AI Is a Block of Clay and Most Founders Never Sculpt It

Sean Weisbrot: What's the most challenging thing about running an agency in 2026?

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: I mean, I think about the story,

Todd Anthony: and I'm gonna butcher it, but there's there's three men on a ship, And the ship is in a storm, and they're looking at

Todd Anthony: the conditions.

Todd Anthony: And one of them just thinks

Todd Anthony: I'm gonna do better off on my own just swimming in this than I am gonna be,

Todd Anthony: on the ship.

Todd Anthony: And so he jumps, and he drowns.

Todd Anthony: And then there's an another man who

Todd Anthony: I can't remember the second man.

Todd Anthony: What he does I'm butchering the story.

Todd Anthony: Sorry.

Todd Anthony: But, but he also makes a decision and drowns.

Todd Anthony: And the third man

Todd Anthony: stays on the ship, and he starts to notice the patterns in the waves.

Todd Anthony: And he starts to notice what's around him.

Todd Anthony: And he starts to notice that there's,

Todd Anthony: there's a mattress floating, you know, in the in the water, and he jumps off the ship that eventually

Todd Anthony: capsizes and holds on to the mattress and survives.

Todd Anthony: In other words,

Todd Anthony: that's a long way of saying that I am keeping my eyes on the patterns and trying to notice

Todd Anthony: the surroundings, trying to have a situational awareness around, what is happening, but it is, don't get me wrong, stormy as hell.

Todd Anthony: And for an agency owner that is, doing work time and materials and,

Todd Anthony: trying to maintain a, you know, a $3,000,000 business, It's it's challenging, and so we're doing a lot of different experimentation.

Todd Anthony: We are exploring different angles.

Todd Anthony: We are leaning into

Todd Anthony: AI to the degree that we can, and we can talk about that a little bit more about

Todd Anthony: where where AI's role is as far as I see it in the creation of things like content or creative or, things like that.

Todd Anthony: But, you know, we consider ourselves an AI, forward agency,

Todd Anthony: and we are embracing it as much as we can.

Todd Anthony: But there are other forces at work too.

Todd Anthony: Lots of other things that are creating volatility in the marketplace.

Todd Anthony: Clients are clients are fickle.

Todd Anthony: People decide to pull everything in house or, you know, sometimes

Todd Anthony: they they have to downsize.

Todd Anthony: There's been a lot of, a lot of turmoil within the clients, just from a staffing standpoint.

Todd Anthony: So it's hard to maintain relationships when that happens,

Todd Anthony: because one day your your, you know, key client is there, and then the next day, they're not.

Todd Anthony: But, but that's been, you know, that's been interesting.

Todd Anthony: We've actually hired some of those people that have been laid off from our clients.

Todd Anthony: And that has that has turned out to be an an incredibly smart move, if I do say so,

Todd Anthony: and has really helped us, a lot.

Todd Anthony: And we are also developing new models.

Todd Anthony: We're talking to somebody right now about

Todd Anthony: coming in as a sort of strategist in residence, and we're creating this whole role around it, and then creating some incentives around

Todd Anthony: that person bringing in new business for us.

Todd Anthony: And so and being able to work on the business.

Todd Anthony: So let's say, Sean, you are,

Todd Anthony: what's what's a role that you would have at a enterprise corporation?

Sean Weisbrot: For that?

Todd Anthony: No. Generally.

Todd Anthony: Like, actually, what would be your role at a enterprise?

Sean Weisbrot: What what would my role be?

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm a generalist.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't think I have a role in an enterprise.

Todd Anthony: Okay.

Sean Weisbrot: That's why I'm starting my own companies.

Todd Anthony: Alright.

Todd Anthony: Well, let's call you a chief product officer.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay.

Todd Anthony: So

Todd Anthony: so let's say you decide to become a fractional chief product officer.

Sean Weisbrot: Uh-huh.

Todd Anthony: The agency,

Todd Anthony: would be like a home base where you could bring in projects

Todd Anthony: and work on those projects, but then the agency would be able to grow that client as well.

Todd Anthony: And then you would get a percentage on top of what you're making, on the projects, essentially like a commission.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay.

Todd Anthony: So that's that's the role we're we're creating.

Sean Weisbrot: Interesting.

Sean Weisbrot: So a lot of questions I definitely wanna get into.

Sean Weisbrot: But before,

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: I think what a lot of people that are listening now care the most about is there's everybody trying to convince them to start agencies because every teenager wants to start an agency.

Sean Weisbrot: It's the way that they can escape the matrix.

Sean Weisbrot: From all of your years of experience running an agency, does it make sense to start an agency?

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: I mean, that's a that's a pretty binary question.

Todd Anthony: There's a lot of nuance to it, but, I would say, yes.

Todd Anthony: It does, especially if you have a specialty that others

Todd Anthony: don't or that is rare in the marketplace or that you're exceptional at. So

Todd Anthony: I would say, okay.

Todd Anthony: North America, there are now 50,000, maybe 60,000, agencies, small agencies in the marketplace.

Todd Anthony: You you so you're competing with

Todd Anthony: those people.

Todd Anthony: You're also competing with large agencies,

Todd Anthony: and you're also competing with in house agencies.

Todd Anthony: So, it's there's

Todd Anthony: it it makes sense if you look at it like, well, we can bootstrap it easily.

Todd Anthony: It's time and materials.

Todd Anthony: There's really no overhead.

Todd Anthony: It's completely virtual, etcetera, and we started out that way.

Todd Anthony: But it's also extremely difficult to actually land clients.

Todd Anthony: And the the thing to know about that is that

Todd Anthony: it is a it is in a relationship based business.

Todd Anthony: And there's a high degree of trust

Todd Anthony: that you have to have or that the,

Todd Anthony: that the client needs to have in you in order for them to wanna bring you in. Because look, if they bring you in and things don't go amazingly, that's their reputation.

Todd Anthony: That is their internal reputation and, they could lose their jobs.

Todd Anthony: You know?

Todd Anthony: That's a that's a worst case scenario, but it's, you know, it is definitely a scenario.

Todd Anthony: So

Sean Weisbrot: Every guru out there is telling 18 year olds that they can make their first $10,000

Sean Weisbrot: a month in the first thirty days if they launch an agency, and it's just hilarious because I don't I don't believe

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: No. I wouldn't believe it either.

Todd Anthony: There are different kinds of of digital agencies, of course.

Todd Anthony: There are you know, you could you could launch an agency that I had a buddy who did a small business websites.

Sean Weisbrot: it.

Todd Anthony: That was his thing.

Todd Anthony: Like, very small business website.

Todd Anthony: Like, the website for, let's say, your your new product and, you know, your first website effectively.

Todd Anthony: And, you know, he had to keep getting new clients because those are project based and you don't have, like we have a a nine year relationship right now with Experian.

Todd Anthony: You don't have those kinds of relationships.

Todd Anthony: They're just like in and out, in and out, in

Todd Anthony: and out.

Todd Anthony: And so you have to be really good at, hunting and killing,

Todd Anthony: your food, and you have to have a pipeline, a a nice healthy pipeline.

Todd Anthony: And you have to get really good at,

Todd Anthony: SEO, AEO, and, you know, showing up in the places that those people are gonna be looking for an agency to do that.

Todd Anthony: So

Sean Weisbrot: So let's go towards the content.

Sean Weisbrot: You were talking about AI's role in content.

Sean Weisbrot: We've talked about this previously.

Todd Anthony: mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: A lot of the

Sean Weisbrot: problems that I see with content creation these days is that it all sounds like AI. Like, humans are losing their voice

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: to AI,

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: but everybody knows that they need to be visible

Sean Weisbrot: in order for people to wanna do business with them.

Sean Weisbrot: Because as you said,

Sean Weisbrot: all of these businesses are trust based.

Sean Weisbrot: A lot a lot of them are relationship based.

Sean Weisbrot: Even if you're a self serve SaaS like I'm trying to build,

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: it's I still have to make content.

Sean Weisbrot: I still have to let people know that I'm out there or else nobody's gonna come to me unless I run ads.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: But if I don't have enough customers to know that I have the budget or

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: the right angles or the right ICP, I can't run ads.

Sean Weisbrot: So everybody that's smart goes towards organic growth first,

Sean Weisbrot: you know, warm outreach, cold outreach, but that requires trust.

Sean Weisbrot: And so if someone comes to your social media channel and they see garbage

Todd Anthony: Yep.

Sean Weisbrot: because it's all AI slop, how is that supposed to build trust?

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: It doesn't it doesn't build trust.

Todd Anthony: You really need the the authentic I mean, people are crawling through the desert of

Todd Anthony: AI generated content going, please give me some human authenticity, like,

Todd Anthony: just just just a taste, please.

Todd Anthony: You know?

Todd Anthony: And so if you're if you're only generating

Todd Anthony: AI AI slop, as you say, even if you think that you're taking the slop out of it, you're probably not all the way.

Todd Anthony: Their authenticity still needs to be coming through,

Todd Anthony: and that takes work.

Todd Anthony: I mean, I do it every day.

Todd Anthony: So I know it takes a lot of work.

Todd Anthony: I see like, so sometimes when when I use AI to generate content, I am looking at it as, a block of clay.

Todd Anthony: You know?

Todd Anthony: It's sort of like, well, before I didn't have a block of clay, but now I have a block of clay.

Todd Anthony: And maybe it's, like, kinda starting to be in a shape that might make sense.

Todd Anthony: I don't know.

Todd Anthony: And so I spent a lot of time, like, molding that clay, like, sculpting that, that shape until it looks like,

Todd Anthony: something that I would put out into the world.

Todd Anthony: And I have, I mean, I have pretty high standards for the authenticity portion of that.

Todd Anthony: And it's not just in the writing either, Sean.

Todd Anthony: It's it's in the it's in the IDs, in the ideas, and in the

Todd Anthony: the humanity that we bring to it. It's not just about the the quality of the writing.

Todd Anthony: It's it's about the human experience.

Todd Anthony: And does the human experience come through?

Todd Anthony: So you can go in and you can fiddle with the AI, writing

Todd Anthony: until it feels a little bit more authentic, a little bit more human, a little more you.

Todd Anthony: But,

Sean Weisbrot: I

Todd Anthony: is it actually projecting humanity, which a lot of human writing just naturally does.

Todd Anthony: Right?

Todd Anthony: Does it project

Sean Weisbrot: I hope so.

Todd Anthony: experience?

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: I mean, it should.

Todd Anthony: I mean, some people aren't that great at it, and that's just not their thing.

Todd Anthony: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: So

Sean Weisbrot: That's why I've put so much focus into removing the AI from the content that I create.

Todd Anthony: mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: And so, like, if I take a transcript

Sean Weisbrot: and I you put it into SparkVox and I turn it into something, I may publish

Sean Weisbrot: pretty close to what was already given to me rather than I know you were saying you wanted to edit it more before publishing.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: Because for me, the authenticity

Sean Weisbrot: comes from the source of truth, which is the recording, right, the call, the interview, the sales, the the presentation, what have you.

Sean Weisbrot: So I feel like if you start from something that's a lived experience,

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: if I can, if I can make the AI keep that

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: while limiting

Sean Weisbrot: its ability to alter it with its nonsense that it wants to put in, like the it's not x, it's y.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: That kind of crap.

Sean Weisbrot: If if I can if I can keep the authenticity and the voice and limit the damage to the the content from the AI,

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: then I feel like I've got something really good, which I'll I'll admit to anyone, like, it's a work in progress.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: But but I think that is the way forward for people because,

Sean Weisbrot: like, what you're talking about is taking an idea and turning it into a post.

Sean Weisbrot: What I'm talking about is taking

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: content that's been made and repurposing it into a post

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: because I think it's easier

Sean Weisbrot: to start with something that exists than to start with nothing and then have to work from a block of clay.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: I would agree with you.

Todd Anthony: I mean, I think what you have, in in that statement is something that that

Todd Anthony: maybe, you know, OpenAI or Anthropic should should wanna buy, is

Todd Anthony: the ability.

Todd Anthony: And I'm I'm not saying that, like, to to flatter you.

Todd Anthony: I'm saying, like,

Todd Anthony: here is a way to actually capture the human experience as the seed without, you know, causing any more actual work and to be able to use that, and project that human experience

Todd Anthony: just a little bit more, not a little bit more, but in a lot more polished of a way.

Todd Anthony: Basically converting what is a conversation to, prose,

Todd Anthony: which is a completely different format for for writing, of course.

Todd Anthony: Like, if you were to publish the exact transcript, that's one thing, but it doesn't read as prose, and it's kinda laborious to to get through.

Todd Anthony: And so if you're able to sort of reformat it while keeping the authenticity

Todd Anthony: into prose, I think you've you've actually really got something interesting there.

Todd Anthony: I think the trick is how do you cure AI of its just unending desire to want to, say the next logical thing based on

Todd Anthony: the average of everything it's ever read.

Todd Anthony: You know what I mean?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: It's

Todd Anthony: Instead of

Sean Weisbrot: a a very long prompt with a ton of bands a ton of band words and phrases and and things.

Sean Weisbrot: And and really the I think the the focus for that for me is in that that voice profile that I've created, which is

Todd Anthony: yeah.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: if you're forced to rely on the historical inputs over time,

Sean Weisbrot: acting as your context as part of your context window

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: prevents you from averaging towards the mean.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: I mean, that's in theory, sure.

Todd Anthony: That that sounds awesome.

Todd Anthony: If you

Todd Anthony: and maybe it just gets better and better as you use it. I mean, that that could be. Like, I

Todd Anthony: I would love to play around with it more and, and see what, see what happens, with the voice.

Sean Weisbrot: So how do you keep your customers engaged?

Todd Anthony: So what how do you do that through the written word, or how do we do that strategically or really anyway?

Sean Weisbrot: Strategically, how do you keep your customers engaged, especially at a time when

Sean Weisbrot: the same thing for me. People ask me, why don't I just use Chat two p t?

Sean Weisbrot: I was like, well, obviously, that's a bad idea, but they don't realize that.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: So how do I keep the Pinwheel's customers engaged,

Todd Anthony: or how do I keep their audiences engaged with them?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, more so, how do you just keep them from churning?

Todd Anthony: Clients?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: Well, we.

Todd Anthony: So I I worked for a while as, an in house guy at, Yahoo.

Todd Anthony: I was a creative lead there and back in the heyday, and I was, the you know, the creative director at the brand,

Todd Anthony: brand side of CBS Interactive.

Todd Anthony: And we had, like, twenty

Todd Anthony: twenty online brands like c b s dot com and,

Todd Anthony: chow.com and a whole bunch of other ones.

Todd Anthony: And one of the things that that helped me do is understand how companies work.

Todd Anthony: Like, working within a company

Todd Anthony: as a creative solution, like, how do they work?

Todd Anthony: How do we make how do we take the friction out of the experience of working with an agency, while bringing

Todd Anthony: potentially more to the table than an in house, shop could, bring to the table?

Todd Anthony: And so that is, that is what we focus on is the quality of that experience that our clients are having.

Todd Anthony: Take like I said, taking friction out because, honestly, marketers

Todd Anthony: are so busy.

Todd Anthony: It's incredible.

Todd Anthony: I see their calendars sometimes, and I'm like, oh my god.

Todd Anthony: It's just like a train wreck on top of a train wreck.

Todd Anthony: And so they they absolutely have no time or patience

Todd Anthony: for for anything that's adding friction, for sure.

Todd Anthony: And so if that happens, which it's rare, but if it happens, like, I know it's a big deal, and I know that I need to respond

Todd Anthony: as the agency owner, and I need to make it right in some way.

Todd Anthony: And so that's one of the ways that we do it. Another another way that we do it is we try to get the lay of the land internally, and we try to, you know, spread out a little bit, within the organization.

Todd Anthony: So

Todd Anthony: an example of that would be at Stripe.

Todd Anthony: We were working with the, with, the the regular content team at Stripe,

Todd Anthony: and he introduced us to the partner marketing team at Stripe.

Todd Anthony: And so now we're working for two different teams.

Todd Anthony: And then now we have access to the brand team, and we're helping them do things.

Todd Anthony: And,

Todd Anthony: and so we're sort of really integrating almost like an AOR, but I don't know if we could really say that we're AOR. That's agency of record, by the way,

Todd Anthony: for for Stripe.

Todd Anthony: And I don't even know if AOR is really a thing anymore.

Todd Anthony: Most clients have an in house shop, and they also have, like, five or six agencies in the mix.

Todd Anthony: And they may even have 10. I have no idea.

Sean Weisbrot: Why is it why is there so many teams?

Todd Anthony: So so many agencies.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: There's a there's a lot of reasons for that.

Todd Anthony: One of the one of the reasons is that companies are siloed

Todd Anthony: a lot of times, and so different silos,

Todd Anthony: you know, want service in a certain way.

Todd Anthony: I mean, they may have, connections

Todd Anthony: to agencies that they've worked with in the past, and they wanna bring them in. And I totally understand that.

Todd Anthony: Another reason is that there are lots of different agency specialties.

Todd Anthony: We say agency as, like, the sort of catchall or creative agency even as a catchall, but, ultimately, there are probably, well, 30,

Todd Anthony: like, distinct kinds of agency.

Todd Anthony: And within each of those distinct kinds, there are a there are agencies that are better at some things than others.

Todd Anthony: And so you want people who are really good at the thing that you need them to do. And, and so we're really good at,

Todd Anthony: at content.

Todd Anthony: We're really good at building trust,

Todd Anthony: for the for the client among their audience.

Todd Anthony: We're really good at, pulling people into their funnel through search and, you know,

Todd Anthony: AI search and things like that.

Todd Anthony: That's where we're good at.

Sean Weisbrot: So then how do you build trust for them with their audience?

Todd Anthony: Well, there's we're actually you asked earlier, like, how are we

Todd Anthony: weathering the storm or, you know, what's it like being having an agency at this time?

Todd Anthony: One of the things that we're doing is developing an entire, trust engine, is is a concept

Todd Anthony: whereby we go in and instead of treating it as, like, we're gonna create a bunch of case studies

Todd Anthony: or we're gonna mine your, your results for data points that we can pull into your marketing or,

Todd Anthony: you know, things like that is we're gonna actually create an entire ecosystem of proof that your product works or that your services work.

Todd Anthony: And we're going to

Todd Anthony: we're gonna atomize all of that, and we're gonna put it in

Todd Anthony: all different areas of your marketing.

Todd Anthony: We're basically going to, broadcast it everywhere.

Todd Anthony: And that is one of the ways that that we generate trust.

Todd Anthony: Another way that we generate trust is through storytelling, because storytelling naturally creates a bond, or a connection between the, the rator and the, and the listener.

Todd Anthony: So that's just something in the human psychology.

Sean Weisbrot: How do you

Sean Weisbrot: build and maintain that trust with the audience in a way that's not clearly, obnoxiously salesy?

Todd Anthony: That's a good question and a good instinct.

Todd Anthony: You you infuse it into

Todd Anthony: other things that you're doing in a way that is not like, it's not necessarily the whole point.

Todd Anthony: And it is put forward as as, like, here we're making an assertion,

Todd Anthony: naturally, we're gonna follow that up with, and here's the proof.

Todd Anthony: Not like we, you know, here's our our entire billboard.

Todd Anthony: Sorry.

Todd Anthony: Our entire billboard is,

Todd Anthony: is just a data point of, like, we're awesome.

Todd Anthony: You know?

Todd Anthony: Like, we we did a 150,000 of that.

Todd Anthony: And, therefore, we are

Todd Anthony: the best in the marketplace.

Todd Anthony: Like, that sounds really salesy.

Todd Anthony: It sounds really boasty.

Todd Anthony: Like, we need you need to do it in a way that it that endears you to the audience, not in a way that repels them.

Todd Anthony: Because ultimately and I think your this is where your instinct is coming from, Sean,

Todd Anthony: is that people are sick and tired of being sold to, which,

Todd Anthony: you know, it they're very fatigued by it.

Todd Anthony: One thing that does still work though is this developing,

Todd Anthony: proof and trust through that proof.

Todd Anthony: That still works because people wanna know that the thing that they're gonna buy works or doesn't work.

Todd Anthony: They don't wanna hear your, you know, thirty minutes or thirty seconds, like, funny little pitch anymore.

Todd Anthony: They're done.

Todd Anthony: They're done with that.

Sean Weisbrot: So,

Sean Weisbrot: obviously, you're helping companies that are large enough that they have they have this proof.

Sean Weisbrot: But what if you're

Sean Weisbrot: early in your journey and you're trying to establish credibility and trust, but you don't have anything

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: to show for?

Sean Weisbrot: How do you do that?

Sean Weisbrot: How do you take what you do for these large companies and apply it to yourself?

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: It's it's really

Todd Anthony: I I think it would depend on the thing it is that you're selling and who you're selling it to.

Todd Anthony: Like, there's ways to build trust that aren't necessarily about

Todd Anthony: showing the results of what you do. Because, ultimately, if you're one month in on building a product, you don't have any results.

Todd Anthony: Like, there's nothing to say, honestly.

Todd Anthony: But you do have, tools at your disposal.

Todd Anthony: Things like honesty, straightforwardness,

Todd Anthony: having all your cards on the table, like, being, overtly trustworthy

Todd Anthony: in how you're projecting yourself out into the marketplace, those things do work.

Todd Anthony: And, also,

Todd Anthony: they do make you stand out from your competition,

Todd Anthony: because companies don't naturally do that, especially large companies.

Todd Anthony: The one thing that you have as an advantage as a small company is that you don't have the bureaucracy that's making everybody

Todd Anthony: and similar to AI sort of gravitate towards the mean.

Todd Anthony: You have the ability to be different.

Todd Anthony: And so use that,

Todd Anthony: and do it in a way that builds trust

Todd Anthony: among your audience, and you will you will grow, assuming you have, like, a good product.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Have you heard of the term building in public?

Todd Anthony: I have it, but I like it.

Sean Weisbrot: Really?

Sean Weisbrot: I figured you would have.

Sean Weisbrot: So building in public is a a phrase

Sean Weisbrot: I don't know who coined it, but it's something that, like, every SaaS owner has been taught, essentially.

Sean Weisbrot: It's like,

Sean Weisbrot: if you're building your product in public, if you're telling people,

Sean Weisbrot: you know, I didn't don't have any revenue yet, or, we just added this new feature, but it took three weeks to put together.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: If you're you're telling people the struggles of what you're doing,

Sean Weisbrot: then you'll build an audience that when you're ready to launch is, like,

Sean Weisbrot: assuming you've done it right and you've attracted the right people,

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: your customers are ready to go because you've been getting them wet, essentially.

Todd Anthony: Totally.

Todd Anthony: Like, that's I I love the term.

Todd Anthony: I hadn't heard the term, but I have obviously witnessed the

Todd Anthony: the the expression of that.

Todd Anthony: And, I think it's a great way to develop trust.

Todd Anthony: It's a great way to bring people into your orbit and to, like

Todd Anthony: essentially, it's storytelling.

Todd Anthony: Like, here's my struggle.

Todd Anthony: I'm trying to create this thing.

Todd Anthony: Here is this,

Todd Anthony: this roadblock that I ran into, and it really did make me stumble for a second.

Todd Anthony: But I figured it out.

Todd Anthony: Like, people are, like, suddenly

Todd Anthony: tuning into that, and they're like, oh, this is exciting.

Todd Anthony: Like, I get to follow this guy and his journey of developing this product.

Todd Anthony: I wonder what happens next.

Todd Anthony: You know?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: They're involved.

Sean Weisbrot: I came across a a video in my feed on YouTube earlier today where a guy's like,

Sean Weisbrot: watch me on my journey to go from 0 to 10,000 a month in revenue for my software company.

Sean Weisbrot: And it's like day the thumbnail is like day 36, zero revenue.

Sean Weisbrot: Because

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: I think I saw something similar to that in my, substack feed, yesterday.

Sean Weisbrot: because, like I said earlier,

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: all these gurus are saying,

Sean Weisbrot: oh, I I'm working one hour a week, and my business makes a million dollars a month.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: You know, I make I have a trillion dollars in sales because of the the AI agent team that I put together.

Todd Anthony: No.

Sean Weisbrot: Comment x, and I'll give you access to it.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Right?

Sean Weisbrot: It's like there's a million of these kinds of businesses,

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: and these people are making money selling to the people who want to make money.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Sean Weisbrot: And it's it's sad because I could make millions of dollars if I wanted to do I mean, I I've I've been money in the past, but, like, I could do something like that if I wanted to. I'm like, no. I'd rather just actually build something that's useful that,

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: you know, when the hype is gone, this thing is still valuable to people.

Todd Anthony: Mhmm.

Todd Anthony: I think, ultimately, those guys, deep down on their heart of hearts, they know that they're, full of shit, and

Todd Anthony: they know that they're just taking advantage of people who need guidance, and it's sad.

Todd Anthony: I think that's what makes it sad.

Todd Anthony: I think it's much better to to be be true to yourself and say, okay.

Todd Anthony: Well,

Todd Anthony: based on that, how how am I gonna make how am I gonna make money?

Todd Anthony: You know?

Todd Anthony: But, yeah, I've seen those people out there.

Todd Anthony: But the point about going and building in public, I mean, I think is great.

Todd Anthony: I mean, I remember being at Yahoo and we would launch a new product, and it's like, it's in beta.

Todd Anthony: You know?

Todd Anthony: That was kind of the my first exposure to that kind of thing.

Todd Anthony: I was like, oh, interesting.

Todd Anthony: Like, you don't see that in the grocery store.

Todd Anthony: Nothing's in beta in the grocery store.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: You've been right.

Sean Weisbrot: But there's there's nothing really in beta anymore because you could literally take an idea, and and it's ready to launch in a few days.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: You could.

Todd Anthony: I mean, it it might be worth signaling that it's not necessarily fully baked, or it's not necessarily,

Todd Anthony: you know, the full expression of what this needs to be. But, you know, people will still buy it

Todd Anthony: if it helps them do something that they need to do.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: Something like SparkFox, for example, it saves people a ton of time and can generate, like,

Todd Anthony: a ton of a ton of, social media content really fast in your voice,

Sean Weisbrot: Exactly.

Todd Anthony: theoretically.

Sean Weisbrot: You wanna be my, my chief sales ops?

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Todd Anthony: Sure.

Todd Anthony: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the most important thing you've learned in your career so far?

Todd Anthony: You know, that the answer to that, Sean, is gonna change, like,

Todd Anthony: on on a daily basis.

Todd Anthony: But I think to my today's answer is that

Todd Anthony: it's okay not to have all the answers.

Todd Anthony: Like, just do stuff and

Todd Anthony: just let it be okay and feel like it's okay to bring other people in

Todd Anthony: and get their expertise or their opinion or their it doesn't mean that you don't know what you're doing even if you don't know what you're doing or maybe you don't know what you're doing.

Todd Anthony: Like, it's okay to not know what you're doing, honestly.

Todd Anthony: Like, you're doing something and it's pretty cool.

Todd Anthony: So,

Todd Anthony: maybe, you know, take some advice from other people.

Todd Anthony: That's one of the things that that's

Todd Anthony: fundamental to how I built the agency is that everybody

Todd Anthony: that works at Pinwheel is on the same level,

Todd Anthony: and we're all doing it together.

Todd Anthony: Now if somebody disagrees with me and I disagree with them,

Todd Anthony: I might, you know, I might overrule them.

Todd Anthony: But, ultimately, as an old founder,

Todd Anthony: that I worked for once used to say it's a benevolent dictatorship.

Todd Anthony: No. It's a it's kind of a democracy,

Todd Anthony: but with a little bit of hierarchy.

Todd Anthony: A little bit.

Todd Anthony: Teep it. So

Sean Weisbrot: Okay.

Sean Weisbrot: Thank you.

Todd Anthony: yeah, yeah, thank you.

Todd Anthony: Good to talk to you.