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

How can George Paladichuk take his startup NaiL from 1 huge customer, to the next 100 customers?

Cohost Dan Martell and I dig in: A candid working session including:

- finding early adopters in public data
- reading job postings to find your buyer's software
- the $15K way inside a global franchise
- products for many instead of a product for one
- should he chase elephants or mid-market?

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

=======================
STARRING GEORGE PALADICHUK
=======================
NaiL
George's site
LinkedIn
YouTube

=======================
WITH COHOST DAN MARTELL
=======================
Dan Martell
Growth Stacking Show (podcast)
Martell Method (newsletter)
YouTube
https://twitter.com/danmartell https://ca.linkedin.com/in/dmartell

=======================
REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
=======================
"Buy Back Your Time"—Dan Martell
"Crossing the Chasm"—Geoffrey A. Moore

TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Intro: NaiL runs on 90% revenue from one client
• (01:23) - George introduces NaiL, an AI receptionist for franchise brands
• (02:58) - Standing out among 800 AI receptionist competitors
• (04:53) - The real bottleneck: enterprise deals are too slow
• (08:59) - Why chasing Main Street customers is harder than it looks
• (12:33) - Money vs speed: mapping enterprise, mid-market, and small business
• (18:26) - Crossing the chasm: finding customers who already want new tech
• (23:00) - George commits: doing franchise, not vague "enterprise"
• (27:02) - The three Fs for spotting early adopters: follow, fund, frequent
• (35:21) - The holding company angle: land ten brands through one parent
• (42:59) - Selling a low-cost pilot to get a foothold in new brands
• (47:41) - Dan's Irving Oil story: the danger of concentration risk
• (59:12) - Is NaiL a real product, or a bespoke dev shop for one client?
• (01:04:02) - Dan's homework: partners, conferences, and non-competing locals