1
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I think 95% of marketing 
agencies are effectively 

2
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complete scammers, right? 
Complete Cowboys running, 

3
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running a very bad operation 
that leaves their customers in a

4
00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:11,320
very bad spot. 
There's a lot of reasons for 

5
00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:12,400
that, right? 
But if you look at how a 

6
00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:14,200
marketing agency would work, 
what they would do, they would 

7
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:16,600
go spend a lot of money on 
outreach, paid ads trying to 

8
00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:18,720
acquire that customer. 
And the second they've acquired 

9
00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:20,960
that customer, almost in all 
cases, what they're going to do 

10
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:24,040
is they're going to hire some 
freelancer, probably from a 

11
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:28,000
third world country or you know,
where they can arbitrage the, at

12
00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:30,480
the cost of Labor and basically 
get them to do all the work. 

13
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And they just then collect the 
difference between what they pay

14
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the that freelancer who then 
manages essentially a lot of 

15
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their accounts and does very, 
very subpar work because they're

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poorly incentivized. 
And then the agency owner, 

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whatever sort of sits back 
before. 

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We dive back into today's 
conversation. 

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I want to share something 
important. 

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This episode includes a paid 
partnership with Better Help, a 

21
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platform designed to make 
starting therapy easier. 

22
00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:51,120
I know from my own journey as a 
leader and entrepreneur that 

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00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:52,520
life can sometimes feel 
overwhelming. 

24
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There are seasons, severe 
stress, uncertainty and pressure

25
00:00:55,040 --> 00:00:57,000
build up, and you need a safe 
space to process it. 

26
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All that's therapy comes in. 
Therapy isn't only for people 

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facing clinical challenges. 
It's a space to reflect, grow 

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and find better ways to manage 
stress, relationships and 

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personal goals. 
It takes. 

30
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Courage to seek help, But it's 
also one of the smartest 

31
00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:12,800
investments you can make in your
mental and emotional welding. 

32
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That's why I'm proud to 
highlight Better Help. 

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With Better Help, you simply 
feel out a short questionnaire 

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couple of days. 
If the first match doesn't feel 

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Inside the platform, you'll also

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find tools like Donelline and 
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growth. 

41
00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:35,160
And with over 7000 reviews and a
4.5 trustpathibation, Betterhelp

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00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:37,840
is a platform you can rely on. 
So if you feel like you'd 

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00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:39,640
benefit from talking to a 
therapist, visit 

44
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betterhub.com/kingjames. 
That's betterhub.com/kingjames 

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00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:46,560
to get 10% off your first month 
of therapy. 

46
00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:49,000
Once again, this is a paid 
partnership with Betterhelp and 

47
00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:50,200
I encourage you to take that 
first step. 

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00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:52,320
If you've been thinking about 
it, sometimes the best 

49
00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:54,280
investment you can make ease in 
yourself. 

50
00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:03,600
Welcome to the King Dems 
podcast, where we share the 

51
00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:07,320
stories of extraordinary people 
and dissect hot, relevant topics

52
00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:10,039
that shape our world. 
From visionary leaders to 

53
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trailblazing creatives, we 
uncover the mindset, strategy, 

54
00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:16,560
and grit behind greatness. 
Whether it's business, culture, 

55
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or personal growth, we ask the 
real questions. 

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This isn't just conversation, 
it's transformation. 

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The Kingdom's podcast, Your Next
Breakthrough, starts here. 

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Music licensing reimagined the 
live Ladies and gentlemen, once 

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00:02:33,640 --> 00:02:36,160
again welcome to the Kingdom's 
podcast. 

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00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:40,640
And today I've got with me a 
very special entrepreneur 

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fighting out of Paris Friends by
Wilson Francisco, United States 

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of America. 
Mick, welcome David Poquery. 

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How are you, David? 
I'm very well. 

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Thank you that thank you for the
for the intro. 

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That was very kind. 
OK, you, you are a man that is 

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Chieftain, the way the business 
landscape is actually going to 

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be for the, I don't want to say 
for the foreseeable future. 

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You're changing it already, 
right? 

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Your changes the landscape and 
you know, leaking out your body 

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of work for me. 
I am actually very, very 

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impressed and I'm going to give 
you your flowers while you're 

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still alive. 
So David, you actually represent

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a right. 
It's a section of private equity

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rigor operation, you know 
operators CAS and frontier of AI

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execution. 
We write for managing capital at

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scale in a global private equity
to build a full autonomous AI 

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system that runs Google Arts 
without human marketers, 

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agencies or PC funding over $35 
billion per month in art spend 

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while remaining fully 
bootstrapped and founder owned. 

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This is not very. 
This is execution today we are 

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unpacking what breaks inside 
most marketing systems, why 

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agencies are failing businesses 
at scale and what founders must 

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understand about AI events 
before the bets they're good 

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from them. 
Ladies and gentlemen, once again

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welcome David Fakery to the 
Kingdom spot cap and Dyer of the

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CFO. 
So, David, you have actually 

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lived many lives, you know, from
being a capital allocator to 

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being a system builder. 
And of course, you've actually 

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spent years inside private 
equity evaluating businesses. 

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The scale this is a business 
podcast. 

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So what patterns have you 
identified repeatedly that 

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you've seen that has convinced 
you that most companies actually

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get operations wrong, right? 
What is it that is broken before

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they become eventually 
financially broken? 

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A bit of, a bit of a tough 
question. 

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I think it always comes down to 
to people. 

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I think I love that often, often
cases either there's, you know, 

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and actually when I say people 
often leadership, right? 

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Because the leadership will 
dictate the team and and the 

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team will dictate the business. 
So I think that's probably the 

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first thing that as an investor 
you would look at is who's 

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running of those particular 
functions And even, you know, we

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ourselves, that's something I 
obsess about when hiring is the 

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quality of the team. 
Is it a good culture fit? 

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How motivated are they? 
What, what's motivating them 

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aside from earning money? 
Like there's a lot of things 

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that go into that, but I think 
ultimately, like it's always, it

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always comes back to the quality
of of the leadership team. 

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I love that the quality of the 
leadership team, you know, the 

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tone at the top is actually very
important. 

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And of course, you know, when it
comes to hiring, I myself, I'm 

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an early stage founder myself, 
you know, just in the first year

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of my company and I've had to 
learn the lesson of hiring and 

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buying in a very, very hard way.
And it has come down to three 

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things, mind skirts, mindset, 
skill set and tool set. 

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That is a lot of times we tend 
to evaluate the skill set of 

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these individuals that we watch 
collaborate with, but we don't 

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tend to evaluate their mindset, 
right? 

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The mindset is for me the most 
important thing. 

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Then the skill set and of course
I'm them with the appropriate 

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tool sets. 
And Speaking of tool sets, you 

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have actually created an amazing
tool set for founders to 

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actually use. 
And you know, we are in that age

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where the agency model is being 
what I say being erased, right. 

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And of course because the agency
model has actually helped mid 

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businesses to bleed a lot of 
money, they are expensive and 

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not as effective or efficient as
the tool set that you have 

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created. 
And of course yourself you have 

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been vocal about how marketing 
agencies destroy value. 

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So what is the fundamental flaw 
in the agency model that most 

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founders still do not understand
until it's too late? 

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Yeah, Yeah, it's a, it's a good 
question. 

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Look, this might sound a little 
harsh, but I think I can say 

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this now because. 
Bring it on. 

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Full authenticity, brother. 
OK, I'll keep it real. 

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I think 95% of marketing 
agencies are effectively 

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complete scammers, right? 
Complete Cowboys running, 

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00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:27,160
running a very bad operation 
that leaves their customers in a

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very bad spot. 
There's a lot of reasons for 

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00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:30,280
that, right? 
But if you look at how how 

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00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:33,280
market agency would work, the 
what they would do, they would 

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00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:35,640
go spend a lot of money on 
outreach paid ads trying to 

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00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:38,200
acquire that customer. 
Then the second they've acquired

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00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:40,520
that customer, almost in all 
cases, what they're going to do 

145
00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:43,920
is they're going to hire some 
freelancer, probably from a 

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00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,440
third world country or you know,
where they can arbitrage the, 

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the cost of Labor and basically 
get them to do all the work. 

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And they just then collect the 
difference between what they pay

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the that freelancer who then 
manages essentially a lot of 

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00:07:55,840 --> 00:07:58,560
their accounts and does very, 
very subpar work because they're

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poorly incentivized. 
And then the agency owner, 

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whatever, just sort of sits 
back. 

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Now obviously there's different 
levels to that, right? 

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You have some agencies who are a
lot more involved. 

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But typically, I think that's 
the big problem as well. 

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The economics often leave the 
businesses they work with in a 

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bad spot because they lock those
businesses into long term 

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contracts, right? 
A minimum of three months, 

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minimum of six months. 
And if you break and you want to

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stop working with us, then 
you're going to have to pay an 

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extra fee. 
So that already leaves things a 

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mess. 
On top of that, to even start, 

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let's say a marketing agency, 
you could start 1:00 tomorrow 

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with 0 credibility, 0 
credentials, 0 whatever you 

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00:08:33,039 --> 00:08:35,919
could start want to start taking
on customers tomorrow, You can 

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00:08:35,919 --> 00:08:37,640
make up some testimonials and 
just get going. 

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There's no governing body. 
There's no this or that The. 

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00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:42,799
Regulatory, yeah. 
I would say and look, there's a 

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lot of exactly, exactly. 
So yeah, there's a lot of 

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marketing agencies in the world,
a lot more than you or I would 

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would think to exist. 
And I think over a long enough 

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period of time, Grow Ass will 
put a lot of them out of 

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business because instead of 
paying your marketing agency, 

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00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:00,520
you know, 3-4 KA month to set up
your ad campaign once and do 

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00:09:00,520 --> 00:09:02,200
nothing, right? 
Literally do nothing. 

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You can pay Grow as 10% of that 
and it will do everything and 

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it'll work for you 24/7. 
That's because we're using 

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autonomous AI to do it. 
So yeah, I think that a lot of 

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them are going to be in a lot of
trouble. 

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What we're seeing though is a 
lot of them are just plugging in

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their customer campaigns into 
Grow as not telling their 

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customers anything and then just
charging them the difference. 

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That's what we're now seeing. 
Wow, You know, one of the major 

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issues or major controversies 
about AI is AI versus humans, AI

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replacing humans. 
And of course, you've actually 

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00:09:38,360 --> 00:09:41,040
viewed an AI that replaces 
humans. 

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00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:45,400
So most founders actually viewed
tools that assist humans, right?

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00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:50,600
How do you feel about you 
building AI agents that replaces

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humans entirely? 
And of course, what problem was 

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00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:57,600
so sleepy that that augmentation
was not enough? 

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The question so look, grow as so
V1, which was not full autonomy 

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00:10:01,560 --> 00:10:03,800
was like a recommendations tool,
right? 

193
00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:05,840
So it was something that people 
actually had to come in and use 

194
00:10:05,840 --> 00:10:07,600
and it was great. 
And it was there to increase 

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00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:10,120
people's performance. 
And then whilst we had that, 

196
00:10:10,120 --> 00:10:11,760
we're like, OK, fine, we can 
actually do more. 

197
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And that's when we started 
building for full autonomy, 

198
00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:16,120
which is where we're at today, 
which is something that 

199
00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:18,760
genuinely replaces humans. 
It's not something you have to 

200
00:10:18,760 --> 00:10:20,920
use or log into or whatever, 
whatever. 

201
00:10:21,560 --> 00:10:25,000
It just runs and scales your 
campaigns for you better than 

202
00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,000
even a, a team of marketers can,
right? 

203
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:29,320
That's where we're at right now.
There's a lot of work to get to 

204
00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:33,480
this point, but we're now there.
Now the reason some people say, 

205
00:10:33,560 --> 00:10:35,920
oh, is this is this a bad thing?
It's actually a good thing 

206
00:10:35,960 --> 00:10:39,640
because for the reasons I was 
saying earlier, 95% of the 

207
00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:43,520
industry is, you know, is filled
with scammers. 

208
00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:47,240
Like we know this by the way, 
because our biggest customer 

209
00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:50,320
segment is people who fire their
agencies and then move 

210
00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:51,640
everything to grass. 
OK? 

211
00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:56,320
During that process, we get to 
see what the hell these agencies

212
00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:59,200
did to these poor customers. 
And it's a complete shit show 

213
00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:01,160
nightmare. 
And I'm like, this is insane. 

214
00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:03,600
Like my grandmother who's 90 
years old, God bless her, she 

215
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:07,040
could do a better job at running
these campaigns. 

216
00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:08,520
And some of these agencies have 
done right. 

217
00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:10,600
Like it's insanity some of the 
stuff we've seen. 

218
00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:14,520
And these agencies will charge 
them 510K15 KA month for this. 

219
00:11:14,960 --> 00:11:18,200
So I think overall it's probably
a benefit to business and to 

220
00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:23,840
humanity, I would say. 
Whoa, so fully autonomous AI 

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00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:27,360
versus AI powered marketing. 
So there's actually like a lot 

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00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:30,040
of noise out there around AI 
marketing tools. 

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00:11:30,360 --> 00:11:35,680
There's a lot of garbage and you
know, we believe a world of 

224
00:11:35,680 --> 00:11:38,800
imperfect information. 
You know, I studied economics 

225
00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:42,000
with my first degree and you 
know, when we're being taught 

226
00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:44,320
about the defense House of 
markets, you have the perfect 

227
00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:46,680
markets, you have imperfect 
markets. 

228
00:11:46,680 --> 00:11:50,240
In the perfect markets, there's 
type of information, you know, 

229
00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:54,960
everybody's well aware of the 
various factors, you know, that 

230
00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:59,280
impact the market, but that is 
not attainable in the real 

231
00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:02,200
world, right? 
And of course, like in simple 

232
00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:07,040
terms, like what is the 
difference between automation, 

233
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:12,400
augmentation, true autonomy and 
like does that distinction 

234
00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:16,440
actually matter financially? 
Yeah, because look, we had, 

235
00:12:16,440 --> 00:12:17,520
that's what we started off with,
right? 

236
00:12:17,520 --> 00:12:20,280
It's just like, OK, grow ass was
pulling in lots of data and 

237
00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:22,480
giving insight and saying, OK, 
maybe you should do this. 

238
00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:24,320
You should add this keyword, 
remove this keyword. 

239
00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:26,480
We also did a whole bunch of 
stuff around dynamic landing 

240
00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:28,120
pages, which massively increased
conversions. 

241
00:12:28,680 --> 00:12:31,960
We're doing all this cool stuff.
But what we noticed was that 

242
00:12:32,440 --> 00:12:34,880
people like, this is great, but 
can you not just do it for me? 

243
00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:37,000
And that's when we're OK, 
there's something here and 

244
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:38,240
that's when we take it to the 
next level. 

245
00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:41,240
Now, as far as I'm aware 
currently, right, we are 

246
00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:45,280
recording this in February 2026.
As far as I'm aware, there is 

247
00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:48,720
nobody even remotely close to 
grow as when it comes to full 

248
00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:50,760
autonomy and Google ads 
campaigns, no one. 

249
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:54,280
There's a plenty of, you know, 
AI recommendation tools, all of 

250
00:12:54,280 --> 00:12:56,400
these other bullshit softwares. 
We don't care. 

251
00:12:56,400 --> 00:13:01,080
We don't compete in that realm. 
Our competition is humans, teams

252
00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:02,560
of humans. 
That's who we benchmark 

253
00:13:02,560 --> 00:13:05,080
ourselves against. 
We don't look at, you know, it's

254
00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:07,960
not this word stream optimizer. 
All of these are great tools. 

255
00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,320
God bless them all the best. 
We don't compete that we are 

256
00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:14,520
like our number one metric is 
how much better are we than 

257
00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:16,840
humans at managing and scaling 
Google ads campaigns. 

258
00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:19,080
And I tell this to my 
engineering team every single 

259
00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:21,400
day. 
If people are logging into grow 

260
00:13:21,400 --> 00:13:24,520
as and actually using it, then 
we are failing at our job. 

261
00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:27,200
That's not how it should work. 
They should connect the campaign

262
00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:30,480
once, sit back and then just 
wait for the the cash register 

263
00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:32,560
to ring. 
That's that's really our 

264
00:13:32,560 --> 00:13:35,200
business model. 
Well, interesting. 

265
00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:38,040
You know, you speak very 
passionately about scaling. 

266
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:43,080
So, but then you've actually 
scaled to $35 billion monthly ad

267
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:52,040
spend without investors. 
So scaling that big right with 0

268
00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:57,360
VC, 0 private equity, you know, 
and this is full ownership. 

269
00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:03,640
What systems thinking mistake 
forces founders to believe that 

270
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:07,680
Excel capital is required even 
when it's often not required? 

271
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:11,600
Good question. 
I'm very lucky that I used to 

272
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:13,200
work in the investment industry,
right? 

273
00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:15,520
So I work in private equity, but
even before that I actually 

274
00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:18,520
worked in a couple of venture 
capital firms, right, First time

275
00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:20,520
as an intern, next time was like
a junior analyst. 

276
00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:23,000
So I know and understand that 
world very well. 

277
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:25,520
I have very close friends of 
mine, personal friends who are 

278
00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:28,080
VCs full time. 
So I know that world super well.

279
00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:31,920
And I think it's a very 
dangerous thing to do to go and 

280
00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:33,560
raise money. 
I think most. 

281
00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:37,400
Should. 
Absolutely yes I agree. 

282
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:41,080
I think unless you're doing Elon
level cool shit right where 

283
00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:43,040
you're trying to put rockets 
into space and you need $100 

284
00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:45,480
million upfront just to get the 
the info for that. 

285
00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:47,600
OK, you need money, go raise 
funding. 

286
00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,360
But I would say if you're doing 
some software company, whatever,

287
00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:53,520
whatever, you should try and do 
your best to bootstrap that. 

288
00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:55,560
And if you need to raise money, 
like look into alternative 

289
00:14:55,560 --> 00:14:58,560
sources, but the VC game is 
mostly rigged. 

290
00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:01,360
It's a very tough thing to do. 
I think it puts you more at risk

291
00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:02,600
than less at risk, in my 
opinion. 

292
00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:06,720
Because what most founders don't
get is the second you do that 

293
00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:10,800
deal with the devil, you are now
committed to growing 20% month 

294
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:12,720
to month, 10% month to month, 
whatever it is. 

295
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:15,480
If you don't hit those targets, 
you will not be able to raise 

296
00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:16,440
more money. 
OK. 

297
00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:19,720
And then what happens is you now
have a structurally unprofitable

298
00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:21,960
business that is burning cash 
every month because you're 

299
00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:24,200
investing in growth. 
You're not going fast enough. 

300
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:26,560
So no one wants to invest in 
you. 

301
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:29,760
And therefore you close down for
business, even though you may 

302
00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:32,040
have had a perfectly good 
product, a perfectly good team, 

303
00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:35,800
all of that, all of that, you're
basically a little screwed. 

304
00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:39,440
So yeah, my thoughts on VC is I 
was very stubborn from the very 

305
00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:42,680
start of grass that and we get 
approached by the way, by VCs 

306
00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:44,680
24/7. 
I get probably one a day. 

307
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:49,520
E-mail me or or connected me on 
LinkedIn and I tell them to to 

308
00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:53,040
basically go look elsewhere. 
So I've been very stubborn about

309
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:57,080
trying to keep 100% ownership. 
Well, interesting stuff, you 

310
00:15:57,080 --> 00:16:01,200
know, I like the way you frame 
it because myself I have a 

311
00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:03,200
background with the peak for 
accounting fans. 

312
00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:08,920
I'm an ex auditor, you know, 
PWCKPMG and I have had that, you

313
00:16:08,920 --> 00:16:12,080
know, would I say privilege, the
opportunity to be able to audit 

314
00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:17,560
different organizations, you 
know, across but from startups 

315
00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:26,840
to PLCS to meet tier companies. 
And I see the same thing that 

316
00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:32,840
leverage forces founders to to 
to make mistakes, you know, on 

317
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:37,040
1st errors basically, right. 
And like you rightly said, it's 

318
00:16:37,040 --> 00:16:40,480
like dining with the devil. 
You get it and then you'll be 

319
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:42,800
forced. 
I've had AVC on, on this 

320
00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:45,000
forecast report. 
And, you know, he said something

321
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:48,800
about like what makes a company 
interesting to them is double 

322
00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:51,680
digits profits. 
If you're not making double 

323
00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:55,360
digit profit, right, you're not 
interesting to to AVC. 

324
00:16:55,680 --> 00:17:00,400
And yeah, we understand they're 
in the business of, you know, 

325
00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:07,240
growth, but it's not the natural
flow for every type of pieces. 

326
00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:10,280
Take Uber, for example. 
Uber was not profitable in the 

327
00:17:10,319 --> 00:17:13,359
past couple of years, right? 
They had to get that structure 

328
00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:15,720
properly. 
Some companies have to iterate 

329
00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:18,200
over time, right? 
And of course, when you're not 

330
00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:23,960
in an industry that has ethical 
concerns versus profit concerns 

331
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,200
or what do you do, you stock in 
a dilemma, right? 

332
00:17:27,319 --> 00:17:33,240
So I really want for you to 
would I say expand on the the 

333
00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:38,640
dangers of having that PC money 
too early, especially too early.

334
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:42,040
At some point, you know, if you 
if you want to scale up, you 

335
00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:44,800
have maybe very big expansion 
plans, it might make sense. 

336
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:49,480
But for me, my philosophy is 
having that PC money too early 

337
00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:53,040
is a very, very big danger. 
I don't know what you would like

338
00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:57,080
to expand on in that regard. 
I mean, of course it is, right? 

339
00:17:57,080 --> 00:18:00,560
Because then you're going to be 
less cautious with spending 

340
00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:01,760
because it's not your money, 
right? 

341
00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:04,280
But I think ultimately the, the 
big issue I see is people 

342
00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:06,480
celebrate raising money as some 
kind of achievement. 

343
00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:09,440
Like you've just sold the 
percentage of your company at a 

344
00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:12,440
discount for like for no reason.
And let's be clear, you've done 

345
00:18:12,440 --> 00:18:14,720
nothing. 
And then they, and then they 

346
00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:18,040
parade on social media, we raise
that, you know, 20-30 mil 

347
00:18:18,040 --> 00:18:20,320
valuation. 
That's a nonsense valuation, 

348
00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:24,320
right? 
I could sell 0.01% of grass for 

349
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:26,640
like, let's say AK and now I'm 
worth a billion. 

350
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:30,720
Like, what are we doing here? 
So I think a lot of people don't

351
00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:32,200
seem to understand that. 
They seem to think that 

352
00:18:32,200 --> 00:18:33,960
valuation actually means 
something in the real world. 

353
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:36,320
The only thing that matters in 
my opinion is what are your, 

354
00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:37,800
what are your customers saying 
about your product? 

355
00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:41,080
That's like the best predictor 
of success long term is, are 

356
00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:42,920
people really enjoying what what
you're building? 

357
00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:45,240
How's your retention? 
Like that's something I obsess 

358
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:47,280
about is are we retaining 
customers well enough? 

359
00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:50,040
And if someone ever churns like 
I will, I will lose sleep over 

360
00:18:50,040 --> 00:18:51,040
it. 
It really pisses me off. 

361
00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:53,000
Yeah. 
And then the other thing as well

362
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:57,200
the other people miss is there's
different like classes of shares

363
00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:00,200
when you raise right. 
Yeah, exactly. 

364
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:01,560
And VCs have to get paid out 
first. 

365
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:05,520
So there's so many cases where 
you'll see an exit of like $100 

366
00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:07,320
million. 
Exactly. 

367
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:08,680
Yeah. 
And the founder leaves with 

368
00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:11,400
maybe a couple mil at best. 
And so you've just done all of 

369
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:12,880
that and you just got screwed 
over. 

370
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:14,640
So yeah, look, my, that's my 
take. 

371
00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:16,760
I'm obviously quite anti here, 
but it obviously has its 

372
00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:19,160
benefits as well. 
I think it's that case by case. 

373
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:22,640
Yeah. 
And you know, I think I'd like 

374
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:26,800
to quickly bring in or weave in 
the fact that we now have a lot 

375
00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:29,760
of cases of founders being 
fraudulent. 

376
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:34,280
At this morning, I woke up to 
the headline of Forbes 30 under 

377
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:37,920
30 founder from Turkey. 
I'm not going to mention her 

378
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:39,400
name. 
No, she's female. 

379
00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:42,600
You could go check it out. 
And then actually, but she 

380
00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:45,240
actually defrauded investors 
awful lot of money. 

381
00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:48,280
And it's it's crazy. 
We like think valuations and all

382
00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:50,480
that stuff. 
So it gets really dirty 

383
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:54,400
sometimes, right? 
You know, coming back to the 

384
00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:58,920
investor lens, right? 
We are the humans you know most 

385
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:01,840
consistently introduce 
inefficiency. 

386
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:06,000
Buyers waste inside a paid 
acquisition system. 

387
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:09,120
That's tough one. 
It's tough because there's so 

388
00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:11,040
many variables that go into 
this, right? 

389
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:14,120
So if you want a good, good 
Google Ads campaign, that's not 

390
00:20:14,120 --> 00:20:15,760
one thing. 
There's like 1000 different 

391
00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:17,760
things you need to be optimizing
and tweaking 24/7. 

392
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:19,840
Is your landing page good? 
OK, what's in that? 

393
00:20:19,840 --> 00:20:20,760
What should be in that landing 
page? 

394
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:22,600
There should be some social 
proof and testimonials while 

395
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:24,520
you're offering like there's a 
million things that go into just

396
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:27,680
the landing page, right? 
Then the checkout flow then. 

397
00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:29,720
So that's just like the landing 
page side. 

398
00:20:30,040 --> 00:20:32,160
Then inside Google Ads, there's 
like a million different things 

399
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:33,800
as well that you need to be 
tweaking and optimizing. 

400
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:36,720
Most people, I would say in 
Google Ads, what do they get 

401
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:38,040
wrong? 
Like the number one thing I 

402
00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,920
think that I see is keywords 
getting the keywords wrong. 

403
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:45,840
They go in and they had like 
1000 keywords and like a $20 

404
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:49,920
budget campaign per day. 
That's just complete lunacy, 

405
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:51,040
right? 
It's just like lighting money on

406
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:54,080
fire for no good reason. 
So like if I had to sum it up, 

407
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:55,800
because we've seen a million 
different things go wrong and 

408
00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:58,000
there's a lot you have to 
optimize, but typically it's 

409
00:20:58,000 --> 00:20:59,520
people are choosing the wrong 
keywords. 

410
00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:02,160
And obviously grass does a 
really good job with it and 

411
00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:04,880
helps in whatever, whatever. 
But that's like the number one 

412
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:06,840
biggest issue I think across the
board. 

413
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,760
Oh, Speaking of landing page, 
you always need to keep tweaking

414
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:12,360
things. 
I said tweaked something on my 

415
00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:14,960
landing page before I I jumped 
on this interview. 

416
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:18,680
So that speaks that hit a home 
run. 

417
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:24,200
Let's talk about the 30 to 40% 
of revenue deep, right. 

418
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:27,960
You've actually stated that 
e-commerce brands routinely lose

419
00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:32,440
30 to 40% of revenue through 
avoidable mistakes. 

420
00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:36,120
So what are the top mistakes 
that quietly destroyed the 

421
00:21:36,120 --> 00:21:38,440
margin without founders even 
though just in? 

422
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:41,880
Yeah, I mean, so the first one 
is what I touched on is, is 

423
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,520
keywords being completely wrong 
and therefore you're wasting a 

424
00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:46,040
whole bunch of of spend for no 
reason. 

425
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:48,680
Actually, the other thing as 
well is negative keywords is 

426
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:50,720
another thing in Google Ads 
where most people have none and 

427
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:53,200
therefore you're showing your 
ads to people who are not going 

428
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:55,640
to convert anyway or getting 
clicks for them that people are 

429
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:57,280
not going to convert anyway. 
That's costing you money. 

430
00:21:57,280 --> 00:21:59,680
The other thing as well, which 
is quite problematic is the ad 

431
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:03,280
quality itself. 
Most humans suck at writing 

432
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:04,840
good, good copy. 
It's really hard. 

433
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:08,120
Now, that's obviously something 
that we've trained grass to do 

434
00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:11,760
very, very well. 
It's a very important part of of

435
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:14,000
selling things online is how 
well you can convince somebody 

436
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:17,400
to like how well you can 
convince somebody to actually 

437
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,640
buy your product right from cold
traffic. 

438
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:22,160
Not easy to do. 
But I think copy and writing 

439
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,560
good copy both at the ad level 
and the landing page level is 

440
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:25,720
also something that's super 
important. 

441
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,280
And then finally, you know what 
unconventional answer, but it's 

442
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:31,960
going to be patience, patience. 
A lot of people get this wrong, 

443
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:33,920
right? 
Because if you've never on 

444
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:37,160
Google ads before, the big 
mistake we see is people think, 

445
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:41,240
OK, I'm just going to throw 10 
KA day at this and it it it's 

446
00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:43,080
going to make me a bit, I'm 
going to be profitable. 

447
00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:47,200
No, like it takes time, right? 
Tweaking an offer, tweaking your

448
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:49,440
campaigns until it reaches that 
sweet spot. 

449
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:52,760
Yeah, exactly. 
So tweaking and getting 

450
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:54,560
everything right and optimizing 
everything until it reaches that

451
00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:56,640
sweet spot where you're just 
printing money on autopilot 

452
00:22:57,160 --> 00:22:58,680
could take months. 
It can take weeks. 

453
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,960
It depends case by case, but I 
would say patience is a very 

454
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:06,120
underrated factor in the game. 
Patience is key. 

455
00:23:06,120 --> 00:23:09,760
Patience is a virtue. 
Let's talk about trust. 

456
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:16,640
We are in the attention economy 
and people actually buy based on

457
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:21,000
trust, but a lot of founders 
actually share that loss of 

458
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:24,960
control with autonomous systems.
So how should leaders think 

459
00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:30,120
about trust, ethical guardrails,
and accountability when AI is 

460
00:23:30,120 --> 00:23:33,320
making decisions faster than 
humans can ever do? 

461
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,520
Yeah, well, I think it's just 
inevitable, OK, Because it just 

462
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,200
comes down to a, to a profit 
question effectively, right. 

463
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,720
Like, yeah, things aren't going 
to be perfect for a little bit, 

464
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:44,320
but in some industries they 
already are, right. 

465
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,640
Software engineering, we already
have AI that can write code far 

466
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:49,880
better than humans far quicker. 
That's that's already happened 

467
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:51,640
some places taking longer to 
catch up. 

468
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:53,720
But it's just completely 
inevitable that this is going to

469
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,600
happen over time. 
And it becomes for business 

470
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:58,960
owners, it becomes like a a 
profit question, right? 

471
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:02,880
Do you want to employ 10 humans 
to look at something or employ 

472
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:06,640
an AI for 1% of the cost? 
It might make some errors 

473
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:08,560
initially, but over time it's 
only going to get better and 

474
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:10,840
better. 
Yeah, it's effectively that 

475
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:12,080
that's where the board is 
heading for. 

476
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:15,800
For better or for worse, the 
trainer started and there's 

477
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:17,160
there's just no stopping in at 
this point. 

478
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:23,960
I'll tell you something, child 
Chippity is my legal consultant.

479
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,200
You know, the best legal, the 
best legal consultant in the 

480
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,800
world for just $20.00 a month. 
I don't think any lawyer charges

481
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:35,160
that. 
You know, I'm going to pick 

482
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:39,200
your, I'm going to pick your 
investor braid right now. 

483
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,360
If you were still seating on, 
you know, the investment 

484
00:24:42,360 --> 00:24:46,400
committee today, what would you 
look for in an AI company that 

485
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,080
most investors still miss out 
on? 

486
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,560
At what stages is it like a very
under staged AI company or is it

487
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:53,440
like a mid stage or like what 
what stages are? 

488
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:55,800
Interesting. 
So so let's break it down. 

489
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:57,240
Early stage. 
Mid stage. 

490
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:00,400
Yeah, I mean, early stage, the 
only thing to even look at in my

491
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,400
opinion is the founders. 
You invest in good founders that

492
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,320
that's what it is, right? 
You have to assess the potential

493
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:07,840
of those individuals. 
Is it a team? 

494
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:09,720
How well do they work together? 
If it's just one person? 

495
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:12,920
Well, they better be very driven
because solo founding, as I know

496
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,600
myself, it's going to come with 
a lot of punches in the face. 

497
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:17,080
So that can you can you handle 
it well? 

498
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:20,720
But effectively at an early 
stage, the only thing to be 

499
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:22,360
thinking about is how good is 
that team? 

500
00:25:22,360 --> 00:25:26,320
Because markets change, your 
products going to change like so

501
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:28,360
many things are going to evolve 
over time that you couldn't have

502
00:25:28,360 --> 00:25:30,800
possibly foreseen. 
But how well those individuals 

503
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:34,680
adapt to the situations is like 
the only, in my opinion, 

504
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,360
determinant of success. 
And like, how do you assess? 

505
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,400
How do you assess humans? 
That's really tough, actually. 

506
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:43,040
VCs typically will default to, 
oh, they went to a good school, 

507
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,600
therefore we should fund them, 
which I think is mostly BS. 

508
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,040
It has a bit of truth to it, and
I get it right to an extent, but

509
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:51,840
it's also mostly BS. 
Not everyone who goes to 

510
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:53,760
Stanford is going to start a 
Unicorn. 

511
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,280
That's just ludicrously. 
Absolutely. 

512
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,040
So yeah, there's a lot of 
factors. 

513
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:00,960
Yeah, there's a lot of factors 
that get into it. 

514
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,240
But effectively at the earlier 
stages, you're just looking at 

515
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,920
the the founding team, maybe the
motivations, like why they did 

516
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:07,800
what they want to do. 
If they're doing it just for 

517
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:11,080
money, by the way, I don't think
that's actually a bad answer. 

518
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,880
That's fine, right? 
If you're, if you're money 

519
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:15,520
hungry, maybe you're going to 
work harder than somebody who 

520
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,400
isn't, right? 
And somebody's just, and 

521
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,320
somebody's just like, you know, 
I want to make the world a 

522
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:21,120
better place, which is also 
mostly BSA. 

523
00:26:21,120 --> 00:26:22,360
Lot of people say the world a 
better place. 

524
00:26:22,360 --> 00:26:23,520
It's just some nonsense in my 
opinion. 

525
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:26,360
So yeah, look into the 
motivations. 

526
00:26:26,360 --> 00:26:28,320
How well do they know the 
problem they're tackling in my 

527
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,240
opinion is like, one thing I 
look at is like, you're doing 

528
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,160
this, but why? 
Like what attracted you to try 

529
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,240
to do this particular thing? 
How well do you know the space? 

530
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,840
In my case, I knew Google Ads 
very well from running E com 

531
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,640
stores over the years. 
And I knew that there was a lot 

532
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:42,320
that was broken and I wanted to 
do better myself. 

533
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:43,400
So that's where it came from, 
right? 

534
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,120
So Google Ads was like a, a 
pretty natural thing for me to, 

535
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:49,400
to try to tackle. 
But if somebody has worked in 

536
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,480
chemical engineering their 
entire life and then tomorrow 

537
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,840
wants to start an AI for for law
firms, I'm going to ask them 

538
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:56,840
like why they they need some 
good reasons. 

539
00:26:57,920 --> 00:26:59,960
I actually very, very much agree
with you. 

540
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,040
You know, they say experience is
the best teacher. 

541
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:05,480
It's always good to be armed 
with that experience. 

542
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:10,600
And by the way, people call me 
AI because my government name is

543
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,480
AI Ademola EC member. 
That is my name. 

544
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,640
So I don't know what my parents 
saw and said a three years ago. 

545
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:19,040
They must have seen something 
other people did not see, right?

546
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:25,320
But I look at it, I have always 
thought like somebody who's 

547
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,080
prompting, even right from my 
days of the beaker accounting 

548
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:35,120
firms, now the LLMS are popular 
and he feels like, oh, AI is the

549
00:27:35,120 --> 00:27:38,080
next big thing. 
But we've actually been using AI

550
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,800
for a long time, but we've 
actually been thinking in this 

551
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:42,520
way. 
So basically AI is just a 

552
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:46,280
multiplier. 
It accelerates the way in which 

553
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,120
you think. 
And for me, I, I feel like the 

554
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,840
people who are brilliant, 
efficient, who only become more 

555
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:56,960
efficient and the people who 
are, you know, the other side 

556
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,760
would also, you know, because 
basically AI is just a multiply.

557
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:05,080
It either multiplies, it 
multiplies your intelligence or 

558
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:08,160
multiplies your foolishness. 
So it depends on your value 

559
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,880
you're standing on, right. 
And when it comes to a founder's

560
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:17,800
identity, every founder has a 
unique journey, right? 

561
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:22,160
But a lot of founders actually 
struggled emotionally when the 

562
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,240
systems that they have created 
outperformed them. 

563
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,880
So what is that mindset shift 
that is required to move from 

564
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:35,560
being the smartest person in the
room to just being the architect

565
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,040
of intelligence? 
No, I much, much rather prefer 

566
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:43,640
to be in the second right, even 
architecting that it's not being

567
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,640
in the treasury 24/7 doing 
things you. 

568
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,800
Know why is the minor shift 
brother? 

569
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:52,200
Doesn't make you smart. 
It does. 

570
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,120
But yes, yes, also I think you 
need money as well to do that. 

571
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,800
And it's also, it's also hard to
do because hiring, well, hiring 

572
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:03,040
is really hard. 
But yeah, I mean, I still 

573
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,880
myself, for example, will do a 
lot of sales calls with, you 

574
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:07,960
know, important customers that 
would possibly on board. 

575
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:10,520
I don't necessarily enjoy doing 
that, right? 

576
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:12,880
I think in maybe a couple of 
months, hopefully I can find 

577
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,560
someone who's much, much better 
than me to do these calls. 

578
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:18,680
It was much more convincing, who
knows, for them to know grow ass

579
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:20,160
better than I do. 
Will take a lot of time, 

580
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,000
obviously. 
But yeah, like that's the stage 

581
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:24,560
I think we're at. 
By the way, as a company, we're 

582
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:26,040
still quite early. 
We've been going for like, what,

583
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,000
7-8 months now? 
But yeah, we're slowly going to 

584
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,080
move there. 
If I had more capital, if I'd 

585
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,480
raised whatever 510 mil and had 
more capital, I probably would 

586
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:36,920
have done this earlier. 
But yeah, that's it's, it's 

587
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:38,880
essential to do. 
It's absolutely essential. 

588
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:40,160
Otherwise you don't have a 
business. 

589
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,160
You just have a, a job with lots
of different customers, lots of 

590
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,000
different bosses you have to 
answer to and you don't have a 

591
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:46,480
business. 
So you need to, in my opinion, 

592
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:50,040
do that, get to that ASAP. 
That's that's what a business 

593
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:51,800
really is. 
I love that. 

594
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,000
So before I let you go, I'm 
going to put you through the 

595
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,680
rapid fire questions. 
But before there are a quiet 

596
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:00,920
fire questions, I remembered 
something you told me, you know,

597
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,840
the first time we indeed get to 
meet, you told me about how grow

598
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,160
us is just grade on the search 
engine. 

599
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:11,000
So I'd like for you to expand on
the like, like Grow us is just 

600
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,600
great. 
Like white fire right now on the

601
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,520
search engine. 
I think probably on YouTube or 

602
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,480
like Google, the Google search 
engine. 

603
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:24,760
Oh. 
Right, yes, So I mean all our. 

604
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,640
For context, one thing I haven't
mentioned is we still grow as we

605
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:30,440
haven't done any marketing so 
far. 

606
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,200
We haven't run any paid ads. 
We haven't really done any cold 

607
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:34,880
outreach. 
We have done nothing so far. 

608
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:40,880
All of our signups, all of them 
come from 85% of our signups 

609
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,520
come from LLMS referring grow as
the best solution. 

610
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:47,320
So someone will type into 
ChatGPT, hey, how do I optimize 

611
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:49,000
my Google ads? 
And then ChatGPT will say you 

612
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:50,760
should use grass and then people
will sign up. 

613
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:53,720
So that's like that's 85% of our
signups, which is great. 

614
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:55,360
That's fully organic. 
We do nothing for that. 

615
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,520
The other 15% is existing 
customers telling other 

616
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:02,800
customers, telling other their 
friends that whatever, hey, 

617
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:03,880
look, we're using grass. 
It's great. 

618
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,800
Just sign up. 
The reason this is quite, it's 

619
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:08,520
tough, right? 
We're in a difficult position 

620
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:10,440
because I want that number to be
higher. 

621
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,840
I should be higher than 15% of 
people saying, hey, the reason 

622
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:18,720
they don't, and I know this, 
I've been told this is I've 

623
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:20,200
asked some of our customers, 
hey, could you give us some 

624
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:23,520
testimonials And they refuse. 
And you know why they refuse? 

625
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:25,720
Because they don't want their 
competitors to know they're 

626
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,160
using grass or the agencies. 
I saw that on your websites to 

627
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:34,240
know these grass like. 
I saw that on your website. 

628
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,640
Happens very often where they 
just want to keep it secret. 

629
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,160
Yes. 
That permits me to expose you. 

630
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,360
So guys, I've got to read what I
saw on gross website. 

631
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:47,400
You know this client actually 
says to David, he says, hey 

632
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,680
David, thanks a lot for the 
opportunity. 

633
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,480
I really appreciate you thinking
of me. 

634
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,280
This might sound a bit selfish, 
but grass looks so powerful to 

635
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:59,320
me that I'm honestly a little 
afraid my competitors might 

636
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:03,120
figure out I'm using it as that,
using it against me as well. 

637
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:07,440
So for now, I think I'll have to
pass purely out of fear rather 

638
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:09,840
than lack of appreciation. 
Sorry about that. 

639
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,720
And of course, sorry, David, I 
have to expose you on the other 

640
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,640
podcast. 
So yeah, there you go. 

641
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:18,280
There you go. 
That happens very often. 

642
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:20,560
Wow it. 
Is one of the. 

643
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:22,720
Congratulations on on the 
success, brother. 

644
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:25,400
It's, it's quite interesting 
what, what this LLMS do. 

645
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,120
I had a message from somebody 
earlier today telling you that 

646
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:34,040
I, I searched you on Google and 
do you know what Google AI is 

647
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:35,920
telling me? 
OK, two people actually detailed

648
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,480
me today. 
One of them told me the AI 

649
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,880
refers to you as AI. 
And I'm like, OK, interested, 

650
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:43,440
interested. 
I have to start making money 

651
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,160
from this name AI. 
And the second person told me, 

652
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:51,200
guess what, Google AI is 
referring to you as a Joe Rogan 

653
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,320
of Africa. 
I'm like, wow, I never knew. 

654
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,200
And then it sent me a 
screenshot, and then it put a 

655
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,920
smile on my face. 
So put some respect on my name. 

656
00:32:59,920 --> 00:33:01,360
You know, the Joe Rogan of 
Africa. 

657
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:05,120
Very cool. 
We're shooting for that top 1% 

658
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:10,160
yet currently, the two podcasts,
you know, are global top 2% and 

659
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,160
global top 3%. 
And yeah, hopefully this year 

660
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,360
we're shooting into the top 1% 
in the world. 

661
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,760
Big fire round here we'll go. 5 
questions, very big answers. 

662
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,480
Let us go. 
Are you ready to rumble? 

663
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:29,480
Hey, number one, what is 1 
metric founders? 

664
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,160
What is 1 metric founders 
obsessed over? 

665
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:38,120
That does not matter. 
So off we kind of touched on it,

666
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:40,680
but maybe, maybe money raised 
maybe. 

667
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,960
Maybe I. 
Don't know, is that the amount 

668
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,560
of money they're raised? 
OK, I'll give you, I'll give you

669
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,480
online that I always use 
revenues, vanity profits, 

670
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,640
insanity. 
Cash is reality. 

671
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,840
How about that? 
True, true, but there are 

672
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:58,760
exceptions. 
I think if your if your revenues

673
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,000
genuinely just skyrocketing, 
like genuinely like just doing 

674
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,320
boom, then maybe some losses can
offset it. 

675
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:06,480
It's you know, that's that's 
actually a really difficult 

676
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:07,720
question. 
I'm trying to think what I look 

677
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,760
at. 
OK, how about this? 

678
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,280
How about this? 
Social media followers is my 

679
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,000
answer. 
Oh yeah. 

680
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:17,520
God bless you. 
I love that I love that I love 

681
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:21,920
that bro let me tell you 
something I, I, I, I know I know

682
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:25,880
somebody who has like over 
10,000 followers and LinkedIn 

683
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,360
and this girl has never made a 
dime. 

684
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,960
The next question of the rapid 
fire will be what is what metric

685
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,600
founders ignored that decides 
survival? 

686
00:34:37,199 --> 00:34:39,480
Easy, John. 
John #1. 

687
00:34:40,679 --> 00:34:43,440
Oh, OK, OK, yeah, back to the 
story I was telling you right. 

688
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,159
I don't have many followers in 
LinkedIn, but I get a lot of 

689
00:34:46,159 --> 00:34:49,000
inbounds saying, oh, I want to I
want to be on your podcast and 

690
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:53,840
you know, guys pay me to talk to
me from LinkedIn, from socials. 

691
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:55,840
Yeah, right. 
Yeah, I don't have many 

692
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:57,600
followers. 
Instagram I probably have like 

693
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:03,320
5000 followers, right? 
The people who have 100K plus 

694
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,160
followers but they don't make 
are dying off these people. 

695
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,680
So I I very much agree with you 
that that metric is is a vanity 

696
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,200
metric. 
What is the biggest lie sold 

697
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,520
about AI in marketing? 
Oh, that's tough. 

698
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,040
Biggest lie about AI? 
Well, I mean, we are. 

699
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:23,520
I think when I'm what I mean, I 
hope we're not selling any lies.

700
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:25,640
I don't think we do. 
So I'm trying to think of other 

701
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,840
players. 
Guys go to gross that AI to 

702
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:30,200
check either. 
Any lies? 

703
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,120
It's tough. 
I don't know. 

704
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:36,760
Truthfully, I don't really look 
at what are the, you know, 

705
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:38,720
companies like. 
I just focus on us. 

706
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:40,320
That's really all my focus is 
on. 

707
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,120
I don't know. 
It's hard to say. 

708
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:44,920
Biggest lie about AI in 
marketing? 

709
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,760
OK, The biggest lie is that it 
won't replace humans. 

710
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,120
It will. 
That's my answer. 

711
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:58,240
Interested in it #4 What is the 
hardest thing to let go of when 

712
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,720
automating growth? 
No, the hardest thing to let go 

713
00:36:02,720 --> 00:36:04,880
of when you are automating 
growth. 

714
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:14,200
OK. 
Interview, interview, interview,

715
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:23,000
interview, interview. 
Yeah, yeah. 

716
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,760
Sorry. 
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 

717
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:28,960
yeah, yeah, yeah.