Lessons - The Power of AI | Kate Bradley - Founder & CEO of Lately.ai

Okay, so then we have to do we'll have to do a follow up when I really want to know what you're changing I like you know even before we jump in this call like you said like you're gonna shake things up You're gonna you know rip stuff out and then so obviously you're like in a in a high transition period right now Like because I'm I'm curious what I'm curious what it's gonna look like so Anyways, you have you have some great advice coming in from some of great people obviously so I think it's gonna be A net positive. I can't imagine it going the wrong way marker bears is just really impressive So like if he's the one who helped be the catalyst for all this, I think it's probably gonna End up working out quite well Anyways, I'm curious. Yeah, cuz I've also even like when we first before we actually started talking Um, I was trying to figure out like this seems like it's a great product for like Like a consumer or like you know for a smaller content creator And I'm like well, this is priced out of my range at that the beginning when I first started looking into it So I'm like how do we how do we you know how can I use something like this because I'm not Gary Vaynerchuk And I don't have a you know a huge marketing budget But this is like AI is like the dream for a smaller content creator because that's Again, you know you just mentioned how Every time you can bring somebody in to help you like that's well in my in my in my world like tools and tech and AI Is what allows me to replicate myself without hiring somebody full time So how do I figure out how to get this into my world and maybe that's at a hope hopefully you're going down that road in the future But we'll see yeah, I feel like I'm democratizing my own company like you know, but that's not a bad thing No, that's not really a bad. No, it's the thing we were built we were built to do like this is the best part We should wrap it up. I know and I'm being so cryptic and it's mean of me. So let's no, I just it's it's it's what it just means You're you're you're planting for something in like The best part is I'm happy, you know somebody said to me and and listeners like this is so important And it sounds so fluffy and and cliche But one of my investors and friends Peter said are you happy and the answer was no And I don't operate in a world that I'm not happy because you know I've learned the hard way that it manifests physically for me and incapacitates me and I was like oh my god, and he asked what what makes you happy with work, you know, when I Told them the things that I'm best at doing I wasn't actually doing anymore or at all and so we restructured even internally the company who got paid who was going to work here anymore, you know sales versus engineering Was the decision we made we made we made it engineering we made it product the product needs to shine the product is everything You want to talk about I need to talk about Gary Vaynerchuk. I just need to talk about Gary Vaynerchuk because We have to talk up. Okay, so first. Okay, so let's let's sort of like segue into this So the goal of the goal in my mind of lately is to is to Help anybody turn themselves into a media company To anybody have a replica a replicable scalable content strategy At its core that's what that's what I think it's most useful utility is and then of course it you know You said like it takes you three quarters of the way and then of course if you if you're a marketer You can finesse it and you can massage it and then you can tailor it to the audience So that that's the goal right like you have this one piece of content that you can Turn into a whole bunch of clips and then it does it smartly and intelligently and it and with your branded mind and then you can disseminate it to Any social platform whatever um, so this is obviously something that I I learned this strategy Before I knew about the tool From Gary Vaynerchuk. This is how I grew my show my podcast through this strategy right like you record the long form And then you break it up into clips and you break it up into a blog and you you know You have like the five minute clips for Facebook and you have the two minute clip for Instagram You have a 30 second clip for Reels or TikTok or YouTube shorts. It's not just spotlight So you have all these different clips and they go anywhere So anyways, this is what I learned from Gary Vaynerchuk and then I realized he's actually using Your tool so it was he so walk me through that was he already he was already part of the content game for a long time And I'm sure that he was trying to create content scale I don't think there was a tool he was using maybe it was just a team of marketers But then I know that he actually uses lately now So I'm assuming that obviously was like the holy grail for him and how he markets right I don't know the whole story Connecting dots. Yeah, I mean We did a test with them because so so you know lately isn't really made for Gary because Gary doesn't need me He's got an army right and he's not my ideal customer amazingly enough. He's my ideal poster boy Um, and like the goal wasn't ever to make him a customer because we just knew like It's hard to replace mindset, you know We found this when we talked to enterprise customers especially or like large agencies is they get really nervous because they're like Well, we're already doing this by hand You're like, yeah, but we could save you time and anyway, so it was interesting learning from Gary's team, you know around that But to your point, you know, we asked Gary to Talk about us on social twice linkedin and twitter. We got a ton of inbound And each time we weren't able to convert the inbound At a large scale and like we're like We knew we didn't know why but we were starting to figure it out on top of all the other things we were learning right so like The new product that we are releasing is actually designed for You and everybody else who wants to do exactly what you're saying and so that the AI will get the 90% of the way there It's that I've only three quarters of the way and to be at that you know consumer kind of Kind of price range and all the things With with Gary what what happened was um, okay, so I'll tell this last story and then I got to go Um, because I'm having so much fun video and I'm realizing I have a thing I'm just trying to like so I know we booked you're supposed to be done like what I was like whatever like these are great stories and then we'll wrap up Sorry, I don't I didn't want to I didn't want to drag it out too long But it just it's all really great. It's all really good stuff And and I appreciate that like you just You're very self-aware entrepreneur And I think that like your your story is Is inspirational to say the least and I just appreciate like how real you are with how you've done things and how you're building things It's just it's nice. It's a nice story. So I didn't want to cut it. Well No, no, I mean To be really clear. I can't do this by myself I rely on you I rely on my customers right and like you know what's life after lately? I don't know but like as much as I know that part of my journey is to like try to help other people along the way Right and so by sharing the stories that's the way I can do it with the time I have All right, I can't give people personal consultations or advisor marketing whatever but I can I can share these stories So we've Gary like again We talked about opening the door and then having also the where where we'll where with all to go through He does four D's right that that course he does where you can go with like seven or ten other people you hang out at Vayner Media all day um, we we lived underneath Vaynerd and in an accelerator for a year so I knew where you know, I know the building really well and Anyways, I got and I got an invite To 40 so I was like great. I will do this I don't really care about having marketing advice from Gary or anybody else all day I just want to close this sale You know, I knew that I needed to get the sale to get noticed by Gary and he doesn't know who we are and um, so I we we closed Uh Trial with Jim Thompson who was running team very Gary V marketing And it happened to be that Jim was on vacation this week when I when 40s was happening, which is a bummer But I figured oh, I'll meet everybody else So I went around like so I was like constantly leaving the room I can go fuck like you know they're giving me advice on Facebook and Gary only comes in for one hour It's his whole staff is in for the day giving you great advice, but like I didn't I don't need that advice You know, I'm not like the best things in sliced bread, but 98% sales conversion. I'm pretty good. So um At some point Gary does come in and he's so awesome. He treats every single person like a superstar and he talks you individually and he focuses on you Even there's a room full of people Which is an incredible thing for for anyone to do you know, I would be impatient person I'd be like oh my god, why are you asking this ridiculous stuff, but he doesn't he's like you know 100% And he gets to me and I tell him what I do I've actually met him before, but he did remember when I pointed out which is funny, but anyways, so um He was like wow marketing automation. We would never use that Here, I'll get back to you. He's kind of short with me and I was like, okay And so then he comes around the room and you're we're supposed to have all these questions for him And I don't have any questions. I'm scrambling to come up some questions my little notebook I'm like, and uh, so he gets back to me and he's like wait a second are we Uh, he said he said yeah, it's something again about not using AI and I said well actually you guys are using lately right now And he was like what And to his great credit he he said to the cameraman or Nick or whoever it was he's like who who's using lately get them in here And so he brings in Rogan who's like using lately. Yeah, we love it like here's what it does You know and it was this great moment where and and they videotape this whole thing and they put it out as content right because that's what Gary's about And so there's an hour long show he spends 18 minutes with me Which is a long time and then he chooses to put this out like so you know, he kind of was caught by surprise which I think is You know, that's that's integrity coming out your eyeballs, right? So that is okay Yeah, that's you're not gonna get a much better recommendation than not for somebody who's yeah, that's that's yeah Yeah, and then like you know, they they were we thought they were about to churn and then we released the video clipping feature And we saved the sale for a couple years and then actually they recently churned which is no surprise We knew I mean like they're not using it, right? Yeah, and my relationship with Gary isn't for him to become a customer It's from for him to help me market it to all of his followers And he's the actual ideal customer profiles like the people that don't have a team of 100 marketers. That's that's who you who want to use it or you need to use it. That's who needs to use it Yeah, yeah, and he's just the not he's just the nicest human like he always like I try not to bother him very often But like I do have his phone number and I do once in a while text him and he always responds It's nice and yeah, I mean I feel like you know what I hate I hate always asking and I want to give and I don't know What to give him because he doesn't need anything for me. Do you know what I mean? So listen to if you have any ideas. Let me know it's so much better to come bearing a gift and then to Ask later, right? Yeah, I hate feeling the needy team is needy. I don't want to be the needy team