AI Won't Replace You. A Person Using AI Will.

Sean Weisbrot: welcome back to another episode of the We Live To Build podcast. This will be slightly different from what we do in the past, even though I don't normally prepare. In this case, we actually forgot to have a topic and decided to go forward. Anyways, I'm talking today with Josh Fuller. He's the founder and CEO of Madic Digital, and they help companies with their strategy and their branding as a. Founder of a company, you're based in the us you're probably hearing a lot of stuff that's going on inside of the us. There's a number of people that listen to this podcast that are not in the us. I'm not in the us. So I think it would be interesting to talk about the current business climate in US and what you think businesses should be doing to prepare themselves for what's coming next. How does that sound?

Josh Fuller: That sounds great. I, I, I mean, there's a couple letters that are on the top of every conversation. AI is, is changing things, um, so drastically. It came to market six months ago. I think we just hit that anniversary. Um, we're still figuring out how to use it, um, and, and exploring its value. It's, it's, uh, it's threat. Um, you know, on the, on the job market side and the company side, I'm seeing more and more exposes where people are like, I, uh, I deliver pizzas now. I lost my job to AI and, and I'm curious what their, what their job might have been before, um, to have lost it to this fairly new budding capability. And I, you know, I don't think people need to be fearing AI taking their jobs. I think they need to be fearing. Those that are learning how to leverage AI into their workflow, those, that's, that's gonna be the powerhouse is, I mean, I, I think from our intro call you, you're using ai, um, and exploring it, and we're using it as well and exploring it and, uh, everything, you know, it doesn't change the thinking, the point of view, the perspective, the, the. Nuanced empathy that goes into understanding a, a customer base or a product strategy or a client need. Um, it's not replacing those things, it's enabling those things to come together, um, through, through, you know, a broad range of. Kind throwing noodles at a wall until something sticks. But the, the craft I think that we're seeing is knowing how to manipulate it so that you know what sticks and know what's actually going back to all the variables. And that that's, that's gonna be a very long time to replicate. So, um, you know, I think companies. In this current climate, um, from that topic, from that lens, need to be thinking, you know, heavily about, um, not how do we use this to eliminate jobs? How do we train up our people to use this better? That's really where I think the strength of it is gonna come in. It's, you know, photographers weren't replaced by Photoshop. Um, so, you know, AI's not gonna replace, uh, everybody in the industry that's working on digital.

Sean Weisbrot: So let's talk about that then. Uh, this guy or woman, I don't know, uh, lost their job and now they're delivering pizza. And a survey was done last month in May that said 3,900 people lost their job and it was attributed to ai. And it was the first time that this kind of a figure was ever calculated. I.

Josh Fuller: Of course. Well, you know, the, the pizza headline I came across was just that it was also a headline. Um, and it, you know, based on a story, I mean, there's no shortage of news to consume out there and articles to consume and, and so yeah, based on the source, that could be a very reasonable thing. That's actually quite a small number too, given the workforce in. Let's say digital where AI is probably most competitive, um, for jobs. So, you know, I, I do expect companies to be probably having a knee jerk. And, um, in that knee jerk, they're, they're thinking we can replicate, we can replace. Um, and, and if that's a way to cut costs, phenomenal for them, right? Uh, not so great for the, for the employees. So, um. You know, if, if that's real figures, then then massive empathy there. Um, it's a very new game, so we're gonna have people getting, you know, companies attempting to replace people. It's going to happen. But I think in the long run, um, over the next few years, time will tell that, that it needs to become. A skill it needs to become a, a craftable moldable tool set skill, uh, for whether you're a content strategist or you are, uh, you know, a data architect, you're, you're leveraging these tools, um, day to day, just like you might slack or, uh, email. So that's, that's the, again, this is a gut check. We'll find, you know, talk with you in a couple years, tell you, we'll, we'll know where it's really landing. But from, from what I'm seeing, um, and over the years, every, you know, slack was gonna kill email. Everything's supposed to kill everything. Uh, CDs killed vinyl. It's a, it's a $1.4 billion industry in 2023, so it's not dead, it's resurrected. Um, you know, things have a way of, of, um, getting really peak level excited and peak level reaction and peak level band bandwagoning and, and time always sort of cools that into. Okay, what's actually realistic and okay, we actually do need people thinking through the output here to, to, you know, to check the check of ai. Um, and, and it, you know, the, the amount of mis, I mean the, the misinformation question is, you know, not just on political, but in, in the corporate sense, in the messaging sense. Um. AI is only as good as the content it's pulling from, and it's pulling from everything. So there's, there's a lot of training left to do. I would

Sean Weisbrot: think so I've just opened the report and there is no specific like reasoning. It just says, uh, you know, job cuts by reason. It's a table and it says 3,900 Artificial intelligence May 23 year to date, and. So they're, they're not, what they're saying is they spoke to a number of companies and the company said, this is how many people we fired, and this is how many were fired because of ai. But there's no further explanation or, or, you know, discussion about it in this report.

Josh Fuller: Well, just layoffs as a whole and, and cuts as a whole seems to be, uh, you know, it's so funny. Two years ago after COVID remote work was the main topic. You found, um, employees sort of, uh, you know, a lot of reports came out around, uh, full-time employees having multiple full-time roles. Uh, because we're remote, we have time. It's very common. I think the, the, the potentially missed opportunity there was not to look at. Well, we gotta get people back in the office. I don't know if that was defining, it's more like, how are we hiring, how are we setting up initiatives? I, I know more, I've been on teams. I've sat with a backlog of, uh, work ready to go into production that could not get there due to, you know, team cap capacity across the organization. Um, there, there's a lot of redundancy in that world. So. People aren't necessarily greed, mongers, they're, they're, they wanna be challenged, they're bored. And, and so those that can do more, do more. And, and I think we saw that in COVID. And what's interesting is, is how full swing, um, from 22 to 23, uh, the, the, the layoffs are just so heavy this year. Um, and, and it's, it's, it's systemic. You would think it would've happened during COVID, but that's actually when the hiring. The salaries all massively increased and it was a, a super strong talent market to, um, in terms of talent had had the upper hand, um, to the point of taking two jobs at one time even. And, and, and now it's, it's a very interesting thing where I. I do wonder have companies, you know, what tools are they using to recognize that maybe they weren't optimized in leveraging the resource? Maybe they were over-resourced and what are they doing, you know, why now? Why is this happening now? Is it purely economic? Is it getting smarter? Is it getting more efficient and nimble? What's, what's the drivers there?

Sean Weisbrot: Um, so what I was saying was what I've seen the public CEOs say. Is we screwed up. We imagine demand would continue and we miscalculated. Now, whether or not that's a good excuse or not, whatever, but at the end of the day, it's not about the humans, it's about the shareholder. You know, return on, on, on investment. It's, you know, buybacks. It's whatever you can do to lower your tax burden. So. I think in the case of Facebook, he realized that his metaverse play was, I don't wanna say doomed, but that he was way overweighted and he was going to have massive problems if he continued to put energy into it. And he shifted to ai. Um. The other companies, I think they've also kind of shifted towards ai and so they've realized that maybe some of the things that they were working on just weren't good. Like you look at Google and Google definitely has way too many people, but what they're really good at doing is trying something out and, and really fast going, you know, this sucks. Let's get rid of it. You know, and then they'll reorganize their teams, have someone start a, a new project, whatever, where some other companies, they'll continue on something for a much longer than they should. I mean, I think Apple took seven years to build like a a v an ar vr, and now granted what they've done is really interesting, but that's a different conversation. So, uh. I think that the reason why hiring sped up during COVID was because people felt like there was gonna be more demand for certain industries, and companies were paying you back for paying people their salaries, for keeping them on. So there was a tax incentive to not let people go, and there was a bigger incentive to hire more people. It's possible. I don't have any specific stat stats on that, but it's possible that some companies got greedy and decided, you know, hell, let's, let's get paid to pay our people. Right. Um, very small example of this, a company I've invested in in Canada, they have the opportunity to hire some natives. And the local government will pay a hundred percent of their salary for you to hire them. And this is not a COVID thing, this is an ongoing thing. So I'm like, well, let's save money and hire locals. And not, not locals, but native Canadians, right. The, the tribes. Um, and as a result, tho, you know, their tribesmen and tribes, women, they might become customers of our, it's a physical location, so maybe they'll be, you know, customers because they wanna support. They're people. Um, so we're thinking any way we can in which we can take advantage of the government doing that. And we're looking at potentially getting, um, a business line of credit so that we can buy more stock so that we can increase without having to really lay out the money from, from cash. All because the government offers that, right? So the, the government has money available for these things. Why not take advantage now if they, if that wasn't their reasoning? I don't know. I think that's their reasoning. Um, but, but what they say is, you know, the world is changed and we don't need so many people. And, and I think it was important because the valuations were insane compared to the value that they were actually providing. I think the number of people they had. I mean, you look at Twitter like Elon Musk, what fired like 9,000 people. What did Twitter need? Nine or 10,000 people for? What were they doing? The company doesn't even make that much money. It like loses money every quarter and has for years.

Josh Fuller: Uh, no, I mean that, and that's exactly. There was this mad rush. Everything, everything was, scaling jobs were opening, people were doing, you know, four month Google UX certs and they're demanding 120,000 a year salaries. And, you know, six months ago they hadn't been in digital at all. It, it, it was a, it was a wild couple of years. And, and I, I, I'll reserve, uh, my personal opinions, but I will say just from the outside on Twitter. Uh, I think that was the right move. I, I, I, I totally align with you. I'm like, how do you need 10,000 people? Um, you had 10,000 people to spare to run a, a fairly, you know, what started as a fairly straightforward technology. Um, so yeah. Where, you know, if there were initiatives driving that, that human growth. Um, I didn't see a ton of Twitter evolution. Uh, it's, it's still 144 character, uh, chat tool.

Sean Weisbrot: So I look at WhatsApp as a really good example. They were purchased by Facebook for 19 billion Now they were probably overpaid. They were probably overvalued and they probably, you know, Facebook just wanted to own them as quickly as possible, but when they sold, they had 13 employees serving a billion plus customers. Now most of the people weren't paying, but even then they, from, from the date in which they had started until the date that they sold, almost, I think almost 10 years later, they had done half a billion in revenue. I don't know where the money came from, but they did for 13, half a billion dollars for 13 employees. That's a good day. That's a great Bay Day. Uh, well, but actually one of the guys, he ended up. He, he had an agreement with Mark Zuckerberg that he would stay on for X amount of time and, and he would hit time milestones where he would get, uh, chunks paid out from the, the offer. Sure. Smart on

Josh Fuller: Zuckerberg.

Sean Weisbrot: The guy ended up telling Zuckerberg to f himself and he walked away from a $400 million like partial payout. Just so he could walk away from the company and get away from it. I,

Josh Fuller: I need to read this story. I, I, I'm fascinated by that decision. Um, and what could have driven him there?

Sean Weisbrot: Well, I think he had already gotten eight or 800 or, or 1.2. He had gotten something and he was like, you know, this extra four hundred's not gonna change my life. It's not worth being, you're already a

Josh Fuller: billionaire, you know, for cost of sanity there. That's, that's a, that's a noble reason to walk away.

Sean Weisbrot: He didn't walk away because of that. He walked away because. Working with Mark Zuckerberg was so painful, he, it just wasn't worth it for him. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that's mean cost of sanity. Like I just, I can't deal with it. I wanna be happy and, and this happened with Instagram as well, so both of the biggest companies that Facebook purchased, actually even Oculus, I think the founders of Oculus walked away as well. So every company he's purchased, the founders and him have a falling out afterwards, he pays well, but then he basically destroys your company from the inside out.

Josh Fuller: Yeah. Oh, I, I was talking about this with a colleague of mine who they, their, uh, global group and they, they do quite a few, uh, acquisitions and they've had to have a lot of consultative talk with, with, with CEO founders that get acquired, enjoy that perk and then dislike. The vision of the acquiring party. Um, and you know, that is what an acquisition is. We like what you've built. We see room in our tool belt for it, and we're gonna use it this way. And this is our vision for it. We own it now, come be a part of it. You're a brilliant mind that invented it. And I think those brilliant minds that invent. I mean, what a struggle, what a, what a hurdle of, of, you know, I mean on the, on the grandest scales, uh, vision and, and humility, uh, that, that has to be swallowed to, uh, to go and say, yeah, I'm on your team now and we're gonna take the thing I invented and I built. We're gonna do what you wanna do with it. That's a very tall order, but it's part of the game, man. You take, you take the money, that is what you've agreed to. Um, you have sold it into the vision of the bigger acquiring party. So it's a, it's a tricky thing, but I, I have to wonder is, I mean, it does seem like there might be a trend with, uh, meta and Zuckerberg. Bye. You know, um, 'cause I don't, I don't, I know Google does a lot of acquisitions. I don't, I don't know too many stories where people have walked away negatively from those acquisitions. But, uh, yeah, I mean, they've, they've got a way of running things and, and he has long established for years that, you know. I don't care what you guys say. This is, we are now meta, uh, like he just threw away the Facebook brand almost entirely with that to rename the whole organization and yet, and kind of confused people. Um, very, very interesting moves, but

Sean Weisbrot: I. Well, I mean, Google did that. They did. They created, uh, they called themselves Alphabet, but at the same time they also like legally removed themselves from the Google brand. So Google remains, but they kind of took a step up and they're at an executive level of the Alphabet board instead. And that's why Sundar pitch high got a chance to become the CEO.

Josh Fuller: Right, right. Um. Yeah. No, I mean, it, it, it's fascinating. I, I, uh, I don't know. I, I've thought about that being a founder, like, you know, a couple years in, uh, we're, we're, we're in build, we're not in necessarily looking for exit or anything, uh, of that nature, but it's not uncommon that a, you know, um, agency like Matt could be in that situation. And I've thought those words have always rung true of like. To be acquired is to basically say, I'm now your employee. What, how, how can you use me? Um, and there's a great payday with that and there's a success factor to that. But you're usually signed on, in, in, in the agency space, you'll be signed on. And, uh, yeah, it's stories like, like the WhatsApp and the Insta and the Oculus. Um, I guess that's just sort of pick, pick where you're gonna, um, if you're gonna be acquired, you know. Try to, try to think future about where that place will be, um, so that, you know, it can be a successful transition.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you have a, a number that you would, you would need to take before you would allow yourself to be acquired?

Josh Fuller: Um, I. I have benchmarks of what MAD needs to be performing at before I would, I would get there. Um, you know, we are, we're in our second year. Um, I, I would like to see mad performing, um, and, and growing to, you know, a, a 40 person operation, um, with, you know, incredibly strong, uh, client bonds. Where we're, we're, we're, you know. Really tethered to, to the vision of our clients and partnered in, um, not on a project vendor scale at every moment. Um, so that's a, that's a bar that's, you know, starting to, to pull ourselves up on. Um, but we're, we're very young, so, you know, 40 ish Pearson consultancy, you know, doing a revenue, uh, uh, of 20 plus million a year. That's around the, the, that's the growth goal for MAD over the next five years. And that could dictate a lot about what that number might be to, to be quite, but at the same time, you know, um, the, the team that, that's helping me build Madic, um. You know, the commitment, the dedication, like ensuring like, it's not my number, it's, it's the number that works for everybody if that happens. And if that's, you know, whether that's a number or just assured success. Um, that's, that's kind of our, our bottom line right now is building out. Against this culture, against the types of work we're doing against the types of people we're doing it with. Um, ensuring that, you know, I mean, I've assembled a team of former Deloitte and former agency, and some are younger and some are are more experienced. And, um, that's their bar of day-to-day work life balance quality. That's what they're, that's what they're accustomed to. So we are building that. So we have to be. Selective with the types of projects. It's not entirely like, uh, you know, we're a young agency, we're starving. There's money there, let's do it. We're, we're, we're looking at this from, um, the sense of what's good for the long haul and what's, what's the story we're building and the narrative that we're crafting for ourselves. So that's the value marks I've been thinking more about than, than the number at this stage. I'm curious why you picked the number 40. The number 40. Uh, I like it. It's, it was 20 when I, when I set out to build this, uh, in, in 21. And, uh, we're closing in on 10 this year or, and which is essentially our second year. And I'm realizing, uh, that that. The kind of work we want to be doing, the kind of impact we wanna be capable of making, it will be even, we have a very deep bench of independent talent, um, with Maddick. 'cause we, we do a lot of consulting with, with various groups and we need to call in specialties. And so, I mean we've, we've got a 80 person capacity now. But, um, that's, you know, given on, on a lot of different constraints. That's a flex team. Um, capacity, our core team being close to 10, the kind of things we're envisioning doing and the kind of impact we wanna make with clients. Um, we're going to need more than 20, um, to get there. So. I, the, the new marks. I, I do everything about four years out. That's how I, I think so, um, basing on what we're doing this year, I, I, that's where, how I got to the number 40.

Sean Weisbrot: So you think you'll be hiring 10 people a year for the next four years? I, I get the feeling that at some point in the next two years, it'll, it'll become more than that. Assuming you, you need that, right? Because there's a difference between what these large companies are doing, which is growth, because why the hell not? We have the cash and growth because you have the need. Right. And we're in the

Josh Fuller: second category right now. Um, uh, the, I I hope I never, well, I don't know that. I hope that there's probably, um, something to be looked at for, uh, why the hell not, let's grow. But, uh, you know, uh, just let's be adventurous. Let's try something new. So I, I guess I, I would be in that category too, uh, if, if, if we were there. But no, we are, we are growing. Um. Whenever I, I see a little more runway, whether, you know, and, and we're homegrown, we're not boot, you know, we're bootstrapping the agency entirely. Um, and, and it did start with, with just me liking to talk to people and move some pixels around. And, and as soon as I could, I, you know, turned the conversation into how do I help others, um, you know, with the strategy and design work, uh, get, get them involved. But, um. As we're going. Yeah, I, I do see it maybe multiplying down the path. Um, but it, it is all based right now. If, if we have enough that makes sense here, we're hiring for here so that we can keep moving up. And, and I think that's a mental blocker that I had to overcome from, you know, my, I, I ran a small and a, I I, I'm scared to call it an agency now. Uh, more of a permanent shop. Like when I got my career in my twenties, I, there was, there was, uh. Very, very few jobs there in the early two thousands, um, right after the.com boom. And I, uh, so I started freelancing and then I started a, a little agency and I networked then and I, I. Learned how to, you know, do more than I could do and, and work with, um, uh, independent talent, uh, to help scale my own capabilities, pass for certain development and things of that nature. Um, but we never got very big. It was a nice, cozy job, um, that I got to be independent for nine years and then I moved into the agencies and Deloitte of the world, um, and coming out at this side, uh, you know. Investing back into the people instead of enjoying a nice profit share has been. The, the, the absolute only way I see growing. If I'm not investing back in our capability, our capability doesn't grow. And, and so yeah, you're spot on. I mean, maybe it's, it's, I don't have the ambition to be running a hundred person company at, at this moment. Like, it's not in my heart. It's also not off the table. If we grow, we grow. Um, the, the ambition right now is, is kind of what I said earlier, just ensuring that, you know, we. There are, are, I mean, I don't focus at all on geography when we're hiring. Um, I, I want talent, I want willingness, I want ambition to learn, um, speak up to, to clients. You know, I, I, I'd rather not be, uh, you know, order takers. Um, we, we wanna be thoughtful in the work we're doing and, and the value we're adding. Um, and, uh. I'm, I'm constantly looking for, uh, others that, that have that mindset towards this work so that we can go do this work together and, and be successful at it.

Sean Weisbrot: Makes sense. So what you, you were saying that I was thinking about, um, my software company that I started years ago and I remember when we had like four people, I was like, oh my god, four people, right? Because I was used to doing things by myself. Um. Well, like for the company before that, I had about 10 or 15 people, but they were all contractors. Nobody was in house. It was just, oh, I need someone, you can do this job. Great. Let's work together. Um, and the one before that, I had about 30 volunteers for, it was an event organization, and so they would volunteer, but. You know, some would come this time, some would come the next time. It was sporadic and, and all of that. And their, their payment was, they could be part of the event for free basically. And, um, so like, this was the first time I was building a completely in-house team and was anxiety inducing, having people that are relying on you and, and like, don't get me wrong, I had been. I had been a manager in other companies where the teams were 15, 20, 13, you know, 25, where I was directly managing all of those people. But it's one thing when you're a manager of someone else's company where they're responsible for the money and it's another when you are the owner and you are responsible for them and the money. And so it became quite anxiety inducing, but I knew that we, we needed to keep hiring and. We got to like five and then six and like every time we hired someone else, I felt like a little bit more like tightening of the noose of like my soul. Like, oh, there's more people, there's more manage, there's more complexity that you know, because more and more and more, and at our peak we had 17. And when I got to 17, I looked back and I was like, ah, one or 2, 3, 4, 5, 10. Like it is not that big of a deal, right? But around 15 it starts to become difficult without having someone to help you to manage it. Um, I also looked at the future of that company and the potential was if we're successful, we could have thousands of employees. Now, is that the kind of company that I want? And at first I thought it was. But the more time I spent in that business, the more I realized. It actually does not make me happy to imagine not knowing the names and personal details of every employee in that business. And so I didn't like the idea of having a multi-billion dollar company. I didn't wanna go for that, even though I had put myself on that path. And I realized only after I started a few years into it that it wasn't what I wanted.

Josh Fuller: No, man, I I I love that. 'cause yeah, there's, there's the art of daydreaming, right? Where I've, I've imagined like, okay, at this pace. Yeah, get, getting above 40 is, is, is easy. Getting to a hundred is, you know, uh, okay. Not easy, uh, is imaginable. And, and, um, and, and then beyond, you know, I, I, I spent four and a half years with, with, uh, uh, Deloitte, um, some of that in the States, one of those years in Europe. Uh. I didn't meet everybody, hundreds of thousands of employees across the club. Um, I I met so many though, and, and, and what was interesting about it is there was, you know, when I think about growth, I, I, I do see the, the, the, the noose analogy. And, and I think I had, I had some panic. I kind of went from one to four over the same. Like everybody kind of started at the same time. I sort of, like I said, I reinvested some of the profit of the company. It's we're, this is our point of inflection. We're going to grow in this moment. We're not going to, I'm not going to, you know, buy a new car. We're going to grow this company. And, and that's, that was last year. And yeah, man, those, those first few payroll runs were sobering. They're just like, oh my God. I'm like responsible for. People's mortgages and, and car payments and tuition payments and lives to some extent, I, I owe them. And like, uh, you know, last year we overcame some hurdles with a deficiency in payment from a client and I, so all, all too recently, I was aware of like what it's like when there is no money. Um, what do you do then, and, and how do you navigate that and, and, um. So it, it's, it, I had it, but I, I've started to trust I in a weird way, that, that, that, that, that hurdle, you know, I, I, if you're capable to, to accomplish it, the, the business is there and, and, and that's, that's been, you know, a mental block to kind of get over and, and start to lean into, like we have to see through, you know, the forest of the trees and, and, and, and I think that's how I'm approaching growth right now. I do like that I can know all the people on some level and know about them and about, you know, somebody's more into music or somebody's more into to, you know, filming or rock climbing or whatever their hobbies are. Like, I like getting to know these folks. I like having lunch with these people that are joining manic and molding this clay with me. And, and as we, um, continue to grow that I, it won't be possible to do that. Um. You know, to, to a certain intimacy, it just won't be possible. Um, and, and again, it is now. So just to point that out, but down the line, I, I can see it and I think that's okay. Um, as long as those end paths are being built in this community. Um, and, and you know, I will, I, if it gets to hundreds of people. Uh, I'll probably be reaching out to you for advice, um, and those in my network. Uh, I, I was at, you know, I, I ran my own thing years ago, and then I, I joined an agency that was about 40 people I watched just grow to about 60, um, before I moved over to, to Deloitte. And, and then I, I joined a, a product company that was, uh, I was like. Kind of one of the first employees. Um, and we were nine people. And then we got acquired into a 200 person organization after a year. And some of the most fun I've ever had was when we were those nine people. And, and you know, and we, this is pre COVID, so office was a thing and we were in the office. There was dogs, there was lunches, there was coffees, there was breakouts. There was. Impromptu whiteboarding, it was genomics focused, and I was the, um, creative, uh, running the products. So I consistently needed our founder and our bioinformatics engineer to whiteboard out what genomics is repeatedly. I just, it, it was, uh, it was this fascinating new world that I had to translate to, to, you know, thousands of users. And, um, understanding it was, was, um. A, a constant, you know, uh, re-up of just, okay, my framing of this is still accurate. That was some of the most fun I ever had, um, was being that nine person. Uh, but yeah, I, you know, when we got acquired to, to a, a larger company and not much larger, only a couple hundred, um, yeah, it was a different sport immediately. Our culture was different. Our. Breakouts were different. The people we needed to be talking to weren't each other anymore. There were others that we didn't know, and, uh, I see that. Um, but that ultimately was, um, a successful transition and, you know, there's that integration moment. So I don't know what the future holds. Uh, but I, I definitely hear you, um, and empathize with you on your software, uh, company story because it's, yeah. Um. Seeing it from, you know, right now, kind of constantly rethinking what worked yesterday because. New variables create new solution needs, and, and we're, we're, we're building on that every day and, and optimizing. So it's, it's a challenge. I spend a lot of time, uh, I don't just spend time, uh, on, you know, client lunches and, uh, writing proposals. It's, uh, it's, you know, a lot of, of talking in internal, how are we, how are we doing this here? What is Maddox? Ethos and, and solution around this challenge. How, how do we do that? Um, going from founder to, to kind of a, uh, you know, head of a, a much larger thing, um, even in how I've approached sales and solution design, it's, uh, you know, it's one thing to do it based on how I would approach the project, and that's how I can, I've, I've written a lot of good proposals. For how I will do the project. Um, the second I, you, you start bringing in engagement leaders and creative directors and content strategists and engineers and CTOs. There's making this whole ecosystem work together for how, how do we do the project. Um, it it, it's been a really fun, fun journey so far this year.

Sean Weisbrot: I was talking with someone yesterday who runs a seven figure business. They do fractional CFO services to startups in Canada and North America. And they were asking me, you know, how do you go beyond 10 million a year? And I said, if you look around the room or you look at your operations and you don't see a bottleneck, you're the bottleneck. If you want to grow to 10 million, you gotta remove yourself from that conversation of how do we do this project?

Josh Fuller: Thank you for that. Because I, I see it more and more, I have stepped in it a couple of times where the, the, the more. Independent solopreneur in me hops out and it's like, I'll solve this. Uh, let me help, let me help the team real quick. Um, we're all busy. Let me, let me jump in and I'll just mitigate with this little piece of whatever UX or communications or whatever. And inevitably it, it, what used to solve problems creates it as you grow. And, um, that's a really, um, I mean that's just a fascinating notion like I, I don't know, maybe for others it's. Common knowledge, but I have had to learn that, that, uh, exactly what you just said, it's a, you know, growth comes when you start to remove yourself, replace yourself, scale, you know, scale. Um, where, where the organization needs it. It is so counterproductive to what, or counterintuitive rather to what? Notions I had coming into this. It's like, I've learned all these things. I can do all these things. I'm, there's, I can build a business around it. I can teach others. I can't teach. I hire experience now. I don't, I, we are in growth mode. And growth mode makes it very difficult. Uh, and again, we're small. We're not, uh, we're not even dozens of people yet, so. Um, but we've had to learn that we, it, it's just vital formatic success and, and capability and, and you know, what we can do for our clients. It's vital to hire in, um, experience right now, um, versus, uh, you know, a, a willingness to be trained. Um, we'll get there, I think. 'cause I, I've, I've always. I worked with, with younger talent from, uh, you know, being a CD for many, many years. Uh, brought a lot of people in and, and watched them go do great things. And, and, and that's a phenomenal thing. Matt is not there yet. We cannot, we cannot train today. Um, but hopefully in a couple years we can, because I think the team I'm building, we are naturally empathetic. We're naturally wanting to push people to be, you know, go far. Um, I. But yeah, Maddock doesn't win when, uh, when we have to do that right now, every, everything we do is kind of table stakes for what we're building. And, and yeah, so leveraged experience is, is my, uh, kind of mantra right now.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I totally hear that. That's one of the reasons why I, I like this guy that I'm gonna probably hire as an intern. In fact, he might be listening to me say this right now while he's editing it in a few weeks. The fact that he's done this with another company, I. It is really important to me. 'cause like I, I had 50 applicants and most of them are coming from Fiverr. Oh, I can produce your, your thing with Qual, nah, I don't want someone on Fiverr. I want someone that's worked for a company producing their content because I know that they know how to work with other people. They know how to follow deadlines, they know how to work with people. Like, you know, I don't want someone that goes off on their own in the, in the corner and works by themself because. If this guy's really good, well, I may give him complete creative control over my content and I may even let him manage the shorts editor. He could direct the entire thing, like, why would I not want that? Right. And I'm also trying to hire an basically like what? A milestone, an executive assistant where. Uh, that person would be helping me with all of the scheduling and the communication with guests and, and actually take the content and schedule the content and promote the content and, and, and all of that stuff. Um, and that person may end up directing or managing the two editors and the thumbnail designer so that they, she or he makes sure all the content gets out at the right time. Right? Because if I'm managing those people, like, sure I can do it, but I'd rather train them. Then let them manage each other. Because what I need to do is focus on advising people because they're bringing in the revenue to cover the cost of having the team and to advise the companies that I'm investing in and to look for companies to invest in and, and all of that. And if I'm worried about whether the edit comes out right on this, this thing, right. Or like if this post got done at the right time, like I can't worry about those things if I want my company to grow. So I learned from my last few companies like that. I have to be, not hands off, but I have to empower them as much as possible, as fast as possible. And knowing that the three, at least of the four, 'cause they, I, I have the first three, but I don't have the assistant yet. 'cause I want the assistant to become more like an operator, hopefully. Um, or like a, or like a project manager. Although I may hire someone else above who would manage the, the execution of the vision of the entire brand, which would include finding me opportunities to be a speaker, finding me opportunities to do these things, right? It's like, like helping to actually build the brand so that I can just do the content, like filming of the content and the advisory, um, for this. So like I'm envisioning how many people do I need to do all of those things? And the answer is probably another two or three, probably not much to have a seven figure brand

Josh Fuller: as of right now, because I, I would, I, I think I, everything you just said, I love, but as of right now, because if that starts to work, it, it goes back to the thing you just told another client that if you don't see the bottleneck, you're the bottleneck. So, and that's of course, based on your ambition of like. You know, if you need even more now, you might be like, I, I need to hire somebody that helps me spot where I'm gonna be investing and, and continue scaling speaking engagements. I mean, the point is, I, I completely align with, with everything you just said. I, I just also think it's, uh. It's prudent to think about the, the fact that that is probably, that is the right now view a, a year from now, when that's working. When that's working, then it's, it's a whole new reset of like, okay, well now it's probably two to three more or two, uh, at least that's been, you know, I thought I just need a few people right now. We're gonna ride this for, for the year and, and, and grow on that. And, and that has changed. I, I, one of the people I didn't think I would need is a, a, a head of talent, but I, I do, and we've hired one and she's phenomenal. Uh, you know, and she's supporting recruitment efforts, interview efforts, uh, all, all of those things that, um, because a part of our business is we do some of that for our clients. So, uh, she was, um, a necessity. But last year that was me doing that. And, and now, um. Thankfully, uh, I've got help there because it was vital to get help there. Not part of the plan. I thought I just needed designers and developers, but nope, we've, you know, this was a, a, a huge win for us to bring that, that in. So, I guess my point is, right, as, as things start to work based on that plan, just being there is no until you're like. I have got this thing, this is the balance I want. There is no growth. It, it's recurring, it's forecastable, it's predictable. I'm on stable ground with this team, with this client roster. Let's go. Um, that sounds like a lovely place to be. I don't think it's very possible, at least in the, in the grand scheme of, uh, you know. Business change initiatives change, people act, you know, clients, the, the faces and names of those clients change. And, and so we're always going to be in a cycle of, of grow balance, recalibrate, grow.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. That's a good strategy. 'cause a lot of people don't do that. And so you're, you're right. I, I have thought of kind of a larger plan. Um. I think at one point, you know, one of the things is when you're advising people your time, you're basically selling your time. Although I don't charge per hour, I, I do packages, so they, but they're still getting a specific amount of time because it's not consulting. So, you know, my, my experience has told me I can only really handle 10 clients at once, because at that point it starts to become really crazy in terms of the amount of time. That's 10 hours a week, right there. Just serving those people. And so I thought, you know, one of the first people I would hire after that would be someone who could be a coach, right? Someone who can do maybe not everything that I can do, but can handle clients on their own. And you know, oh, you wanna be with me now you gotta pay more, right? So the price you were paying for me, that's their price. Now you wanna work with me, the price is tripled. Something like that. So then I basically would phase out the clients that I had or get them to just pay more or push them off to the, not really push 'em off, but I, I, I haven't thought that part through because I know at some point clients may not be happy if you switch over to another person in that regard. Um, so I, I've, I think that's one of the only ways to really scale the revenue side without having to. Increase the number of employees very much, but definitely that person I've also thought of like, um, paid membership community on discord with premium content or something like that. Something that, you know, you need a community manager or two, um, one working, you know, or maybe three, right? Based on the different, uh, different parts of the world, right? Three shifts a day. To keep it constantly moving. I don't know. There, there's things I, I've thought, I, I've thought through probably the potential of like 12 or 13 employees, but I don't really want a company that that's, that's, that is that big. Like I found at 15, 16, 17, it was already difficult for me. Um. I don't really care if, like, I don't need a $10 million per year company to be happy. Like at, at one, at one point, what do you do? Just like invest in another company or two, you know, like what, what can you really do that's more beneficial than like working less and taking care of yourself?

Josh Fuller: Uh, I mean that, no, uh, spot on and I, couple of things to unpack there. Uh, you mentioned you were talking to a fractional CFO org the other day. I think the fractional economy is such a growth. Uh, I mean, you know, uh, you can be, uh, uh, I, I would imagine as, as a coach and advisor, you can be a fractional. X for a lot of different needs and, and support a lot of different, um, you know, individuals and organizations. And again, those fractional CFO models. You know, I, I, I don't know the origin story, my guess is out of necessity. Um, and somebody was smart and said, well, maybe there's a lot, a lot more companies that need a part-time CFO than a full-time CFO. So I'm guessing that's where fractional CFOs were born. Um, they are, uh, a plenty now and, but that fractional economy as a whole, you know, um, where it's, it's been able to do something in the CFO world that is hard to do, uh, with like design or content creators or those are all, you know, gigs. They're not, and, and, and so we're just doing a gig at a time and fractionals like, no, you're signing on and, and we're, we're going to be a partial cost. For this runway, for this amount of time, and we're gonna become so vital to your org that really it's only gonna scale. And I think, I think that's such a, um. Interesting and smart model and, and so that, I don't know, that's, you talked about maybe hiring additional coaches. I could see that. Yeah. You're the, you're the draw, you're the show, um, and you have a team around you and it fractionally builds up to you and you might do an hour a month on the account, and then you have a tier of 20 hours a month in a tier of 10. And that's a great, that's a great model.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. Fractional CEOs are. Also kind of a thing, but not so much like CFOs. So I had considered playing around with that, where it's like, Hey, you want me to get my hands dirty? All right. But it's gonna cost you. And, you know, that's, it's a different conversation.

Josh Fuller: Well, and, and the content market is so fascinating right now because there's there, there's, there's a lot out there. Um, you know, podcasts, uh, posts, everything else. But, um, uh. I, I, I'm, I'm interested. I, I, I watch guys like, uh, Scott Galloway. Um, I, you know, phenomenal. Uh, I, I, I knew of him through a book, and then I heard him on, I think it was Armchair, and I just, I, he, I loved his, his point of view and he wasn't. He wasn't the same guy that he is on his podcast. 'cause his podcast is focused on certain trend economies and things like that. Um, but I, I'm a massive fan, but he's got, this is a full-time job just creating the content. He's got different producers for different shows and different personalities he brings in and different formats for the show. Um, and I'm just curious from, from your point of view, I mean. Is, is I could see you definitely needing to grow. Like if that was an ambition, is that where you see, uh, the podcast going? Um, do you, do you kind of envision because you can hit a lot more audiences that way?

Sean Weisbrot: I like the podcast where it is. I. I'm looking to buy a house in Portugal in like the next quarter so people don't have to look at random different windows and and walls. As I move around the world, I'll be able to actually have a studio for most of my con, I mean, 'cause like I'm based in Portugal half the year, so they'll be able to see like a nice studio that I'm gonna build. But does that mean I'm gonna have multiple shows? No. I can't do that. Like I enjoy interviewing people. I enjoy talking with people, and I make the other content because I need people to hear about me in order to grow my influence. But I have no ambition to be a media company any more than I need to be because I would rather. Be off the air, off the camera. Working with companies, that's what I like to do is helping people, the content, the content is enjoyable because it's, it makes life more enjoyable and the journey less lonely, and hopefully the content makes other entrepreneurs feel a little bit better about their journey too. So the content is enjoyable, but also has the goal of bringing me clients so that I can spend my time helping them, which brings me a lot more joy.

Josh Fuller: I love that balance. I, I think, uh, same, same, same boat. I'm, I love kicking back and, and writing articles, but all of it is to find somebody to actually discuss it with, uh, and being on these podcasts, it's, you know, it's so fun to talk about. The thing, whatever the topic might be. I think we did a pretty good job, by the way, not having a topic and finding them along the way. Um, and, but yeah, you know, that's my favorite part of, of the business is hopping on. Um, and, and you know, especially early stage where there's. Possibly even, you know, clear value to show, um, you know, there might be a pain point or a challenge or a goal or an obstacle. Um, and getting into those just really organic conversations with folks, um, that, you know, uh, at, at, at a level that, um. Doesn't always happen on email. It doesn't always happen in once you're in the project, but those, those early talks, they usually are the most honest talks, um, where we can, you know, really start to bear hug what's going on and, and where, where, uh, clients may need to go or want to go. And, and that's my favorite part too, is just the one-on-one. Uh, when, when they have an issue and it's like, yes, I see, I, I can see it, I see past it. I see around it. I see you and, and I think we can help. Um, that's the most exciting part. True. So how can people follow up with you? I'm on LinkedIn, Josh Fuller cd or mad digital.com. Two great ways to find me, um, on your podcast now.

Sean Weisbrot: All right, great. Well, thank you very much for your time and your energy. I appreciate it. This has been a great conversation, especially as you said, with no topic or goal. I think we hit on some really interesting things. Don't forget that entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint. So take care of yourself every day. And if you're not a subscriber on our YouTube side, we are currently sitting at 93% people who are watching our videos and are not subscribed, and I'd love to get that to 90. That would be huge. That would take us over 300 subscribers. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but it feels like a lot so. Please go ahead and do that. And if you're listening on iTunes, leave us a review because your reviews tell the algorithm that more people should hear about us. And we only have four reviews right now for three years. It's been a lot of effort on our part and we would really appreciate it. So thank you very much and I'll see you in the next interview.