to actually manage both of these two things. Yeah.
All to say, I think there's a lot-Going for working in, like, a, a workplace or an office. I've thought about building an office, like a shed in my backyard- Yeah. Oh, yeah... and turning it into an office.
There's a lot of, there's a lot of solutions to the problem that's really not a problem. Like, even when I catch myself, like, thinking through, like, "Oh man, how do I solve this problem?" I have to rewind.
I think so many people would kill to be at home with their families who are working- Yeah... 60, 70 hours in an office, and they just don't see their kids grow up.
I think there's, there's so many people in that boat, and that's been what's normal for decades. I've- I've always thought about that. So I grew up with a, I guess a single mom.
She's the one that worked, and she was always at work, right? So she worked her ass off- Yeah. Yeah... and you barely see her and stuff. And I always- Yeah... one, I'm like, "Holy cow.
I don't know how s- single mothers do it, single parents do it." Like, it's... it blows my mind. It's hard with, with two people, right, that are there. It is. Yeah.
It blows my mind from that perspective, but also from a financial perspective, knowing that- Yeah... kids aren't cheap at all. You have to go to work. Yeah.
And then usually if you have to go to work, then you ha- If you're in an office, then you have to send them to daycare, and that's another 1,500, 2,000, whatever it might be, if you don't have family there to, to help you, right?
Yeah. I actually have just read a- an article about Gen Z is getting in the workplace, and they're saying same thing, "I'll never go anywhere that requires an office," and- Yeah...
it blows my mind how much the culture of work has changed. And I feel like- Yeah... it would be very hard to force everybody back in an office. I don't know if it will ever happen again. I, I have no idea.
I, I don't know. I think we will continue seeing new studies about how COVID changed globalization for- Yeah... for decades, into 2050, 2060.
People looking at, like, second degree and third degree survivors of COVID and how their lives changed after their family was impacted by it, and their, you know, work from home lives.
And even children during the pandemic- Mm-hmm... whose parents had to shift their lives around because of the pandemic, and how they're going to be dealing with life.
Maybe they had missed a year of school, or they lost certain friends due to different workplace changes. I mean, there's so much, I think, well beyond what we even can comprehend at this point. Yeah.
So it's gonna be interesting to see it unfold. It will be. And then your kids, they're two and a half and six months. What are they? Two and a half... Yeah, actually almost three. Everett is my firstborn.
He'll be three in January. And Maverick is our newborn, not so newborn anymore. He's seven months old. He was born in May. Okay. May what? And yours y- May 3rd. May 3rd. Okay. Okay.
I'm May 24th, so I was gonna say that's- Okay... he's gonna be a great kid, but, uh, he'll be all right. There you go. Um- There you go. Yeah, I know. He's not great, unfortunately. [laughs] No, just kidding.
What about yours? Oh, I'm kidding. I know you have one who's almost three as well, right? One that's... He's, he was born in July, so he's two and a half. Um- Okay, so two and a half.
Two and a half, and then one on the way in four weeks today, actually. That's so soon, man. Wow. That's so soon. Wow, it's crazy. And are you... Is it, are you telling people the gender of the newborn? Yeah, two boys.
I got two, just two boys. Just two boys. Very s- Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, very similar. Two boys. I love it. I love it. Look at us. We're like- We, uh- We're like two peas in a pod. We are. We are. I do wanna circle back.
Uh, with, with the fact that you have a new, you have a new boy on the way, you're a founder of a tech company, you've moved because of work adjacent things, let's, let's go five years into the future.
Let's say Demo has 500 employees, and you're doing 200 million in revenue. Would you ever consider making people move to an office? I'm glad you asked this. Why or why not? Yeah. Yeah, this is an amazing question.
So when I was a, a sales rep, and this will give away my answer pretty much, I've always said that I will never work in an office again, ever. Okay? Nice. Nice. Would I ever make people move
and, and work out of, out of an office? No. That's the short answer. However, there's four of us at Demo, very small right now. Yeah.
All the other three are in Brooklyn, New York, and I was just out there a few weeks ago. And there is something about that in person where you're just war rooming ideas and stuff like that- Yeah...
that you'll never get virtually. I, I felt like I had the most productive day since I started Demo th- three weeks ago, because- Yeah...
it was like we were just sitting there getting so much stuff done, talking about all the stuff that, like, doesn't work, talking about things that we should try out, things that- Yeah...
we should s- uh, eliminate because we're trying too many things. Like... So I was like, "Dang." Like, I, I literally got back and was like, "Wow, I wish..."
Even if it was two days a week, three days a week, not like that it was forced, but like, "Hey, it'd be cool to just work with somebody in person," and then be like, "Hey- Yeah... this was awesome.
Let's go ahead and grab, like, a dinner or like a happy hour bite or whatever and, and head home." Yes. I hate commutes. Do you know Darren McKee on LinkedIn? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Okay. Yep. Uh, yes. Cool.
Huge fan of Darren. Uh, love- Yeah... love, love chatting with Darren. He's awesome. Amazing human. Ama- Very genuine. So him and I works- He is very genuine...
worked, uh, he works out of some, like, remote workplace, right? Whatever they're- Yeah... they're called. Um, and he was like 40, 30 to 40 minutes away from me in Raleigh, so I worked with him a couple of times.
And I lived in Raleigh- Oh, fuck... and the commute, I, I, I straight up said I'll never do that again. It was, on the way home- Yeah... it was supposed to be a 30-minute drive. Yeah.
It was like an hour and 10 minutes, and I was like, "This sucks." Yeah. All that to say, to answer the question, I would never force people. Um- Yeah...
I don't know what I would do, 'cause it's not cheap to rent office spaces all around the world- It's not... and get people to collaborate in person. So it's tough to say. No, it's... Yeah.
I've seen it done different ways where there's, like, co-working space stipends for employees- Yeah... because of some of the appeal to be around people in a space that's not your home.
I think there's, like, there, th- there's something to what you're saying.
We had some coworkers fly into Charleston, or drive to Charleston depending on where they were, a few months back, and we got a co-working space for the week, had some meals together.
One of the co-founders of Beehive lives an hour and a half from me, so we've met up a couple times.
And, like, there is an energy that comes from being with your people in real life and, like, shaking their hand and being on a call with the same camera and, you know, like, hanging out, going and getting a, a drink together or getting s- like, a meal or lunch or going to coffee, you know- Yeah...
stuff that you, you just don't do when you work remote.I like that. And so I, the, the s- the cost savings for companies to not do that is outrageous. It's huge.
I mean, companies are saving 30% overhead in some cases just for not having an office. Yeah. But there... I, yeah, I don't know. I don't even know if it's, if hybrid is, like, the right word for what we'll see longterm.
But, like, offsites are, I think, the extreme example. Like, we had an offsite in Montreal a few months back, and it was amazing. We had 70 of our 85 employees, give or take, show up in Montreal for, uh, almost a week.
And I mean- Yeah... the, it was electric. You can't do that every month because that was a lot of money to fly everyone from all over the world to Montreal. But, like, I feel like micro meetups and, like- Yeah...
micro offsites, like team-based or even, like, region-based, there's something that probably is feasible to, to coordinate for a lot of companies that- Yeah...
is not hybrid and is not an offsite, but is, like, something in between. I said when I started Demo that I wanted to meet up every quarter with the team. Nothing crazy.
I mean, we're not doing crazy revenue right now, right? Yeah. So I, I, I did say, like, whatever it is. They're in New York. I'm in Madison. Maybe go to Chicago for, like, three nights or whatever, like something simple.
'Cause yeah, it, there is that energy, and I grew... You know, the first... When I got into sales, it was like you're in a cubicle. You're in it. I act like I've been in sales for so long.
I've been in sales for, like, seven to eight years. But it was- Yeah...
like this old school company where you gotta dress up, you gotta wear, like, a, a button down, and you're sitting at your desk, and you have your corded phone, and you just dial through an Excel sheet.
I started in, in sales with that kind of, like, in person. I'm sitting next to, like, people that are 30, 40 years older than me that have been doing this forever, and that was normal, right? Yeah.
At the end of every quarter, we would have to stay until midnight. Like, that was just a thing. When I say midnight, you leave when the last person gets their deal in for that quarter. And so it alway- Yeah. Yeah...
it was always around 10:00, 11:00, midnight. But, um- It's like Wall Street. All that was... Yeah. It, it was literally like that, and you would, like, hit the gong. Like that whole, you know, it really was like- Yeah...
a Wall Street kind of thing. Um, but yeah. It's, it's weird. The in-person energy is, is very different. I'm sure there are companies out there trying to solve for that right now. Like, how do we help- Yeah...
companies not go spend so much in an office but still maintain that, that work culture that they wanna build and, I don't know. I'm not sure. Yeah. It's a hard, it's a hard solution to solve for.
I think, you know Brian Lamana, I'm assuming, from Gong. Yep. Yep. He, I think, he posted something recently about... He works in Chicago.
He goes into the office periodically, not every day, um, which I, I don't know Gong's current stance on in-office.
I know they want all, most of their employees to be based around a headquarters, but obviously during COVID they, you know, changed that. So I don't know what it is now.
But I think there's something to the high performers we see, like the Brians, where you're like he's obviously doing it right, and he's crushing his quotas. He's like, "Yeah, I got 580% quota this q-," I'm, or something.
I don't know. I'm making up numbers. Yeah, yeah. But, like, like good God. Like, can you give everyone else a little bit of that? You know, that's unbelievable. Yeah. But he's grinding.
I mean, he's doing onsites optionally. He's onboarding customers. It's not even his role, but he's going to an office, and he talks about that sometimes.
And I think, you know, you, you talk about the gong at the end of the quarter. Like, Gong uses literal gongs, which is pretty cool. Yeah.
Obviously I, I think that's kind of a motif with their company, but, like, their salespeople and their sales enablement is very, very well done.
A lot of tech companies look at Gong as, like, the s- the gold standard of hiring salespeople, training and enabling them, and then watching them perform based on what they've been coached to do.
And so now you see people who are individual contributors, like Brian, coaching on their own, like their side hustles. Yep.
You know, he has, like, Closed Won and a, a number of different courses, and of course he's a consultant and people go to him for, like, sales advice.
But then even internally at Gong, working well outside the confines of what a typical ICAE would do in a tech company. Like, he's going and onboarding customers.
Like, that is notable to me, that Gong's done something really well there. Yeah.
I feel like they're the first company, or at least the only one that I can think about, where it's like a lot of their employees ended up becoming, if you wanna call it, an influencer or famous on LinkedIn or developed a following.
Like our co-founder, Sarah Brazier, came from Gong and ended up building her audience- Yeah... at Gong as well.
So I, I don't know if they knew, like, "Hey, there's this big shift, and we just need all of our people to post on LinkedIn right now," like six years ago. Yeah. I have no idea. Yeah.
But it is incredible, and I think that... I was at one company where, where they were known for, like, their sales process, and it was MongoDB, and anywhere I applied afterward- Oh, yeah...
they're like, "Oh, you were at MongoDB." And it's, like, very strict, but you learn a lot. Yeah. And it was the only company that I've ever been at where they, they do focus on sales enablement.
It's not just like you're go watch these videos and then you've completed the training.
It was like you were doing in-person trainings, and you're always doing things with an actual person that works at Mongo and walking through scenarios, going through deals, et cetera.
And so, um, all that to say is that I think what Gong has done is incredible. I don't know how to replicate it. I'm over here trying to figure out how to get more- Yeah... face time- Yeah... on LinkedIn. But yeah.
Brian's a, he's wild. He's a wild one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've been, I've been following Gong since early days.
I mean, I was looking at the co-founders and, and what they were doing and, you know, started following Sarah probably when she was an SDR.
I talked to her a couple times after she left Gong and before Demo, and very inspired, I think, by what they built and how now it leans into how they hire people and the talent they attract.
You know, I think something we're doing similarly...
Well, I'm trying to build a social selling culture at Beehiiv, and I talk to my team probably too much about how Gong, Chili Piper, and Apollo are doing it, and honestly in that order, in my opinion.
Ap- Apollo and Chili Piper both do it well. No one can touch Gong. That's my opinion. Apollo and Chili Piper peeps, if you're watching, still love you, but Gong has just cracked the code.
And so I'm like, "Hey, when we think of social selling-"One, your personal brand will benefit from being out there. Yeah.
So whether you stay at Beehiiv or go somewhere else down the line, like what you just mentioned with Sarah, like she's a co-founder of Demo now and built this brand for herself while she was at Gong.
Like, that's what I want for all my peoples. Like, you're, you're building something that helps Beehiiv right now, but helps you now and well beyond what you're going to do in your career over the next five to 10 years.
And so I think social selling- Yeah... when I think of social selling, I think Gong. I think they go hand in hand. Yeah. Yeah, I think they do.
And it's funny, I, I've always said people like ask me why I started posting on LinkedIn and stuff, and the very first answer that I've always given is, "Close more deals." Like I, I wanna make more money- Mm-hmm...
to be honest, like that's it. Like selfishly, I want- Yep... to be able to close, close more deals and generate more pipeline. Now, I think- Yep... I think it's very industry dependent. If your ICP's marketers- It is...
and sellers, like it's really hot. RevOps too, really hot. Maybe even HR, throw that in there. It's really hot. Although Darren McKee, Darren McKee pushes back on this sometimes. He's like, "Hey- He does...
I don't care what industry you're in, if you sell on LinkedIn, I will teach you how to do it effectively." So...
He, he does push back on that, and I still think, and maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong here, when I was at Proofpoint selling cybersecurity, or even MongoDB, like getting software engineers and software engineering managers to really like wanna follow your brand- Yes...
and I, I've never tried it. So maybe- True... again, this is me just riffing off of like what I f- see on LinkedIn.
But all that to say is I always said like, one, I wanted to make more money, but then when I did it for like a year, I started posting for about a year straight almost every day, it ended up to where people were giving me job offers without even applying.
I was like, "Holy cow." Yep. Like, I have job security now- Yep... and I'm, I'm good forever. And then now I'm like helping- Yeah... a few other startups that are like, "Hey, I have an idea.
I wanna build it and I wanna sell it to salespeople." I'm helping a few startups do that, and so like that's really fun as well. And this is all just 'cause I post- Yeah...
on LinkedIn about what I'm doing every day, and I think it's huge. Yeah. Yeah. If you're, if like the Beehiiv ICP Demo is, well, Demo's got a weird ICP, but Gong ICP for sure. I, I think it's- Yeah...
completely underrated still, and it's popular now, but I still think it's underrated. However, I'm also not an attention guy.
If you see me in person, like I'm not gonna be the guy that's like trying to act like an influencer in person at all. Like, that is not me. I hate attention on me. Me neither. I hate public speaking. Yeah.
Like, I actually want to hate public speaking. I hate people. People suck. Yeah. Have you ever- Have you ever, have you ever met, have you ever met people? Dude, people do suck. They, but I always- [laughs]...
I always go with the mindset that like, I like everyone. Like, people suck in general. Like I- Yeah. No... I think that, I think a lot of people do things just for selfish reasons, but um- Absolutely...
that's a whole nother conversation. But yeah, people stink. I have this idea that like I like everybody until I don't. Like, I want you to give me a reason not to like you- Yes... versus a reason to like you. Yes.
Um, but that's just kinda my, my outcome. I'm gonna say until proven guilty. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. 100%. Exactly. No. No, I'm kidding. Exactly. [laughs] No, I lo- I try to love all people.
I try to be a loving person, uh, you know, a, a Christian mindset is, is kinda where I, where I'm built and, and grown.
And so really just trying to get people the benefit of the doubt, be, you know, loving and, and, and stuff to everyone. So I think it's, it's easier said than done.
People at Beehiiv who know me well will tell you that [laughs] things, things upset me when they shouldn't, when people are just a certain way, particularly in a sales process.
I just said this in LinkedIn yesterday, but I'm like, people ghosting salespeople, ca- can we talk about that for a second? And this is, here, here's what I mean. Let me define ghosting.
If you're just not responding to cold outreach, I don't care. That's, that's your prerogative. It's cold outreach, not ghosting. I'm talking about you've engaged in a sales process.
You've actually engaged in a conversation with a salesperson. Maybe you've seen the product, you've expressed interest, per- perhaps you're inbound. You've said, "Hey, I raise my hand.
I wanna, I wanna know more about this." And then [laughs] and then you ghost someone?
Like, at least give me the respect and the time of day to say, "Actually, just kidding, I'm not interested," or, "Hey, no longer looking at this." Like, just a one-liner. Like, "Sorry." Yeah.
Different, different things in, in the playbook here. But how do you feel about ghosting salespeople? Tell me about that. I made a post about this this morning. Um- Nice. I haven't seen it yet.
Uh- Let me go to LinkedIn right after this and watch. Yeah. Or look. You don't need to. You don't need to. It's, it's essentially like the three things that I say to try to get people. I, I've been [laughs]
I'm gonna tell you- Oh, I, I did see that. I comment on that one. [laughs] Oh, look at that. So literally I've been trying because somebody did it to me. Somebody did it to me 'cause I was ghosting. I think I was busy.
And so like, it's, it's weird. One, how do I feel about it when they're engaged and you've gone through a sales process or whatever, right? There's been something there. Um- Yeah... like yeah, it's, it's really annoying.
Really, really annoying. My first boss ever was always like, "They don't owe you shit." Like, they would always say, "They do not owe you anything." So it's like ingrained in my head- True...
they never will owe me a response regardless of if I found out about their family and whatever, like re- regardless of the rapport built. But all that to say is I hate it. It's annoying. Um, and I think that- It is...
I think that especially more junior sellers, I feel like they focus too much time on those deals, the ones that are ghosting. That's true.
Like, they really wanna try to get them back, and it's like you gotta learn when to cut it off. Yeah. Move them to close lost. But, yeah, move them to close lost.
What I have, somebody the other day, I was, was engaged in a sales cycle. They emailed me a few times, and I, I'm over here being a hypocrite, and I, I wasn't responding. And then one, just one email- Yeah...
on the thread said, "Or should I just kick rocks?" And I was like, oh, damn. Like, I feel bad if I don't respond to this. Yeah. So I, I responded to it. Yes. I started using that. I ge- I got a response- Promoted...
last night actually. It was actually a prospect email. I sent the prospect email last night, just one. Well, I sent the prospect email like three days ago, but last night I responded saying- Yeah...
"Or should I kick rocks?" Got a response- Yeah... and saying, "Actually, this might be interesting, let me give my marketing team," et cetera. Yeah.
And I was like, whoa, so this or should I kick rocks for some reason it throws people on their heels- Yeah... and they're like, "Hmm, I'll, I'll respond." I don't know what it is, but- I got an interesting one.
There were, uh, it was a Chili Piper SDR, and we actually use Chili Piper now, so this was effective because I was not responding to their outreach attempt.And we had engaged, and so I'm, I'm a hypocrite too.
I mean, people sell, and there's, there's so many different nuances of why someone might ghost you even unintentionally. So I'm, I'm, I'm aware of that.
But what she did was after, I think, two or three messages on LinkedIn and one or two emails, so she was, you know, working both sides of the, of the outreach there, she just sent me a GIF of the baby Yoda that was like, I don't know, like the sad GIF.
There was like no context. It was just a GIF of the baby Yoda. And like, would that work with everyone? No. But I was like, that's enough for me to open and look at and think, all right, let me tell this person like...
So I can't remember what, where it went from there, but ultimately we bought actually the product and we use it, uh, in our sales pr- uh, process and our inbound pipeline pr- primarily.
So I think there is something to breaking a context and, and breaking that actual expectation where I think the, "Hey, should I kick rocks?" I think that it's like you, you do s- sometimes you'll offend people.
I think we see it- Yeah... all the time with cold calling as well, um, which I would lo- I would love to ask you, you have a lot of content about cold calling. A lot of it's actually- Keep going. I'm listening...
really good too. Yeah.
And I think it's interesting whenever I see posts about a cold call conversation to a VP of sales or like a CRO or like a director of sales, where this person answers the phone and they get wildly upset at the fact that they are being called.
And it's, it's such a weird dichotomy to me where- Yeah...
people who really are probably coaching their salespeople to make these types of calls and outbound activities, getting upset when other organizations are doing exactly the same thing to them.
Tell me, tell me how you feel about that. And as a founding seller right now, I'm assuming you're probably experiencing this from both sides of the coin, so I'm interested in your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah.
So one thing, my phone is on do not disturb 24/7. So luckily I get to ignore them. But- It hasn't been off since 2010. I know. Mine's been like four years now. And so all that to say, I think that's...
I, I think getting genuinely upset at a cold call, as a VP of sales specifically, not in general, I think the easy thing to do is just ask, "Does your team make cold calls?" "Yes." "Okay.
Well then, you know, do you want them, whoever they're calling, do you want them to be this upset about it?" Kind of pour it up maybe. But I think that- That's right...
again, I always try to have a, a positive intent, is kinda like my, one of my values, I guess you could say. Yeah. So my guess is like maybe they're having a bad day. You know? Maybe they put their pants on backwards.
Maybe they're going through something. But for a VP of sales to get mad at somebody cold calling- Yeah... that's bonkers to me. Yeah. That's part of the job. That's how you generate pipeline.
If you take away cold calling, cold emailing from almost every organization or social, so any, any sort of outbound, like that company would probably not survive, unless you're Apple, unless you're something like that.
Like, if you're a startup, if you're even like a mid-market company, without your outbound, it's not gonna survive. So it's a really weird- Yeah...
thing to get genuinely like offended and annoyed and pissed off when somebody cold calls you, unless, I think there might be one scenario, and I know that some companies are- Okay... popular at this.
If it's the same person calling you three or four times in a row. Like I've, I've heard that that's- Sure... a thing as well. So that's, that's maybe the, the caveat there. So- Yeah.
We- How do you feel about parallel dialers? [laughs] Um, I'm not against them. You probably have some on Demo. I haven't, I haven't looked. We- But I assume... we have many on Demo. We have many- Yeah. Yeah... on Demo.
I work really closely with several of them. I'm not against it at all. I don't think you can build a massive or you can build an acquirable business building a parallel dialer.
I think you have to expand from that if you wanna build like a really successful and, I guess, larger business, if you want to. Like, for me- Yeah... Demo, I hope that we stay small, to be honest.
And I hope that there's someone that's like- Okay... "Hey, this is sexy. Let's acquire it." So what's- Um-... quintessential Demo? I mean acquirable,
and I still wanna hear about parallel dialers, but like I would love to know- Yeah... what that looks like for you as well. Yeah, yeah. I'll, I'll get into that.
So parallel dialers, the only thing I dislike, I think some of them are, are finding a way around this, but like how there's this weird little hiccup before you actually jump onto the line.
There's like this quiet moment when somebody answers and it's like you're clicking into the line. You're like, "Oh, hey. Hello." Um, parallel dialers I think are great to book meetings fast. Yeah.
I think they're gonna be more no-shows 'cause you don't really have a lot of context on like who that person is. You're just kind of dialing 25 people at once. Yeah.
Whoever picks up, you, you then go talk to that person. Um, I think they're effective. If your goal is meetings, I think they're effective. If- Yeah...
I think that maybe if your goal is qualified meetings, it might be a little bit different. Um, but yeah. They're, they're good. Shouldn't that be everyone's goal?
I, I guess y- you work backwards, reverse engineer MRR, shouldn't qualified meetings be the, the goal? If it's not, shouldn't it be? It should.
I think qualified meetings, qualified pipeline, like is always the goal, right? Yeah. Yeah.
But I also believe that, I think it's a h- one of those things that nobody has cracked, like how do we only book qualified meetings? I don't know if that'll ever be a thing. Um, so, so yeah, that's definitely the goal.
Now Demo, I guess we'll quickly segue into that. Yeah. I wanna h- I hope that Demo stays around like 10 people. I hope we have like a core team of 10. We all have fun.
And then I hope that we grow it to, the goal is to grow it to around 5 to 10 million in ARR and see if there's anybody out there that would wanna acquire us. Like that's it. And I like working.
I'm one of those people that actually like really enjoys it. I like being challenged. I like when my brain has to continuously think or I get really bored. Mm-hmm.
And so what I want to happen is it gets acquired for something like healthy, like pay my car, or not my car off, pay my house off, pay for- Yeah... my kids' schools, and like I, I'm good to go.
Like I don't, I'm not materialistic. I shop on Amazon for pretty much all my clothing. Like I don't care about nice stuff. Yeah. Um, but all that to say is like there's two things.
If, if we wanna go on a family vacation, I never wanna have to think, "Can we take that vacation?" Yeah. That's one thing.
And the second thing is I'd probably just-Give, probably take like two or three weeks off and then just go and, and, and work again, right? Build something else- Mm-hmm... or consult or something like that.
Um, but I just wanna give my kids a better life than what I had growing up kinda thing. Like, I wish I had a basement with like a, you know, two basketball hoops on both sides 'cause that would've been so fun. Yeah.
Like, and I never had that. So that's my goal is to, to be able to provide that. Do you... I remember reading something about Demo. You're bootstrapped, right? Mm-hmm.
You're bootstrapped from a prior acquisition or from money you had set aside from something? So we were. This is funny. Okay. We were. And I actually- So I- I've been-...
hope I'm not opening a can of worms here No, not at all. Um, yeah, so we started, actually, we, we started off with just doing demo days, and that paid for everything that we needed to spend money on from the jump.
It's still actually to this day what we generate the most revenue from. We're hoping that changes. But all that to say is there's this long story, and I'll keep it short.
I was doing it on the side, and at the same time there was like a lot of... When we launched, there was a lot of eyeballs and a lot of traction. Yeah.
And it just kept going up and up and up for about two to three months. Now it's slowed down. We're trying to figure out how to break that. But, um, all that to say is I was like, "You know what?
The only way that I can quit my W2 job is if we have and we're making enough money to where I can pay myself." Yeah. My s- my wife's a social worker, dude.
She can't afford two kids, and she can't afford the home and all... Like, I have to make the money, right? And so there's two routes I could have gone.
One, just post a lot of about tools on LinkedIn and tell everybody I use these tools, and I don't. And then, you know- Yeah... get $1,000 a post or whatever. Um- Yeah...
or two, raise some money, and that's what we ended up doing. We raised like... I, I wouldn't even call it a pre-seed. We're gonna raise an angel round. Okay. But we oversubscribed that angel round within days. Okay.
And we're like, "Oh, crap." Okay. So then we ended up... We haven't, we didn't raise a million. We, we raised less than a million, but it all- it gives us like 20 to 24 months of runway, and I was like, "All right."
That's great. "I'm gonna pay myself a salary, no commission, but we're gonna just gonna see what, what we can do." Love it. So yeah, man. Love it. That's where we're at. Yeah. Congrats. Congrats. [laughs] That's...
So not a pre-seed, like short angel round- [laughs]... and maybe a pre-seed someday, or are you hoping to be profitable from that angel?
I hope to be profitable, um, 'cause of course your multiple will go up if you are a profitable business. Yeah. Um, I've always been anti-VC. I've always been like, I...
If you're quitting your job, why do you wanna go raise money and work for somebody else again? Like, why do you wanna do that? Mm-hmm. So I've always been anti-VC. But
I have a few friends right now, I've met a lot of founders, like taking the jump now, and I have a few friends that are, they raised a seed, now they wanna go raise- Yeah...
a possible A, or they raise a pre-seed, they wanna raise a seed. And it's really just- Yeah... it's the sad reality that it, you just run out of cash quickly if you don't take care of it, and- Yep...
do you let it fail, or do you just go say, "Screw it, I'm gonna go get more money to see if I can do this in the next three years-" Yeah... or whatever.
So I did tell my wife a couple days ago, if my back was against the wall, because I love doing it so much and it's so fun to me, I would probably
actual s- I would do probably a seed round, 'cause the round was like a little larger than an angel.
So I'd go for a seed round, um, just to give me another like three years to continue doing it without having to go back into sales or something like that. Um, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I just, I'm, I'm so in love with what I'm doing. It's so fun to me. Yeah. Um- Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. That's kinda where I'm at.
I think there's, there's an interesting, like battle right now between bootstrapped versus VC, and I'm kind of moderate. I think bootstrapped companies are great, like good and honorable. Like, good for you.
Like, that's... It's incredible when someone's built a profitable business bootstrapped. Yeah. But I don't think there's anything wrong with raising capital, and obv- obviously, you know, Beehive has raised capital.
We did a series B this year. We wanna build fast, and- Yeah... sometimes building faster than whoever you're competing against is simply more logical with more money. There's just no way around it.
And so it's like, yeah, we could bootstrap. It's just gonna take us longer to get where we want to go, and Beehive moves extremely quickly. And so I- Yeah...
you know, if I ever launched my own company, like I wouldn't... My first step would not be go raise money. Yeah. But I don't think it's off the table for me, at least for that initial angel or pre-seed.
Because if you have a great idea and you have product market fit, which I would argue Demo is well beyond product market fit, then you need money unless you are generating- Yep...
enough to continue growing at the pace that you want to grow. Um- Yeah. You, you mentioned- Yeah... wanting to be acquired at some point. Would a company like, I don't know, like G2 or like who would acquire...
What company would ideally look at Demo as an acquirable company? G2 could be on the table for sure. So like just- Yeah...
to put it all on the table, like the companies that I've thought about, and I've always told from people that have had their companies acquired, it's never who you think it is. So G2 is one of them.
Gartner, I feel like they're- Yeah... kind of like they have so much information and data on, on companies, and I feel like they... I hate to call them like a dinosaur, but, you know, they're- Mm...
they're an older company, but they're a $35 billion company, and so it's like can we give them some sort of modern heartbeat kinda thing? Um- Yeah. Yep. So Gartner's up there. Um, even Vendor.
I've thought about Vendor 'cause they're going on the how can we procure technology for you, and how can we build a marketplace where you can go and buy technology that's like, okay, great, can we somehow slip in this evaluation tool so it's like they go to explore, evaluate, and purchase on your site?
That could be an, a potential one. So those are like the three- What about a company like Trustpilot? Like a little left field, like no tech right now, but just reviews- Yeah... without the actual software. I don't know.
Hey- I mean- If, if the money's right, I don't care. Yeah. Right. [laughs] You know? Mm. Who, what they do. Yeah. Yeah. Um, even like...
I don't think this is true, but somebody told me that they thought LinkedIn was trying to build some sort of marketplace. And this was like a decade ago.
Like they wanted to build some sort of business marketplace where you can go and, and evaluate tech and stuff like that, which- Yeah... could be a smart move for them. I don't know. But- It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know. I, I haven't heard anything. I will say-Google and Microsoft are notoriously always building something, and it's, you know, took 'em like eight years to launch the emoji reactions on Google Meet.
[laughs] So, so it's like, I don't know. When you, when your company's that big, there's so many ideas thrown around in any stand, in any org, and I think it's- Yeah...
wh- which ones actually get selected to move forward. I will say, I think the, like Dharmesh from HubSpot has built- Yeah... this like agent AI- Yeah...
which is pretty cool, and like there's almost like a, there's almost like a, a, like room right now on the internet for people to have these marketplaces that are specific to a specific niche.
So like even the way that you've verticalized a demo where there's like finance and there's SAS and there's, you know, you know the actual categories- Yeah... better than I do.
I think it's cool that HubSpot, really Dharmesh, but I think under the guise of HubSpot, not totally sure, has this agent marketplace of- Yeah... AI agents, which is almost like a futuristic LinkedIn of people- Yeah...
who aren't real to do work for you. I mean, it's, it's, it's very cool. I've heard so many raving reviews about it so far. I haven't actually- Yeah...
used it myself, but Dharmesh uses Beehiiv, so I know him, and obviously super stoked for all that he builds, and really just a Dharmesh fan in general. And then I use HubSpot, so kind of always following- Yeah...
what they're doing. But what do you think about the idea of these marketplaces emerging for AI and AI agents? So first and foremost, big fan of Dharmesh. I think he's one of the smartest people that,
you know- Incredible... kind of like of our generation right now. He's, he's- Yeah... incredibly intelligent. Um- Yeah... I think that... I mean, it's gotta happen, right?
The way that I imagine AI happening and like these AI agents is literally like the Apple App Store, the iPhone App Store. Yeah.
I think that that's exactly what it's gonna be like, and you just go and there's gonna be free, there's gonna be pay to play, there's gonna be those kind of agents. And I mean, it has to.
It, it's, it's inevitable that we will- Mm-hmm... be able to go out there and be like, "I want an agent to research every company that I upload into this CSV, and I want a daily update on these companies."
That's an agent. Yeah. Like, cool, you're doing that. And then I want an agent- Yeah...
that goes out there and researches all the people that I ca- Like, this is only a sales specific use case, and there's a use case for- Yeah... every single department out there.
So I do believe that there's, whether it's gonna be ChatGPT or whether it will be agent AI, like I do think that... And or it could be both, right? You have the Google Play Store, you have the App Store.
So I mean, there's going to be some sort of marketplace out there where you can go and grab any sort of AI helper, and it'll just- Yeah, yeah... do what you tell it to do. Um- And it's- Which is incredible...
infinitely hireable. I mean, which is- Yeah... which is the wild part I think to me is, of course people will always push back, at least for probably the next few decades.
Like, "Oh, they can't replicate what one person can do." I'm like, but they can... If they can replicate 75% of what one person can do a billion times per second, that actually- It trims a lot of fat. [laughs]...
is much... Yeah. I mean, it's just way beyond the scope of what a single person could ever do on their own. And that- Yeah...
that's where I think the power of an AI agent comes into play, is like they can work for a million companies at the same time.
I, I made a post not too long ago about like how I'm just now starting to understand the power of AI. And you said a few decades. I mean, I give it five to 10 years till we like- Yeah...
re- like, it's in- it's insane how quickly it's, it's growing and how fast- It's growing so fast... and smart. It's, it's insane. Yeah.
So yes, may- I just had a conversation with a, with a guy this morning about AI agents. I've made eight of my own, developed just for sales, for newsletters, for coaching, for personal coaching, for running.
I'm a runner. As of six, seven months ago, I'm, I'm learning how to run with an AI agent. It's literally replicating parts of my life that I am, uh, that I need help with, and it's- Yeah...
it's, it's almost a consultant, like an advisor in some ways. I'm gonna need to pick your brain on this, 'cause I- Yeah. Okay... I, I don't use it enough. I just use it for demo.
I don't use it for any other personal use case- Oh, dude... unless I feel like I need to. There's so many use cases. Dude. And I have only scratched the surface.
Some people out there are even, you know, 10X what I'm doing. Yeah. That is nuts. Yeah. We're gonna need to talk about that, but, um, you know what we should do? Dude. What, what should we do? I don't know.
I'm feeling something though. Something's brewing here. What if we made a podcast, like one of those podcasts where... Like, I'm a big fan of Basement Yard. It's just two guys talking.
They're really funny, but like, made it more, I don't know, like business professional or something. I haven't seen anything- Interesting... like it. Yeah. Everyone's doing it. Maybe- Everyone's doing it. Yeah. Yeah.
No, I like the idea. I like the idea. Where would we even start? I mean, what would we, what would the title be? Would we, you know, what would the first episode be about? What are you thinking? Title?
I mean, I gotta think of a title. I'm sure I could think of something clever, but- Okay. Yeah, we can come up with something if, if that's the way we go. I don't... I mean, titles are the least of my concerns.
But we just- I mean- I don't know, like we just rip on- What about-... a bunch of random stuff. Yeah. Did we record this? It's being recorded. I think all of these are recorded. Yeah, it looks like it's recorded. Okay.
Why don't we just... Let's just throw this up somewhere and see what happens. I mean- Episode one. Episode one? Try saying it with two idiots. Two idiots. I actually like that. That's- Two idiots...
working, working title. Working title. Working title. Yeah. Maybe- We can- We'll, we'll see. We- I like it though. I like it. Yeah. Two idiots. Um- I think, okay, let's do it.
Episode one- All right...'s already done then. If, if we do, if we do that, we can just post prod this and, and, and throw it up and see what happens. See what, see who listens. All right. Let's run with it.
What I'll do, I have no idea what episode one would even look like or sound like, so I'll take this. I mean, yeah, it's recording for an hour, so I'll take this and I'll see what comes of it. It could be- I love it...
awful. It could be entertaining. I have no idea what to expect. But if we're- Who knows? Who knows?... using this for episode one, like we m- whatever. I'll... If this is what you wanna do- Yeah... I'll do it.
Let's do it. I, I think this is a great idea, uh, and, and we should run with it. We should absolutely start a podcast, and this should be episode one. Screw it. Let's do it