Sam Blond on the Future of Sales in an AI-Native World | Ep. 54

1. 0:00 – 1:26

   Intro

   1. SBSam Blond0:00

      Buyers still want to talk to a person. They don't want to, um, buy from an agent, a like, you know, Jack Altman avatar that shows up to a call-

   2. JAJack Altman0:10

      Yeah

   3. SBSam Blond0:10

      ... that is like not really Jack. So there's no higher ROI on my time than, um, spending time with customers.

   4. JAJack Altman0:19

      Sam, what a delight to be here. I'm really excited to do this with you.

   5. SBSam Blond0:21

      Thank you for having me. Uh, awesome to be here. I've been a fan of this for a really long time, so it's cool to be in this chair.

   6. JAJack Altman0:26

      I'm gonna try to live up to the hype of that.

   7. SBSam Blond0:27

      [laughs] Okay.

   8. JAJack Altman0:28

      Um, so I actually first learned about you by reading Jason Lemkin's SaaStr blog back when I was, you know, starting live, trying to learn about sales. And I remember in there it was like, you know, Jason's talking about my best, you know, sales rep at EchoSign, and he did all of this. Then I obviously knew about you through Parker, who we both know from, you know, Zenefits and Rippling. Obviously it was a... So I've known about you for a long time. Obviously I've gotten to know you well over the last couple years, but I actually wanna start by talking about sort of your sales journey. So can you talk through like maybe just like a quick summary of like how you came up through sales, you know, a bit about these companies, and maybe some of the things that you learned in each of those chapters?

   9. SBSam Blond1:05

      Yeah. Well, talk about lucking into some incredible companies. So, uh, Jason and Parker, both of which y- you alluded to, two of just like the greatest people, but also, um, most influential people on the, the, uh, career that I've had, um, and just like amazing advocates and close friends and all that stuff. So shout out to those guys. Uh, and, um, so let's see. I, I grew up in Kansas City and went to

2. 1:26 – 3:11

   Sam's sales journey

   1. SBSam Blond1:26

      University of Missouri. When I graduated, I was really fortunate that my older brother Brian was in San Francisco doing tech sales. I don't think I ever would've ended up out here, uh, but for that. So then 22, moved to San Francisco, got into tech sales. Um, I was at EchoSign a- and I, I appropriately said like sort of lucked into the relationship with Jason. I was just like, you know, using a recruiter that was introducing me to, uh, early stage startups. One of them was EchoSign. Uh, and I had a job offer and I took the job.

   2. JAJack Altman1:56

      Yeah.

   3. SBSam Blond1:56

      Um, a- and so I started as an SDR as many folks do in, uh, sort of early sales go-to-market in tech startups.

   4. JAJack Altman2:03

      Yeah.

   5. SBSam Blond2:03

      I was there for something like six years. Um, the company did relatively well and afforded me the opportunity to move up into, you know, more senior sales roles within the organization. Uh, then Jason introduced me to Parker, uh, went to Zenefits. I was VP of Sales there for a few years. Um-

   6. JAJack Altman2:22

      Crazy years there, which we can get into, but like, I mean, what a growth trajectory that was.

   7. SBSam Blond2:26

      Uh, it w- yeah, it was awesome. Y- you know, um, I was there for a little under two and a half years. For two of those almost two and a half years it was incredible.

   8. JAJack Altman2:34

      Yeah.

   9. SBSam Blond2:34

      And then like towards the end-

   10. JAJack Altman2:35

       Yeah

   11. SBSam Blond2:35

       ... like sort of a left turn.

   12. JAJack Altman2:37

       Yeah.

   13. SBSam Blond2:37

       And so lots of lessons, and we can, you know-

   14. JAJack Altman2:38

       Yeah

   15. SBSam Blond2:38

       ... go deeper or-

   16. JAJack Altman2:39

       Yeah

   17. SBSam Blond2:39

       ... as not, as, as you want there.

   18. JAJack Altman2:40

       Yeah.

   19. SBSam Blond2:41

       Uh, and then, um, prior to doing Founders Fund and ultimately Monaco, uh, most recently in the, this sort of sales career I was CRO at Brex.

   20. JAJack Altman2:48

       Yeah.

   21. SBSam Blond2:49

       Uh, and again, same idea, uh, just joined a, a company that was really exceptional from a very early stage. And so I think three times have benefited from the experience of joining when companies are relatively unknown and near $0 of revenue, and then being able to leave when they were much, much larger and, and lots of revenue.

   22. JAJack Altman3:10

       Yeah, so we, we can spend the

3. 3:11 – 5:28

   Echo Sign takeaways

   1. JAJack Altman3:11

      least time on this 'cause it's like reaching far back into the past, but like what, what did you take away from EchoSign? Like, obviously those were formative years for you as you thought about like what good sales looks like and what a good go-to-market machine looks like, but like that's probably where you got a lot of your early ideas about how this stuff should work. So like what were, what, what, what were your takeaways there?

   2. SBSam Blond3:29

      Yeah. Well, I think there are some-

   3. JAJack Altman3:30

      Were you guys up against Do- was DocuSign like a competitor?

   4. SBSam Blond3:32

      Yeah, that's right.

   5. JAJack Altman3:32

      Yeah.

   6. SBSam Blond3:32

      So, um, DocuSign was a competitor. Um, EchoSign was private for like three or four of the years that I was there, and then Adobe had acquired us. EchoSign became Adobe Sign after the acquisition. We were actually beating DocuSign when Adobe acquired us. Uh, and DocuSign is maybe the more familiar name now because EchoSign evolved into Adobe Sign. Uh, and, and so, uh, let's see. A couple things stand out. The, the first and foremost, and again, I, I genuinely lucked into this, I, I think there's like nothing more influential i- early in one's sales career than the company that you join. Uh, and, and you control a little bit of the success of that business. You know, I was an SDR and then I was a sales rep and I was one of, let's call it, like 10 growing into 40 salespeople. There's only so much that I can sort of attribute EchoSign's overall success to me.

   7. JAJack Altman4:20

      It's funny, I put this in the, um, true but hard to convince people of bucket of things where it's like with, you know, somebody early in their career it's like, you know, you've got like compensation, title, and quality of company, and it is very hard sometimes to convince people that quality of company is more important than those other things.

   8. SBSam Blond4:37

      It's arguably like, um, we, we can of course debate on the other side. It's arguably like the only thing that matters, uh, especially if you are joining as it is starting to take off. The way that I think about these things, i- i- a lot of it is like the risk reward. Um, a- and like the earlier you join, almost definitionally there is more risk, but if you can join like right at an inflection point when there is some signal that this company is really about to take off, but you also join in a very early stage where you are like the first-

   9. JAJack Altman5:02

      Yeah

   10. SBSam Blond5:02

       ... the second, the third, the fourth hire in, in the role or function that you-

   11. JAJack Altman5:05

       Yes

   12. SBSam Blond5:05

       ... are joining in, um-

   13. JAJack Altman5:06

       And, and then the path dependency on the career from there just is like so, so strong.

   14. SBSam Blond5:11

       That's exactly right. So, so EchoSign, um, there, there was this thing that was largely outside of my control, um, that was like the overall success of the business-

   15. JAJack Altman5:19

       Product market fit was just good

   16. SBSam Blond5:20

       ... th- th- that influenced my personal success-

   17. JAJack Altman5:22

       Yeah

   18. SBSam Blond5:22

       ... uh, as much as anything. I think there is like a, a, a different, um, variable here. Um,

4. 5:28 – 7:02

   Building Zenefits GTM

   1. SBSam Blond5:28

      I, I have, I, I sort of lucked into or found a career path that is a good fit for me.

   2. JAJack Altman5:35

      Yeah.

   3. SBSam Blond5:35

      Um, like I enjoy this a lot, uh, and I'm pretty good at it in ways that, uh, had I tried something different I would've probably been less good and enjoyed it less. Uh-

   4. JAJack Altman5:45

      Okay. S- l- I, I wanna go, I wanna go to Zenefits. Parker obviously one of the great founders of, you know, the, the last decade and, you know, o- obviously Zenefits in some ways like, you know, he, he basically rebuilt Zenefits, uh, and figured out like, you know, these are the product things that need to happen for this to be a super durable company. But there was really strong product market fit there, but I think- Equally notable, the go-to-market machine and apparatus that early Zenefits had was, like, remarkable. And so like, yes, in the end, like some product things weren't there, but like can you talk about that early scaling? 'Cause I think it was like, at least of that gen- you know, it was maybe what, 2013, '14 that it was scaling, something like that.

   5. SBSam Blond6:23

      Yeah. I, I joined in December of 2013, and then Parker and I both left around the same day.

   6. JAJack Altman6:28

      Yeah.

   7. SBSam Blond6:28

      Um, left in quotes. Uh-

   8. JAJack Altman6:30

      Yeah

   9. SBSam Blond6:30

      ... around the same day in 2016, I think it was February of 2016.

   10. JAJack Altman6:34

       S- can you talk about what building that go-to-market machine looked like in those early days?

   11. SBSam Blond6:38

       Uh, yes. So, um, let's see. Uh, you- we've talked about Parker a little bit. I, I think an inspiration in a couple ways, just in terms of like h- uh, f- learning so much on how he as a founder and CEO and runs a business, there's just like a lot of lessons there that you sort of or- organically-

   12. JAJack Altman6:53

       What's one-

   13. SBSam Blond6:54

       ... learn from

   14. JAJack Altman6:54

       ... what's one that you, like, come back to a lot?

   15. SBSam Blond6:57

       There was a, um, thought exercise in March of 2014 that, um, we,

5. 7:02 – 9:51

   Parker's 0 to $10M thought exercise

   1. SBSam Blond7:02

      when I signed up for Zenefits, we had a revenue target of going from effectively zero, maybe it was a few hundred K, when I joined in December of 2013. So we were creating our 2014 plan. We wanted to go from effectively zero to $10M of ARR by the end of 2014, so in 12 months.

   2. JAJack Altman7:18

      Which by the way, in 2014, you know, now there's-

   3. SBSam Blond7:19

      It was a lot

   4. JAJack Altman7:20

      ... people are like, "Ah," but that's like, that's like today somebody saying zero to 100.

   5. SBSam Blond7:23

      That, that was sort of unheard of. And, and Parker, um, let's see, uh, Parker, as, as he should, ha- has sort of like very ambitious, dream big, uh, a- aspirations and expectations. Um, and so zero to 10 million was like th- there weren't a lot of other startups that were doing it. Um, and so then early in the year of 2014, uh, we were trending towards more than that. Um, and so he sat me and Matt Epstein down, who was leading marketing, and said, "Let, let's go through a thought exercise of instead of finishing the year at 10 million ARR," which is our like, y- you know, um, stretch goal or however you wanna frame it, "what does it look like if we finish at 20? A- and we wanna back into sort of like, what are the headcount implications of doing this? Uh, what are the sort of like lead implications of doing this? How many leads would we need? What would the marketing spend look like?" And you sort of like do whiteboard session on, I don't know, Monday night or whatever, and y- you end at, at 1:00 a.m. And we kind of like look around the room and Parker's like, "Well, we're not gonna tell the board yet, but we're gonna do this."

   6. JAJack Altman8:19

      Yeah.

   7. SBSam Blond8:19

      And three days later he told the board, like the new goal-

   8. JAJack Altman8:21

      [laughs]

   9. SBSam Blond8:22

      ... is 20 million in ARR. So there, there's a takeaway that you can like apply that process-

   10. JAJack Altman8:26

       Yes

   11. SBSam Blond8:26

       ... to all sorts of, uh, aspects of the business.

   12. JAJack Altman8:29

       And is that basically, does that boil down to just like people rise to the level of expectations you set, and just pushing the boundaries of what great could be just sparks, you know, more achievement? Is that kind of it?

   13. SBSam Blond8:40

       I, I think there's something there. I also think that there's something around, like, manufacturing urgency and, uh, having like re- really audacious goals and, th- there's probably like several takeaways, but that specific process-

   14. JAJack Altman8:51

       Yeah

   15. SBSam Blond8:51

       ... is one that I try and apply, and it can be, um, it, it can be something like a revenue target. It can also be something like how long is something going to take?

   16. JAJack Altman8:59

       Yeah.

   17. SBSam Blond8:59

       Uh, what would it take actually if we needed to do this in a shorter amount of time, and what would sort of be the trade-offs and those sorts of things.

   18. JAJack Altman9:05

       Yes.

   19. SBSam Blond9:05

       Uh, and so it's just, uh, operating rhythm of the business, something like that.

   20. JAJack Altman9:08

       Yeah. Okay. So you have these ambitious goals for the year. So then, like, what goes into that? Like, when you said, "Okay, what does need to be true to go to 20 instead of 10?" Like, what's the, what is that conversation?

   21. SBSam Blond9:18

       Well, I think, um, one of the things that we, we benefited from quite strong product market fit at Zenefits. We benefited from the same at EchoSign.

   22. JAJack Altman9:27

       Yes.

   23. SBSam Blond9:27

       At Brex, now at Monaco.

   24. JAJack Altman9:29

       Yes.

   25. SBSam Blond9:29

       Um, a- and so then, uh, I, I think that's worth highlighting. Um, I, I, I do think that there's, like, um, something that we were pretty deliberate about at Zenefits that I took with me to, uh, both Brex and now Monaco, i- is being like very intentional about creating what I would describe as a demand-rich environment.

6. 9:51 – 14:20

   Creating a demand-rich environment

   1. SBSam Blond9:51

      Um, and I think that many founders, sales leaders, um, just startups broadly sort of misdiagnose the opportunity to acquire customers and grow revenue more quickly as something, um, related to conversion rates. Uh, so like we have these opportunities that we're tracking, um, we're in July of 2026. If we look back to June of 2026 and we maybe missed our revenue target, um, the reason that we missed that is because like, you know, gosh, this one deal that we really thought was gonna come in and the sales rep said w- it was gonna come in, it, it pushed.

   2. JAJack Altman10:25

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSam Blond10:26

      And so had it come in, we would've hit our revenue target or something like that.

   4. JAJack Altman10:29

      Yeah.

   5. SBSam Blond10:29

      Um, a- and my diagnosis in many of those instances i- is actually something like you should have had like five deals.

   6. JAJack Altman10:36

      Yeah.

   7. SBSam Blond10:37

      Um, and if three of them close, you finish way over target.

   8. JAJack Altman10:40

      Yes.

   9. SBSam Blond10:40

      Uh, and if that one deal closes, you actually hit your target, but in a lot of ways, like you could have done better.

   10. JAJack Altman10:45

       I, I can't remember who it was. It was either you, Parker, or Matt Epstein, but one of the three of you told me at some point when I was like trying to get, you know, go-to-market advice for Lattice. It was like, look, you can improve your conversion rate by this much. You can improve like your, you know, first deal to op- but, like, the thing that you can change by 10X is your top of funnel.

   11. SBSam Blond11:05

       That's right.

   12. JAJack Altman11:05

       And I think that was always deep in, you know, this group's psychology is like, you can improve all these things a little bit, but you can improve the top of funnel. Like, if you have a company worth building, there's like 100 times more customers that you could be talking to than you're talking to. I think this is like a very underrated thing, and it's like kind of like a red pill once you see it.

   13. SBSam Blond11:24

       Uh, w- it, it's something that we, we have lived by and I think benefited from. Uh, and, um, it, it j- just to sort of like reinforce the thing that you just said, um, I, I would... Well, um, i- if you have 10% conversion rates, uh, improving those conversion rates to 20%, which sounds like you're improving your conversion rates by 10%, but you're actually doubling-

   14. JAJack Altman11:45

       Doubling

   15. SBSam Blond11:45

       ... the conversion rates.

   16. JAJack Altman11:47

       Yeah.

   17. SBSam Blond11:47

       It's really hard. Uh-

   18. JAJack Altman11:48

       Yes

   19. SBSam Blond11:48

       ... a- and especially, like, you know, if you have a sales organization, you have to, like, train the salespeople. If you're a founder-

   20. JAJack Altman11:53

       Yeah

   21. SBSam Blond11:53

       ... you have to get, like, far better at, at, like, pitching and closing and all of these things, um, if you have a large enough addressable market. And so this doesn't totally work if you have, like, 50 potential customers that you can sell into.

   22. JAJack Altman12:05

       Yeah.

   23. SBSam Blond12:05

       But for companies like Monaco and many other startups out there, um, it is far easier to double your, uh, leads or opportunities. Uh, and so that is where I would, uh, put a, a disproportionate amount of attention. And if you do so, actually at the expense of either conversion rates or, or maybe, like, efficiency-

   24. JAJack Altman12:25

       Mm-hmm

   25. SBSam Blond12:25

       ... um, that is a worthwhile trade-off. A- and so if you feel like-

   26. JAJack Altman12:28

       As long as, like, on a per-rep basis, they're still closing enough per person per year kind of thing.

   27. SBSam Blond12:33

       As long as, as your growth trajectory is dramatically increasing month over month, i- if you have something, i- if you are not-

   28. JAJack Altman12:41

       Do you look at the efficiency per rep? Do you care about that? Or is that something that doesn't matter till later on?

   29. SBSam Blond12:46

       Yes, but you can apply the same logic that we just did at the company level to the rep level also. So I would rather deliver two times the number of leads or opportunities to a rep and actually have their conversion rates, like, come down slightly-

   30. JAJack Altman12:59

       Yeah
7. 14:20 – 21:19

   People, brand, and revenue ops

   1. SBSam Blond14:20

      Brex's outcomes while I was there as much as anything, um, two of which were true at Zenefits, one of which was actually a learning from Zenefits that we started far, um, later than we otherwise should have that we were able to capitalize on early at, uh, Brex. Then we can kind of do the same thing, if it's interesting, for Monaco because it's a different world today than it was in 2018.

   2. JAJack Altman14:40

      Yeah.

   3. SBSam Blond14:40

      Uh, the three things. The, the first is, like, um, recruiting and building the team. Uh, at Zenefits, my first two hires were the top two sales reps at EchoSign.

   4. JAJack Altman14:53

      Mm.

   5. SBSam Blond14:54

      Brought them with me. Their names are Matt Plank and Jameson Young. Matt Plank is now the CRO at Rippling. Jameson Young was CRO at Gong. He's now, uh, SVP of something important at Rippling in their sales organization.

   6. JAJack Altman15:06

      Yeah.

   7. SBSam Blond15:06

      So these are, like, um, two of the people that have actually influenced my s- my personal success as much as anything. And then you can just imagine that sort of cascading from there. Uh, and so at, at, um, both Zenefits and Brex, now at Monaco, like, we just have an incredible sort of, like, NFL, uh, level of, of, uh, players-

   8. JAJack Altman15:27

      Yeah

   9. SBSam Blond15:27

      ... in a sales organization. And I think, um, you know, we can attribute so much of the success of, uh, the go-to-market organizations at these companies to the people-

   10. JAJack Altman15:34

       Yeah

   11. SBSam Blond15:34

       ... that exist within the ro- go-to-market organizations. Um, I think the second thing, uh, e- we, we touched on it, so we don't have to go much deeper. Um, i- if you think about early days of Brex, one thing that we did, I think, a, a very effective job of was going out of stealth to, like, everyone knowing and talking about Brex very, very quickly. Uh, and we did things like huge billboard campaigns and gifting campaigns and, um, fundraise announcements and so much of the stuff that, like, maybe ho- hopefully-

   12. JAJack Altman16:03

       Yeah

   13. SBSam Blond16:03

       ... like Monaco is known a little bit for today.

   14. JAJack Altman16:04

       But you got really loud. I remember that.

   15. SBSam Blond16:06

       Really loud. Yeah.

   16. JAJack Altman16:07

       Yeah.

   17. SBSam Blond16:07

       Um, and I think the idea was, like, we want as close... I don't know if we were, um, a- as intentional as we are at Monaco today about this, but the idea is that, like, we wanted close to 100% of our target market to have heard of Brex.

   18. JAJack Altman16:20

       Yeah.

   19. SBSam Blond16:20

       Uh, and so then when we reach out to founder, finance leader, controller from Brex-

   20. JAJack Altman16:25

       It's not, it's not fully cold

   21. SBSam Blond16:25

       ... i- you, you know who we are.

   22. JAJack Altman16:27

       Yeah.

   23. SBSam Blond16:27

       Um, and hopefully you have, like, some positive brand association with that. Um, so we were very deliberate about that, and I think a- again, like, the, the, the concept of creating this demand-rich environment was something that we were very deliberate about early on at, um, Brex. The third thing that I think, um, we did, gosh, over time, um, the, the, like, grade improves, but at Zenefits we get something like a D-plus, um, from, from an early stage, is, like, the influence of what, what would be considered today as revenue operations.

   24. JAJack Altman16:55

       Hmm.

   25. SBSam Blond16:56

       Um, and it's just being very, uh, thoughtful about, um... Well, h- here's maybe the easiest, uh, uh, illustration of this. Not all leads are created equal. Um, and, and revenue operations is, like, far more complex than this specific example, but I think this specific example helps highlight the influence that it can have. Not all leads are created equal, and there's gonna be influence both on, um, like the type of company that the lead or opportunity that you are, uh, potentially selling to. There's also gonna be influence at, like, the, the persona level. So who is the person that we are meeting with? One thing that we did at Zenefits that was a mistake is we treated all leads or opportunities, two sides of the same coin, as being equal. And so we had things like opportunity goals that was sort of the, the thing that, like, fed into what is the ultimate outcome of revenue. That was wrong.

   26. JAJack Altman17:42

       Yeah.

   27. SBSam Blond17:42

       Because what we started doing was getting more lower quality opportunities-

   28. JAJack Altman17:47

       Hmm

   29. SBSam Blond17:47

       ... that converted at lower rates that led to less revenue.

   30. JAJack Altman17:51

       Right. Yeah.
8. 21:19 – 28:00

   Why Sam went to Founders Fund

   1. JAJack Altman21:19

      and you had, like, a new cha- like, a chapter to your life that was not about startup sales. So, like, can you talk about what that was, that experience, what you learned? Why'd you come back to what you're, you know, a new version of what you've been doing?

   2. SBSam Blond21:32

      Yeah. Well, look, um, I, I've, uh, you and I have both talked about, um, Jason and Parker. I'd be remiss if I didn't, it, mention something about, like, the learnings from Pedro, Enrique, Michael, who, who is CEO now, C- CEO at a company called Figure. Um, a- and so, like, e- equal sort of parts inspiration and then, um, uh, let's see, gratitude-

   3. JAJack Altman21:51

      Yeah

   4. SBSam Blond21:51

      ... for, for the influence that they've had on my career as well. And, and again, just, like, every single time, I have been so fortunate in surrounding myself with the greatest people on earth. It, you know, like, you go from Jason to Parker to, uh, uh, Pedro, Enrique, Michael, and then we get to, uh, Founders Fund, right?

   5. JAJack Altman22:08

      Yeah.

   6. SBSam Blond22:08

      And, and, [laughs] and it's like you've had folks on this, uh, many of the folks on the show. We were talking about Brian-

   7. JAJack Altman22:11

      Yeah

   8. SBSam Blond22:12

      ... uh, prior to-

   9. JAJack Altman22:13

      Yeah

   10. SBSam Blond22:13

       ... to starting the recording. But gosh, um, Peter, Brian, Trey, e- e- everyone i- is just, like, exceptional there. So let's see. I think, um, I, I, I can get a little bit personal on, on, like, my mindset after-

   11. JAJack Altman22:25

       Yeah

   12. SBSam Blond22:25

       ... uh, Brex.

   13. JAJack Altman22:26

       I'd love that. Yeah.

   14. SBSam Blond22:26

       Um, so this is late '21, early '22. Um, I'm reaching, like, my four-year-

   15. JAJack Altman22:32

       Mm-hmm

   16. SBSam Blond22:33

       ... uh, uh, sort of, uh, tenure at Brex.

   17. JAJack Altman22:35

       COVID.

   18. SBSam Blond22:35

       [laughs] It, it is COVID. I'm in Miami.

   19. JAJack Altman22:37

       Yeah. [laughs]

   20. SBSam Blond22:38

       Uh, so I, I, I've moved to Miami at this point. And um, [clicks tongue] you know, I, I just felt like, for the first time in my career, um, I, I felt satisfied, which is very, um, it sounds positive. It's actually bad.

   21. JAJack Altman22:50

       Mm.

   22. SBSam Blond22:50

       Um, I, I felt like sort of satisfied with what I had accomplished in this, like, category or world of technology sales. And you know, I could have, if, uh, le- let's make the assumption that I was leaving Brex. Uh, I could have done something like go, um, either early stage and maybe, like, a more strategic title or something, but I would effectively lead go-to-market at a company.

   23. JAJack Altman23:10

       Yeah.

   24. SBSam Blond23:10

       Just, like, definitionally the probability of joining an earlier stage company that has a Brex-like outcome, you know, we were a $12.5 billion company-

   25. JAJack Altman23:16

       Yeah

   26. SBSam Blond23:16

       ... when I left, just like definitionally low.

   27. JAJack Altman23:18

       And it's like even if you did, it's like it was kind of the same, was just a bigger number.

   28. SBSam Blond23:21

       I, I, I was, I wasn't motivated to-

   29. JAJack Altman23:23

       Yeah

   30. SBSam Blond23:23

       ... to do it. Um, like, I wanted a new challenge. Um, you know, I alluded to, uh, my brother Brian very early on in this sort of like career arc that, uh, Brian was out in, in San Francisco doing technology sales when I had moved out here.
9. 28:00 – 29:40

   Why Monaco, why now

   1. SBSam Blond28:00

      innings of this platform shift, um, that is AI.

   2. JAJack Altman28:03

      Yeah.

   3. SBSam Blond28:03

      Um, and I, I do think that there will be a new market leader that emerges in the category that we are building in, which is go-to-market or sales technology.

   4. JAJack Altman28:14

      Yeah, it's like this, um, this paradigm, you know, in some ways seems to be like, I guess, going back to cloud. It was like, you know, and I guess we w- neither of us were w- really working at the m- beginning of that shift, but it was-

   5. SBSam Blond28:27

      Maybe we're, we're students of history, though, or something like that.

   6. JAJack Altman28:30

      Yeah. And it's, and it's like you could see that basically it's like there were all these on-prem companies.

   7. SBSam Blond28:33

      Yes.

   8. JAJack Altman28:33

      And if you started a cloud company at the right time, it was just really hard for those old companies to turn the boats quick enough to come do what you were doing, and it was just a genuinely better offering for customers. And so it just dominated. And in just, like, category after category, like, the cloud version just won, and the old companies couldn't get there, and the customers just preferred it, and bam. And it seems like in AI there's a version of this happening now where it's going from selling tools to selling the work, and it's just dominant to customers, and the old companies can't seem to catch up.

   9. SBSam Blond29:03

      I think y- you articulated it, uh, uh, perfectly. Um, th- these platform shifts rhyme, where, uh, Siebel, that was maybe the incumbent or market leader in this category that Monaco is building in, which is go-to-market or sales, was the market leader. There was nothing inherently wrong with the business. In fact, like, one of the most incredible businesses a- at the time in history. Um, the same thing is true with the market leader today, which is Salesforce. Um, just i- incredible business. Uh, and I, I, I think that, um, they are... Any market leader, and you can, you can pattern match to other,

10. 29:40 – 31:40

    The Salesforce innovator's dilemma

    1. SBSam Blond29:41

       uh, functions within enterprise software, that they're faced with an innovator's dilemma where they have an existing set of customers-

    2. JAJack Altman29:48

       Yeah

    3. SBSam Blond29:48

       ... on a platform that was architected pre-AI. And so they can either continue serving the needs of those customers and focusing on where they are generating revenue and building on top of this existing platform, or they can disrupt themselves. A- and seemingly every time, uh, businesses are faced with this innovator's dilemma during a platform shift, they gravitate towards the former.

    4. JAJack Altman30:12

       Yeah.

    5. SBSam Blond30:12

       Which I think for us equates to opportunity, where, uh, uh, we can, um... And, and by the way, I think, like, what Salesforce and what other companies are doing, they are overlaying AI on top of a pre-AI system architected platform, which is better than no AI-

    6. JAJack Altman30:32

       Yeah

    7. SBSam Blond30:33

       ... but less good than being truly AI-native, which is what a company like Monaco is.

    8. JAJack Altman30:38

       Yes.

    9. SBSam Blond30:38

       Um, and so for us, we can go after, um, a sort of narrow segment of the market today, which is, uh, startups. Um, and if you think about Salesforce's revenue, how much of Salesforce's revenue is concentrated in techn- or early-stage technology startups? Like-

    10. JAJack Altman30:53

        Less than 1%.

    11. SBSam Blond30:54

        C- cer- certainly less than 1%. Uh, and so we can, um, go after that market. We can build a better pla- platform. We can build a platform that's truly AI-native. We can get, um, y- you know, close to mar- monopoly market share there.

    12. JAJack Altman31:04

        Yeah.

    13. SBSam Blond31:05

        And then we start to move upmarket, and we start to ag- organically expand outside of startups, uh, and, uh, uh, hopefully eventually evolve into the market leader. Um, but whether it's us or somebody else, it seems a foregone conclusion that the, um, uh, c- Uh, category leader, the platform of record in sales-

    14. JAJack Altman31:23

        Yeah

    15. SBSam Blond31:24

        ... in let's call it five years-

    16. JAJack Altman31:25

        Yeah

    17. SBSam Blond31:26

        ... will be a platform that is archite- a- architected with AI in mind-

    18. JAJack Altman31:29

        Yes

    19. SBSam Blond31:30

        ... and not one that was architected 20 years prior.

    20. JAJack Altman31:32

        You had a choice to make, which was obviously what you're selling is, like, work and outcomes, and, you know, you're selling sort of, like, revenue in some sense.

11. 31:40 – 34:30

    Why Monaco chose to be the system of record

    1. JAJack Altman31:40

       You chose to also be a system of record. You didn't have to do that, but you made that deliberate choice, I think to the extent to where you won't integrate with a system of record, even though you obviously could. You know, you can imagine a world where you chose to do that. Many other-

    2. SBSam Blond31:51

       Chose to do

    3. JAJack Altman31:52

       ... many other comp- right, because it's easier to say, "Look, I'm not gonna try to, you know, be your HubSpot, but I'm gonna give you these tools that let you get more revenue and set up all these meetings and do all the, you know, accoutrements around the CRM." You've chosen to say, "If you wanna work with Monaco, we're the CRM." Why'd you choose that?

    4. SBSam Blond32:07

       That's right. Well, several reasons. Uh, I, I think, um, there are two categories of companies that are sales products. There are system of record companies. Um, today, that is a CRM. We actually believe that forward-looking, th- this, like, concept or category of a CRM will evolve into something of the past. We are more-

    5. JAJack Altman32:29

       Oh

    6. SBSam Blond32:29

       ... orienting around outcomes, and so we think that what today is this, like, system of record that manifests as a database CRM eventually becomes a, um, revenue automation platform that's actually oriented around outcomes and not things like storing data.

    7. JAJack Altman32:44

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSam Blond32:45

       Uh, so we believe that there is, like, a, a new type of company that emerges from this that is a system of record, um, but doesn't look like the existing systems of record.

    9. JAJack Altman32:53

       But what does it mean to be the system of record if it's n- if not a, if not just, like, a database? What is it?

    10. SBSam Blond32:59

        Uh, it is... Um, well look, HubSpot is appropriately named.

    11. JAJack Altman33:04

        Hmm.

    12. SBSam Blond33:04

        It, it is the hub.

    13. JAJack Altman33:05

        Yeah.

    14. SBSam Blond33:05

        Everything orchestrates from the system of record.

    15. JAJack Altman33:09

        Yes.

    16. SBSam Blond33:09

        Uh, and-

    17. JAJack Altman33:09

        Because it's the source of truth of data

    18. SBSam Blond33:11

        ... a- and, and, um, that's right. And y- you asked a question, like, why did you make this decision? Well, if we, i- if we probably, um, if we bucket these, uh, uh, company types or products into two categories, there's system of record and there's point solutions. Point solutions are layers on top of what today is a CRM system of record. Um, if we think about the outcomes of those types of businesses backward-looking, um, we have market leaders like Salesforce that today are $120-plus billion companies, um, just a few months ago were significantly larger than that.

    19. JAJack Altman33:39

        Yep.

    20. SBSam Blond33:39

        Um, and then several others that are actually, like, quite large businesses.

    21. JAJack Altman33:42

        Yep.

    22. SBSam Blond33:42

        Um, if we think about the category of point solutions that integrate to these systems of record-

    23. JAJack Altman33:47

        Right

    24. SBSam Blond33:47

        ... um, there are some that, um, experience some e- early revenue growth and early maybe marks of low to, uh, mid-single digit billion dollar valuations.

    25. JAJack Altman33:58

        Yep.

    26. SBSam Blond33:59

        Um, but none of them, historically speaking, have realized, uh, generational technology company outcomes.

    27. JAJack Altman34:04

        Yep.

    28. SBSam Blond34:04

        Uh, we're not motivated by being a point solution. We're not motivated by an outcome-

    29. JAJack Altman34:10

        Yeah

    30. SBSam Blond34:10

        ... um, which w- again, like, a, a really exciting outcome for those that experience it. We g- we want a shot.
12. 34:30 – 41:10

    Disrupting labor

    1. SBSam Blond34:30

       budget.

    2. JAJack Altman34:30

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSam Blond34:31

       Uh, we are disrupting labor.

    4. JAJack Altman34:32

       Yeah, that's right.

    5. SBSam Blond34:33

       Uh, and so the future market leader has both that IT budget, but it also has the labor budget. Um, Monaco is way more expensive than the sort of legacy system of record products-

    6. JAJack Altman34:43

       Yep

    7. SBSam Blond34:43

       ... because we are doing the labor on behalf of our customers.

    8. JAJack Altman34:47

       Which by the way is the story of all the AI-native companies, is it's dr-

    9. SBSam Blond34:50

       It's true

    10. JAJack Altman34:50

        ... it's both dramatically more expensive in some sense, and it's also dramatically cheaper in another sense than what you would be doing alternatively to get the same outcome.

    11. SBSam Blond34:58

        That's exactly right. A- and, and people, not only are, are, uh, customers willing to pay, th- this is what they want. Um, the, the other, the, you, you asked a question that, that maybe I wanna touch on, um, because I, I think it could be insightful, um, or, or maybe helpful for other founders that are starting businesses today. There's a, there's an application of AI in Monaco-like products that is, uh, seemingly obvious, which is we are AI-native. We just talked about it. It's the labor disruption. We are, um, using agents and compute to replace workflows that founders and salespeople would otherwise be doing themselves. Um, and it is more expensive when a human does it, and it actually produces worse outcomes when a human does it. Um, the, the thing that I think is, like, less obvious in terms of an application of AI that we've been very deliberate about or certainly intentional from the very early days, the cost of building software is trending to zero. And so we want to take on as much scope as we possibly can, starting with the system of record, but also displacing all of these point solutions that we believe-

    12. JAJack Altman36:01

        Yeah

    13. SBSam Blond36:01

        ... are actually features of a broader platform and not independent product lines or independent businesses in many cases. And so-

    14. JAJack Altman36:08

        By the, by the way, this extreme breadth focus was obviously sort of, you know, like Par- Parker was kind of, like, one of the, like, early canonical examples of, like, the, what a software business really is at the end of the day is, like, these customer relationships that allow you to extremely efficiently build and sell more products to them, and you, you know, the customer just gets a straight-up better experience 'cause the data's tied together. It ends up being cheaper for them in summation. You don't have to have all these different vendors, like, all these things. Seems like now with AI, you should actually take that to an extreme degree.

    15. SBSam Blond36:41

        The, the compound startup, uh, maybe phrase or terminology that I think Parker made famous. Um-

    16. JAJack Altman36:47

        Yes

    17. SBSam Blond36:47

        ... a- and-

    18. JAJack Altman36:47

        And now it's like that should go, like, exponentially far.

    19. SBSam Blond36:50

        Well, and I think Parker, to his credit, was probably ahead of his time on this, right? Because Parker started, uh, uh, Rippling in something like 2016. Um, Zenefits was maybe less of a compound startup, uh, than Rippling was and, and Rippling is more of a compound startup.

    20. JAJack Altman37:01

        Yep.

    21. SBSam Blond37:02

        I, I think that, um, today, and, and I don't know, like, the, the exact sort of, uh, uh, math equation here, but we can build, uh, software at something like 10 times faster-

    22. JAJack Altman37:12

        Yeah

    23. SBSam Blond37:13

        ... than we could just a few years ago. If that is true today- That is gonna be true a few years from now where we can build software 10 times faster than we can today. And so we wanna go after as much sort of breadth of what we can do in the platform with the assumption that AI is going to enable us to build a product far faster.

    24. JAJack Altman37:31

        Yep.

    25. SBSam Blond37:31

        Uh, and, and that is what customers want. Customers want to come to one platform. The outcomes are actually better because you don't have data in a bunch of different silos, um, the system of record, the thing that does your call recording, the thing that does your outbound, the thing that builds your database.

    26. JAJack Altman37:47

        Yep.

    27. SBSam Blond37:47

        It is far more difficult to overlay an agent on top of this arbitrary set of tools with data silos than it is a single platform and source of truth that both has all of your data, but also takes all of your actions inside of the same tool.

    28. JAJack Altman37:59

        Totally. So when you think about, um, what you're selling to customers, in some sense, I guess you're kind of selling well-wrapped tokens that can do all these different things, but you're kind of selling intelligence to the customer at the end of the day. So have you thought about, like, you know, how... Or I know you have. How, how have you thought about what this means in terms of the way you price the long term of what your cost structure's gonna be and, like, what that all looks like from an economics perspective? 'Cause it's obviously very different than build software and, you know, sell it for, you know, a per user per month kind of situation.

    29. SBSam Blond38:29

        For sure.

    30. JAJack Altman38:29

        Yeah.
13. 41:10 – 44:28

    Pricing in an AI-native business

    1. SBSam Blond41:10

       pricing is correlated towards outcomes. Outcomes are relatively objective when it comes to, uh, Monaco. No, like the ultimate outcome or, or excuse me, outcomes are relatively objective when it comes to the category of like go-to-market or sales.

    2. JAJack Altman41:22

       Yeah.

    3. SBSam Blond41:22

       It's revenue.

    4. JAJack Altman41:22

       You're right.

    5. SBSam Blond41:23

       How much revenue are we generating?

    6. JAJack Altman41:24

       Yep.

    7. SBSam Blond41:25

       There are some inputs. These are things like meetings and conversion rates.

    8. JAJack Altman41:29

       Yep.

    9. SBSam Blond41:30

       Um, and so we, we rigi- rigorously track towards ul- the ultimate outcome of revenue, the inputs of are we generating meetings, are we improving conversion rates, a- and our pricing is aligned with how much a customer is using the platform. Um, and that should be highly correlated with the impact or benefit that a customer is receiving from the platform, um, that is like fairly easily meas- measurable.

    10. JAJack Altman41:54

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I would love to unpack kind of the go-to-market strategy you've had so far. You launched like February, so let's call it four or five months ago. And, you know, we talked about this with Brex, but definitely you like, you flipped the bit and like everything, everything was loud. So like what I'm curious about is can you sort of, um, share what was in your head when you were like, "Okay, it's time to launch. We're gonna be loud. Here's the things we're gonna do to sort of like get this whole brand going"?

    11. SBSam Blond42:21

        Yes. Uh, I, I think, um, I'll describe our approach. Um, it was the right approach for us. Um, I'll also sort of caveat with a couple things that, uh, I, I think are worth calling out that, um, may be like advantages that we have as a business that don't necessarily apply to every startup. Um, we wanted to take the approach of operating in stealth, um, through this like de- design customer phase, uh, and then have a big sort of shotgun style launch, which we did back in February, um, where we went from almost a definitionally unknown company. Nobody had, uh, like LinkedIn Monaco up. Um, our website said coming soon or some version of that. Um, we certainly spent $0 on marketing up until the day that we launched. Uh, and the, the, the like reason that we wanted to take that approach is, um, again, I haven't come up with a better analogy for it than this, which is like the boiling frog thing, where you can imagine if you are the frog and like the, you're in the pot and like the water is heating up and you like don't totally notice it. Well, we, we can apply that to like if you do marketing campaigns over a two-year period, um, and you like a- as a consumer, you may see like bits and pieces of somebody's marketing campaign here and there and like, "Yeah, I've maybe heard of this company, but like I heard about them a long time ago and they like did this thing." Um, you, you can imagine the sort of like, um, psychological impact of that-

    12. JAJack Altman43:40

        Yep

    13. SBSam Blond43:40

        ... relative to, um, like the dropping the frog in the boiling water-

    14. JAJack Altman43:44

        Yeah

    15. SBSam Blond43:44

        ... which is like Oh my gosh, we were seeing Monaco everywhere-

    16. JAJack Altman43:47

        That is-

    17. SBSam Blond43:47

        ... all of a sudden

    18. JAJack Altman43:48

        Yeah

    19. SBSam Blond43:48

        Like, I see the plane and I see the billboards and I see the poker tournaments and-

    20. JAJack Altman43:51

        And by the way, your, your, your, uh, your plane and your billboard gave no explanation of what Monaco was. Like, it just said Monaco, and then, like, the billboards had, like, a big dollar sign, which I thought was hilarious and I loved it. But, like, you didn't say, you know, new AI sales platform. You know, you, you just were like, "Monaco."

    21. SBSam Blond44:06

        Yeah.

    22. JAJack Altman44:07

        Yeah.

    23. SBSam Blond44:07

        We benefit from having a geographically concentrated target market.

    24. JAJack Altman44:10

        Mm-hmm.

    25. SBSam Blond44:10

        Uh, so we're selling to startups. You and I are sitting here in San Francisco.

    26. JAJack Altman44:14

        Yeah.

    27. SBSam Blond44:14

        Many of our customers are also in San Francisco. So if we were selling to HVAC companies, um, we shouldn't be flying planes around San Francisco or putting-

    28. JAJack Altman44:21

        Yeah

    29. SBSam Blond44:21

        ... billboards up all around San Francisco-

    30. JAJack Altman44:22

        Yeah
14. 44:28 – 50:06

    The Monaco GTM playbook

    1. SBSam Blond44:28

       that, um, we were deliberate about solving for. Um, one is brand awareness. That's the plane, that's the billboards, uh, and, a- and more.

    2. JAJack Altman44:37

       Yeah.

    3. SBSam Blond44:39

       Um, when we do think... Th- there may be, like, two impacts of brand awareness. The first is we do a lot of outbound. Monaco does our outbound for us. When we reach out to a company that is graduating YC, reach out to the founder, they receive the message from me. Um, they have heard of Monaco because they've seen the plane, what- whatever, like, the thing is. The likelihood that they respond to that, uh, outbound message is exponentially higher than if they didn't know me, if they didn't know the business. So, um, like the brand awareness is something that we're very deliberate about. There's a second application of that which is, um, when they take the meeting, they are far more likely to convert because there is comfort in, um, like knowing and understanding a brand, like the one that we are hopefully creating around ourselves in ways that, uh, maybe other folks, um, ar- aren't deliberate about and, and, and haven't, uh, uh, created for themselves. The other type of marketing that we're deliberate about is, like, demand gen. This is very targeted. This is, um, sending people the poker sets that, uh, we send to founders when they graduate YC or something like this. Uh, and hosting the poker tournaments and inviting specific founders to that poker tournament with the expectation that that specific founder is gonna be somebody that we convert.

    4. JAJack Altman45:48

       Yeah.

    5. SBSam Blond45:48

       So we solve for both. Um, uh, I, I c- I can talk about maybe, like, a couple marketing principles that are, uh, things that we apply to marketing.

    6. JAJack Altman46:00

       Yeah, that'd be great.

    7. SBSam Blond46:00

       But yeah.

    8. JAJack Altman46:00

       I would love that, 'cause you know, like, one of the things I often think, I don't think this applies to every startup obviously, or I know it doesn't apply to every startup, but I think there are many startups that could be investing much harder in their brand that, uh, that don't. And it's hard because it's like, well, if I do this demand gen campaign it turns into revenue, and if I do this brand thing or, you know, I spend this money on these sort of, like, brand campaigns, it's, like, not gonna show. So it's hard to, but it just seems like a missed opportunity for so many people.

    9. SBSam Blond46:27

       Yes. I, um, I think everyone should do this i- i- in their own, um, specific approach. Uh, th- uh, what Monaco is doing isn't relevant to most startups. We can do it because we sell to startups, the geographic concentration. Again, most startups don't sell to-

    10. JAJack Altman46:42

        But there's a version of it for almost everybody.

    11. SBSam Blond46:43

        There's a version of it for everybody. I think there's a process that every company should follow. Um, and, and then I can talk about, like, the, uh, maybe, maybe a couple principles in case they're helpful. Uh, uh, th- there is a process which, like, most companies do not follow. You've gotta try stuff. Like, like you just have to, um, it, just do stuff. Um, and, and you can't be afraid to fail. Um, and, and I do think that most companies here, th- they, they just don't really do anything. Um, when you-

    12. JAJack Altman47:09

        I, I, I do think that on this point, it's, um, a lot of people are afraid of the embarrassment of, you know, a brand campaign that failed or some marketing or sales effort that just, like, looked stupid and didn't land. And that's actually, that is emo- That's psychologically harder than just, like, building product or doing other things that are not publicly embarrassing.

    13. SBSam Blond47:30

        I think there are two things. I think there's one thing that is like, "I'm not good at this." So I'm an engi- Uh, not me personally. I'm saying, like, putting myself in the shoes-

    14. JAJack Altman47:38

        Yeah, yeah

    15. SBSam Blond47:38

        ... of the founder. I'm an engineer. I build product.

    16. JAJack Altman47:41

        Yeah.

    17. SBSam Blond47:41

        Um, I, I, like, am gonna index on the thing that I'm very good at. I don't know how to do, like, a marketing campaign.

    18. JAJack Altman47:46

        Which is funny. You know, our CTO at, my co-founder, Eric, at Lattice, came up with by far our best billboard, which was, like, "Invest in your people, not crypto," during 2019.

    19. SBSam Blond47:55

        Cool.

    20. JAJack Altman47:55

        And that just, like, landed super hard, and that-

    21. SBSam Blond47:57

        Smart

    22. JAJack Altman47:57

        ... engineer.

    23. SBSam Blond47:58

        Yeah.

    24. JAJack Altman47:58

        Yeah.

    25. SBSam Blond47:59

        Uh, so I'm not, I, I'm bad at this.

    26. JAJack Altman48:01

        Me neither. Yeah.

    27. SBSam Blond48:01

        I don't have experience with this or whatever.

    28. JAJack Altman48:03

        Yeah.

    29. SBSam Blond48:03

        I don't wanna spend the money. I, I'm worried about, like, y- you know, lighting the money on fire or something like that. I think those are the two variables that probably lead more towards, um, uh, stagnation or just, like, lack of, uh, effort in this category. The reality is, like, um, uh, no one starts being an expert at this stuff. You've just gotta, like, try stuff and learn. Um, a- and I, I actually spend a lot of time with our customers doing exactly this. Like, my time, I, I spend customer facing all day, let's come up with some cool campaigns that we can run for your business-

    30. JAJack Altman48:32

        Yeah
15. 50:06 – 54:21

    The $60,000 plane experiment

    1. JAJack Altman50:06

       your plane.

    2. SBSam Blond50:06

       The plane.

    3. JAJack Altman50:07

       Was awesome. Can you talk about the plane, plane story?

    4. SBSam Blond50:09

       Yes. [laughs]

    5. JAJack Altman50:10

       I feel like there might be one flying right, right now.

    6. SBSam Blond50:12

       We, um- There, there, there isn't. We took it down. We'll put it back up at some point. Uh, I think, like, probably reached diminishing returns or something over time.

    7. JAJack Altman50:19

       Yeah, but it was-

    8. SBSam Blond50:19

       Uh-

    9. JAJack Altman50:19

       ... like, uh, yeah, anyway, go, go ahead. Yeah

    10. SBSam Blond50:21

        We, we were at SaaStr, which is, um, Jason Lemkin's conference, it's an awesome conference. Uh, and we knew that there would be, like, a large contingency or concentration of people at this event down in San Mateo. And so, um, we, we, we didn't think this was, like, that creative. In fact, it, it wasn't that creative in that there was at least one, maybe two other planes flying at the same event. Um, and so we had the banner trailing the Monaco plane at this conference. I don't know what we paid. Let's call it, like, a couple thousand bucks to make the banner.

    11. JAJack Altman50:50

        Yeah.

    12. SBSam Blond50:50

        And then, um, I was surprised at how relatively inexpensive putting this plane in the air for many hours during the conference was, which was, like, 6,000 bucks a day. And, you know, we did it for two or three days at the conference. Um, and I was just sort of thinking like, "We already have the banner. Um, we already know, like, the cost of flying this thing."

    13. JAJack Altman51:10

        Yeah.

    14. SBSam Blond51:10

        "Uh, do you guys, like... I haven't really seen these in, like, San Francisco proper. Do you guys f- can you guys fly over the city?" And part of my assumption was, like, there are air restrictions-

    15. JAJack Altman51:21

        Uh-huh

    16. SBSam Blond51:21

        ... that, like, you couldn't fly in and around the city or whatever, and they were like, "Yeah, we can totally do it." And so I was like, you know, starting to do the math on this thing, and it was, like, 6,000 bucks a day, pay for 10 days, it's 60 grand. We have a lot of billboards.

    17. JAJack Altman51:36

        Yeah.

    18. SBSam Blond51:36

        Some of our billboards are significantly more exp- expensive than 60 grand. This is one of those that's like, it's a $60,000 learning. Like, like-

    19. JAJack Altman51:45

        [laughs]

    20. SBSam Blond51:45

        ... the, the, the w- worst case scenario, we fly this thing around, it doesn't totally work, we, like, learn from it and we don't do it again. Um, it worked. [laughs]

    21. JAJack Altman51:52

        Yeah.

    22. SBSam Blond51:52

        So, uh, we, y- you know, both, like, messages on my phone, people posting on LinkedIn and, and Twitter and everywhere else-

    23. JAJack Altman52:00

        Yeah

    24. SBSam Blond52:00

        ... uh, it w- it was, it was sort of everywhere, and so we kept it up for a little bit longer. Uh, and so it was one of those things that was, like, just an evolution of something that we had tried at the conference. Let's, like, try it in the city. It worked in the city.

    25. JAJack Altman52:11

        Yeah.

    26. SBSam Blond52:11

        We learned from it. We'll put it up again when we do, uh-

    27. JAJack Altman52:14

        Yeah

    28. SBSam Blond52:14

        ... a big, like, announcement that we have coming up. Yeah.

    29. JAJack Altman52:16

        You know, it's interesting, like, history kind of ri- I'm sure you've read Behind the Cloud, the Mark- you know, the, the early Salesforce book from Benioff. And, like, o- one of the things that, like, uh, struck me was, like, early Salesforce did a lot of really creative marketing stuff.

    30. SBSam Blond52:27

        They did.
16. 54:21 – 1:00:06

    Creative campaigns vs. paid advertising

    1. SBSam Blond54:21

       like, the, the lowest ROI. It's, like, a fairly efficient-

    2. JAJack Altman54:23

       Yeah

    3. SBSam Blond54:23

       ... market at this point.

    4. JAJack Altman54:24

       Yes.

    5. SBSam Blond54:25

       Y- you wanna be spending, especially at the early stage, you wanna be spending more of your marketing dollars on creative campaigns that aren't going to third-party advertisers, that are these, like, what can we do that are different than anybody else is doing? The, the categories here are gonna be things like gifting and events and, you know, I'd even put the plane-

    6. JAJack Altman54:47

       Yeah

    7. SBSam Blond54:47

       ... in that category.

    8. JAJack Altman54:49

       Yeah.

    9. SBSam Blond54:49

       Um, it, it's the things that, like, no one else is doing and you want to try. They oftentimes require more operational complexity than do the, like, efficient market paid advertising marketing spend where most of our marketing dollars, um, collectively are going.

    10. JAJack Altman55:05

        Yeah.

    11. SBSam Blond55:05

        So that's, like, um, maybe a principle. Be creative, try new things, allocate some percentage of our spend towards that category.

    12. JAJack Altman55:14

        Yeah.

    13. SBSam Blond55:15

        The second one, a- and I don't know that, like, either, uh, is m- more influential or important, but, um, th- they're sort of related. The second one is, like, the vast majority of marketing dollars go to third-party advertisers that in no way benefit the, um, person or company that we are targeting to try and acquire as a customer. So these go to, and we do this too, by the way. So, um, these go to the billboard, uh, companies, the, the ClearChannels and OUTFRONTs of the world that we are paying to put ads u- u- up around San Francisco. These go to, as I, I, I referenced, the Googles, the Metas, the LinkedIns, um, th- those sorts of things that, um, are online paid advertising. Very little marketing spend directly benefits the person that we are targeting to try and acquire as a customer.

    14. JAJack Altman56:01

        Mm-hmm. Mm.

    15. SBSam Blond56:01

        Um, early on, I would try and bucket, like, 100% of the marketing spend actually to something that benefits the person that we are targeting, and if you put yourself in the shoes of a prospective customer, you are a, um, for, well, let's take Monaco as an example. You are a YC founder.

    16. JAJack Altman56:17

        Yep.

    17. SBSam Blond56:18

        Would you rather have Monaco or any company that is trying to acquire you as a customer spend money on, like, LinkedIn ads that follow me around, that, like, message something-

    18. JAJack Altman56:30

        Yeah

    19. SBSam Blond56:30

        ... to me that I sort of scroll past, and then billboards-

    20. JAJack Altman56:32

        Yeah

    21. SBSam Blond56:32

        ... and whatever else the spend is going towards?

    22. JAJack Altman56:34

        Yeah.

    23. SBSam Blond56:35

        Or would you rather have Monaco send me a, like, poker set for me to-

    24. JAJack Altman56:38

        Some, like, heavy clay poker chips.

    25. SBSam Blond56:39

        Totally. Exactly. Like, that, that I... Founders play poker.

    26. JAJack Altman56:43

        Yeah.

    27. SBSam Blond56:43

        That, like, we can use for our poker night as a company.

    28. JAJack Altman56:45

        Yeah. I'd rather get the poker chips.

    29. SBSam Blond56:46

        Would you rather throw, like, a poker tournament? W- um, we had, we, we give away $100,000, Monaco Invitational. You were there.

    30. JAJack Altman56:52

        Big number, yeah.
17. 1:00:06 – 1:03:13

    What Monaco actually does

    1. SBSam Blond1:00:06

       at. And so it is, it is true that that is, like, what Monaco does for you. All, all of this sort of, like, um, non-customer-facing sales-related activities, building your database, scoring your accounts, um, finding leads, engaging with buyers. After you finish a meeting, updating your pipeline, reminding you who you need to reach out to, all of these things. And what that does, whether it's Monaco or not, it allows you to spend your time on higher ROI, higher leverage activities. I think there are two categories. One is, and this is the thing that I spend all of my time doing, but it is, um, meeting with customers. Um, today, uh, especially if you are in, like, B2B, uh, buyers still want to talk to a person. They don't want to, um, buy from an agent, a, like, you know, Jack Altman avatar that shows up to a call-

    2. JAJack Altman1:00:54

       Yeah

    3. SBSam Blond1:00:54

       ... that is, like, not really Jack. Um, so, uh, uh, y- there's no higher ROI on my time, maybe on, uh, uh, I, I would, um, suspect our customers' time, than, um, spending time with customers. And a lot of the things that we're able to leverage with AI, um, a- allow us to spend far more of our time, whether you're a founder or a salesperson, on that, um, human connection, developing relationships, customer facing. I think the second thing is this category of, um, creative, operationally complex campaigns.

    4. JAJack Altman1:01:24

       Mm-hmm.

    5. SBSam Blond1:01:24

       Um, we've talked about a bunch of them. You could do, like, a ChatGPT conversation wh- where you're like, "Can you come up with some marketing ideas for me?" I think it would be hard for that to result in the plan, as an example. Um, I- I- I think that today AI will sort of pattern match to things that have already been done because that is what AI is trained on. And so if you're trying to do something, like, truly creative, innovative, innovative, I think it, it is more likely to, um, surface inside the four walls of your company by doing the sort of, like, ideation that I talked about, which is, um, let's come up with two ideas each person, multiply by four, that's eight ideas. Put them on a whiteboard, talk through each of them, pick the two or three of the best ones that we're gonna do. And, and, and Monaco and AI actually give us the, like, ability to spend our time doing those things.

    6. JAJack Altman1:02:19

       Yeah.

    7. SBSam Blond1:02:19

       That is how I spend my time with customers.

    8. JAJack Altman1:02:22

       That's awesome.

    9. SBSam Blond1:02:22

       I- is, is the... Less about the sort of, like, how should you be meeting with customers. I do, like, how should you sell, those sorts of things.

    10. JAJack Altman1:02:29

        Yeah.

    11. SBSam Blond1:02:29

        But it's coming up with, like, creative campaign ideas. Count me in as, like, one of the people that comes up with the ideas that we put on the whiteboard.

    12. JAJack Altman1:02:37

        Yeah. That's awesome. Um, and then I guess, like, on that last piece, is there anything, um, worth talking about in terms of, like, how to actually sell or, like, the, the practice of, you know, the, the time with the customers itself?

    13. SBSam Blond1:02:51

        I think there are two things that, um, stand out as the, 'cause, 'cause... That, and then there's, like, a laundry list below it, right? Um, but this is maybe the, like, broader generic advice that I would have to certainly founders that are, are starting to sell their, um, product and don't have a lot of go-to-market experience that I think have maybe, um, more impact than any other, y- you know, below

18. 1:03:13 – 1:07:58

    Advice for founders just starting to sell

    1. SBSam Blond1:03:13

       these two. The first is, um, I would be fairly prescriptive about how to effectively buy your product. Um, because i- if, if you aren't educating the buyer on how to onboard, receive value, and ultimately buy your product, um, the customer, like, doesn't know how to buy your product. And so I would come in w- with, like, a bit of a, um, b- combination of, like, a, a agenda and opinion on here is the, like, happy path from where we sit today, um, and if this resonates with you and is something that you think you can receive value, um, around to, like, where we are when you are fully onboarded and receiving value from the product, and we can just sort of roadmap together. Here are the different steps. Now, like, Mr. Customer, is there anything that I have left out of this process that is important to you that we should incorporate, whether it's, like, security checks that you may need to go through, or procurement that we wanna introduce, or legal review that I haven't included? But we sort of start with, um, and this is very abstract. We sort of start with, like, um, we, you know, meeting two, we come with, like, our, um, pre-built custom environment to show you exactly what it would look like on our product. Um, if that resonates with you, we sit, we put you in, like, a, a two-week free trial of the product. During that trial, like, here are the outcomes that we're going to be driving towards.

    2. JAJack Altman1:04:31

       Yeah.

    3. SBSam Blond1:04:32

       If we deliver on these outcomes, we, like, onboard the rest of the team. Let's, like, schedule meetings that sort of align to-

    4. JAJack Altman1:04:39

       Yeah

    5. SBSam Blond1:04:39

       ... these different steps. And so then you and the customer aren't flying blind. I think the thing that happens more often than anything when I meet with founders, it's sort of like we have so many of these opportunities that are in, like, purgatory, where it's like we pitched them. They said they liked it. We ended the call. I've followed up three times. They aren't really responding, and if they do respond, it's like, "Give me a week, and I'll get back to you." A week passes. They don't get back to me, and it's because we haven't, like, aligned on the, like, happy path to receiving value from the product that we're selling.

    6. JAJack Altman1:05:11

       Yeah.

    7. SBSam Blond1:05:11

       So I'll pause there. That's like one-

    8. JAJack Altman1:05:12

       No, that's good

    9. SBSam Blond1:05:12

       ... of the two things.

    10. JAJack Altman1:05:13

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the other?

    11. SBSam Blond1:05:15

        The, the, the second thing is, like, um, a, a little bit of an urgency driver, uh, where, um, y- i- if you can create some form of FOMO, for lack of a better word, um, I, I think that much of sales is psychology. Uh, and, and so for many customers, um, what I'm about to articulate is true. We certainly never wanna say anything that is untrue or misleading. But if we have, you know, we're in the month of July. If we have a goal to, um, onboard three customers, two pilots in the month of July, what we articulate to, uh, a customer as part of the maybe, like, first call when we are receiving feedback, like, "Yeah, this is actually really cool. I'd love to try it," what we say is something like, um, "We are onboarding three customers into our pilot program this month. Two of those spots are already spoken for. Um, there is much interest in the third spot. If you would like to move forward with a pilot, if you could let me know, that would be, like, really appreciated on my end."

    12. JAJack Altman1:06:14

        Yeah.

    13. SBSam Blond1:06:14

        "But also, like, I, I can't guarantee the spot if you don't speak for it today."

    14. JAJack Altman1:06:18

        Yeah.

    15. SBSam Blond1:06:19

        And I think that during, like-

    16. JAJack Altman1:06:19

        And I mean, in your case, that's true 'cause you can only onboard so many at this stage.

    17. SBSam Blond1:06:22

        That, that's exactly right.

    18. JAJack Altman1:06:23

        Yeah.

    19. SBSam Blond1:06:23

        Um, but it, it does, um, sort of force a decision.

    20. JAJack Altman1:06:27

        Yeah.

    21. SBSam Blond1:06:27

        And, and potentially drive some urgency.

    22. JAJack Altman1:06:29

        Yeah.

    23. SBSam Blond1:06:29

        Um, there is, like, a psychological aspect to this where it's like, oh gosh, two, two-thirds of the, the, um, spots are already spoken for. Like, I better speak up, um-

    24. JAJack Altman1:06:37

        Yeah

    25. SBSam Blond1:06:37

        ... to, to, like, you know, g- get this thing that a lot of folks are already incredibly interested in.

    26. JAJack Altman1:06:42

        I assume also important in all of this is sort of just, like, having, like, a, a willingness to disqualify when you genuinely think that the product is not gonna help the customer, and I feel like people can feel that. Like, if you're like, "Hey, my goal here is not to sell you something that you don't need or want. My goal is to sell you something that's gonna be useful to you for years, and so if I don't think that that's gonna be the case, I'm gonna stop selling it to you."

    27. SBSam Blond1:07:03

        Man, when you say that, it, it, it's interesting where my mind goes, which is something different than what you just said. But, like, I think it is true that, like, growth solves a lot of problems. I, I think, like, um, uh, an input to that is something like demand solves a lot of problems. And what you just articulated, I think, is a symptom of not enough demand, which is where, um, founders and salespeople are, like, hanging on for dear life to the, like, one guy-

    28. JAJack Altman1:07:29

        Yeah

    29. SBSam Blond1:07:29

        ... that I pitched over the last couple days because, like, they kinda seemed interested.

    30. JAJack Altman1:07:33

        That's right. But if you're like, "I've got, like, four more calls I should get to, and, like, I think this is gonna be painful, and by the way, I get paid also on you retaining, and so, like, I don't think I wanna sell this to you anymore."
19. 1:07:58 – 1:09:43

    Abundant pipeline and the right to say no

    1. SBSam Blond1:07:58

       think, like-

    2. JAJack Altman1:07:58

       An abundant, an abundant pipeline allows you to only try to sell the product to people who need it.

    3. SBSam Blond1:08:02

       That, th- that's exactly right, and it's, it's not, it, when I say that, it, it's not, like, disrespectful to the customer-

    4. JAJack Altman1:08:09

       No

    5. SBSam Blond1:08:09

       ... or being inefficient-

    6. JAJack Altman1:08:10

       It's respectful

    7. SBSam Blond1:08:10

       ... about not following up.

    8. JAJack Altman1:08:11

       It's respectful, yeah.

    9. SBSam Blond1:08:11

       It, it's actually that, like, you are focusing your resources on the people that are truly interested that will receive the most value from the product-

    10. JAJack Altman1:08:19

        Yeah

    11. SBSam Blond1:08:19

        ... and not on the, like, person that took a call that was like, said a lot of niceties.

    12. JAJack Altman1:08:24

        Yeah.

    13. SBSam Blond1:08:24

        But, but, like, actually probably isn't, um, actually interested or by the way-

    14. JAJack Altman1:08:27

        And, and a lot of it is, like, a not now, but, you know, let's come back to this if you're like-

    15. SBSam Blond1:08:30

        Oh, we have so many customers

    16. JAJack Altman1:08:31

        ... you know, if you're like, if, if it's somebody who's like, "You know, I am just getting started. I don't really have product market fit yet. I don't have any reps. You know, I'm interested," you might be like, "It'd be be- like, sure, if you wanna buy it now, but, like, it might be better if you bought this in six months once you're going a little bit."

    17. SBSam Blond1:08:44

        We're, we're four months in, um, f- four or five months in, uh, launched in February.

    18. JAJack Altman1:08:49

        Yeah.

    19. SBSam Blond1:08:49

        And, um, Monaco does an awesome job, uh, of continuing to engage with older customers-

    20. JAJack Altman1:08:57

        Yeah

    21. SBSam Blond1:08:57

        ... on our behalf.

    22. JAJack Altman1:08:58

        Yeah.

    23. SBSam Blond1:08:59

        Um, but I cannot tell you, well, I can tell you-

    24. JAJack Altman1:09:02

        [laughs]

    25. SBSam Blond1:09:02

        ... the, the amount of times where, um, I'm just sitting there-

    26. JAJack Altman1:09:06

        Yeah

    27. SBSam Blond1:09:06

        ... and resurrected from what effectively is the dead, a company that we demoed back in February that Monaco sort of reengages with on my behalf.

    28. JAJack Altman1:09:13

        Yeah.

    29. SBSam Blond1:09:13

        Response comes in. I see the response-

    30. JAJack Altman1:09:14

        "Hey, I'm ready now"

Episode duration: 1:09:44