How to get your first customers (even with ZERO audience)

Join me as I chat with Jonathan Courtney, Co-Founder and CEO of AJ&Smart, as we dive deep into various lead generation strategies. Jonathan shares his strategies and frameworks for building a client pipeline without having a large online following. 00:00 - Intro 03:13 - The Dream 100 Strategy 11:01 - The Canvas Strategy (for reaching out) 18:12 - Go Where Your Audience Lives 27:21 - The Power of Strategic Gifting 36:33 - Content Creation (if you choose to) 40:47 - Key Mindset Shift around Content Creation 1) The Dream 100 Strategy: • Make a list of 100 people/orgs who already talk to your target audience • Research their platforms, reach, content • Focus on building relationships with them • Can start with just 10-20 names Example: Web design agency targeting founders? Start with podcast hosts, community leaders 2) The Canvas Strategy (for reaching out): • Don't just ask for favors • Focus on providing extreme value first • Make thoughtful, detailed pitches • Show you've done your homework • Be patient and play the long game 3) Go Where Your Audience Lives: • Join paid communities ($149/mo is nothing if you land 1 client) • Lurk in Reddit threads • Answer Quora questions in detail • Participate in Discord servers • Be the MOST valuable member No promotion, just pure value. 4) The Power of Strategic Gifting: • Doesn't need to be expensive ($5-50 can work) • Make it personal and meaningful • Think long-term relationship building • One mentor landed a huge deal with a $50k guitar gift • Small gestures = big memories 5) Content Creation (if you choose to): • Focus on MASSIVE value over production quality • Create 5+ hour detailed tutorials • Answer common questions exhaustively • "Low quality, high effort" is the new formula • Example: mastering . com's 11-hour tutorials 6) Key Mindset Shift: Stop obsessing over: • Social media metrics • Personal branding • Complex marketing funnels Start focusing on: • High-leverage relationships • Direct value creation • Being present where your audience is 7) The ROI is INSANE: • Single partnerships can generate millions • One webinar can outperform months of ads • Relationship-based leads convert better • More sustainable than viral marketing • Less stressful than being an "influencer" Pro Tip: Review your Dream 100 list every quarter. Most businesses forget this and focus on low-leverage tasks instead. Links Mentioned: The Dream 100 Google Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a7d1GSZoJq_pT2Ptbvc9HsZWPxNsQDhRcUvT6d1V2Jw/edit?gid=0#gid=0 The Canvas Strategy Ep: https://youtu.be/fr5xG_bTV44 Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav) Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideas LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/ BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/ Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.co FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND JONATHAN ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jicecream LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-courtney-4510644b/ AJ&Smart: https://ajsmart.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Greg Isenberg?

  Today's episode of the Startup Ideas Podcast is well needed. It's about how do you get customers for your startup without a social following, without spending tons of money on ads, and just some really, really simple tips on how to do it. And we go through three ways on how to do it in this episode. And this is a tutorial, so by the end of it, you'll really understand how to do this. We talk about a concept called the Dream 100, and we give you a spreadsheet for it. It's about how do you reach out to potential partners or people and leverage their audiences to be well-known. The second is, you know, how do you utilize groups and communities to get customers and leads?

• 0:43Greg Isenberg?

  And the last is thinking about how do you make high-quality videos and coming up with ideas for content that's going to spread within the audiences you care about. This episode's with Jonathan Courtney, one of my favorite people to come on the Startup Ideas Podcast show. You're gonna love it. See you in there.

• 1:24Greg Isenberg?

  What are we talking about today?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Today, we're going to talk about how you get clients or how you get leads without needing to be a social media influencer, without needing to even use social media necessarily, and also without needing to create content. I thought that might be interesting for people. Like, this kind of cold start problem of finding an audience, finding leads, finding, like, building a list but like out of nothing. That could be interesting to your audience.

• 1:54Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, don't hit the desk because it picks it up.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I saw one of the recent episodes and it just sounds like I'm drumming the whole time.

• 2:05Greg Isenberg?

  Don't do that, but this whole like getting leads and customers like probably one of the biggest questions I get asked. I listen to the Startup Ideas Podcast and I'm like, great, good for you Greg with your 500,000 followers or whatever.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21Greg Isenberg?

  Easy for you to say.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23Greg Isenberg?

  You're gonna go and create this startup and then people are gonna go and use it. But we're keeping it real here.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  We're keeping it real.

• 2:31Greg Isenberg?

  We're keeping it real.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I work with a lot of people or I chat with a lot of entrepreneurs who, you know, never use social media. They've never run ads before. There's no chance of them going on X and posting regularly or even making YouTube videos. And then they're like, how do I get leads? You know, how do I do this? And so I talk about this a lot, but I don't think I've ever made content specifically about how to do it. And I just thought that maybe I'll just jump straight into some strategies. They're not all really connected. They just kind of all can work. And I don't even know how many there are. It's not something I've ever written down. It's just something I do. Have you heard of the Dream 100 method?

• 3:16Greg Isenberg?

  I haven't.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  That's good then. It would suck if you're like, yes, I have and I already talked about it on this podcast.

• 3:25Greg Isenberg?

  By the way, before you talk about the Dream 100 method, I literally need to take off my sweat sweatshirt because that's how hot I'm getting.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:32Greg Isenberg?

  Talking to you.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Before I talk about the Dream 100 method, we need to talk about the Dream 200 method. You've already upgraded. So Dream 100 step. The idea here is that you try to find other people who have access to the audience that you're looking for. So for example, you wanna, I don't know, start a web design agency or just give me a random, give me a random business and I'll give it, I'll use it as an example.

• 4:00Greg Isenberg?

  Sure. You want to start a, I mean, web design agency is a great one.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Fine. So you want to start a web design agency? And so you, and you also think I should, I probably would like to work with like founders and not, you know, massive corporate. So I want to work with like small businesses or startups and I want a web design agency. Okay, I'm starting it tomorrow and I have no social media presence and I don't know what an ad is. And I'm one of those people who thinks that ads don't work, even though that's not true. But anyway, it would take me too long to figure that out anyway. So what's the first thing you do? Well, one of the first things you can do is a strategy called Dream 100. The idea behind it is you literally make a list. You make like an Excel sheet or a Google sheet. And on the left, you make a list of all of the people who you think would

• 4:49Speaker 01

  be already talking to your audience or would have access to your audience. It can be people or it can be organizations. So off the top of your head, Greg, can you think of anyone who has an audience of people that speaks to founders and startup owners who might at some point want to have a website? Can you think of anyone?

• 5:10Greg Isenberg?

  Wait, could we do this live? Could I just open up a Google Doc and we can write it out?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's make it live. This top left, we have the, you know, partner name or company name or person name. So back to the question, I want to start a web design agency. Okay, I want to somehow think about, not thinking about how to contact them, but who are the people that I, who are talking to the audience that I want to have? So question one, can you think of anyone off the top of your head who's speaking with an audience of startups, startup owners or founders who you think might at some point want a website designed for them?

• 5:51Greg Isenberg?

  Maybe like when I think... Okay, so Product Hunt. Me?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Since you are an example of someone's dream 100, so you would be at the very top for a listener of this podcast.

• 6:05Greg Isenberg?

  True.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  So you're, and then you just fill this out. So your main website, you just fill in their main website, you link to all their social media stuff. You probably want to blur that out.

• 6:17Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, let's blur that out.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  You try to fill this whole thing out and get a feeling for that person and like who, how big is their audience, all of that. So this is like a research project, basically. And if you honestly spend one day just filling this out, let's like jump to the second one already. Who would be another person who speaks with founders and people who might want their website designed?

• 6:44Greg Isenberg?

  I was thinking of Product Hunt.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Product Hunt is a website which you could do a partnership with. So yes, Product Hunt.

• 6:53Greg Isenberg?

  So it could be people or, it could be people or companies, right?

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Theoretically, it can be people or companies. It's only worth putting a company there if you think that there's something you could potentially do with that company. For example, if that company has a podcast, which would also have that audience. So I would say it's worth it, at least for this first pass, to put Product Hunt on there.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I would also put like, okay, thinking about my city, looking at different meetups, finding, oh, there's an entrepreneurs organization meetup happening every Thursday in the city. And so I'm going to figure out who runs that and I would put them in the list as well.

• 7:40Greg Isenberg?

  Right.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  How can they put me in front of those people? That would be something I'm thinking about. So step one is just making a list of people or organizations or meetups or like containers where the people you want to work with are already being talked to or already being interacted with and are already gathering essentially.

• 8:05Greg Isenberg?

  Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now, they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, "How do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter?" All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas, or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need.

• 8:50Greg Isenberg?

  So you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  So this is like step one. Now you have a list of people that might be able to massively, it might be that contacting one of these people gets you more leads or gets you more traffic than doing all of the other stuff, like doing all the social media stuff and doing all the other things you could be doing. So for example, let's say someone is thinking, "Okay, out of this list, I've made a list of 100. By the way, a lot of people just do 10, a lot of people just do 20." Now, your next step is figuring out what could I do or what could I offer this person or organization that would put me in front of their audience or that would somehow expose me to their audience,

• 9:40Speaker 01

  but would also give them a lot of value? Like, very, you know, simple question in your mind, like, "What can I do to either have a partnership with them or give them value so they put me in front of the audience?" One option is paying them. So I'll give you an example. Early on in my company's history, I realized a lot of our audience is reading Daring Fireball, John Gruber's website. And so I just straight up paid for an ad on his blog, and it got us a crap-ton of traffic. So that was just like a paid way of doing it. A second example is... About six months ago, I reached out to a guy called Greg Isenberg,

• 10:21Speaker 01

  and I pitched him on an idea of me being an occasional host of this podcast. And that also generated a ton of leads for me. I don't post on any social media. You see, I'm a disaster at social media. But I'm able to generate leads using a system like Dream100, a system where I just look for who are essentially the people who are just already great at talking to the audience. People already like them. They're already like a face and a trusted person in those people's lives. And can I just be a slog, hanging on to the back of them and just somehow be exposed to their audience? So that's one really simple first step that you can do

• 11:06Speaker 01

  to start getting traffic to whatever it is you're doing. There's loads of steps and loads of ways you can do this wrong. But there's a strategy for reaching out to people so that you don't fuck it up, and it's called a canvas strategy. So once you have your list of people and you're like, okay, how do I actually reach out to people who are super busy already and already like don't need anything from a nobody like me? Usually that's what stops people because they're like, there's no point in me reaching out to Greg. Like, he's already got a huge audience. There's really nothing I can do for him. That's because you haven't really learned any strategies for reaching out to people. And my favorite one is called a canvas strategy. Google it. It's a thing that Ryan Holiday wrote.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  And the idea here is that it's a system that helps you figure out how to be helpful for people who are, you know, gatekeepers or above you in the sort of business hierarchy. We did an entire episode on the canvas strategy, Greg, at one point. So maybe it's worth just like linking to that. We actually did a full episode on it, you and I, sometime in the summer. But the idea here is, don't just reach out to Greg and be like, hey, can I come on your podcast? Because Greg's gonna be like... It's almost insulting to do that because he knows you just want to have access to his audience. But for example, what I did when I reached out to you, Greg, even though we

• 12:33Speaker 01

  already knew each other, I still took it seriously. I made like a pitch for why it would be worth your while having me on your podcast. And I put effort into it, even though I could have been lazy and just said, how can I come on your podcast? It's like, it's almost insulting. So, reaching out to people is an art. And we did an episode called Canvas Strategy, and I think you should just link to that. That is the art of reaching out to people, in my opinion.

• 13:01Greg Isenberg?

  How many millions of dollars have you made in your career from the Hustle 100 slash Canvas Strategy?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Way more. So, probably, that's actually a great question. Let me think. So, we've been around for 14 years. 14. Let me do a little bit of math. This is actually a great question. I've never thought about this. So, that's like five.

• 13:24Greg Isenberg?

  I didn't know you could do math.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Honestly, I'm quite bad at math for being a CEO of a company. I'd say, not me personally, but my business has made 50 to 60 million euro just from that.

• 13:38Greg Isenberg?

  You couldn't have said dollars. You had to say euros.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry. Dollars. Yeah. Well, then it's a little bit more. I'm trying to, I'm trying to be accurate about it. No one's ever asked me that question. We've been around for 14 years. And then the last eight years.

• 13:53Greg Isenberg?

  You're wearing a Yankees hat, trying to be all American, but then you're saying euros.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Euros. Yeah. I'd say like conservatively, being really conservative, I'd say 40, 40 to 50 million. Because we also use ads, and I can't 100% figure that out. But I'll give you one very clean and clear example.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Jake Knapp, the guy who wrote the book Sprint. I reached out to him a couple of years ago. I talked about it in Canvas Strategy. This connect, this one single connection. Instead of me like going on loads of podcasts and doing loads of things, I zeroed in on one person. I was like Jake is talking to our audience. Our audience buys his book. That's one specific person who really is the perfect like partner for AJ and Smart and like nobody else. I put all of my effort into that one person into really trying to figure out how we could have a really good partnership for him as well. That created our entire training business, which now

• 14:59Speaker 01

  we're working with corporates all over the world for the last, since that book came out, basically. And just us training people on the design sprint has been responsible for tens of millions of dollars. But that would never have happened if we had not met Jake. Even just being on this podcast, like just spending time thinking about how I can be valuable to you. Probably within 12 months will have been worth three or four million. So that's pretty amazing. Like, thank you.

• 15:35Greg Isenberg?

  No worries.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:38Greg Isenberg?

  I remember the first time I met you and first time I met you.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, cute one.

• 15:48Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, yeah. The first time I met you, you looked at me like I was a crazy person because I started talking about what I do and creating content, attracting audiences, that sort of thing. And you were like, what are you doing? That is so much work to do that. So you look like I was taking crazy pills.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  You were doing, you do a lot as well. You're, you're a busy man.

• 16:18Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I mean, the truth that I love doing, I love the creation of content. I also think it gives you a certain amount of clarity to the community and audience that you don't get if you're just renting.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 16:34Greg Isenberg?

  But I think that for a lot of people, doing what you, you say, just like, get in the door, get some customers, get some feedback, and then you can always create content afterwards, right? Like, no one's stopping you.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think like, it is one of the strategies I use. It's not the only strategy, but I think it's one, it's, it's one of these strategies. By the way, I didn't come up with it. I just learned it somewhere. I don't even remember where. But I was like, ah, this seems too easy. You just write the names of the people who are talking to your audience and you reach out to them and that like gets you clients.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  The, the only catch is you have to be good at what you do, like, as in you have to be able to talk about the thing. So if you're a web designer and you absolutely suck at web, web design, it won't work at all. So it's only gonna work if you are like the real deal, as in if you can do the thing, but then it really works. Who's trying to, oh, sorry, nevermind. Someone's trying to call me. I was telling you before we started this call, I'm having a really annoying day. It is the most annoying day at AJ and Smart of the year.

• 17:45Greg Isenberg?

  Don't, don't bring that on air. Don't bring that vibe on air.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  I'm gonna bring all the rage onto this.

• 17:51Greg Isenberg?

  You didn't say that in the original text message to me when you wanted to be an occasional co-host. Hey, I'm gonna come on air just to like.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, like, rant. You know, people in your audience maybe need to know that we also, well, especially me, are also sometimes just having an annoying, bad day running a business. Cause I think they probably think we're just like, every day is easy. It's all super simple. Anyway, let's get to the next strategy.

• 18:15Greg Isenberg?

  Let's do it. What's number two?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  So Dream 100 is number one. You don't have to do 100, but just even the research, even just researching the people, researching the potential partners, is going to give you a ton of ideas on, you know, the different potential ways that you could reach out to different people. And all that, you'll also be shocked. Oh, there's people like I never heard of in a super niche part of the market that are talking to like 20 people who could completely change my life. So that's another thing. Okay. The next thing, it doesn't really have a name. It's just figure out where your audience is congregating and spending their time and start spending your time there too. And start delivering extreme levels of value

• 19:01Speaker 01

  to the places where those people are spending time. Let me give you an example. There are a lot of groups for entrepreneurs. Like, for example, are you still running a school group?

• 19:13Greg Isenberg?

  I am.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Um, so you have a school group, uh, community. What is it called actually?

• 19:19Greg Isenberg?

  I think it's called a community, startupempire.co.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  So startupempire.co. It's probably like, this is not an ad for startupempire.co. I'm just giving an example. I do not get anything if someone joins startupempire.co. So does it, does it cost something or is it free?

• 19:36Greg Isenberg?

  It costs something.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Like what, if you wouldn't mind?

• 19:41Greg Isenberg?

  Uh, it's a hundred and forty nine dollars a month.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Okay, a hundred and forty nine dollars you pay, and I guess you can cancel anytime. So let's say you're thinking about this strategically and you're thinking, okay, where can I find people who are hanging out, who could potentially be my clients? I'm not going to recommend people go in and spam your group. Don't worry. So if I was looking at this, what I'm looking for is, okay, that's potentially a high quality place where people are hanging out, which maybe I might want to do work with. So I'm going to join that group. I'm going to spend the entire first month just being the most valuable person in that group. Zero spamming, zero telling people to reach out to me and DM me and trying to get work out of it. Just being the most valuable person in the group.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  When people are asking questions about web design, here you go, here's a question, don't even follow up with me. You know also that people struggle with this. So you just post like free templates, whatever it is, whatever you can do to make yourself an extremely valuable person in that group, while also observing the challenges people have in that group. That's an amazing way to start lightly generating leads for yourself. There's a ton of free groups on platforms like Discord, School, Facebook, whatever it is. And even the comments of YouTube channels that are dedicated to specific topics. And in these groups, you can just go in there and deliver as much value as possible.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  And doing that alone will generate leads for you for free or for a very low price per month, like the price of one day of failed experiments on Facebook running ads. And so for me, if I'm starting a company tomorrow, day one, I'm writing out my dream 100 list. Day two, I'm joining as many goddamn communities as possible. I'm lurking in Reddit groups as well. I'm looking at different type of entrepreneurial Reddit groups. I'm looking into the places where these people are congregating. And I am just being the most valuable person. Another thing that I used to do is when I started to try to become like a well-known facilitator.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  I'm on Quora. I've got like the paid Quora account or whatever it is. And I'm giving people the most detailed answers. No fucking chat GPT bullshit, just clean, detailed, extremely like over the top better than everyone else's answers. And I'm just trying to be valuable. If you're thinking about how do I generate leads as fast as possible? It still takes some time, but if you just do dream 100 and just go to where people are congregating and deliver value, within one month, you're going to start getting that momentum. It's like absolutely ridiculously easy. And that's still without you having to be an influencer, without you having to create content. You're just reacting to other people's stuff.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  And without you having to run ads or speak at conferences or release a book. It's just the basics of getting people interested in what you're doing and seeing the quality of what you can do. Those two things will get you like 80% of your clients in the first few months. If you just do it like that.

• 22:58Greg Isenberg?

  Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com. And that's why I invested in it.

• 23:40Greg Isenberg?

  They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30 day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. I want to add one quick thing to that whole strategy, which I do. I do that strategy today, like honestly.

• 24:02Greg Isenberg?

  So I think it not only does it work for like Facebook groups and school groups and discords. It also works on just replying and commenting to creators that, that you know, are in your niche. So for example, on YouTube, like on this podcast, Startup Ideas Podcast on YouTube. I recognize the same people who comment every single time. Like for example, there's this guy named Ryan Aldridge. No idea who he is, but I know he comments. Yeah. Hi, Ryan. And I know that he comments on every single video and he says something like pretty thoughtful. And if Ryan hit me up and he was like,

• 24:45Greg Isenberg?

  You know, on Twitter, let's say, and he was like, hey, I'd love to do something. I don't know if I'd say yes, but I'm 10 times, 50 times, 100 times more likely to, to do something with Ryan because I've seen his name so many goddamn times. And the same is true with Omar, who was recently on the pod, who taught a 90 minute, you know, session around using AI to, to build directories. He was like a listener of the pod. He was like commenting on stuff. He, you know, he, he was messaging me, you know, from that, you know, he ended up getting

• 25:23Greg Isenberg?

  access to the pod, which, um, you know, that episode might get 100 plus thousand views and listens, which is worth a lot of, you know, worth a lot. So what I suggest people do is turn on notification bells for a list of creators that you care about and just be the first, first person to write something thoughtful. Don't write like cool video or, or great thread on Twitter, right? Like, are you kidding me? Don't do that. But add value through comments and you'll also attract other commenters. You'll, you'll, you'll also attract trust with the creator.

• 26:08Greg Isenberg?

  Thoughts?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  That's an amazing idea. And I also think turning on all notifications for your dream 100 as well. Just there, any of the people who are in that list of people who are talking to your audience, they're probably the same people you're talking about. I actually somehow never thought about the fact that it makes sense to turn on notifications. So you can jump in there and reply to them. But yeah, any, any time you can deliver value also to the creator by being a helpful person in the comments, also by sharing the creator's stuff so that they have the feeling that you actually care about what they do and that you like what they do and that you're spreading it. Um, I think that's a fantastic idea. And you can see all of these are like layers that you put on top of each other for the machine to start working. I love that one.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  I remember you told me a story, you told it on the podcast of like you reaching out to the like singer of Weezer?

• 27:03Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  And then getting to go to one of the gigs?

• 27:07Greg Isenberg?

  Dude, not even just going to the gigs. Like, I was like hanging, hanging out with him backstage, you know?

• 27:13Speaker 01

  You're the master at this. You're the absolute master at it. Like, you're, yeah, you're just killer with that sort of stuff. Um, if you also have some money, one thing that people also don't realize, and I don't mean a crap ton of money, but if you're like, if you're listening to this, if you're listening to this, and I know you are because I've spoken to some of you, and you're running an agency that's making like, uh, 500K and you want to grow, and you're like, you know, spending loads of money on branding agencies, all of this other stuff. Take like 10K of that money, or 15K, reach out to the top person on your list, and ask them to, ask them to do a collab of some sort.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Or ask them, what could we do together that would expose me to your audience? We did a, and I'm not going to talk about the number, but we did a collaboration with Chris Doe. The, uh, he's like got a huge, huge design channel. And I just went on Instagram, reached out to him, and I was like, I'd love to do some sort of collab with you guys. You know, we had zero followers back then. And I just straight up said right from the beginning, because I had nothing to offer. I had no, I, I, I thought of the whole canvas strategy thing, and I was like, I have nothing to offer this guy. He's just too, he's too far ahead of me in this game that we're playing. And so, the only thing I can say is, we have a pretty good budget, and we'd love to do a collab with you.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Done. We did a collab within the next like three weeks or something. So I think just being clever with your marketing spend, and thinking about over-leveraged things versus we're going to do a rebrand, versus we're going to throw this into something we don't understand. Or versus, sometimes like, hiring a marketing agency, I hear this a lot. People hire a marketing agency to like run their ads. These people don't care, they don't care about your company necessarily. So sometimes it would be better to take that 50K or 10K, and just use it on your dream 100. And I heard a really killer one recently. My mentor bought his number one dream 100 person a $50,000 guitar.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Signed by like a super famous person. Um, and brought it person, obviously with permission, brought it personally to the guy's office. And now they're like doing crazy collabs together. It's so cool. And that's the kind of thing people don't think about. He could have spent that on some sort of bullshit marketing thing. He could have spent that on like rebranding or making tons of YouTube videos or whatever it is. But he spent it on buying a guitar for this guy. And I just think that's such a like, these are the types of things you need to be thinking about if you're looking for a lever. And by the way, that guy also has no social media. He's nowhere. He's nowhere to be found. This is an invisible person.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Um, I just love that kind of crap. Guys, I'm not asking you to buy me a 50K guitar. I don't want you turning up to my office with a guitar. But he's, he had an angle. He had a whole thing. It was really just super cool. What do you think about those types of things like these? Like, you know, lasering in on one person you think you could have a killer collab with. Maybe just offering to pay for it, or maybe just, uh, you know, bringing something interesting to their life, like for example, a crazy guitar.

• 30:39Greg Isenberg?

  I think, uh, a lot of people hit me up and they're like, I, you know, I do cold email or I reach out to people and no one. Like I don't hear back and they get like super, they feel bad and I don't blame, blame them for feeling bad. Um, but it's just that the reach out isn't targeted. It's not personalized. It's not, it's about, it's not about the person you're reaching out to. And I think like gifting is such an underrated tool to get someone to be on your side. Um, it just stacks the cards in your favor. So I love hearing stories about like a 50, you know, 50K guitar. That's like meaningful, you know, like, um, I think, uh,

• 31:23Greg Isenberg?

  I also heard a story, I don't know if he wants me to share it, but someone who you all know, who buys companies, you know, offer, he wanted to, you know, in his dream 100, I guess, he had a company, you know, this founder, and he wanted to buy this founder, you know, I think like a Ferrari. He said like, hey, like, I've got a Ferrari waiting for you in Hawaii. You know, in Hawaii, and you paint this like picture, you know, if you come and, you know, close this deal, like, I can't wait to meet you in Maui and we're gonna like sail into the sunset. Things like that. And now, I know the comment section is gonna be like, but I don't have enough

• 32:06Greg Isenberg?

  money for a Ferrari. And you know, and it's like, it doesn't need to be that, right? It could be something small.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:12Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Someone recently brought me this, like, oh, like, a business partner, we started a deal together and they brought this little teenage engineering thing. Thank you, Alan, by the way. And it's just such a memory. I think it's like $80 or something. And it's such a memorable thing because he knows I love teenage engineering. He knows I like to make music. It doesn't need to be something crazy. And you said, what was the thing you said you always gift people? Was it a little Buddha or something?

• 32:41Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:42Greg Isenberg?

  I did a year of Buddha, which is hilarious because I'm just a Jewish guy with a bunch of Buddhas.

• 32:50Greg Isenberg?

  So one year I, I bought like, I don't know, 500 Buddhas or something, hundreds of Buddhas. These small little things that were about like $5, maybe $7 each. It was, it was a really good deal, I will say. Like, it was a high quality mini Buddha. And to the, and I would, you know, meet all, you know, this is like, I'm in my early twenties, I'm in San Francisco, I'm trying to meet as many people as possible. I've got my dream 100 list, even though I didn't know that that's what it was. And every meeting, I would basically just be like, hey, like, thanks for your time. You know, I wish you good luck. And I would just hand them a mini Buddha. And to this

• 33:33Greg Isenberg?

  day, some of those people ended up, you know, they were also in their early mid twenties. Some of them are like billionaires now, or run hundred million dollar venture funds, or, you know, have sold companies to Stripe and things like that, executives at Meta. And they still, to this day, 10 years later, or more than 10 years later. They have that Buddha and they send me photos. They send me photos and they're like, hey, I hope all is well. And it's like, dude, you're like the SVP product of a trillion dollar company. And I'm on your mind for this $5 Buddha from this Jewish guy? How does this make this make sense?

• 34:12Speaker 01

  That's so cool. You are very, very good at this game, I have to say. Like you are one of the rare people. Like you do have a superpower of like keeping in touch with people and keeping like making people feel. And I think it's real, like making people feel thought of. Like I am, I, for your audience, just in case you think you need to have superpowers like Greg. I'm the opposite. I'm like a disaster with keeping up with people as Greg knows. Like Greg, you are, you have like the absolute mastery of just, I'm going to send a quick message to Jonathan. I'm going to reach out to this person. You know, everyone on the planet. And I think you have like, almost like a natural inbuilt dream 100 machine inside you.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  And I'm lazy as fuck. So what I do is I like have my dream 100 and I like focus on one person per year or one thing every two years or one thing every three years. And even that, you know, if you're not trying to build a hundred million dollar company, if you're just trying to do what I'm doing, which is bootstrapped under 10 million, that you can do this and be lazy and still it's like, not true. You can't be lazy. You can do this, be good at what you do, keep it consistent and still be pretty successful with it without even. What do you think about the angle? Actually, Greg, I'm saying here without building any sort of content, without doing any sort of, you know,

• 35:41Speaker 01

  being an influencer, but obviously I think it goes without saying, having content out there. So my, our YouTube channel for AJ and Smart, having content out there, being like somewhat visible. That makes everything 10 times easier than that's almost like a, you know, moving it from hard mode to easy mode. Right?

• 36:01Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's the whole game of, of business and life in general is you want. You want to make, you want to make your life easy, right? And you're, you're trying to stack the deck in your favor. Content, audience building, the leverage that you get from that is so big. So I think it's, and then once you're doing multiple things, right? You're doing dream 100 plus you're doing content. For example, like you've just multiplied it. You're just, it just starts to multiply. So that's why I look at someone, someone like you and I'm like, I don't know why you don't do content.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  I'm lazy and I'm not trying to build a company that makes, I mean, look, I am. I think that a big part of it is that I don't really like to be a public figure.

• 36:49Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  And I, um, I kind of like, you know, okay, if I do a tweet, right? No one is, no one is following me on Twitter or X, right? If I do a post on X, I'm worried the whole day that I've said something bad that I'll, and, and I'll like have to go back and re-explain myself or something. I'm just like a, I'm not really good with this sort of putting opinions out there and all of that kind of stuff. I used to do it when I, in my early twenties and I used to like almost thrive on a bit of the controversy of the things I would post. Uh, and now I'm like, I want to be not checking stuff on, which is why I actually like YouTube.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  I want to, actually that, that would be one of my other examples. If you don't want to build like a personal brand, if you don't want to get out there and be like, I'm also not naturally good at it the way you are. I think you have a really, you're, you've kind of almost got this brain that's optimized to the max for being really good at, uh, regular content. I look at your X account and it's just like, you're non-stop. And I think you'll always beat someone like me if we were competing in that sort of game. And I think that's also why people who make a lot of content are actually usually the most successful people. Like it's just, it's impossible to compete with it.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  If, if it was like a video game or a board game, it's like the overpowered skill is the ability to keep producing content.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Even when there's lots of annoying little fucking comments that you're like, you know, I'll get one comment, negative comment on a YouTube video and it will ruin my day. You can get like probably 10 and you're like, whatever, I'll just make the next video. I just have thin skin for that sort of thing. And so that's why I naturally lean towards methods which are less about me creating content, I guess. I'm a baby.

• 38:52Greg Isenberg?

  You have the thinnest skin in the game, dude.

• 38:56Greg Isenberg?

  I literally see your bones.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  I do need to put on some weight, to be fair. I want to talk about YouTube for a second. There's a channel I want to give a shout out to. One of my mentors is the founder. That's actually the best way to say it without giving away too much information. One of the founders of this company is a mentor to me. It's mastering.com. And I think they've really, in my opinion, mastered the art of creating content in a way for YouTube in a way that's ludicrously over the top valuable. And number two, isn't focused on the individuals and the individual characters who are posting the content. I've been trying to do this at AJ and Smart for years. I've not succeeded with it, but they've completely nailed it.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  If you check like their recent videos, sometimes their videos are 11 hours long, 12 hours long, 15 hours long. And they put this insanely valuable, these insanely valuable tutorials out there. And then the people who find those tutorials valuable are obviously going to check out, who's this company who's giving away all of this insane value? So if I were a web designer today, trying to start a company and I wanted to, and I wanted to like have people reach out to me on this next level, like the next level is content creation. But I wasn't super comfortable being like right up front as the face and I like giving my opinions. Then I would probably copy what mastering.com does.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Just to be clear, I have zero affiliation with mastering.com besides the fact that I pay one of their founders to teach me stuff or like to mentor me. So I don't care if they succeed or not. I just think it's a really cool YouTube channel.

• 40:45Greg Isenberg?

  So is what you're saying. Is what you're saying basically go in, what is the most amount of value you can give basically? You know, instead of, for example, creating a course and selling a course, maybe it's just you create the course, but you just give it away for free, right? And you just create as much freaking value, highly produced as possible, that people feel almost guilty for consuming it.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Here's what I would do, absolutely yes. And here specifically what I would do. I would be on Reddit, I would be on Qora, and I would be in 20 different groups on school and all these different platforms. And I see a question coming up. It's like, how do I, like, what's the quickest way to make a landing page in Framer that's completely responsive and blah, blah, blah, has a checkout? What I would do is I would sit at my computer, turn on Loom, and make a goddamn five hour from zero to the pages made video with no cuts, like, maybe going to the bathroom or something, and then cutting those bits out or bringing the camera with you. And that would be one of my YouTube videos. And I would then send it to the person who asked the question.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  And they're going to be like, what the actual hell? This, this person's like way too much. Like, that's way too much value. So that's what I would be doing. So, but yes, it's like making courses, but without the baggage of making courses, because making courses is like a looming stressful thing. This is just, I'm making a video to show you how to do the thing in my lo-fi way, but I'm good at what I do. And here's how I do it. Here's how I would do it using Framer or whatever it is.

• 42:25Greg Isenberg?

  I buy it. I also think that it's a really good way to sell software. Like, start by,

• 42:32Greg Isenberg?

  like, the margins of software are so great, especially like SaaS, 70, 80, 90%.

• 42:38Greg Isenberg?

  Go and create a bunch of videos. Don't worry that it doesn't, it doesn't even need to look good even. And it's funny, like, people ask me all the time, like, this show looks like crap. And Rappa, my producer is gonna hate, hate me for saying this. It looks like crap in the sense that when you compare this to like Diary of a CEO.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  We're just sitting at our laptops.

• 43:03Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, we're just sitting at our laptops. I, this, people hate me that this is in 720p.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  And you're, yet you're dominating.

• 43:11Greg Isenberg?

  You know, by the way, I will do some 4K videos for, for, for the people in the comment section. I see you.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  The nude, nude videos will be in 4K.

• 43:19Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, it's true. True. So, um, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Wait, you were just about to say something really like profound and I was, I think we got distracted by the 720p thing. I think you were just about to say something big.

• 43:39Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, me too, but I haven't, I haven't had enough coffee. This is the, what was I even talking about?

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also don't know. I got so distracted by the 4K thing. Um, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. We were talking about making these long form YouTube videos and the fact that it doesn't have to be high quality.

• 44:01Greg Isenberg?

  Totally.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:02Greg Isenberg?

  Low quality is the new high quality.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Look at the mastering.com videos.

• 44:06Greg Isenberg?

  Wait, did you, did you hear what I just said?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Low quality is the new high quality?

• 44:10Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. Do you agree with that?

• 44:12Speaker 01

  A hundred percent, 100. Lowest quality is the new 4K.

• 44:17Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, exactly. And by the way, low quality doesn't mean low effort. Like, we put a lot of effort into the, well, this episode, we didn't put that much effort into prep, but like, this show, this show, I do put a lot of effort into it.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do for sure.

• 44:34Greg Isenberg?

  And it's, it's, it's also.

• 44:38Greg Isenberg?

  Like, don't, don't think that just low effort means, sorry, don't think that low quality means low effort. What you want to do is low quality, high effort.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:51Greg Isenberg?

  That's where you want to be.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Also, just don't forget on YouTube, a lot of people just want to have something on in the background and learn through osmosis. So if you look at the mastering.com videos, or I've, I've been recently looking at, um, my favorite YouTube video this week was a two and a half hour, like, review of the new OP XY from Teenage Engineering. And it's just two guys, literally, it's just like a video camera pointed down at the device and the person pressing buttons on it. That's something I'll passively watch, but get a lot of value from. So it doesn't, it doesn't need to be obsessively high quality with slides, with whatever, just showing the people how to do the thing. And doing it, like, showing how good you are at the thing as well.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  In the end, you know, when these people are watching it, they're going to be like, can I just get Jonathan to do it? Actually, I don't want to watch a three hour video.

• 45:43Greg Isenberg?

  Well, I also think you're, you're dropping a gem here, which is Quora is, there's so much, there's so much good stuff on Quora because you can understand what people are asking for. And, and just go and make, like, going to make videos based on top Quora questions.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:03Greg Isenberg?

  And answers in and itself is such a huge insight. So thank you for sharing that.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Oh, you're welcome, man. I'm trying to think, is there anything else? So Dream 100, going to where people are just, you know, getting together and talking about the topic, just going to where your audience already is. Thinking about things like lower, you know, high effort, low quality content options. Is there anything else? Like, it's, if it's about how are we spending this first month generating a couple of new clients? Without building a big personal brand and you don't have a list.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Those work really well. Those, for me, are the things that I recommend or the things that I do with people.

• 46:46Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, don't overthink, honestly, don't overthink it. Like, that's, that's what I would do. And in fact, I feel like I want to create, I want to put this in, into like the process of whatever new company we launch.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I think the Dream 100 thing, you know what I'm annoyed about? At AJ and Smart, we talk about this Dream 100 thing all the time, but it only comes back to me once every two years, when somehow we've stagnated, like our, our revenue has stagnated, our profits are going down, and I'm like, "Yeah, but we're doing this and we're doing that," and I'm tweaking all these little things. And it's, I, you've probably heard this quote where it's like, you know, "Don't be the lion that chases the rabbits," or something about lions and rabbits and get the antelope instead of the rabbits. Great quote, right? But I end up looking at all the small things and trying to optimize the crap out of them,

• 47:37Speaker 01

  and it brings up our, like, revenue by 1% or 2%, and then it just clicks with me, and I'm like, "Wait a minute, what if I just reached out to this person and we did something together?" And usually, that's the step function explosive growth thing that happens. When I go back to the goddamn Dream 100 list and just look at it again and remind myself, "Oh, yeah." Like, for example, I, I give you a clear example of this. We were thinking about, okay, we're doing our Facebook ads, we're doing all this other stuff, where, you know, we're tweaking the funnel in all these little ways. And we're like, "But, but how, where did, looking at the, looking at the email list, where did this huge bump come from?"

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Like, that's basically 80% of the whole year. And then we were like, "Oh, we did a webinar with this partner." Like, "We did a webinar for this person's list. Why the fuck am I not doing a webinar with this person again, then?" It's because we forget. How, it's just still high, the hardest thing about running a business is trying to discern what's high leverage and what's just like menial tasks that feel good but do nothing. And honestly, just starting a business and focusing on something like Dream 100, focusing on something like being in the place where your customers are, these are like hyper-high leverage things to do and to be good at.

• 48:59Greg Isenberg?

  Couldn't agree more, dude. Couldn't agree more. All right, well. You're firing me up. You're firing me up. I know what I'm doing today. We'll include the Dream 100 Google Doc in the description for people to download and do it themselves. Highly encourage it. You know what else I highly encourage? Liking this video, commenting.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:22Greg Isenberg?

  Stuff like just say something to us and probably subscribing because that's that lets us know that we should continue creating videos and podcasts for free. So please do that.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  And I want to know who the top five people on your Dream 100 are. Let me know in the comments now.

• 49:44Greg Isenberg?

  All right. I'll catch you later, dude.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Thanks so much, Greg. See ya.

• 49:47Greg Isenberg?

  Thank you.