Daniel, what's going on, man? What's up, man? Happy birthday. Hey, happy birthday to you too, man. It's crazy we share the same birthday. Yeah, I appreciate that. What are you up to this morning?
I saw it was, like, zero degrees in Milwaukee or wherever the heck you live. It was zero degrees in Verona. Close. They sound the same. They do. Yes. They do. Zero degrees in Verona this morning when I walked the dogs.
I think it's, like, 11 degrees now, so it's really warm. But episode two, dude, it's here. I guess we're, I guess we're doing it. I think we're doing it.
I think this is what it feels like, this is how it is to experience that which is what it is to do it. I- [laughs] In the rea- [laughs] Most philosophical way to possibly frame that sentence.
[laughs] I'm a little offended that we've gone a whole minute into the episode and you haven't complimented me on my haircut, I'm not gonna lie.
Dude, what sucks is I saw you yesterday too, and you even told me, "I have to leave at 4:00," or whatever it was, to go get a haircut. I know. I know. And I- It's messed up. It's messed up.
You saw me b- you saw me before, you saw me after. I feel like our relationship is dense and mature enough at this point where you should be complimenting me on my haircuts.
A- and the worst part is it looks amazing, and I didn't even say anything. I thought it did too. I gave my barber a big old hug afterwards. We shook hands on the way out. [laughs] He asked me if I buy crypto.
Their, the whole barber shop was into XRP. [laughs] I was like, "You know what? This is a little bit adjacent to what I'm, uh, dealing with day to day." [laughs] But my bank account currently does not have XRP.
[laughs] And this is not financial advice, for all those listening, looking for us, uh, to give you crypto advice. Yeah, speaking of, the Hawk Coin. What about the Hawk Coin?
And I think that Chill Guy coin just came out too. Oh, man, isn't she, like, going to jail or something for rugging 99% of coin purchasers on the Hawk Coin? I don't know. I... That- Yeah...
I know literally the extent of what I just said about the story- [laughs]... and nothing else. I have read one headline and it said that.
[laughs] If you're listening to this podcast, more about the Hawk Coin scandal, feel free to keep it to yourself because we don't care. Let us know, everybody. Let us know. But haircut looks great.
Hawk Tuah girl, she, I think she made a couple million dollars or something like that off of a fake coin. An easy- I don't really know... an easy, an easy mil.
So I was thinking that we come out with a coin for this podcast, and then we can do the same thing. The Dansen Troberg coin?
[laughs] I think I notice on our YouTube someone mentioned, they said, "Dude, is the YouTube profile picture a combination of Daniel and Troy's face?" And for anyone watching, the answer is yes.
It is an AI-generated image of Troy's face and mine- [laughs]... in one new Dansen Troberg. So if you're wondering, "Who is this random AI person?" It is us. It, we are- Uh... Dansen Troberg.
We're Dansen Troberg, and I love that picture 'cause the person looks so real. And speaking of YouTube- Yeah... and just the launch in general, dude, podcast or episode one launch went decently well. It did.
I think- A lot of good stuff. I don't think there was any... I got one negative comment on TikTok, but outside of that, I don't think that there was- Yeah... any, anything negative. Yeah, it's fun.
It's, uh, a lot of people loving it on LinkedIn, which I expected engagement on LinkedIn, although I wasn't sure what people would say.
You and I post on LinkedIn a lot, so I was like, "Well, people are gonna notice this, but how will they react?" I think we got a lot of really good feedback. TikTok, it was funny.
TikTok is very triggered right now by one clip- Yeah... where in episode one I talk about sales people ghosting, getting ghosted by senior leaders. And all, it, it, TikTok algorithm gods- [laughs]...
surfaced this video to every single senior leader on the internet, and they're like, "Well, if you sold better and you didn't waste our time with useless products and sales pitches, we wouldn't ghost you."
And Dansen Troberg had to jump in and, and say, "Yeah, guys, it's a, it's a conversation. Chill out. What's your number? I would love to cold call you later." We're gonna keep trolling the triggered. Yeah.
I mean, TikTok in general, the comments will always be [laughs] just people shitting on you. And so I gotta, I gotta get used to that.
But, um, a lot of people also on, on LinkedIn, on the post, they mentioned some names that they sh- that we should name the podcast.
It was, I think I saw, like, the Traniel Podcast because they realized that the picture was both of us put together. I saw, like, the, whatever the other version of that is, the Dan Roy or Podcast or something.
But- Dansen, someone said. I was like, "It's close. It's one of our names, actually." But none of those are right. We didn't take any of those. None of those are right. No.
We have a, a much better solution to our nameless problem. We do. And I actually, personally, my wife thinks this, my grandma thinks this, my stepdad, who's no longer in the picture, he also thinks this.
He thinks our podcast name is the best podcast name in the history of podcasts. I agree. I agree.
We've already gotten calls from the, the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars saying, "We would like you to present each of the movie and music titles for the 2025 Grammys because of how good your podcast title is."
And so I think we're onto something here. I think this is a trademarkable title. I think people will like it. How about you tell us what it is?
Our podcast title, I need everyone to sit in their seats if you're standing up. I don't want anyone to get injured.
Two Dads and Tech: Talking About Things You Think About But Don't Wanna Talk About Or Maybe You Don't Have Anyone To Talk To About, Sometimes Loudly While Drinking Coffee, the Podcast. Round of applause.
I'm giving myself- That is-... two pats on the back. That was you If you guys, if you think it's a mouthful, yeah, that, that's it. That's it. That is, uh, that is straight from the playbook of Rick and Morty.
If you know the reference, good for you. If you don't, I don't know if we can do cool little split screen video ads in here.
But, uh, if not, you should go find out why we named this awesome podcast, how awesomely we named it. Copyright would kill us if we did that right now. Maybe once we get bigger or something like that.
But for everybody to, to make it a little bit easier, on social media and stuff, it's just gonna be TDIT podcast, Two Dads and Tech podcast, but that's not what we're called. It, it just didn't fit.
We, I couldn't fit the whole name on the app in the app. You couldn't fit the whole name, no. So when you're telling your friends, "Yeah, the app-"I believe so. TDIT podcast.
If you're telling your friends about the TDIT podcast and you don't tell them specifically about the two dads in tech about... No, [laughs] I can't even say it that fast. Hold on, let me try this again.
If you tell them about the TDIT podcast and you don't specifically tell them about the two dads in tech talking about things you think about but don't want to talk about, or maybe don't have anyone to talk to about, sometimes loudly while drinking coffee, the podcast, you're not doing us justice.
You're failing us, and I, I ask you politely and respectfully not to. Yeah. On... Oh, I gotta figure out Apple Music.
Dude, I can't figure out the Apple Podcast thing, but at least on Spotify, if your friends aren't searching that up, we're not gonna get plays. And also, this is- Yeah...
might be a good time to say, go rate it five stars. I have no idea what that does. Rate it five stars. It helps the algorithm.
People searching for the title, people searching for the title cold helps us get pushed up on the algo. Pe- so [laughs] TDIT podcast, [laughs]
if you're searching, and people rating it, people listening to it, listens probably past a certain amount of time. I don't actually know the time. But yes, please go rate us. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
That helps us more than you know. And also go follow us on TikTok, TDITpodcast on TikTok.
We have little fun clips, very shareable clips, triggering apparently for sales senior leaders who like to cold call or, or ghost cold callers rather. But it's fun. Yeah. It's, uh, it's well done.
Shout out to Troy for managing the TikTok. He's doing a great job.
And speaking of the, the YouTube, I've gotta figure out how to make a, a thumbnail for each of our episodes, but I also have to figure out how to make it, like, cuter. Like, right now it's just two- Yeah...
big talking heads. I gotta figure out how to put, like, a background and then cut our heads apart and make it have- Yeah... a border. I don't know. I, I'll get there, dude. We're two episodes in. Give us a break.
It's true. It's true. Yeah, give us a break. We want this podcast to be so loosely, skeletally created, like, where we know the direction we're headed in each episode, but actually, like, we're winging this. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. And if at any point you feel like this is scripted, no, this is not scripted. These are conversations- [laughs]... we're having in real time.
We're pressing record, and we're having a conversation about hot topics. I have things I'm gonna talk about that Troy has no idea I'm gonna bring up. Mm.
And then he has things he's gonna talk about that I have no idea he's gonna bring up, and I think that's part of the beauty of, uh, the Troy and Daniel podcast, the two dads in tech.
Two dads in tech talking about things you'd think about. [laughs] I gotta figure out how to say it all, but- We'll get it. We'll have an acronym for it. [laughs] We will.
[laughs] One thing that was scripted, I told you, I was like, "You know what? People don't really know who we are," It's like maybe we should at least do introductions of who we are. You wanna start us off?
Like, Daniel Burke, we... I, I know all... If you've listened to episode one, you know about Daniel's family, you know his kids' names, you know where he's from, that he lived in China.
You know everything about him, but who he is. Who are you? Who is Daniel? Yeah. So the TLDR on Daniel, I live outside of Charleston, South Carolina, with my wife and two kids. I have two boys.
One is, he'll be three in a few weeks, and the other one is about eight months old. I love being a dad.
I've al- always known I would be a dad someday, but I feel like becoming a dad, people ask me, "Was having your second kid a big transition?"
And I was like, "Honestly, I think the transition from not being a dad to being a dad is 10 times more chaotic than going from already a dad of one to now being a dad of two." So that's a little side note there.
But I have a family. I have a dog. Her name is Lacey. She's a Bernedoodle. Mm. 80 pounds, and just loves everything that moves. It's actually sometimes to an annoying extent. It's like, "All right, calm down.
Like, you see me 100 times a day. You don't need to be this excited." But yeah, I live outside of Charleston. I work in tech. I work at Beehiiv.
If you don't know what Beehiiv is, the newsletter platform that I believe is completely changing the way that newsletters actually operate businesses online.
And so three years ago we launched, late 2021, we were for creators that wanna launch newsletters, that was where you went to Beehiiv for. That's why you'd use Beehiiv.
Now, we're for everyone that really sends newsletters all the way to the biggest newsletters in the world. And you think of Time Magazine, you think of Austin or Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You think of LA Magazine, you think of all of the largest media organizations out there that are sending to millions and millions of people, they're sending on Beehiiv, and, and that's what I think Beehiiv is really good at doing now, and it's better at doing that than all the alternatives.
And so- Yeah... I work at Beehiiv. That's- I lead the sales team here. It's a lot of fun. Should I continue or is that a good enough introduction? What do you think?
No, that's perfect, and I'm gonna quickly touch on this Beehiiv thing real quick before I get into my- Yeah... introduction.
I am in the process, I literally have it up on this screen over here, of writing the, my newsletter that goes out today as soon as this is over.
I was supposed to finish it before I jumped on this podcast, but I had to walk the dogs. Anyways, I use Beehiiv to, to write newsletters. I actually texted you this morning- There she goes... how I make a border.
There's like [laughs] just to keep it all tr- I'm, I'm figuring it out, but very easy and it's extremely helpful and we use it just to get people returning back to our site, and I guess that's a good- Love it...
segue into who I am. I'm Troy. I live in Verona, which is right outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Two dogs. One's 85 pounds. He's a golden retriever. The other one's 65 pounds. He's, like, a shepherd mix.
Well, my wife thinks they're annoying. She, I don't think she can stand them now that we have kids, but, or a kid and another on the way.
So that's a good, [laughs] another good segue into I have one kid, he's two and a half, and then another on the way, and I'm the founder of Demo, just a place where you go and evaluate software without having to jump into a sales cycle.
We're building it out, but yeah, that's a little bit about us. Dan, I actually wanna ask you something. I thought about this on my walk. All right. Please. Is Everett... So just so everybody knows, Everett's his oldest.
Is Everett- Yep... potty trained? We just potty trained him. We started three months ago, and he got the hang of number one in a few days like a champ. Number two was a challenge. Mm.
Any new parents out there that have not experienced the potty training phase yet, it can go both ways. It can go both ways. [laughs] It's, uh, it, we, he is potty trained now.
He is sleeping-All night dry with undies and no more- Let's go... diapers. But man, number two was a whole challenge, so- Yeah...
I will say I'm not looking forward to potty training our second child, but we have some time still before we have to do that. Yeah. Yeah. We... So Liam, we tried to potty train him. I don't think he was ready.
We tried to fr- potty train him. I think you did the same method where you take some days off work. You just let them run- Yeah... buck wild in the house. Whole paternity leave. I took two weeks off.
[laughs] Yeah, just to potty train. Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So we tried that. Before a long weekend, like four days, he was not ready at all. But then- Yeah...
not last night, the night before, and I don't know when this is gonna release, but let's just hypothetically say a week later if you're listening.
Two nights ago, he randomly, I put him down for bed, he was like, "I have to poop." And I was like, "Okay." So then- There you go... we went and sat on the toilet.
Did not poop, but as soon as I put him back down in his bed, pooped. And I was like, okay, so he's understanding, like I do have to poop. He's just not do- Yeah, there's a signal. So I think he's getting there.
Now we're giving him a sticker every time that he goes and sits on the potty, which is another question I have for you on the kid thing. Is Everett- Yeah... still in a crib or is he in a, a bed? He's in a crib, and we...
A lot of kids around two and a half to three and a half years old will start, like, climbing out of their cribs and like- Yeah... hurting themselves and stuff.
Not once in his entire life has he even attempted to get out of his crib. And the safety mechanisms of the crib are still like, oh, there's rails and he, we can't go and just like explore the house while we're asleep.
So we're not in a rush to take him out. Eventually, he's gonna be like in like fourth grade talking about being in a crib and we're like, "Okay, maybe it's time to move to a bed," but, uh, right now, still in a crib.
I think probably next year. Like, we've been on vacations as a family before and he'll sleep in like twin beds and stuff, and- Yeah... he's just fine.
Doesn't fall out of it or anything, so I think it's probably a next year thing. What about yours? Yeah. Still in a crib. He's only...
He hasn't never tried to climb out of his crib, but in a pack and play on vacation- Oh, wow... once he did fall out of it 'cause he tried to climb out. Yeah.
But no, the crib, I'm, we're cribbing it up until our house- Yeah... is done. Gotcha. So when our house is done, Kali, my wife, she wants to put the new baby in his crib and not have to go get a second crib.
And so I guess we're gonna give him a queen mattress, which seems so ridiculous to me. That's absurd. That is... Yes.
So when he has nightmares, instead of him coming into your bed, you are actually going to his bed, both you and your wife? Have those nightmares. I'll see you in the morning. [laughs] That's right. That's right.
Oh, yeah. No, you're on your own, kid. You have a whole bed to explore. [laughs] Yeah. He literally does. So that's where we're at there. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.
But the, the kids due in three weeks, man. It's scary. It's so exciting. It's- Yeah. Yeah... scary and, and exciting. I'm... I don't know.
I've never been in a position where, like, I'm running a company and I'm raising a newborn, so I've gotta figure out what the balance looks like, and I'm sure that there will be a lot of- Yeah...
stressful conversations in the household- Mm... about what that balance looks like. Your co-founder, Sarah, is on maternity leave.
Will there be some natural overlap where, where she starts to come back while you go out, or will there be some ki- like understanding there of workload, or how's that gonna work? Yeah.
So there will be some natural overlap, but also her kid will still be at the time, like, three months or so, so I'm not really expecting- Oh, okay... I let her know, "Hey, I- Yeah... I will figure it out."
If it's a lack of sleep- Yeah... if it's a lack of work- I thought she was further along than that then. Yeah. No. Three months is still early. Yeah. No. I'll, I'll... I'm gonna have to...
It'll be a couple months of me running on completely- Yeah... empty and all that stuff. Can you do a lot of your work at night if... Obviously not ideal.
Not an ideal state, but if you had to pull all-nighters to do your regular tasks, can you do that or are they all time-sensitive, like, throughout the day? Not a lot of time-sensitive stuff. Okay.
But also I'm a morning workout guy, and if I- Yeah... don't work out in the morning, my day is, it's crap. I'm not a big- Yeah... I'm not a happy person to be around if I miss a day, which- Yeah. Yeah...
I skipped leg day yesterday, and then I told myself I was going, gonna go on a run, and in my mind I told myself even further, if I run, my legs will be sore, so that kind of replicates a leg day, and then I didn't even run.
So yeah, yeah, [laughs] so I did nothing yesterday in regard to- Oh, man... being active, and I wasn't productive.
A- and I, I don't know if at this point it's just, like, a subconscious thing where if you don't work out, you don't do anything. I don't know, but... So I've gotta figure it out. I don't know. I don't know, man.
I think- I, I don't know. Yeah. I saw a tweet from, I can't even remember who it was from yesterday, but it said, "If you're too tired to exercise, exercise." And I think there's so...
It's such a simple statement, but there's so much science behind the actual energy and endorphins that movement provide your actual anatomy.
And so I think people are, "Oh man, I'm, I feel so lazy," or, "I feel like the, the 2:00 PM exhaustion," or, "I feel like I'm drinking coffee constantly." It's talk to me about your exercise routine.
Like, how often are you getting into the gym or even like I did 100 pushups a day for 30 days. It was like a little self challenge I did a few months ago, and I was going to the gym periodically.
I was running a lot, but mostly the lifting I was doing was just 100 pushups a day. Mm-hmm. And that amount of actual exercise was enough to, like, wake me up and get me...
Like, if I did it late at night, it actually kept me up. So there was like a- Hm... very distinct, like, caffeinated effect of, of working out and exercising. So I think you're- Yeah... hitting the nail on the head.
It's not surprising. Yeah. It's a morning thing for me. It has been for a while. And speaking of caffeine, I see you taking a sip of coffee. It's 2:07 PM- Sorry... there right now.
How many, how many cups of coffee do you drink a day? How many milligrams of caffeine do you think you drink a day? Milligram. Oh man, that's a great question.
I have no concept for how many milligrams of caffeine- One cup is, one cup is like 75 to 100 to give you an idea. [whistles] Okay. So I, I, every day I have two cups at least.
On days where I'm very tired or know I'm gonna have meetings throughout the day, I brew an entire pot, and this is the pot. Mm-hmm. Beautiful.
And I drink the whole thing, and it's closer to three and a half to four and a half cups, depending on the mug I'm using. It's a lot of coffee. Okay. It's a lot of coffee. Yeah.
Al- although-I, I talked about AG1 recently, and I don't have any AG1 in front of me right now, but I have an AG1 smoothie most days. Peanut butter, banana, protein, AG1.
And on days where I drink that early in the morning, either for breakfast or with breakfast, I typically don't need as much coffee. That's similar.
It really has a similar effect on just maintaining focus, giving me a lot of energy, uh, like a, a bolt of energy even. And then it's like drinking coffee, like I could drink it, but it feels like...
You ever have too much espresso and you start sweating? That's what coffee starts to feel like if I've had AG1. If I don't need the coffee, I can still drink it, but it's gonna make me feel bad. Yeah.
So I usually drink a, a substantially less coffee on days I have AG1. Interesting. Are you an AG1- Yep... every day kinda guy, or three days a week? When were you throwing down some? I try every day. I try every day.
I would say i- in reality, it comes out to five, six times a week. The, the thing that I like about it most is not the energy boost it gives me, although that is a component. It's actually the gut health. Mm-hmm.
It makes me feel, like, l- less bloated, which bloated- Mm... is not a word I ever really used in my vocabulary until I started drinking AG1. Yeah.
But it's because I didn't realize that I was just always bloated, until I wasn't bloated anymore. [laughs] So it, it just helps me feel, like, all around leaner, healthier, more energetic.
So yeah, I try to consume it every day. Yeah. I like to put it in a smoothie. I have... You can drink it by itself with water. Yeah. It's not unenjoyable, but I just enjoy it a lot more when it's in a smoothie. Yeah.
Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah. I think I saw your smoothie the other day, and it had AG1 chunks- Yeah... in it. Yeah. Yeah. I had a... I had the grossest, most poorly blended AG1 smoothie on a call with Troy the other day.
I actually meant to send you a picture today of the one I did. [laughs] I, I, I actually paused and took the blender off and put the AG1 in after blending it, because of how ashamed I was of how badly blended I did this.
[laughs] It was like, it was barely a smoothie. [laughs] It really should not have even passed as a drink. But this time it was a beautiful, singular color all the way through. Oh, yeah. It was blended.
It was a great smoothie. Good. Yeah. I, um, on the caffeine thing, I think I have… I go up and down. I think I have some sort of, I wouldn't say problem, but some might describe it as that.
So because I work out in the morning, I used to take this pre-workout that was 375 milligrams a day. Which again, a, a cup of coffee... Or sorry, it was 375 milligrams a scoop.
Which again, a cup of coffee is, like, anywhere from 75 to 100, like the average cup. If you Google it, that's what it says. You have to, like, sprint after 400 milligrams.
So I would have that, and then I'd get home and I'd have a coffee when I get home from my workout, and then after lunch I would have, like, a Bang. This was, like, two or three years ago.
I'd have a Bang, which was 300 milligrams of caffeine. I was nearing 1,000 milligrams of caffeine a day.
And so it got to the point where I was so immune to one scoop that I had to do one and a half scoops to make my workout feel good. [laughs] And at that point I'm having 500 milligrams of caffeine before my, my- Yeah...
before 5:00 AM. So I stopped, and now I drink a cup of coffee in the morning, and I drink a cup of coffee after lunch. And then I do have a Mio Energy, which is, like, less caffeine- Yeah...
before my workout nowadays, but- Yeah... that's it. Yeah. I was bad. I took pre-workout for a while in college, and every time I took it, I felt like I had to...
I got to the gym and 15 minutes had passed since I took the pre-workout. I'm like, "If I don't get on this treadmill and sprint for 15 minutes, I'm going to explode." And I hated that feeling.
I'm, "I feel like I'm flying right now." And sometimes you're gonna go, if you're gonna go deadlift and clean and do all sorts of stuff in the gym, I see it. I don't usually do those things in the gym.
I'm usually, like, a pretty basic, like I'll do squats, I'll do, like, your typical machines, some free weights. But people deadlifting, what, 500 pounds, like, I never really got into that.
That's what I think pre-workout's for. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] So I need to go pick up a bus right now. [laughs] I need some pre-workout. I don't know.
I, I see the illusion, uh, or the allure, but I'm not a big pre-workout guy. Yeah. Yeah, for me it was I had that tingly feeling, and, like, it feels like your hair is on fire. I was like, "This is, this is amazing."
But not anymore. I gave it up. That's the exact reasons I don't want it. You're like, yeah, where I just feel like I'm drinking oil and gasoline, and I feel like I'm literally, like, farting fire. Like, I love that.
I was like, whoa, I d- didn't expect you were going in that direction with that sentence. [laughs] It'll, it'll destroy you, for sure. Oh. Hey, shifting gears. Yeah, shift gears. I have a question. I have a question.
I was thinking through Demo and how... So you mentioned you use Beehiiv. Beehiiv also uses Demo. We have a page on there.
I think it's a really fascinating way for people to experience software without talking to salespeople.
But then I had the question, what is one tool that you use right now, it could be one that's on Demo, it could be in your personal tech stack, but one tool you use right now that you could not live without?
If this tool stopped existing, if someone stole this from you, you would have to completely restructure your entire life. This is a good question.
And what we'll do immediately off the bat is rule out things like ChatGPT and LinkedIn and things like that, right? Like, we're gonna take those out. Let's actually just talk software.
There's almost two, but I'm gonna go one. You asked for one. Yeah. I think I'm gonna go Superhuman, the email client. Yeah? I don't, I don't think I will- That's it... ever in my life go back to Gmail.
And I pay $40 a month just to send emails. It has changed the way I do business. 'Cause in Gmail, like- Yeah...
I, I don't ever delete things, I just read them, so then it goes to inbox zero and stuff, but they're always there, so I'm always sitting there scrolling through my inbox seeing, like, what I could respond to and stuff like that.
Now with Superhuman, there's just nothing in my inbox and I... It forces me to go do work, 'cause I have nothing to get bored, or, you know, distracted by and bored about. And so I think Superhuman.
The second one I was gonna say, just for an hon- or just for an honorable mention, is Fathom. And just 'cause it's, in my opinion, one of the best call recorders.
But I also hate biasing any sort of tools like that, because they're all great- Sure. Sure... for specific use cases.
But Fathom is something that I use every day, but Superhuman's, like, the one where I don't think I could ever go back to a Gmail UI, unless I was forced. I also use Superhuman.
Yeah, I also use Superhuman, and-I think the one piece of feedback I have for Superhuman, and this is like a feature, so this is people that use Superhuman are like, "Oh, I love that," is all of my inboxes are segmented.
Like, I can't have a single view for all of my emails.
And I have a lot of different emails, like personal email, work email, like many work emails, like work emails in between, and I'd love to have one place where I can view all inbox. Superhuman doesn't let me do that.
Apple Mail is the worst UI on the face of the planet, but it has an all inboxes view. I will say, I use Superhuman every day, and I absolutely love it.
But that's the piece of feedback where I'm like, I think I could live without it if it just bellied up and I didn't- Yeah... have it anymore. I don't know that it's a need to have.
So are you talking about, like, you implementing, like, your Gmail, your Beehiiv email, and whatever other emails you have, like- Yeah... making sure that... Okay. Interesting. Just, like, seeing all of them.
Like, I use, on Apple Mail, the all inboxes view- Yeah... like, all the time. Just even as- Yeah... like a overwatch. Okay, have I missed anything in any email? And then I'm, oh yeah, there's a few unreads here.
And, it's helpful. It's not- Yeah... my first approach to email, but you can't even do that. You have to go inbox by inbox in Superhuman- Yeah... which- Interesting... I'm not sure why. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I think it's a feature though. I think they do that intentionally to actually aid in focus. But- Yeah. Yeah, yeah... what if I wanna not be focused? Yeah.
And also they're inbox focused, I would guess, so go pay for another one. But it's funny, I don't use the all inbox feature.
I do when I have to search something up, and it causes a lot of, a lot of conversation in the household, because my wife and I share an email for what, like, expenses and now that, that we're building this home, we share an email and, like, appointments and stuff.
She does all the appointments in this household. I don't do anything. But I also have no idea about all the appointments because I don't look at the all inboxes, I only look at the demo inbox.
And actually, oh, my phone's recording. I was gonna say, I use the Superhuman app on my phone, and that's the main thing- Do you?... I check. Yeah. Yeah, so. I've used it, I've used it before.
I'm still Apple Mail on my iPhone, and I- Oh, dang it... hate myself for that, but I, I do have Superhuman on my phone. It's the all inbox. Dude, it's the all inbox. I know. I know.
I will say, Superhuman in the beginning, the first three days I hated it. I would always just go back to Gmail. I thought it was dumb, and then I scheduled, like, a CS call with one of their people.
We jumped on a call, and he was like, "You gotta change your mindset." And I'm like, "It's email. What kind of mindset do I need to have? I just gotta read my email."
[laughs] Lo and behold, two days later, I was like, I was hooked, and I don't think I could ever... Yeah, I don't think I could ever go back, man. So that's, I think that's one of the... What about you? What about you?
Yeah. I took a, I took a cliche response to this when I was thinking through it. I think it's an iPhone. I think if- Hmm... can I go without having an iPhone? Yes, I could make it. It would be fine.
But if I, if my phone stopped existing and I had to just live with that, the number of things in my day-to-day life that would break from that, after your typical, like, fasting from an iPhone period where it's oh, this is amazing, I love not having a phone, eventually that dies and you're like, "Actually, I need my phone back."
If at that point I still didn't have an iPhone, so many things would break.
Processes, the way I operate at work, the, the way I operate in my family, how I communicate with my wife about appointments and doctor's appointments and kids' schedules. And yesterday I was on a sales trip.
I went three hours up the road and three hours back. I used my phone for my GPS. I- Yeah... use my phone to make sales calls on the road.
And I think the, the obvious things, but also the way I'm embedded in social for actual work, like the revenue and the life cycle of my life relies on me being on my phone at odd times to be there and present.
I think it would be a wake-up call. I'd have to figure out, I don't wanna sit at my computer as much as I would have to if I didn't have my phone. I'm talking about 9:00 PM, 11:00 PM.
I don't really wanna go to my office and sit down at my desk. I just wanna check something really quick. So I think it's iPhone for me. It's a cliche, but I think it's, that's what it is. I don't even know if that's...
It is cliche. I think it's a popular answer more than it is a cliche. Hmm.
But I think that I, this might be a problem, is when you said that, I immediately thought what software versus what piece of technology in the world.
And so now maybe I have an, maybe I have a problem where all I think about is software, if that's what I went to as an email client.
But [laughs] maybe, there's definitely bigger things out there in the world outside of Superhuman that I probably cannot go without. [laughs] So I will- Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That is interesting.
I got a question for you. Yeah. What are your thoughts, because it recently came out, this is hot, what are your thoughts on Elon Musk's robot, Musks? Mu- I don't like saying it. Elon Musk's robot. Musk's.
Dude, before I answer that question, there's a flashback to me learning how to use plural nouns in, like, grade school. Legitimate memory. I'm not even making this up.
I don't know why I'm having this flashback, but this actually happened in my life. I asked the teacher if I could change desks, but the way I said desks was desksss.
[laughs] And I literally wanted to just die in that moment. [laughs] It was like first grade. I'm like, "Miss Murphy, can I change desksss?" I was like...
[laughs] It was the most embarrassing seven-year-old moment that any seven-year-old has ever experienced.
If the whole class had been listening to me, and thank God they weren't, I would've been absolutely ridiculed and made fun of in that moment. But luckily it was just the, the teacher that made fun of me.
I would've left the room. I, I should've just changed my name. Your, your name would've been like Desksss all throughout growing up. [laughs] Like, why do they call you that, dude? [laughs] Yeah. Dude, Desksss.
I, I think the English language is so bizarre, like why do we... Anyways, let's move on from that. You asked, what do I think of Elon Musk's robot? I think, here's what I think about it.
If you've seen the keynote of their demo robot, I think there's so much value that's going to come from an actually semi or fully autonomous engaging robot.
Like, the way they're presenting this and positioning it is, hey, this robot will be able to do your dishes and vacuum your house and clean up after you and help prepare meals, and probably at some point drive you around.
We already have autonomous cars, so why not autonomous drivers for non-autonomous cars? Like, there's so much-... really opportunity here. I think where it becomes very black mirrory for me
is in this keynote, there's two clips that come to mind that I remember that actually stuck with me more than the others. One is the robots helping a child with, like, math homework, and are they doing it? Probably.
Math for a robot is, like, their language, so surely they know how to do math homework. But I'm like, "Ah, that seems really weird to me and uncomfortable."
So there was that, but I think even beyond that, so that's like first tier of, ah, that's a little uncomfortable. Not sure how I feel about that.
Second tier, beneath the surface, the next layer, is they're all, this family is playing a board game together, and it's, I don't know, it's Sorry!
or Risk or something, very, like, remedial family game, and the robot is participating as a family member.
And there's two parents and there are three kids around the table and the robot, and I'm like, "Ah, I don't know if I want a robot to participate in, like, a family bonding moment," because at what point do the children
refer to and experience the robot as just part of the family?
And I guess even to answer that question with another question is if they do start to experience this robot as another part of the family, is that inherently wrong? And actually, I don't know the answer to that question.
Like, i- in this moment in time, I feel like that's maybe a line we don't wanna cross. 200 years from now, when we're so far removed from this early stage- Yeah... if it's normalized, is that morally questionable?
I don't know. What do you think- Yeah... about the robot that Elon Musk's launching? Yeah, so I, one, I didn't never think of it like that. I joked with my wife and I was like, "I think we should get one.
It'll do all the dishes for you. It'll do all the laundry for you," all of that stuff. I think what makes me... So we have a Tesla, and, and I love it. I love it so much. But- Nice. Nice...
I think the one thing that freaks me out, and, and the reason why I bring up the Tesla is 'cause they do this as well, like, they give you, like, the free self-driving just so they can collect a ton of data to make their self-driving better.
My guess is that this robot's gonna be collecting trillions of points of data every single day, trying to just figure out how to do this better- Absolutely... how to do that better is one thing that scares me.
Like, it'll read every single thing that's going on in your house and visualize it and know everything that's going on.
I never thought of, like, the do you consider it as part of your family, so that's something to think about, and, and I don't know the answer to that either. Like, that is something to think about.
And do you, if you had one, would you name it? That's the thing.
So 200 years ago, when people started, or I don't know when they started doing this, but domesticating dogs, they were not the way that we refer to dogs now. They were not pets. Mm-hmm. They were tools.
They were helping them plow the fields. Like, Bernese Mountain Dogs in Germany early on were tools for work, and now I have a Bernese Mountain Dog poodle, and this toy is not working for anything. It is a 80-pound dog.
[laughs] Not a toy, but, like, it's a pet. It's a pet. It's domesticated. Yeah. So I think- Same...
when you look generations beyond the initial concept of, in this case, domesticating a robot, maybe it won't be named and part of the family now, but our children's children, their robots are gonna have names and faces.
And people who are, like- That's-... like, dog parents, I'm like, okay, t- to anyone listening to this right now, I'm just gonna take a stance that you're probably not gonna like. If you are a dog parent,
just know it's different than being a human parent. Not the same. 100%. That is, that is a hill I'm gonna die on, and I will die on it publicly if I have to.
Please reply in the comments if you disagree because I will, I will dig my heels so far into this concept. You can be a dog parent. Just know it's not the same.
There are human children out here that are trying to be parented, and it is a completely different universe.
It's, be- be- before you finish your thought there, I'm so glad you said that because I know a lot of people are thinking it and there are, I'm sure that there are parents out there, I've been in this scenario, where, like, you explain a situation that happened with your toddler or with your newborn, and then a dog parent will be like, "Oh, my dog this weekend actually did this as well, where they did..."
And I'm like, "You are so far removed from what being a parent is actually." And there's nothing against that. It is a responsibility. It is a responsibility. But- It is a responsibility... world of a difference.
World of a difference.
Worlds of d- I, th- this is how, this is how, I'm gonna get really morbid for a second, and I apologize if this triggers anyone, because I do realize dogs are part of your family, as they have been part of my entire life.
When dogs get sick and it's time for them to be, to die, you literally take them to a vet and put them down. You're not doing that with human children. That's not- Yeah... an option.
They get sick, and you deal with it, and the, it just, that's, like, the extreme example. But- Yeah...
human children eventually learn to talk back to you, and they argue and they poop, and then you don't pick it up with a basket. You teach them to wipe it off their own tush.
And, uh, like, anyways, we can go all the way down the rabbit hole here. But I think with the robot thing, so back to this, there's a thought experiment. I studied philosophy in college.
I remember this thought experiment about at one, at what, at what point when you're repairing a chair does the chair cease to be the original chair and start to be a new chair? And so here's the thought experiment.
You have a chair. It has a back. It has a seat. It has four legs. If you replace one of those legs, is it the same chair or is it a new chair? You'd argue probably the same chair with a new leg. Mm-hmm.
What if you replaced two of those legs? Probably the same chair. What about three of those legs? Probably the same chair.
But what if you took the chair and you replaced the base, all four legs, the back, painted it a new color, sh- sanded it down, maybe added some things to it, completely, at what point is it not the same chair?
At what point is it a brand new chair? So the thought- Mm-hmm...
experiment and the reason that it's really philosophical to think about that-Is at what point do we give away so many of what makes us human to robots that we cease to be what inherently makes us human? Damn.
That's deep, and that is philosophical. Like, you're making me think way too hard right now. And I-- that is-- I, I don't know. It [laughs] I don't know.
And I, like one thing you said was like your kids grow- I'm almost wondering with Liam, robots are a thing now. They're probably about to come out.
Uli- usually Elon Musk says he'll release something and releases a few years late, but they'll probably come out in the next few years.
And I think there'll be a standard in the upper middle class household and things like that and, and upper class household where you'll s- go and you'll see a robot doing the dishes and cleaning and stuff.
But, uh, it, it just blows my mind, will Everett's friend one day come over and be like, "Hey, can I come play with your robot?" Versus, "Can I come play with you, Everett? Can I come play with your robot?" I don't know.
They're gonna be able to do more than humans, and then where do they sleep? Do they just, you just set them in a corner and say, "Okay, stop working"? [laughs] I don't know, dude. Yeah. Like, i- it's a Roomba.
You just plug it in and... Or does it plug itself in? Does it go to bed? Yeah. Does it go put itself down and wake up whenever it chooses to prepare your breakfast and stuff?
If it's gonna do your dishes, it better go put itself to bed, you know what I'm s- [laughs] That's what I'm saying.
Or is, not even is, is Everett's friend coming to play with Everett's robot, is Everett's friend a robot coming over to play? There's so many levels to what could become reality. That's crazy. Yeah, there is.
It's scary to think about. Question for you, Daniel. Yeah. What are your thoughts? So when we launched, a lot of people made comments, and then a few people asked questions.
What are your thoughts on if we finished every episode with just a couple of listener questions? I don't wanna spend too much time on it. I'm talking like a few minutes, answer some questions.
We might not have the right answer to it, but at least we can chat about it. Let's talk about it.
I think, yeah, a good segment that we can visit for every episode is reply in the comments to some feedback you had on some of our hot takes, whether you're on TikTok or YouTube or Spotify, uh, I guess you can't comment on Spotify, LinkedIn.
Wherever we're actually posting this video or recording, please drop your comments, drop your thoughts, and in each episode we'll address three to five of those questions and chat about them. I think that's a great idea.
Beautiful. Let's do it. The first question I saw that we already answered early on was, [laughs] is the picture of the thumbnail and of our podcast both of our faces blended? It absolutely is.
Why e- what else would we do? That's, that is perfect. But here's two more thought-provoking questions, and we don't need to spend too much time on it. Let's just say we'll cap it at five, call it a quits.
Maybe that's what it'll look like going forward. I don't know. You t- this one was on YouTube. And I won't say names just in case people wanna ask things anonymously. So if you do ask a question- Sure...
just know we won't say your name. You can ask whatever you want. Can you talk about how to be an ef- effective in sales without platforms to build lists, email marketing, et cetera?
So I'm guessing like no ZoomInfo, no Apollo. And then they said, "I know you have it all broken down on demo, but what are the must-haves?
We are going in circles over here, and I don't wanna pay too much as a sales rep." So I guess the question here is, what's the best way to be effective as a sales rep without having to buy a ton of tools?
What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. It's a great question. I think the first need to have is who exactly, and so specifically detailed and defined is your ideal customer.
So many people skip this step and think, my ideal customer is, if you're in solar, is people with houses that sit in the sunlight. It's like that's like everyone that owns a house at some point in the year.
That's not your ideal customer. Your ideal customer is single family homes under 400,000 that live in Austin or San Francisco. You get very specific.
So who's your ideal customer, and then I would say, I saw a post about this today on LinkedIn, you need internet.
I think people overcomplicate what you need after internet, but if you can Google a company's profile, that company is in your ICP, then you can do the research required on their sustainability reports, on the actual employees of that company and where those employees came from.
You can do this on LinkedIn, just LinkedIn, not LinkedIn Sales Nav, so you don't necessarily need to buy that tool. You can find out mutual first, secondary connections.
You can reach out to someone for a referral in those second, third-degree connections, and go down the rabbit hole. Do a Control+F on a sustainability report.
Figure out where they've talked about what your product solves, the problem or pain point that you're addressing and selling into.
Reach out to the person in charge of that report, have a conversation, multi-thread into the person that's actually a decision maker for your product, and sell.
Do that 100 times a week, and eventually you're gonna have an actual engaging sales process that requires no tools other than internet.
Yeah, I think the internet is extremely powerful, just to quickly piggyback off of you.
And I think that there's also a lot of tools out there that are extremely generous with their free trials if you need to get contact information.
So after you have identified that exact and specific ideal customer or ICP and you know who you wanna target, go to LinkedIn. You c- just LinkedIn, not like you said, not LinkedIn Sales Nav.
Go to their company page, go to the employees part, and then type in marketing if you're targeting marketing, and then just use those free tools.
I think there's some that give you like 100 free cr- credits a day or something like that. So a lot of free tools to actually go out there and get in front of them.
And then if there are any, if somebody in your ICP is near you, drive up to their office. Just go see them in person. Huge. Love that answer. One last question, and then I gotta dip- Yeah...
to a 36-week baby appointment. Hey, that's exciting. This one, actually my buddy asked me this. How do you pivot into different industries to sell in?
And his specific example was you went from selling cybersecurity to software development to marketing back to cybersecurity. I'll quickly answer this, and then I'll let you have a, a turn as well.
I think if you can hold a conversation and you can sell and you can figure out a way to get people interested in what you have or what solution you have to offer, I don't think it really matters what industry it is.
And maybe there are some caveat industries where like you need deep, deep experience. Mm. But I think you can learn the industry. I don't think you can learn-... to sell.
Like, I do think you can get better at selling, but I, one, don't think that everybody's meant to sell.
And I think a lot of people, this is a completely different topic, but I think a lot of people get into sales because they couldn't get a job in, like, finance or supply chain or whatever they majored in, and then they get stuck in sales even if they don't wanna do it.
But all that to say is, how do you pivot? What I did was I literally just reached out to hiring managers at really exciting high-growth companies, and I reached out to them directly. Yeah. Cold called them, emailed them.
P- it was, like, a very tailored personal email. And that's how I got my job at Proofpoint, that's how I got my job at Dremio, this company I was at. Yeah. And so I think that's...
If you know how to sell, you can sell in pretty much any industry, but I won't say every industry. Yeah, I would echo that. I- that's exactly how I got my job at Beehiiv.
I spent nine months selling myself very tactfully across many platforms and a lot of different decision-makers on why I should be an employee at Beehiiv.
And I think, to your point on selling is, like, a type of persuasion characteristic. It doesn't necessarily rely, in most cases, on what you're selling, the product, the industry.
I think learn what makes a seller a good seller. What sets a good persuasive seller apart from the 99%, what actually makes you the 1%, and you're never going to be worried about your next role, what industry it's in.
I think a lot of people focus too much on the product they want to sell instead of the type of seller they want to be. And I think you mentioned this in the first episode.
When you're creating content and in your case, a lot of sales-specific content with, like, demo adjacent types of content, y- your opportunities, it doesn't happen for everyone, but, like, opportunities tend to just present themselves.
And because you're so good at selling already, selling yourself, selling the product of the hour, you just take the opportunity and you run with it- Yeah... and, and you continue down that path in your career, I think.
I- I'm not, I'm not worried about th- the 1% focusing on the industry. They just continue to do their thing. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's so big. If you just put yourself out there, opportunities will present themselves.
That's... Look at this, we're at, we have podcast number two. You put yourself out there, and here we are. That's right. That's right. And that's a great way to wrap it up, man. I think that's how we should end them all.
Yeah. Awesome. I think so too. Happy birthday, Troy. I appreciate it. Enjoy your 36 week. Say hi to the wife for me, and we'll see you next time. I will. Yeah, and listeners, thanks so much.
If you made it this far, kudos to you. Good for you. This has been like 40 minutes. Yeah. Hit subscribe, five star, all that fun stuff. We'll see you next week. Daniel, have a good one. See you next week. Bye-bye.