Episode 5

Working for a Start-Up, Selling, and Being Human

by | Aug 5, 2020 | Podcast

Ever wonder what it’s like having your own startup? Or maybe you’re just interested in working for a startup – a fast-paced energetic company that is just excited to have the opportunity to be there. Well on this week’s episode, I spoke with Chris Bro about what it’s really like working in the startup arena. 

Nick (00:00:00): Do you have what it takes to run or be a part of a startup? The startup life isn't for the faint of heart. You have to take constant failures and struggles head-on in order to reach just small glimmers of hope and success. A lot of people aren't cut out for that lifestyle and many don't have the tenacity to hold on when it starts getting tough. Today, I'm sitting down with Chris Bro, who is the customer experience manager over at Lately AI, a fairly new startup company as of the last two to three years. We talk about his experiences working in a startup and how it is important to have thick skin, be persistent, and most importantly, be human. In this episode, episode five, which can you believe we are already at episode five? I feel like we just launched this podcast last week and I don't know. It's just amazing. But anyway, as I was saying, in this episode, we will get into several tips related to being a part of a startup, selling, and building an audience on social media. Okay. Now, before we get into the episode, please stick around to the end. I have some important and exciting information that you won't want to miss out on. So stick around until after the podcast ends so you can find out what that is. Alright, let's get into it. This is the interview with Chris Bro.

Nick (00:01:12): This is the Nine-Five Podcast. And I'm your host, Nick Nalbach. Where we get into the minds of entrepreneurs and people just like you. So you can start, build, and grow your own online business.

Nick (00:01:29): Welcome back to the Nine-Five Podcast. I'm sitting here with Chris, Bro. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris (00:01:35): Hey, nice to be here. Although I feel like I know you pretty well, thanks to Twitter, which is one of the reasons why I absolutely love Twitter is this just feels like two guys getting together that have known each other for a lot longer than, than we should have.

Nick (00:01:51): Yeah. That's that's exactly right. So yeah, like Chris said, we met on Twitter. He, I know you reached out to me about the company you're working for Lately and you initially showed me a demo of Lately. And then I thought it was awesome when we'll get into what Lately is a little bit later down the road. But yeah. And then from there, I mean, I've got on several chats with you and we have a lot of great conversation back and forth. I consider you one of my better friends on the Twitter sphere.

Chris (00:02:17): I love it. I love it. It makes me so happy because there's nothing better than engaging on Twitter.

Nick (00:02:22): I prefer it more than any other social media platform. Just for that aspect. It's it's such a good networking connection building platform.

Chris (00:02:31): 100%. I'm right there. I'm with you, man. I got it. I got it.

Nick (00:02:36): So Chris, why don't you tell the audience a little about, a little bit about who you are and what it is you actually do.

Chris (00:02:43): Sure. So you mentioned Lately I'm head of customer experience at lately. I'm a husband, I'm a dad and I'm a new music show, host, and curator.

Nick (00:02:53): I was actually doing a little bit of digging on your new music show.

Chris (00:02:58): Love it. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk music.

Nick (00:03:02): I'm pretty impressed. So it's All Things Next. You want to talk about that a little bit? What is it? What is it? What started this? How'd you get into it?

Chris (00:03:11): God, really? You want to start there? Oh my God. It's, it's a lot like most stories in life it's, you know, uh, and I'm actually gonna give you just a really short version of what happened. So in college I was that guy that found new music and just wanted to keep it to myself. And as soon as someone discovered my band, Oh, I just got a little perturbed. And so, uh, that stayed with me for a long time. And then I, through a series of events, uh, got into radio. And when I got into radio, I was at one station that was kind of a startup. It had just begun. And they played a lot of elect, uh, electric music. And so, but they didn't have a new music show. And I was like, dude, I love new music. We play new music. Let me have a show.

Chris (00:04:00): Every radio station has a new music show. Let me be the one. So I, I made kind of like a pilot program and gave him a tape or a CD back in that time, we actually had cassettes. And so it just, he's like, I got no time for it. You seem to be pretty okay at finding new music. Go ahead. And that was 700 and I don't know, 49 weeks ago doing it for 14 plus years. And now it's, you can hear it up in Canada. There's a radio station up in Canada and you can hear it, in Maryland.

Nick (00:04:34): Oh, wow.

Chris (00:04:35): Yeah. And I, it just, it, I turned one day and I was like, everyone should listen to my music. And I just turned into please. Everyone listened to my music. And I, you know, I, I did a total, 180, where in college, I was like, eh, you're listening to the replacements. They're mine. To, Oh my God, how can you not listen to the replacements? You better to start listening to the replacements. And then it just built from there.

Nick (00:05:00): I was the guy in college that probably would have been bugging you saying, give me your music.

Chris (00:05:06): Yeah. And I, and, and I love it. Uh, but it's interesting too. Cause there, I do have a little core group of followers and they've actually stopped suggesting bands because they'll be like, Oh, have you played X band? And I'm like, ah, three years ago. And they're like, man, I can't, I can't get, get one up on ya. But I do. I, uh, I do have a pretty good little following and they do, they, it makes me happy that I've got a, a Merry band of new music listeners.

Nick (00:05:36): I thought it was a really cool idea. When I first saw that I was kind of blown away.

Chris (00:05:40): Yeah. And, uh, my CEO actually, that's how we met was through music and new music, you know, it's, it's one of those weird life stories that if you would've told me when I started radio that I would meet my former boss through music and we'd be doing social media with AI, I would have thought you were crazy. And here we are here we are. I mean, it's yeah. I love it. Life, life is good

Nick (00:06:05): For the listeners. What, what kind of music is it like what genre, I guess, or is it just a mixture?

Nick (00:06:10): Yeah, it's a, it's it's it's music I like. If I like it, I play it. Uh it's in general, a rock and roll. I like guitar. Um, I, you know, I need to have that. Um, it's not gonna be too loud. It's not going to be too soft. I mean, I do play some acoustic numbers too, but it's, it's a lot of, you know, if, if you like Tom petty, if you like led Zepplin, if you, like I mentioned the Replacements, you like the Pixies, you know, anything kind of in that general vicinity, Pearl jam, you know, like things like that. Uh, you know, I'm always looking for the next Beetle, the next Rolling Stone, uh, you know, my phrase is I'm going to find you your next new favorite song. And that's really, the goal is, you know, Oh, you like the Rolling Stones? This band is Rolling Stones-ish. You'll probably like them. And so, uh, but it really does really just come down to my taste and you know, if I hear a great blues number, bloody hell, I'm gonna play that great blues number. Uh, if I hear a great acoustic song or, you know, a bit of a thrashy-er, post-punk, uh, you know, I'll throw that on there too, every once in a while, but it's guitar driven basically. Yeah,

Nick (00:07:21): Yeah, no, that, that was always been my, my, that was always my favorite. Um, I was teaching myself guitar for a while and I haven't, I haven't picked it up in years now.

Chris (00:07:32): Don't, don't get me started. It's it's a, it's a, uh, yeah. If I could go back and change one thing in my life, it would be that I taught myself or got lessons in guitar in like grade school so that I had some sort of something, but yeah, it's, it's disgusting. It irks me.

Nick (00:07:48): The issue is I'm not, I'm not musically gifted. So I taught myself like the tabs on like ultimate tabs.com. I couldn't can't read a lick of music, but I taught myself the tab. So I learned at least parts of songs. He might know a lot.

Chris (00:08:03): Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Nick (00:08:05): But yeah, I had a lot of friends that were very musically gifted and I could not keep up. I'd Play my same couple of songs over and over again. I'd be happy with that.

Chris (00:08:14): Okay, Nick, we're done here. You're good. Why don't you just listen.

Nick (00:08:18): We've heard that one already.

Chris (00:08:20): Exactly. Why don't you just listen for a while? Yeah, I, yeah, I know that feeling. I mean, I'm basically tone deaf if you asked me to sing, I don't know, but you, you play a song and I'm going to be like, that's a great song. I, you know, that's my one musical gift is that I can, I listen to a song and I'm like, bloody hell. That's, that's a great song. More people should hear it.

Nick (00:08:41): Well, that is very cool. Yeah. Um, so everyone listening that is allthingsnext.com. You should definitely go check it out. Um, I got to listen to a couple of the playlists that you have on there and the playlists are actually curated from Spotify. Is that like some of the,

Chris (00:08:56): That is true. Yeah. I also put it on Spotify. Yup. So you can, you can listen to the music without my voice. Some people really like that. They're like, ah, just stop talking, just play the music. And so it's a, it's a great way to do that. Plus you can skip, uh, and curate your, your own next, you know, like favorites.

Nick (00:09:16): That's something you don't see a lot of people, I guess take advantage of like using Spotify as kind of a,

Chris (00:09:22): I hear ya.

Nick (00:09:22): platform. So I think that's very interesting. It's a very unique way to go about it.

Chris (00:09:27): Thanks man.

Nick (00:09:27): Let's talk about Lately a little bit. So you said you met the CEO at Lately from your music first. Tell us a little bit about what Lately is. And then secondly, I guess the story of how that actually happened.

Nick (00:09:40): Sure. So Lately is an AI powered social media writing platform. It's not just a tool, it's an entire platform and it uses AI to take long content long form content. And it could be written a blog. We have authors that literally put their books in a newsletter, anything like that, but then also podcasts and video where we transcribe those. And that turns it into the written word. And then the AI can read it, repurpose it into dozens of posts that can very quickly get sent to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. And so it's a really quick, easy way to really keep your brand on brand on message. It's a, it's a brilliant tool. And I use it myself for my new music show. And if you took Lately away, I'd be lost. I really don't know what I would do without this tool. It's, it's brilliant on so many, so many different levels.

Nick (00:10:39): I'm going to jump in here and second that, because like I mentioned, Chris and I met on Twitter, he presented Lately to me and kind of gave me a crash course in, it took one of my blog posts and auto-generated these social media posts. And guys I'm telling you, this is insane. I'll go to any one of my blog posts and I'll run it through the auto generator and it'll spit out 50 different social media posts right there.

Chris (00:11:04): I know it's insane. It's insane. It really is crazy how incredibly awesome it is.

Nick (00:11:10): After you got me set up on it. And I, I was all excited about it. I just got on a roll and I had scheduled out probably 400 and some social media posts.

Chris (00:11:20): Dude, I use you in my demos!

Nick (00:11:24): That is awesme.

Chris (00:11:25): I do. I do. I remember it wasn't today. Maybe it was yesterday, but I was like, and I remember this guy, I set him up and he emailed me the next day, dude, I just scheduled 400 tweets. And uh, you know, I'm like, it's the pie, you know, you can do that so quickly. Yeah.

Nick (00:11:41): I actually just started, I think it was Lauren kind of got me set up with the video transcribing and the audio. And I had just started getting into the video content and now with the podcast, be very heavy audio based with the video also on YouTube. So I actually, the first couple of episodes that I've recorded already, I already pushed them through Lately at the whole thing transcribed. And I'm basically, I haven't autogenerated them yet, but I'm going to have pretty much all my social media posts for the launch of this podcast. Ready to go. As soon as we launch on July 14th.

Chris (00:12:15): Yeah. And you're going to be set for weeks, months, years, even with these podcasts. I mean, that's the great thing. If it's evergreen, bam, it's a no brainer. It really is. It's crazy.

Nick (00:12:25): I'm very thoroughly impressed. If anybody's interested in getting into that, if they want to give Lately a try, go to trylately.com, or contact Chris and Chris can get you set up,

Chris (00:12:36): Look at you. I love it. Yeah. trylately.com. Oh, you mentioned Lauren. Lauren is even more brilliant. So don't be afraid to connect with Lauren. And she's prettier to look at. I mean, this is a face for radio. Why do you think I'm in radio? Come on man.

Nick (00:12:51): Oh, you don't give yourself enough credit, put that camera on.

Chris (00:12:56): Thanks, man. It's appreciated greatly.

Nick (00:13:00): What brought you to Lately? I mean, Lately is a startup company There's still, I guess how old is Lately? Like how long have they been in the industry?

Chris (00:13:09): So, yeah. Yeah. Uh, let me, let me kind of start with that. So it's really, the problem is like, if you look at how I got here, it's an insane story. Uh, and same with Kate. Kate is my CEO, her name's Kate. We call her Kateley from Lately. And so, uh, Kateley, I'm looking at her story and you can't just say, Oh, she created an AI powered social media platform because, it, everything kind of led to this and well that, that's one of the things I love about life is when you're in the middle, you're going through all the crap and you're, you're deciding like, Oh, I'm going to go left. Oh, I'm going to go, right. Should I backtrack? Should I go forward? You're trying to figure all this out. And it's all a mess. But then when I'm sure you've noticed this too, you turn around, boom, it's a straight line.

Chris (00:13:59): Like it all makes sense. And so I'm going to, let me start with Kate's real quick, crooked, straight line. So she graduated with a English degree and of course, everyone laughed at her. They're like, what are you going to do with an English degree? That's nothing's going to happen. Then she got into radio. She started doing radio and worked her way up to Sirius XM. So she was talking to 20, 25, 30 million people at a time on a radio station, just mind blowing. And that's actually when we met, because at that time she was starting to get sick of the, uh, as you can imagine, it's a boys club. She's like, I got to get out. And, uh, but before that she created an app and what she did was she gathered three or four. I don't want to say experts, but new music people.

Chris (00:14:53): And I was one of them. And so she reached out to me and she goes, I'm starting a new app where you say, Oh, I love Led Zeppelin. Oh, here's Chris, he's a new music guru. He's going to give you three new bands that sound like Led Zepplin. That you're probably going to love. That lasted about six months. Sadly, didn't go anywhere. So she finally left. She just got into marketing because marketing I'm a writer, writers market. She got into that. Her company got hired by Walmart. So she was at Walmart for four years doing their nonprofit side and getting 130% ROI. You get ROI like that for Walmart for four years, people are going to start paying attention. A money guy came up to her and said, Hey, I love what you do with your spreadsheets. I got an AI guy here that might be a perfect partner for you.

Chris (00:15:47): Why don't you come meet them? And she's like, Oh, I don't, I don't want to do that. And he's like, I'll give you money to start this company. If you like the AI guy, she's like what? You're going to give me money. Uh, yeah, I'll meet the AI guy. They met, they talked, they chatted, they had a great time. And he looked at what she was doing at Walmart and said, Oh, we can build this. And bam Lately came about. And so that was really how Lately was. So you can see, it seems like a crooked line. If you asked her like Kate, you're graduating from Skidmore with a degree in English, do you know that you're going to change the world using AI and a social media platform? She would be like, you're, you're insane. That's never going to happen. And yet here she is.

Chris (00:16:31): And she would tell you if she were here right now. And when she listens to this, I hope she agrees with me. She's going to look back and go, Oh yeah, this makes sense. This is a pretty straight line. So, uh, and, and Lately has been around in market. I want to say, it's been about two years now, maybe a little less or maybe a little more. And it took them about two years to get all the ones and zeros and everything together to make it a launchable launchable can I say launchable.

Nick (00:17:00): That is actually a really crazy story.

Chris (00:17:02): Yeah, it's a crazy story. And so now I'm going to give you my crooked line and throw in when Kate got to me and dragged me into this madness, that is a startup. Because, because again, if you talk to me, when I was graduating from a small Jesuit school with an elementary education background, Chris, you're going to be working for a startup, uh, you know, being a head of customer experience, I would say first what's AI, uh, what's customer experience.

Chris (00:17:33): And they're going to put me in charge of something? Have you, have you met me? So, uh, that's where I started and believe it or not, I need to tell a story about a nun I, I mentioned that it was a Jesuit, uh, college. And so there were priests and nuns that taught some things I was studying to become an elementary school teacher. And I was for quite a while. And as you can imagine, I think there were maybe 30, 35 people going through the maybe 40 anyway, between 30 and 40, uh, students were going through this program. Three were guys to say, I was a less than stellar students would be fair. Uh, so I didn't say a lot. I didn't share a lot. I didn't talk a lot. And, uh, during one of the courses, uh, it was taught by a nun. Uh, trust me, this, this will pay off.

Chris (00:18:24): You can talk to my family. Sometimes I get going and they're like, bloody hell, can you just get to the ending? What are you doing? We don't care what you had for lunch. No, no, no, no, but it's important. No, sorry. I'm telling me it is. Uh, but know that the nun story actually is because the, um, one of the assignments was to read a story. In case someone got sick in the classroom and to catch them up, you know, the teacher would read the story to them so that they could just sit in launch, listen to the story and get caught up to class. If they were sick or you could send it home with them and they could do their homework. I again read into the tape and I turned it in. Uh, the non is handing back the things and she sees, you know, she starts talking about this tape and she goes, Oh, this tape is so good.

Chris (00:19:14): Everyone should listen to it. This is exactly how you read a story into the tape. And she hands it to this one guy who was like, rah, rah, like so excited to be in class every day. And I told you, I didn't say much. I was pretty quiet. So he of course gets the tape and he's like, hell yeah, of course I read this right, man. Also he looks and he goes, this isn't mine. Now, remember there's only three guys. So she has a choice now between me and one other guy. And she doesn't even know who to give it to now. And she goes, uh, who's Chris and I raised my hand and she goes, seriously, everyone needs to listen to this. So you can imagine the next month everyone's like, let's put Chris' tape on, you know, at the party. Can I listen to it?

Chris (00:20:02): You know, I got cramps so bad. So that's in the back of my head. I graduate, I do elementary school for a few years. Uh, it was nice. Actually. My first job was down at St. Thomas, the Virgin islands after a little while, I was like, Oh, I got to not teach anymore. I'm not digging this. I'm working at a bookstore just to cover rent and I'm driving in. And one of those ads for Connecticut Broadcasting School of a Radio, I don't even know if they have those anymore, but you know, it's a nighttime associate's degree, uh, you know, come in for six weeks and we'll get you a job in radio. I'm driving in. And I'm like, what am I going to do with my life? I hear this ad in the back of my head. I go the nun, the nun set. I should be on the radio, she is pretty close to God.

Chris (00:20:49): If you believe in God, she's got to know things. So I called them up. I went to the class and then I got into radio. When you get into anything, uh, you know, like radio wise, when I was doing my internship in Chicago, I was like, Oh, can I get a job? And they're like, are you kidding? No, you gotta start at the bottom. So you got to go somewhere small. I had a buddy from high school who moved out to New Mexico and he kept saying, when are you going to visit? When are you gonna come visit? Why don't you come visit? Ha how about I come live with you and radio at a small market and work my way back up to Chicago. So he gets excited, says, yes, I played college soccer. And so anytime I moved somewhere before I got a job, I usually found a soccer team.

Chris (00:21:31): So I found this soccer team. It was awful, but I met a guy who was pretty good. And he worked at a TV radio station. He was a camera man. It turns out that he had a friend who he wanted to introduce us. So that's how I met my wife. And that's important because now, uh, I'm getting into radio and then she starts moving me around. And then once I get to a certain point in radio, that's when Kate finally noticed me in radio. And so I know that's a long story to get to Kate coming here, but it's a little bit longer. So I'm in radio, I'm doing radio and I'm doing my new music show. And Kate finds out about me and then asked me to do the app. I don't hear from her for maybe a while. I mean, back and forth, but in general, for like a decade, my wife's career takes off.

Chris (00:22:22): We have a kid. And so I do the new music show once a week. And then I stay home with the kids. I was an elementary school teacher. It just made sense. And so I did that for 15 years, Twitter, everything comes back around again, back to Twitter. So I send a tweet and my tweet is "okay, who wants to take a chance on a stay at home? Dad who has a 15 year gap in his resume, start sending, start sending, uh, you know, your offers." And I hit send, and I don't think anything of it. I swear, not more than two minutes later, my phone rings and I see who who's calling. I'm like Kate Bradley. I haven't talked to her in a while, switch on the phone before I can even say hi. She goes, "you are working for me." How do you say no to that? Like, she, she basically just dropped a bomb. And so I was like, Aw, uh, yeah, what do you need me to do? And she goes, you know, basically sales. And I said, well, I don't know how to sell. And she goes, dude, you're in radio. You're smart. You'll figure it out. It's all right. You'll be you'll you'll I think you'll be all right. You're going to be good. Come work for me. And I was looking for a job and this was my first job offer. So I said, yes.

Chris (00:23:39): And that's how I got in the madness. Have I told you a long walk, a long walk to get here? We got here, man.

Nick (00:23:46): I mean, it's crazy to think of everything that has happened in that timeframe that could have Completely changed the course of where you're at right now

Chris (00:23:56): Yeah, I hear you. Uh, I got, uh, I actually got offered, uh, to do, uh, uh, one of the lower tiers in Germany for the, the soccer league. And I almost left college to go play soccer in Germany and God knows where I'd be now.

Nick (00:24:12): Wow.

Chris (00:24:12): Not here, but I'm happy. I'm I'm very happy here. I mean, I'm talking to you.

Nick (00:24:19): You're on the Nine-Five Podcast.

Chris (00:24:24): It's all led to this man. We did it.

Nick (00:24:32): I love it. So How was that getting into sales? Was it tough to, I guess, change your mindset on there. You went from teaching to now selling that's pretty dramatic change.

Chris (00:24:43): Very, very dramatic. The thing I think that helped me the most was being an athlete. Um, because, uh, when it comes to sales, you want to get to a yes or a no. Um, right. And so the whole goal is to get to a, no, obviously the yeses are going to come or whatever, but the sooner you get to a no, when someone says no, the better, because then you don't have to email them. You don't have to call. You don't have to tweet. You don't have to DM. You don't have to bother with them. Cause they were like, bam, they're gone. So getting to the no is huge and I'm a little relentless and you know, I even had a guy once just like stop calling me. I'm like, well, then just say no. And he's like, no. And I'm like, okay, I'll never call you again.

Chris (00:25:25): Bam. And you know, I mean, that's all I need. And so I think being the athlete really, really helped, uh, being part of that. And also this might sound, uh, I'm not going to say cliché-ish, but Kate, especially she knows that I'm a radio person. And so if she gives me a script, I know how to use that, but also be creative within that script. So she can go, go this way and how, you know, however I get there, I got to get here and that is a total radio skill where you have to crack the mic and you have to start here and you have to end here and how you get there. It doesn't matter, but you have to hit A, B, C, D, and so radio. That's just a skill that you learn. And so I think that's why she knew that she could, you know, and she probably also liked that I wasn't in sales so she could mold me to be, uh, more Kateley than, uh, you know, like a salesy guy.

Chris (00:26:25): It's also a little tough too, because I I'm a not good liar. So I usually end up not lying, which means I tell way too much truth. And it catches people off guard because I'll say something like, well, you know, this other tool out there, they might be better at one aspect than us. And you know, they look at me like, but aren't you supposed to sell me this product? I'm like, dude, if the AI hasn't changed your mind already, nothing will. I mean, if, if you didn't see me create a dozen post for you and you still want to move on, I'm not going to talk you out of being an idiot.

Chris (00:27:05): So I mean, the reason that I bring that up is because a lot of listeners, hopefully we have a lot of listeners, a lot of listeners will probably be, will probably be selling their own products. And I know there's a, I don't know for me, I'm not much of a sales person. Yeah. Me trying to, I guess, come to somebody and say, Hey, buy, this is very difficult for me because especially if it's something I've made, it's like, why should someone buy something I made? Like way under value. And I'm sure a lot of people are in the same boat, but I think you touched on a really good point there, the honesty and the transparency with it all, you seem more real. You don't seem like you're trying to sell somebody on something really. You're not trying to, I guess, push and be salesy. Like you always say on Twitter, be human.

Chris (00:27:47): Oh yeah.

Nick (00:27:47): You're being human.

Chris (00:27:48): Yeah. Just, just, and be kind, come on. People just be kind, be exactly. I'm going to, I'm going to give you one more silence. Believe it or not actually works really well. And that's another radio trick. Uh, that Kate will also back me up on is that you learn with silence. That it's a huge weapon because one people don't like silence. So when I'm on a demo, if I'm silent, they're going to start filling because they're going to feel uncomfortable. And then they're going to give me something that I can bounce off of that I can, that I can use. I can be like, Oh, I didn't realize that was a pain point. Do you know that we do A, B, C, D Oh, look at that. And yeah, that happens all the time and in radio, it's all my God. It's brilliant because when you're listening to the radio station, if you hear quiet, what's the first thing you think of, Oh my God, are they off the air?

Chris (00:28:42): The next thing I say after a little bit longer break of silence, dude, you're going to hear what I'm going to say, because you're like, Oh, the radio is quiet. And then bam, you get to say whatever you want to say. A lot of times in Next, that's what I ended up doing where you already know that my last sentence is coming up and I'm going to be quiet and the music's going to be starting. And then, you know, I'll be like, you know, I might be talking about a band from, you know, the other coast and how they're, the sound has changed a little to indie pop. And pretty soon we're going to be getting to this next band. But first, you know, and, and so with that little extra pause, people are like, yeah. And you know, it, there's, there's something to be said about just using a little bit of silence. That is, uh, is cool. I do that at parties too, to see if people are cool enough to hang where I leave a little silence there. And I'm sure they think I'm weird as hell. But man, when, when someone can sit at a, a party with me or at a bar and just be quiet for half a moment, dude, I'm hanging out with this guy. I like, I like this guy. You know, he doesn't feel like he, Oh my God, it's quiet. I gotta, I gotta fill it with chatter. I like it.

Nick (00:29:58): I've never heard that before. But as you're saying it, I know I've been in situations like that, where stuff will, I'll be having a conversation. It'll kind of go silent for a minute. And I kinda, you get that awkward feeling like someone's got to talk if you're not going to talk, I should probably say something, but yeah, from a sales standpoint, that that is actually brilliant. I really liked that one.

Chris (00:30:17): You can use it, you can steal it.

Nick (00:30:19): I might have to, I got to start doing it on this podcast. I'll just like stop mid-sentence.

Nick (00:30:26): And then continue right back.

Chris (00:30:27): Yeah. I love it, dude. Perfect.

Nick (00:30:30): Moving on, I guess the whole reason that I really wanted to bring you on here was to talk about working for a startup. Sure. I think that is super interesting. I think there's a lot to be said about working for a startup, especially for those that are interested in having their own startup or getting their own business started. I think there's a lot of experience that can be had doing that.

Chris (00:30:50): I agree.

Nick (00:30:50): And I guess I kind of want to talk a little bit about that. Like what has your experience been like with a startup, especially as young as it is.

Chris (00:30:57): Yeah. And as old as I am. Uh, yeah. Um, there's a long version and there's the short version. So I'm going to, I'm going to ask you which one you want first

Nick (00:31:09): Let's start with the short version.

Chris (00:31:11): Alright.

Chris (00:31:11): Short version startup. You're in a startup short version of what it's like, everything's bad. Everything's bad. Everything's bad. Oh, some good news. Everything's bad. Everything's bad. Everything's bad. Oh, some good news. Everything's bad. Everything's bad. Everything's bad. That's, that's the, the, there's the short of it. You're always teetering on awful all the time. And then a little glimmer of hope. And then it's followed very quickly by a whole lot more. And uh, you know, and that it takes a certain person to be okay with that. And I think that is part of the athlete in me. That is like, ah, I am going to, I'm going to get to that. Yes. I'm going to get to that. No, I'm going to find a way to barrel through this. Uh there's there's a lot of, there's a lot of naysayers out there that, yeah. It's bad.

Chris (00:32:03): All right. You ready for the long?

Nick (00:32:04): Yes. Give it to me.

Chris (00:32:05): Alrght. Here's the long I'm going to try to tell this, right? I don't know if it's a, it's a parable, a parable, a metaphor. It's, it's a story, uh, that I think encapsulates what a startup life is, is about. So there's a little girl and she's getting bummed about life and she's getting upset and she just wants to give up. And I don't know if it's schoolwork or whatever it happens to be. And so she goes to her mom and she's like, mom, this is so tough. This is crazy. I'm just Don. I want to quit. This is it. So the mom goes, Oh, why don't you come with me? The kitchen. She goes into the kitchen and she puts three pots on the stove, starts boiling the water goes into the fridge, pulls out a potato, pulls out an egg, and pulls out some coffee beans.

Chris (00:32:51): Doesn't say a word. The water starts to boil plops in the egg, the potato and the coffee beans then boils, boils, boils. Does what? The boiling water does the mom again, doesn't say anything, just turns everything off and gets the egg out of the hot water and says, okay, daughter drop this on the floor. And she goes, Oh no, it'll crack. It'll get super messy. And then I'll have to clean it up. It's awful. And the mom goes, no, go ahead. So she drops it and you know, like a little chip comes off and she goes, Oh, interesting. And they peel it off and they see that the inside that was fragile is super hard. Now the mom goes, all right, let's do the same with the potato. And she goes, Oh, it's going to dent the floor. It does. It's nothing's going to happen.

Chris (00:33:33): And the mom goes, well, drop it on the floor. So she drops on the floor, splat, it's all soft and mushy and makes a big mess. And uh, she goes, Oh, I wasn't expecting that. And then she comes over to the, uh, says to the daughter, okay, let's look at the coffee beans. And she sees the dark liquid. That smells pretty sweet, but a little bitter. And she sips and it doesn't taste like water. It doesn't taste like coffee, beans. It's something entirely new. And so the mom goes, listen, you're having a hard time. You're in the boiling water. You can either be like the egg, like the potato, or like the coffee beans. You could be fragile on the inside with just a little layer, like just ready to crack at any moment. But you go through this and in this case, a startup life, and maybe you come out the other end, a hard ass, you're done.

Chris (00:34:22): Like nothing's gonna touch you. You're you you've turned into something that you, you weren't, or maybe you were hard ass going in and you can't take all the naysayers saying no, no, no, no, you're doing it wrong. And you turn mushy and you're defeated. Or hopefully what happens is you turn it into a coffee bean where you take all of that toll med, that mixture of just madness and you turn it into something completely new and something. Well, I can't live without coffee. So, uh, you know, that, that that's the way it is. So that's the way I look at startups. It's either, you know, like, like I said, the short version or the long version, and that's just a, that the way that I see it.

Nick (00:35:07): I mean, you definitely have to have thick skin. Yeah. I think to kind of get into the startup. Cause like you said, everyone's going to be telling, you no,

Chris (00:35:15): Oh yeah.

Nick (00:35:15): You can't, you can't do that. That's not going to work. And I mean, most, most stories that you hear about people who make it and are super successful, they talk about how often they fail. How many people basically put them in a corner and said, that'll never work crazy. Like, but it's the ones who kind of block all that out. And they kind of stick to their own lane, the straight, but crooked lane.

Chris (00:35:42): We've gone full-circle. Again. I love it. Yes, yes, yes. Yes.

Nick (00:35:48): The people who do that are the ones that ultimately come out on top.

Chris (00:35:50): Correct.Yeah.

Nick (00:35:52): I mean with what everyone, what you guys are all doing at lately, I think you guys are heading in a really awesome direction. I'm already crazy impressed by what that software can do. And the people I've met a part of that team have just been amazing so far. So I've been really impressed with how you guys all handle your business.

Chris (00:36:10): Yeah. And I'm going to, I'm going to add one more and I'm sure that you were going to ask something like this, um, that you brought up our team and I gotta tell you, our team is something and what's, what's great about that is just making sure that your startup team is, is family. That there's a, that there's more coffee beans than eggs or potatoes. Really. That's really what it comes down to. You need that person that's gonna get in that mixture and create something entirely new and different and come out the other side with something cool. Lauren is definitely that way, although she was a psychology major. So it makes a little bit more sense that she's where she is, but you look at what Kate and I have gone through. And the other people that are in our team, there's a lot of coffee beans in Lately.

Nick (00:37:00): Having said that, talking about the team side of things, at what point do you think would be a good time for people to get into, I guess building that team, I personally can't make the decision to go start hiring people to kind of help me out at this point. But I think with what Kate's doing with Lately, I think it would almost be a little different where you'd want to have kind of a, a core group to start with you as what are your thoughts on that?

Chris (00:37:24): Yeah. And she did, she has a great core group that did start with her. And it was nice too, that the, when I told you the money guy brought in the AI guy, so she has a dev team that is already, uh, not aware of the focus of what the AI does and what it can do, uh, which really helps Kate, uh, manage herself. Because again, they're much different thinkers than, than Kate is. And so her, her little core group that she started with, that's been with her since the beginning, you know, they're a magical group. And when, uh, when we do have our off-sites where we all get together and just have, you know, a little picnic or, you know, go zip lining or whatever we do for team building, you can just feel that they all just get each other.

Chris (00:38:13): It's not so much that they're finishing each other's sentences, but you know, it's that whole, if you fall down, I'm going to pick you up. And, you know, there's a lot of times where that happens. Um, even just like with Lauren, Lauren is basically Kate's brain duplicated outside her body. I mean, you know, like they get each other, like nobody's business, how they found each other. I wish I knew that story because it's gotta be another great crooked lines, straight line a story because the two of them they're Oh, it's, it's, it's crazy. So to find those people, I think, and Kate, I think would, would tell you that she feels incredibly lucky and she's, she's starting to get a little nervous because, uh, we are family ish, you know, and pretty soon things are going to happen and things are already starting to happen.

Chris (00:39:06): Um, and so I think Kate in the back of her head and she would probably, she, she, she probably doesn't even want me to say this out loud, but I'm going to say it out loud because I tell the truth and I can't lie. Uh, you might be a little worried about, uh, breaking up the cohesiveness of, you know, everything that's going on and she's, uh, she's demanding. And so, you know, there's, there's, there's a lot, it helps that I knew her for like a decade. I'm like, Oh, I worked on the, on the app with her. I understand what she wants. And if I just do that, then it's going to be cool and I can get that done. And bam, that's the way it is. But there are some people that might not like that. And so it's just key now for us is to grow in a controlled, a good, interesting coffee bean kind of way.

Nick (00:39:53): That's, that's definitely a good approach to have I feel because you hear about the growing too fast, tearing a company apart, but I would imagine in Kate's position, it would be very tough when you have that core group. And as you start to expand, you kind of have to, I guess, let go of some of the control of things and rely on people that someone who does everything themselves to saying, okay, now you're going to be that person. I can imagine that would be very difficult to, I guess, handle necessary, but difficult.

Chris (00:40:21): And I think every CEO goes through that. If, if, if they have a successful, uh, business, it's, it's gonna have to happen sooner and or later, uh, you know, like you, no matter how big you get, whether you get as big as Amazon or as big as Netflix, whatever it happens to be, you're, you're gonna have to find a way to get over that little pain of my baby's all grown up.

Nick (00:40:49): Yeah. I'm nowhere near that point, but I know that's going to be something difficult for me. Cause I feel like once you, once you have a built here, you kind of have it lined out, you know, exactly what needs to be done, you know, how it needs to be done. And then now you're saying, okay, you have to do it, but I can't necessarily tell you do it this way. Yeah. I think you have to. Yeah. I don't know. I'm looking forward to getting to a point like that.

Chris (00:41:12): Can't wait for that problem.

Nick (00:41:14): It's a great problem to have, but I know I'm going to have it.

Chris (00:41:17): Yup. I hear you, man.

Nick (00:41:18): What would you say for people getting started? Everything that you've seen and noticed, what were the biggest challenges coming up in the startup world like that some people might face and have to kind of get over?

Chris (00:41:30): Sure. I would say that, uh, some of the challenges that are going on there is there's definitely a couple. So let me just throw a couple at you. One is embrace the suck. We've already talked about a lot of the naysayers and the no, no nos. You just got to embrace the suck and just know there's going to be suck. I should make a tee shirt.

Nick (00:41:53): Hashtag embrace the suck.

Chris (00:41:55): Exactly. And, um, it, it, you know, it's, it's gonna be there. Uh, but it's gonna, the suck is gonna make you better. You know, like if every single phone call, every single demo turned into a yes. I don't know if I'd ever get better. Uh, you know, it just, it just wouldn't happen. Kate's a better CEO because so many people told her, no, you're doing it wrong. No, you're doing it wrong. And she's like, yeah, but it's working.

Chris (00:42:22): And you know, like without that little aspect of, instead of just embracing what I'm doing, she had to embrace the suck of everyone just going no, no. Or no you're doing it wrong or no, do it this way. And so embracing that suck is one and I would say another huge thing is no plan B, because if you have a plan B, then when the suck hits, you're gonna be like, fuck this. I'm just going to quit. Why, why go through this garbage? But if you don't have a plan B, if you're like, man, this is, this is it. This is everything. Then bam, that's it like, you're like, I got him, I got to make this work. And that's where Kate is. She is definitely a no plan B as soon as she met with the AI guy and saw what the AI does and can do and will do. She was like, okay, game changer. I'm going to shock the world. And so it's taken her a while to get where she's at, where she started to feel like, Oh, the world is starting to notice just a wee bit. And so, you know, it helps the Gary Vee uh, you know, like notices and uses Lately. Uh, you know, so like that was, you know, like, you know, when I said everything's bad, everything's bad. Everything's bad. Ooh. Some good news. That was pretty good news.

Nick (00:43:40): Yeah. That I was, I saw that on the website. I think after the fact after you had already got me set up and I was like, Holy cow. Gary Vee's using it too.

Chris (00:43:48): Yeah. You're going to find, when you go to Gary Vee TV, you're gonna find a ton of soundbites that you're like, I got to RT this. Oh, I've got an RT. This one. Yeah. I'm going to RT this one. I mean, it's pretty crazy ideas just fall out of that. Guy's mouth and you're, it's just, yeah. And, and he's, he's always talking about being nice. Like I love, I love one of the, the aspects of, of him that I love is that he he's like, why hold grudges? Like why can't everyone, when Gary Vee and Kate can both be awesome, it's it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. It doesn't have to be as a sum, zero game. There's not some championship ring at the end. You know, everyone in marketing and everyone that is going to be an entertainment. Everyone can win. Why not? And so I love when he pushes that message out that, Hey, I'm helping you because I want you to do awesome. Because if you do awesome, you're going to be like, Gary Vee helped me. And I'm going to get more people that are going to be like, Oh, Gary Vee helped you. Well, what does Gary Vee have to do? And so it's just a self-feeding beast and he gets it. And that's what I love.

Nick (00:44:56): I completely agree with you there. Um, I think it's kind of interesting. There's a very, obviously a competitive nature in business, but it almost seems like everyone sees that competitiveness as like, it's either you or me. It's never, we can't both be in this space, which is completely not the case. We can both be. I mean, think of how big this world is. I always use the fitness industry as an example, because I mean, fitness is huge. And you have like your Shauntee's and your Autumn Calabrese, like mega names, you know, the fitness industry. But if you were to go look at the small fitness niches, or there's a small companies that have their own little space, they are doing perfectly well for themselves. They might not be like the Beach Body or crazy on the top group, but they are doing very well for themselves. And they have their own little spot in the space. Everybody can be there.

Chris (00:45:46): Yeah. Beach Body Doesn't have to control everything? And they can't. And so, yeah. Why not let everyone in?

Nick (00:45:53): Yep. Everybody can do it.

Chris (00:45:55): I knew there's a reason. I like you, Nick. You're a good guy.

Nick (00:46:01): We had talked about Twitter and you love Twitter. I love Twitter. I'm sure you observe a lot on the platform aside from putting out the great content. What do you see are some major red flags of what people are actually doing on the platform? Or I guess it doesn't even have to be Twitter, just social media in general.

Chris (00:46:18): That's a, that's a great question. And, and one that is important to talk about, and one thing that everyone needs to understand is time. It's going to take a lot of time. It's going to take a lot of effort and it's not just going to happen overnight. In fact, let's talk about overnight. One of the things about the Grammys while there's a lot of things about the Grammys, I don't like, but one of the major things I don't like as a new music person is when they award new band of the year, they've been around for like eight years. I've known this band for eight years. I know most people haven't, but I'm like, it can't be a new band. They've got five albums, you know, like, you know, and, and the same thing happens like the the overnight success. And until you start building that community of people that like you and will retweet you and comment with you, Oh, that's another huge one.

Chris (00:47:12): Oh, just don't navel gaze. Don't just stream past engage. If you want to start building, you need to talk. You need to be human. You need to do that. And that's, that's one reason I love Lately. Well, there's a lot of reasons I love Lately, but Lately helps you be consistent and get that message out there. It also helps you sound smarter. It does. It sounds weird, but the AI actually makes me a better writer for Twitter. For Facebook. I guarantee you could go to my Twitter feed and you could read through, and you could pick out which ones were done by Lately. And which ones were done by silly old Chris Bro, because you're going to be like, okay, that sounded a little bit like an idiot that must've been Chris. And you could look and be like, yeah, I wrote that one. But then the AI is giving me that jumping off point, like you said, where it's given you 50 ways of saying the same thing without being boring as hell.

Chris (00:48:08): And it gives you that jumping off point. And since you already know your content, dude, you know exactly how to get to it. One of my favorites was I was interviewing a band and I asked this guy, how'd you get interested in music? Like, where did that love come from? And he goes, man, driving Sunday mornings with my dad, listening to a breakfast with the Beatles right there. I fell in love with music. And that was it. So not only do I get the quote about the Beatles, but also hanging out with his dad, then all I do is I hit the little edit button. That we have. And I add my little taste, which brings my engagement up even higher, which is I say, so I asked my dad Beatles or Rolling Stones. And he goes, no Elvis. So now I've hit the Beatles.

Chris (00:48:55): I've hit Elvis. Yeah. I've hit the Rolling Stones. I've hit my dad. I've hit his dad and I've hit, you know, family being important and driving around in a car, dude, that's rock and roll right there. Like everything that I did there would I have come up with that tweet without the AI pulling that little soundbite out. No way. Yeah. And that's what I love about it is it helps me be consistent. And then it gives me all that time back that now I can be human and engage on social media. I'm sure you sometimes wonder how does Chris do his job at Lately? Because I see you on Twitter, uh, doing, you know, engaging, uh, you know, and one of the reasons why is because everything's already kind of pre-scheduled and then I get to be human. When I see that aspect of, uh, social media out there, it really just comes down to really time, consistency, and being on brand, which Lately helps with all those things and then engage, engage, engage.

Chris (00:49:57): It's not going to be an overnight thing. If you want to be band of the year for the Grammys, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna take a little while, just like with a startup, just like with really anything that's, that's worth it. I would say that's one of the biggest red flags is they just give up too easy and they just like, Oh no, one's following well, did you interact with anyone? Or do you just expect them to come? You know, you, you know, if you're, if you're at a bar and you don't talk to anyone, then no, one's going to talk to you.

Nick (00:50:26): Yeah. That's a very point,

Chris (00:50:27): You know, and then you're going to be like that bar sucked and you and I could have had the greatest night of our lives. And we're like, dude, that bar was the best. It had nothing to do with the bar is because we were engaged in a great conversation. And we had a good time and we were being human. And if you're just sitting in the corner and you're not doing anything, you're going to like this sucks and that's social media right there.

Nick (00:50:49): That is a very great point. I might use that one.

Chris (00:50:53): Oh, please do.

Nick (00:50:54): That's that's a very good way to.

Chris (00:50:56): You don't even have to give me credit.

Nick (00:50:59): Some, some guy told me this thing one time. Yeah.

Chris (00:51:02): He was an idiot, but he was smart about that one thing.

Nick (00:51:05): He said one good thing. That one thing

Chris (00:51:08): Seriously, dude. I talked to him for 90 minutes and he said one good thing.

Nick (00:51:14): No, I, I completely agree with you there as well. I mean, we've been on, we've been on the same page, this entire episode. I like it. Um, I think a lot of people come to Twitter and they see the success side of it. They see people constantly commenting on it and for some reason, and I know I was the same way when I got into it for some reason. There's that idea that, Oh, it must have just happened overnight. Like what you said and it, nothing works that way. Yeah. That's I mean, if it does it's I mean, you have a better chance of probably winning the lottery then that actually happening. Yup. The success side of it is what's glamorized. Yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, you don't see a lot of times the coming up to that breaking point where success really started to explode, like you said, no, no, no bad news. Bad news, bad news. Oh, a little bit of good news. Like you don't see any of that. You just see the, Oh, they made it. So it gives a lot of a very big misconception, I guess when it comes to business, everyone thinks that they're going to get into it and just be like, okay, I'm going to set up a website and I'm going to start a Twitter and everyone's going to come to it.

Chris (00:52:22): Exactly. Yup. Preach. Love it, man.

Nick (00:52:24): What would be, I guess, a couple last pieces of advice you would give to the listeners, anyone who's thinking about starting their own business, maybe they have seen Kate story or they're going to go look at Kate's story now and they kind of see how she came up and they kind of want to go into that kind of startup realm they want to get started. What, what are some pieces of advice you would give those people?

Chris (00:52:47): Sure. I'm going to go back to no plan B. Uh that's. That's going to be one thing that I, and I'm not going to harp on it because we already kind of talked about that already. Uh, so just remember no plan B and just go gung ho and then work your ass off. And then when you do get that little glimmer of hope, shout at the mountaintops. Advertise that success because they're not going to come that often, so you better. And no one else is going to know it and no one else is going to be your cheerleader and you better be the one that isn't afraid to go. I got Gary Vee instead of just hiding that and just being, come at me now, man, dude, I got Gary Vee and you know, like you said, you didn't see all the struggle before that people are just going to see the Gary Vee and go, Oh, Kate's a genius or whatever it happens to be.

Chris (00:53:38): So she worked her ass off and now she's going to sing those praises because she knows that that is the way to get that attention, to get that because people are going to look at that, Oh, she's an overnight success. She is anything but an overnight success. And as we talked about before, there is no such thing as an overnight success. When you look at a band that becomes an overnight success, very rarely, is it a band that just bam out of the gate takes off and does it, they've been on the road for five, six, eight years playing little bars to five people, uh, that you know, like they're struggling, they're doing that. I'm also going to add one last thing when it comes to that. And it's gonna sound like the opposite of what I just said, which is relax. Because as we just talked about, it's gonna take time.

Chris (00:54:26): And so if you're expecting that overnight thing, dude, you're going to be super bombed out all the time. But I'm telling you that's, that's the way it has to be. And I'm going to get back to the family aspect of, uh, Lately, because there have been times that Kate's like, I can't do this anymore. I need a break. And she knows that Lauren can just step right in and just be like, no, Kate, take Friday off. I'm clearing your schedule. Everything's good. You just go sit in your ghetto pool and you know, Sip a margarita and don't worry about life. We got ya, come back on Monday or Sunday or whenever you want to come back. And so she, you know, she knows that she needs also to relax. Uh, and Kate, if you're watching this and I'm, and I'm giving away too much, I'm sorry, but it's Nick's fault because he knows, I tell the truth and he asked the questions. So don't blame me, blame Nick, where to go, Nick, if I get fired,

Nick (00:55:25): Oh man, I would feel terrible. Then I'd need to hire you to come work for me. And then we'll come up with something real quick for you to sell.

Chris (00:55:38): Actually, you know what? I'm going to mention. One more thing, be different, but be different enough. Uh, I mean, be familiar enough. And I'm going to bring this back to music also where like the best new songs, aren't the ones that are completely new. That totally blow you away that are familiar enough where you're like, do I hear a little Tom Petty in there? And then you're like, dude, all this band is awesome. They kind of sound like Tom petty. And those are the things that happen Lately itself is hugely different, but very familiar. You know, like if you played with other tools are tools were a platform. If you played with other tools, you'll recognize a lot of what Lately does. And we take it such different step further that we've differentiated, differentiate different. We're different. We're different. That's what I'm trying to say. We're different. Good thing. I'm a radio guy.

Nick (00:56:36): Finally, I want to make sure that people are able to find you all of the listeners that are going to be listening and taking in this podcast. I want them to be able to find you. So where can people find you? Links, website, social media, wherever you want people to reach out to you on?

Chris (00:56:52): Well, uh, we've mentioned it a couple of times, but trylately.com is a place that you should definitely visit. Uh, Twitter is @Chrisbronext that's B R O next ChrisBroNext. And, uh, that's my favorite. I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn or a Facebook, but why? Because I, um, I'm, I'm barely on those. And then, uh, the music show you mentioned at the very top is All Things Next again, you can just Google Chris Bro Next. Uh, and you know, most of, most of the information will, will pop up. And I don't know, is there, is there, is there anywhere else that people really need to find me? I don't think so.

Nick (00:57:32): Well, Chris, It has been a pleasure. I have had a blast doing this with you.

Chris (00:57:37): Cool.

Nick (00:57:38): We went through a lot of great stories and I think we got, we pull out a lot of great information. I think what you're ultimately going to help a lot of people down the road. So I want to thank you for coming on the show and I mean, definitely have to get you on here again sometime.

Chris (00:57:50): Alright, anytime man.

Nick (00:57:51): Take it easy.

Nick (00:57:53): Alright. That was the interview with Chris Bro from All Things Next and the customer experience manager over at Lately. AI. Once again, you can find Chris over at allthingsnext.com, trylately.com, or over on Twitter with his handle @Chrisbronext. I highly recommend you go check out his new music, show All Things Next. Chris puts together some really great music and then you can be that guy or girl at the party. Who's always got that awesome new music to listen to. So definitely go check it out. You can find all the links mentioned in this podcast, including Chris's links and info over at ninefivepodcast.com/episode5. And just remember nine five is all spelled out N I N E F I V E podcast.com episode number 5. That is the numeral numeral 5. Okay. Now for the news that I want you to stick around for. So these recordings and episodes are beginning to run longer than I originally intended in order to prevent these episodes from becoming hours long.

Nick (00:58:54): I'm needing to cut out a lot of fun, interesting, and useful information. And it pains me to do so because I want, I don't want you to miss out on the great content. So what I'm willing to do is I'm gonna start putting this content out over on YouTube. Being a new YouTube channel, I can't put out full episodes of the podcast just yet. So I'm going to start putting out small snippets from the recordings that don't actually make it into the podcast episode. That way you aren't coming to YouTube just hearing the same content that you already heard the podcast over on YouTube. I basically, I want it to be a unique and exclusive experience for you. So do me a huge favor and head on over to YouTube right now and subscribe to the channel. You can find it by searching my name, Nick Nalbach or just go over to the show notes for this episode. And the links will all be right there. Once again, the show notes link is ninefivepodcast.com/episode5. These exclusives along with much more great content will be coming to that channel in the very near future. So you're not going to want to be the one missing out. Thanks for tuning in and sticking with me this long. If you did stick around to this point, shoot me a message over on Twitter and let me know. I'm curious how many people are hanging with me until the very end

Nick (01:00:03): Take care guys. I love you all. And I will see you next week.

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Hosts & Guests

Host – Nick Nalbach

Guest – Chris Bro

Show Notes

In this episode of the Nine-Five Podcast, I chat with Chris about his experiences working for a startup company. In addition to his experience in working for Lately, Chris shares a lot of great stories and insight into how he runs his own new music podcast (All Things Next) and how to effectively grow an audience on social media.

 

All Things Next with Chris Bro

 

All Things Next is a “new music” podcast where Chris finds all of the best unknown music and puts it out there for the world to hear.

In college, Chris was the time type of guy who loved to find new music but didn’t like everyone to know about it. That was until he turned to radio. Chris worked his way up through the ranks in radio to eventually take on his own segment, sharing new music with the world. This love of music is what eventually led Chris to meet his current CEO, Kate Bradley (CEO of Lately).

 

Lately

 

Lately is an AI-Powered social media writing platform. Simply put, Lately takes your long-form content and creates social media posts out of that content; this includes blogs (text), videos, and audio (podcast) content. Once the social media posts are generated (automatically) from your content, you can edit and schedule out your posts across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

 

I started using Lately back in April or May of 2020 and I have been thoroughly blown away! Shortly after signing up, I spent some time running all my blog posts (which weren’t a lot at that time) through the auto generator. For each blog post I put in (roughly 2-3k words per post), I’d get at least 50 social media posts out. By the time I finished going through several blog posts I had over 400 social media posts scheduled, in less than 2 hours!

To say I quickly became a fan of Lately is quite an understatement. And now, with the recent release of this podcast, I will have MUCH more content to be able to run through the auto generator.

I did happen to run my first podcast episode through Lately, just to see what it would do. Lately gave me 287 social media posts!

Sales Tactics and Tips: Get to the “No”

 

As a radio show host turned “sales-guy,” Chris brought up some interesting tactics when it comes to selling. Some of the strategies Chris brought up were familiar to me, while others were kind of shocking, yet wildly effective.

1. Either get to a “no” or a “yes”

2. Use silence to your advantage

3. Be honest and transparent

The Startup Life

 

“Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Good”

“Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Good”

Working for a startup, or starting your own, takes a special kind of person. You need to be diligent, persistent, and be willing to hear “NO” a lot. Everyone will try to tell you it won’t work or “you’re doing it wrong,” but you have to be able to push past the naysayers and do what you know needs to be done.

 

3 Tips for Getting Into a Startup:

 

  1. Embrace the suck
  2. Don’t have a Plan B
  3. Don’t be afraid to talk about your success (be your own cheerleader)

 

Listen to this episode to hear more great wisdom from Chris!

Links & Resources

Note: Some of the links listed below may be affiliate links. This means I will receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you choose to purchase through them.

Thank You!

Thanks for listening to Episode 5 of the Nine-Five Podcast! Like always, I hope you got value from this episode. If you have any questions for Chris Bro or myself, make sure you leave them down in the comments below!

 

If you did enjoy this episode or any of the other episodes, I would really appreciate it if you went over to iTunes and left a review. Your reviews are what help get this podcast in front of more people!

 

Before you go,

I’m curious if you’ve worked at, for, or own your own startup. What has the experience been like for you?

Let me know in the comments below!

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"The value you provide to others directly correlates to your success. The more value you provide, the more successful you become. Focus on the value!"

- Nick Nalbach

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I am an entrepreneur and adventure enthusiast, looking to break free from the Nine-Five grind. I'll show you what has worked and is currently working for me, as well as what hasn't worked so well.

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