Smart Bear Live

Brett Lindenberg’s startup Mindstamp puts six figures of profit in his pocket every year, helping businesses create interactive videos for training and sales. But growth has leveled off, and he’s having trouble changing that.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 Subscribe via Podcast 📘 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

Mario Peshev reduced his agency from 60 to 30 employees thanks to his own AI innovations. But almost nobody there is working on landing new clients.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

He built it, and they didn't come.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

Carl Alexander built Ymir — a serverless AWS platform that deploys WordPress and PHP applications onto a customer's own AWS account — and the twenty-five customers who run production stores on it never leave. They also all pay $39 a month, and nobody new signs up. Did four years falsify the market, or was it the wrong buyers? It's the second one. The $39, the self-serve signup, the WordPress developer he kept aiming at — every piece of the offer points away from the thing he's world-class at, which is teaching people how this works. Cohost Bryce Adams bootstrapped Metorik on the same platform, and he's been telling Carl to charge more for years. He and I dig into who the buyer actually is, and what Carl should be selling him. A candid working session including: - five years of talks, zero customers - $39 versus "bet our company on it" - the joke tier he shouldn't have deleted - what Metorik charged from day one - should he stop going to conferences? ME ME ME!!! Subscribe on YouTube 📘 Get my book 📘 My bio + 20 years of articles Twitter | LinkedIn STARRING CARL ALEXANDER Ymir Ymir Reports Blog Twitter | LinkedIn WITH COHOST BRYCE ADAMS Metorik Twitter REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE "Using the Needs Stack for Competitive Strategy" "SaaSocalypse" video by Jesse Hanley TIMESTAMPS (00:00) - A business customers love but that nobody buys - framing the puzzle, then Carl Alexander and cohost Bryce Adams (Metorik) (04:08) - Diagnosing 4 years of failed WordPress-developer marketing - and proving the market already exists (12:40) - Rejecting the succession-plan fix, then hunting the buyer pattern in Carl's 4 paying customers (17:22) - Engaged developers aren't buyers: why the "resonating" marketing wasn't actually working (22:45) - Finding the real decision-maker: not the developer who claps, the CTO who signs (26:40) - The $39/mo price that contradicts "mission-critical, dependable" (40:10) - "Carl as a service": the $20K consulting offer bundled with $500/mo software (54:29) - Landing on $1,000/mo, validated by Bryce's own Metorik pricing history (59:32) - Redefining the ideal customer: a $5M+ GMV WooCommerce store (01:09:29) - Sell to agencies, not individual stores (01:19:25) - The ICP crystallizes: an agency already committed to AWS that just needs expert help (01:31:25) - The conference rule: only go for leads or credibility (01:37:56) - Carl commits to raise the price before this episode airs (01:40:29) - Closing: the WordCamp party story