Does he niche down to one kind of customer, or stay general and change how he reaches the market? Either way, most of the buyers he wants have never heard of interactive video.

Cohost Jessica Malnik and I dig in: A candid working session including:
- the cheaper plan that has him fishing in bad waters
- why his best buyers aren’t searching for him
- SOC 2, and why Mindstamp should never issue the certificate
- certifications people care about at the identity level
- teaching better interactive video as the marketing

=================
ME ME ME!!!
=================
Subscribe on YouTube
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📘 Get my book 📘
My bio + 20 years of articles
Twitter | LinkedIn

=============================
STARRING BRETT LINDENBERG
=============================
Mindstamp
Twitter | LinkedIn

==================================
WITH COHOST JESSICA MALNIK
==================================
Homepage
Subscribe on Newsletter
Subscribe on YouTube
The Remote Work Tribe
Twitter | LinkedIn

================================
REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
================================
“The Iterative-Hypothesis customer development method”
“Not Business Advice” books—Alex West

TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Plateaued SaaS: niche down or stay general?
• (04:11) - Too general, or just customizable?
• (08:21) - Who sticks? Medical continuing education
• (13:05) - A cheaper plan is fishing in bad waters
• (17:38) - Where do your best customers go?
• (22:25) - Nobody knows interactive video exists
• (27:20) - Making videos for customers as a service
• (34:21) - Certification partners: the SOC 2 case
• (45:38) - Win certifiers who want to stand out
• (54:18) - Content marketing: teach better videos
• (01:00:25) - 90-day plan: interview your customers
• (01:04:47) - Box-tickers vs. buyers who really care
• (01:07:15) - Energized, with hypotheses to test

Pouring money into sales means building a machine he has never had. He could sell, but then he has to prove that this agency is worth a lot of money.

Cohost Jon Sturgeon and I dig in: A candid working session including:
- agencies in the world of AI
- why an NPS of 90 proves nothing
- bench time: waste, or a feature clients pay for?
- a live cold-call role-play

===============
ME ME ME!!!
===============
Subscribe on YouTube
📘 Get my book 📘
My bio + 20 years of articles
Twitter | LinkedIn

==========================
STARRING MARIO PESHEV
==========================
DevriX
Personal site
Newsletter
Twitter | LinkedIn

================================
WITH COHOST JON STURGEON
================================
Dingus & Zazzy
uhoh.com (an IT company for businesses that don’t have IT problems)
Newsletter
Twitter | LinkedIn

===============================
REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
===============================
“The Effortless Experience”—Dixon, Toman & DeLisi
Hypergen, cold email

TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Can AI-run agencies survive the next five years
• (02:21) - Eighteen years building DevriX to a crossroads
• (07:10) - The walk-away number game
• (10:01) - Why productizing DevriX would be a mistake
• (18:23) - One and a half salespeople for a 35-person agency
• (30:45) - Why an NPS of 90 proves nothing
• (36:50) - Agencies in the age of AI: adapt or die
• (50:45) - Bench time: waste or a feature clients pay for
• (01:01:25) - Rebuilding go-to-market from scratch
• (01:24:22) - Live cold-call role-play
• (01:28:40) - Is a 6 million dollar exit even realistic
• (01:40:34) - EBITDA multiples and the AI-narrative buyer
• (01:44:35) - The real path forward: spin off, sell, or stay

Rison Simon built PainPointy to scan Reddit so that marketers could learn the pain points of their customers and come up with article ideas. The problem is he's never had more than six customers.

So he has to go interview customers and potential customers, which means first knowing what to ask them. We workshop that with my Iterative Hypothesis method — inventing the questions, then working out which ones are best.

ME ME ME!!!
Subscribe on YouTube
📘 Get my book 📘
My bio + 20 years of articles
Twitter | LinkedIn

STARRING RISON SIMON
PainPointy
Blog
Substack
Twitter | LinkedIn

REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
The Iterative Hypothesis Method
AI skills that implement the Iterative Hypothesis Method

TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - He sold his last startup the week he launched it - this one has almost no customers
• (02:09) - What PainPointy actually does, and why Rison can't say who wants it
• (08:37) - The Iterative Hypothesis Method: write down what you think before you ask
• (14:19) - Why does it have to be B2B? Interrogating your own assumptions
• (19:08) - The question that doesn't lead the witness
• (28:33) - Quantity vs quality of leads: the customer who's actually easy to win
• (39:08) - The real problem isn't a shortage of ideas, it's knowing which one to pick
• (50:23) - Powers of 10: turning vague guesses into testable numbers
• (58:11) - Where to actually find people who will talk to you