April 22, 2025 • 47 mins
Secrets Behind 8-Figure Ecommerce Success w/ Carl Weische
In this episode of Beyond the Wealth, Andres Sanchez sits down with Carl Weische, founder of Accelerated Agency, to reveal the strategies behind scaling 8-figure ecommerce brands. Carl shares his journey from flipping limited sneakers as a teen to leading a top CRO agency, helping giants like Huel, Andrew Huberman, and Alex Hormozi skyrocket their online sales.
Discover the surprising niches—like shapewear, dog beds, and resistance bands—that consistently drive multi-million-dollar revenues each month. Carl explains common pitfalls in ecommerce marketing, emphasizing the importance of deeply understanding your customers' psychology to create ads and landing pages that resonate.
From hiring the right talent and managing growth stress to navigating rising ad costs and consumer fatigue, Carl offers actionable advice for ecommerce entrepreneurs aiming to scale effectively in today's competitive market. Whether you're running a Shopify store, leveraging dropshipping, or selling directly online, this conversation is packed with insights that will help elevate your ecommerce business.
If you're serious about scaling your ecommerce brand, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more growth-focused episodes!
#ecommerce #ecommercebusiness #ecommercepodcast
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Website: https://acceleratedagency.com/?el=x
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Contents of the video
00:00 Sneaker Reselling Journey Begins
04:18 Sneaker Reselling Lessons Learned
06:54 Psychology's Role in Online Marketing
10:09 Understanding Customers: Key to Product Sales
13:21 Ecom Growth After Key Partnership
19:54 Entrepreneurial Career Advice for Graduates
21:29 Navigating Entrepreneurial Stress Challenges
27:02 Prioritizing Health for Business Success
29:36 Successful Companies: Humble and Communicative
34:38 Rising Ad Costs Challenge Brands
37:02 Adapt or Fall Behind
41:30 AI Overreliance Risks Skill Atrophy
42:41 "AI: Balance Skill Development"
46:46 "Interview with Carl: Open Book"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Probably every every single prod product that you can imagine, I've
seen doing big numbers. Whether that's shapewear, underwear,
jewelry, wallets, caps, shoes,
dog beds, right, resistance bands. I've seen all of those
products do half a million, a million, 2 million a month. So it's, in the
beginning, I was also, surprised sometimes, like, what type of products
(00:22):
would do certain numbers, but now I've seen it all.
And I don't even get surprised anymore when somebody's in the call and they say,
tell me, hey. I I have this crazy new product and it's linked to me
in a month. I'm like, yeah. Well, I guess it works.
Welcome back to another episode of the Beyond the Wealth podcast. I'm your
host, Andres Sanchez. And today, I'm here with Carl
(00:45):
Faicha, the founder of the Accelerated Agency doing CRO
for 8 figure brands like Andrew Huberman, Huel,
and a ton of other amazing companies. Carl, thank you so much for
being here today. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to have this
conversation because growth is one of the,
obviously, most important part of any business, but it feels like the
(01:08):
landscape is getting ever more challenging. There's tons
more competition. There's new brands being spun up overnight.
So I'm excited to hear kind of your feedback, what you're seeing
behind the scenes, and even how you work with some of these extremely
successful brands. Yep. Sweet. Let's get into it.
So let's let's let's just start with a little bit of an introduction. Who is
(01:32):
Carl? Why did you get into this space? And we'll take it from there.
Sure. So my name is Kavish. I'm 26 years old. I got into this
space at almost exactly ten years ago, I would say,
when I started buying and reselling, limited sneakers
and limited clothing. So back then there's there was a lot of, like, Yeezy
Boost, Supreme, Jordans, Nikes, all of those, like,
(01:55):
exclusive collections. Right? So back then, a lot of people were getting into the
fashion game, and a lot of people wanted to get their hands on these exclusive
products. So me and my friends all, also would spend, like, all
of our money buying them to wear them. And then at one point, I
just started thinking, well, why don't I just, like, start buying more of them?
Right? Because I kinda knew how to get it. I had no way way around
(02:17):
it and everything. So I started buying them in bigger quantities and then
sold them for higher price on eBay, for example, afterwards. And
that's how I made more money when I was 16 and 17.
Then I got into ecommerce. Right? So I started doing my own online store
of, own electronic products. So, wireless
phone chargers, phone accessories, phone cases, and all of that. And
(02:40):
I started selling that in 2019 on Amazon and on Shopify.
And, from that, I initially hired a freelancer who was
doing conversion optimization, which is the business that I'm in right now, right, with running
the agency. And, this freelancer called
Glass is now my business partner. Right? So back then when I was running the
ecom, brand myself, I hired him. We worked
(03:02):
together. I really, really like what he did, and I also saw a lot of
potential in it. It was really like a blue ocean back then, and that's why
I decided to move into the freelancing space. And now over the
past, yeah, four, five years, we've basically built
Accelerated to be one of the biggest agencies that
specialized in conversion optimization. And, yeah, I have the pleasure to
(03:22):
work with some amazing brands, some amazing people, and that's, that's my
work now. That's where I'm That's amazing. And maybe we
cross paths in an earlier life. We're both. I'm 26 as
well. I was deep in the sneaker and online
resale world. I own one of the biggest bought rental discords
on the market, and that was my first stab in entrepreneurship.
(03:45):
So who knows? Maybe we've crossed paths in an earlier life.
But I love that journey, and it's one of those
that I've come across a bunch. Like, I've met tons of people like
me, realized that there was money in sneakers, pivoted from there,
and said, okay. Well, this is kinda slowing down. Ecommerce is the next natural
progression, and then you end up kind of finding your your niche
(04:07):
along the way. How important was it for you to get
those experiences early on? Like, how impactful
were those early days to where you're at right now? I'll
say super important because, I mean, from from the
way that you would have to get these sneakers, like, you would have to figure
out a way to get your hands on them. Right? Like, that's why you, work
(04:29):
with bots or that's why you work with some backdoor accesses to those stores
to get your hands on them. Right. That was like the first big challenge to
solve, which I think was pretty, pretty interesting and really,
taught me a lot. The second thing would be how to market them afterwards,
like how to take pictures, how to put them online, how to do the copywriting,
how to get people interested in them, finding the right price sensitivity
(04:51):
where you would save them quickly enough, but you would also make enough money.
So I think those initial days back then with sneaker reselling
taught me a lot about how to how to think about online marketing, how to
think about pricing, how to make money, how to invest my time.
And then obviously, the same with ecommerce. Right? Like, I was in the shoes of
a brand owner myself. I got really deep into everything, like the front end,
(05:14):
the back end. I built the Shopify store. I did the product images. I wrote
the copy. I set up email newsletters. I talked to the
suppliers. I figured out how to brand the product, how to package
it. So I think it's it's really, really interesting to,
be in the shoes of, like, a business owner, but in different businesses. Right? Because
then you kinda get the ins and outs of all of the different businesses, and
(05:36):
you really get a look behind the scenes, and you also understand,
how to think like a business owner, how to think like a brand owner, how
to think like a freelancer, right, which is, I think, pretty, pretty interesting.
And all of these experiences and lessons that I got taught in
those earlier business models are super, super beneficial for the business that
I'm running now. Yeah. I I couldn't agree more, and I
(05:58):
always talk to younger entrepreneurs when I come across them,
and just let them know, like, one, you're so ridiculously
early. Like, don't ever get stressed out thinking that you're behind the eight
ball because you heard some 16 year olds clipping videos
making a million dollars a month on TikTok. But
also, like, I always tell them, hey. You need to make sure that you
(06:20):
experience a lot of these different things and trial a lot of these different
businesses because you'll start to learn what it takes to actually build a
successful business when you have the capital, when you have the ability.
So I love that those experiences really made a difference in your
career. You said that, you
partnered up with a freelancer that was helping you with your business.
(06:43):
Where did this media buying and
growth like, why was that interesting to you? Why did that draw you in
to go and pursue that and leave the ecommerce business and go all in?
Yeah. I mean, for me, personally, I was always really, really
obsessed with psychology. So you're probably familiar with books like How to Win
Friends and Influence People. Right? Those kind of books. And I personally
(07:06):
always, like, I just read so many books around psychology
because I wanted to understand how the brain works, how I can influence myself, how
can I have a positive impact that I have on the relationships with other
people, how can I potentially help them or influence them? So that was
always super interesting for me on the private side. And on the business side, it
was always this thing like online marketing, selling products
(07:27):
online. Right? And for me, when I was talking to Lars
and hired him as a freelancer for conversion optimization,
I quickly realized that it was basically, the
overlay of those two, right, of online marketing and psychology
in this field of conversion optimization, which is all based on
consumer psychology and understanding how people behave and how you can influence
(07:49):
that behavior. Right? So for me, when when he told
me, change this copy, change this product description on your
website, change the copy in the email, and you're going to make more money because
you're going to influence more people to buy. I was, like, mind blown.
Right? I was like, okay. You can just change around some things on the
website and get more people to buy because you can influence their behavior. It's crazy.
(08:10):
Right? Crazy to think. But also out of the biggest companies worldwide, like
Amazon, like every single pixel, every single word, like what the
images are, where the buttons on Amazon.com is really well thought through and
tested to be able to influence people to buy
buy quickly, have a high, like, ability to buy and
also, yeah, cross sell them, right, on other products. Just
(08:32):
spend a lot of money and have a high, average order rate.
So I just got really, drawn to that naturally
because it was, yeah, playing to both of my passions of marketing and
psychology. And that's why, why I got into it, and I saw a lot of
potential to it because back then, and I would say even still now to the
state, there aren't a lot of people in this space. So I would really say
(08:55):
it's Blue Ocean, and that's why, yeah, we just push the throttle
and, really invest, into that.
You mentioned that, you started learning a lot of these
little, tricks and tips to get, things
to convert more, to get them to be more, to to have more sales come
(09:15):
through. There's I'm sure there's a
bunch of, ecommerce startups or or
entrepreneurs that wanna get into ecommerce listening or watching right
now. Without giving away all the sauce, what are
some common mistakes you see people make early,
that can be fixed or can be changed,
(09:39):
to to to help them be more successful? Yeah. Great question. I think
the biggest mistake that people make when they get into e commerce is that they
go on like a big website. Right? Like Nike.com,
Dior, Apple, whatever. Right? And then they think, okay, well, this is a
billion dollar, maybe even trillion dollar company. Let me just copy and paste everything that
they are doing because it seems to work for them. But the problem is that
(10:00):
in every niche and in every industry and every product,
the consumer is different and the target audience is different. So they
they have certain pain points. They have certain motivations, but they are super
different in the way that they consume and in the way that they buy the
product. So what I always like to tell people, especially in the beginning,
is to get on the phone with customers, get on the phone with prospects, and
(10:22):
talk to them. Right? Let's say, for example, you sell,
a dog bed. Right? Random product dog bed. Maybe seen
this because it has been a crazy winning product before. Then what I
would really recommend you to do is talk to dog owners. Talk to thirty,
fifty, hundred dog owners and ask them. Right? Like, what is
important for you when you are in the market for dog bed? What do you
(10:44):
watch out for? What is the current pain that you have with the current product
that you're using? How would you use this product in your day to life?
Why would you go for a certain company? Like, what qualities are you
looking for in a dog bed? What is important for you when you think about
your dog? Right? And I would just ask them all of these questions to get
a good understanding of why and how they buy
(11:05):
this specific product that I'm selling. And then they would give you really,
really great valuable answers that you can then use for your ads, for your
copywriting, for your product images, and, really
make it resonate with them. Right? And that's the thing that people get wrong the
most in the beginning is that they just copy and paste something from a big
company. They apply it to their product. They put it online, but then it
(11:27):
doesn't resonate with people. Right? It's it's just a product.
That's not emotional. They don't hit the pain points of people. They don't
show how to use the product, correctly, and they don't resonate with the
target audience at all. And, hence, they don't end up buying the
product. Yeah.
I I think it's so important to actually
(11:49):
get customer data. People are shocked when their
product doesn't sell through, and then you talk to them and they're like, well, how
many customers have you talked to? Oh, I've never talked to one. I just built
this because I thought they'd want it. And it's funny that you
mentioned Dior. Dior has definitely figured out how to do
something right because they served me an email today about their new
(12:09):
collection, and the cheapest thing on the website was a
$400 key chain. And every pair of
sneakers was $1,700. T shirts were a thousand dollars,
and I can't people people buy it and and go
crazy for it. So they're clearly doing something right.
But for you and and
(12:31):
and building this agency, what were some of the do
you have, like, a good story or, like, a a turning point,
when you went from, like, alright. Like, this is a blue ocean. This is something
that we could go all in on to, like, holy shit. Like, this is
actually something that we're gonna crush on, and we're gonna be able to
sign and work with some of the biggest brands. Do you have, like, a moment
(12:52):
that comes back to mind for that? Yes. Definitely.
I mean, that was probably early twenty twenty two. You may be
familiar with Nick Sheckaford. So he's a huge guy also in the agency in
ecom space. And back then, he used to do those mastermind
events called Geek Out, which was one of the best events that I've been to
to this date. And that was the Geek Out Dubai in February
(13:14):
2022, and he was kind enough to invite us as one of the speakers to
that event. And on that event, I, I did the speaking
slot. Right? We were around, I think, like, 10 or 12 people at that
stage. So I did the speaking slot. It got me connected with a bunch of
really, really great people in the audience. And that also got me
recognized by a huge ecom entrepreneurs like David Fogarty who then,
(13:36):
reached out to me via DM on Twitter, for example, and texted me. So
that's how we ended up working together with them and The Oodie, which was our
first, I would say, big home run client because everybody in the
ecommerce field knows The Oodie and David Fogarty. Right? So that was
our first home run. So over 2022, we just
used the Geek Out Dubai and, the case study with David
(13:58):
Fogarty, and that got us, from a team of 10 to a
team of 35 at the end of twenty twenty two. So we just saw an
explosive growth, over the year, hired a bunch of team
people, built the team, onboarded a bunch of clients, and
then went into 2023 with, like, big team, like, three or four
times the size. So that really opened our eyes to,
(14:20):
the the explosive growth that you can have in this sphere. And then we
just doubled down on it. And then 2023, we were
fortunate enough to, start the work with Alex Somozie. So we built the
online store for Alex Somozie for his book launch, and then that obviously
had another domino effect to a bunch of other big brands that we then
onboarded at 2024, like AG
(14:41):
one, Oshuhe, other big, German brands.
And, yeah, we we since then, we just stub it
down, and continue to push the throttle.
That's awesome. And, like, those are such recognizable brands.
You mentioned that the team almost tripled in size. I'm
(15:03):
assuming it's even bigger now than it was in
2022. As a
founder, managing and hiring people is one of the toughest
parts. What were some of the things you learned, some of the mistakes you
might have made early on, and what advice would you give to founders that
are in your 2022 issues that are starting to scale up,
(15:24):
starting to see success, and are having to make that move to bring,
more people on the team? Yep. Good question. I'd say
definitely, have a really solid hiring
process. So the biggest mistake that we did in the beginning when we
started hiring is that, we would talk to people and
we would just get convinced too quick. So we hired the
(15:46):
people that could sell themselves pretty well, but then on the actual job, they did
a really bad job. Right? So we just did,
like, five or 10 bad hires just because they did an amazing job at
the interview. And then we were like, yeah. They're amazing. They can talk to where
they know exactly what we need. We will hire them. We will give them
a bunch of money. It will be amazing. But it wasn't. So the
(16:08):
big thing is probably how to figure out, like, who to hire for a
specific role. And secondly, it's a thing that I would have never thought to be
true, but actually think about your company culture.
Right? Think about the culture and base that you have as the founder and that
you want your team to display. And I really never cared about that.
I was like, yeah, culture, whatever, whatever. Right? Like, they're going to
(16:31):
fit, or we're going to make them fit. But we saw
with every person that didn't fit the company culture a % and didn't
have the same values of the same mindset and, point of view that we
had, they would go over a certain period of time, whether that'd be six
months or a year or two years, but they would go because they wouldn't be
comfortable in the long run. And we also started bumping heads with
(16:52):
them. Right? So, those two aspects are
super, super important. And then the third one would be, it's
difficult to make this in the beginning to hire seniors because they cost a lot.
Right? So in the beginning, you're kinda relying on juniors or people that you have
to train. But as quickly as possible, I would make the switch to
hiring seniors and people that have been doing the exact job that you wanted to
(17:14):
do for three to five years minimum. That's something that I would say we
probably switched too late. So we relied on juniors or we relied
on, training them ourselves too long. Obviously,
also because of cash flow issues. But, yeah, that's also a
switch that I would try to make as quickly as possible because one senior,
one really good player is better than three or four bad players.
(17:37):
And then the the money is well better spent with that senior that
costs a bit more. Yeah.
It's such a tough spot to be an
early stage company because, like you said, senior people want a lot of
money or they're interested in equity if they're coming in and and
are doing a little run on hopping from start up to start up or trying
(17:59):
to find one that they want to spend some time at.
Juniors are the ones that are, like, really motivated, wanna come in, but have no
clue what they're really getting into. Yep. So I
I and I've I've heard that story over and over again. So
I I think it really is one of those times where you just gotta
I mean, entrepreneurship comes with a ton of luck. Sometimes Sometimes you just gotta get
(18:22):
lucky on some of the people you hire. Do you have anybody that was a
junior that you hired that ended up becoming higher in the company now
that's been with you since day one that's, like, one of those, like, fantastic
hires? Yeah. Funnily enough, like, that
it's an friend of mine from university, and he was
actually our first hire. Right? And so
(18:44):
in the beginning, he started out as a developer, then he moved to, like,
a data analyst, then he moved to a team lead. And now he has been
in the c level, which is, like, the highest position managing position in our
company that you can have. And he has been in the c level for, like,
one and a half years now. So he kinda started as a day one
higher and moved up the ranks, like, from the bottom to the top.
(19:05):
And, he was definitely one. I mean, we just trained him from
day one. Right? So, obviously, he was in university with me. He didn't
have any, like, job experience, so we just trained him from day one. But,
he turned out, yeah, to grow into the position
with the skill set that he needed to have. And he just did an amazing
job at that naturally, which is, pretty, pretty sick. And I'm super,
(19:28):
super happy, to still have him. Right? Like, we have, like,
five or six people that have been with us since, like, the early days that
are still with us, which makes me really proud and which also, like, you can
fear the day of the company DNA. Right? Like, they've been
trained and indoctrinated since day one from us as founders, and it's so
able to have them on board because they really, live it. Right?
(19:49):
Like, they have the DNA.
Yeah. And I think there's plenty of people listening
and watching now that are probably in the shoes of
your buddy that are trying to find a company that they can
start at right out of college, somewhere they can sit and learn, somewhere they
(20:09):
can develop. And I I tell a lot of entrepreneurs early
now that if you don't really know what you want or you're trying to figure
out what path you wanna go, like, go try and join a start up.
Go try and work inside of some of these smaller agencies and companies
so you can be close to founders that are scaling because I think that's
a really important place. And, obviously, it worked out for the friend of yours
(20:31):
who's now at the c level and and and and very successful. So that
that that's amazing. I'm curious. Like, working
with all of these big brands, like, just looking at your website, like, you've you've
worked with a ton of major companies at this point. There's gotta
be a story that comes to mind
or a moment that comes to mind that was very challenging.
(20:54):
I know most podcasts are very positive and
everything's sunshine and roses, but I like to highlight
the sometimes the the challenging moments in
creating a successful company, because it's just it's it's a
part of the journey. There's not really any company that goes from
zero to a hundred and has no roadblocks hiccups.
(21:16):
So is there a moment that comes to mind for you as a founder where
it was like, wow, I think we're gonna fail, or wow, I think things are
are kinda getting out of control here. That was, like, a big
moment to overcome for you. Definitely. And I'm I'm happy that
you talk about it because as you said, not a lot of, people on podcast
ask this question. I would say, I mean, we have
(21:38):
had hundreds of moments like this. Right? Like, to
be fair, I I was never convinced that we are going to fail ever.
Right? Like, I just have this weird sense of we are
always going to make it. But definitely, we were with the
bags at at the wall at times multiple times. I would
say the two big challenges as a founder of any business that you're
(22:00):
skating is, on the one hand side, more of like a
personal thing where, like, the amount of stress that you have to be
able to tolerate and manage and still perform is insane.
So I would say that there have been multiple
probably, like, three or four crazy stressful periods where I was
I was sometimes, at evenings or on the weekends sitting there and
(22:22):
just, like, praying or thinking how,
like, how can I find the resources to manage this period? Right?
Like, how how am I going to be able to manage the stress?
The solution was mostly in the mixture
of, qualitative downtime, having
solid routine with gym and a healthy diet,
(22:45):
cutting down on things. Right? Like, just having the business,
maybe your partner, your family, and that's it. Like, there's no time for
hobbies or yada yada yada. Like, you just have to focus on two to three
things at max, which is going to be your health, the business, and
then maybe family or, like, one or two good friends. And And then you have
to cut out everything else because otherwise, you're not going to be able to manage
(23:06):
the stress and work the time that's needed. So I would say that's, like, the
one big thing and the struggle that's coming, like, back
again, like, every couple of months as a business owner depending on,
like, the scaling period you're in the business. The second big thing,
that we have encountered couple of times is, obviously, when you scale
quick, you also bid a certain, fixed cost
(23:29):
block of overheads, of softwares, of an office,
of ad spend. And that, especially in the beginning,
is just growing so quickly because, yeah, you have to you have to hire people.
You have to have software. You have to have certain things in place to deliver
the service. And then the costs are going to a hundred k, 2 hundred, 2
hundred 50, whatever. And then the revenue drops or,
(23:50):
like, you you plan that you get a bunch of new clients, but then you
don't get a bunch of new clients, but then you have to cost. And then
you obviously don't have millions of dollars on your bank account, so you only have
a couple of months of one rate. And then you, yeah, you again have to
figure out how to get a bunch of new clients, how to get the cash
flow in. And, also, those probably are the two
most dangerous situations that you as a foreigner are going to find yourself
(24:13):
in. Maybe there's a third one that I didn't think of now, but those
from my perspective are the two things. They will probably haunt you, like, once
or twice a year minimum, at every stage of the
business. And, yeah, you you just have to be,
prepared for it because they are tough and otherwise they will wipe you out. And
I think most of the founders are not,
(24:36):
failing the company because they are they are dumb or
something. I think most of the founders fail because they either get burned
out or they scale too quickly and then just run into
cash flow issues and then it's dumb. Right? I think those are, like, really, really
too dangerous, situations to be in if you don't manage them correctly.
(24:59):
Yeah. And, obviously, being a founder, you're most people are
like, oh, I wanna leave my nine to five to go be an entrepreneur or
a founder thinking that they're taking the the easier route,
but that's just the farthest thing from true.
Stress through the roof. You you mentioned prioritizing your health
is one of the the three top things. Honestly, the
(25:21):
top two things, it's business and health. Why
do you think that's so important, and and how much
has becoming healthy and and focusing on your diet and and what you put in
and out of your body, been to your success?
Great question. So health has always been a big one for me, but,
I think now over the past couple of months, I just put it as number
(25:43):
one. Like, I hired a personal trainer to, like, optimize
everything from the sleep to the nutrition, to the diet supplements and
training. Before that, I was like, I mean, I'm I've been really
fascinated about the topic. I've been doing tons of research myself just to figure
it out, but now I wanted to get it to the top notch. I think
it's pretty logical, to prioritize health
(26:05):
because, without
half, everything is nothing, if that makes sense. Right? Like, if your half
if your half is your problem, then you only have one problem, which is
the half. You have to get half again. Right? And, if the
like, half is the foundation for everything. Like, all other problems are
secondary if your health is a problem. Right? So I think it's
(26:29):
just logical to make sure that you are healthy, the to make sure that you
have the most possible amount of energy and focus to be able
to work efficiently and, yeah, just have a
solid output. Because otherwise, if you're unhealthy, if you're tired, if you're
fatigued quickly, if you don't sleep well, if you don't have a bunch of energy
or focus, you're just not going to be able to have a solid output. So,
(26:50):
especially as an entrepreneur, I think it's just I mean, for everybody, but
especially as an entrepreneur, I think it's just logical to put your,
health first.
Yeah. I I think that's, that's one of my priorities in
in 2025. I've never been, like, a really unhealthy person,
but, not where I was when I was,
(27:14):
an athlete and and all in on training and things like that. And one
of my goals is to kinda get back there because as I've started to scale
my businesses and take on more responsibilities, it's
hard, like, if you're not really dialed in to actually be able to
put in the output that's needed to be successful.
And I'm learned that the hard way. So I love that that's,
(27:37):
like, a a core part of what you're doing, and I and I think it
should be a core part of every founder's, journey because
maybe at first you could get away with it. But when things get tough
and when things are scaling and things are moving quickly, you will
realize that you just if you're not taking care of yourself, you do
not have the even you don't you don't even have the ability
(27:59):
to perform in the way that your company needs you to
perform because it takes being really dialed in to get that
extra energy, to get that extra hour, two hours of work that needs
to happen and be able to wake up in the morning and get back after
it again. So I love it.
I'm looking at the brand list here. Obviously, we talked about it earlier. AG
(28:21):
one, Alex Hermozzi, Huell. I don't want you
to pick favorites, but is there a campaign that comes to
mind, a project you
did with one of those brands that is your favorite,
was the biggest winner, or, something like that?
(28:43):
I don't have a favorite. I would say that with all of these
huge brands and companies, every single project has been truly
amazing because obviously, like, you're just going to
give it your all when you work with these brands. So every project has been
different, obviously. Right? So every project, was interesting
and fascinating, just by its own appeal. Right? So for example, if I
(29:06):
think about Ericsson Morse, you reboots the whole store for the book
launch event from scratch, which was pretty interesting. For
Huey, we worked on a huge website relaunch that went live in
November, which was also pretty cool.
With AG one, we are working on new paid acquisition funnels at the moment.
So, yeah, that's that's, those all have been pretty
(29:28):
interesting and fascinating, but, like, everything was a bit different if that makes
sense, right, from, like, the way that we approach a project or what exactly we've
been doing. But, interestingly enough, what I found with all of
these big companies, I'm a big believer that they got so
successful because they're also really great people. And,
we have like, in all of these projects with all of these people from those
(29:50):
companies you just mentioned, they've been the most humble, most
grateful, best communicating clients that we've had. Right?
Which is really interesting because sometimes you work with a in
comparison, small brand, and they are super arrogant, or they
have a big ego, or they don't communicate well, and then you're thinking, like,
why? Right? But then you you you can understand that, obviously, like,
(30:13):
these big companies only got to the stage and the level that they're at
because they they're so open to every idea. They communicate really well. They
manage you also really well as an agency, and they also make sure from
their side that the project is becoming a great success.
So, yeah, all of those projects, just have been really interesting and amazing to
work with, I would say. Yeah. That's interesting because you
(30:35):
typically hear it the other way around. Like, sometimes it's hard to work
with some of these major brands because their communication's kinda
poor. They're so big that it's hard to get them on the same page,
but vice versa. And I've experienced this too. It's
like the smallest brand typically brings the biggest
headache. And I feel like it's not their fault. Sometimes if you're
(30:58):
arrogant and you're just not a good person, then that's on you. But
most of them have, like, the tightest budget ever. They're giving you their
last thousand dollars, and they're like, please turn my business around,
which is is is tough from your side as the founder as well of of
an agency because, I mean, we know that growth is
not easy. It's not cheap either, and you have to be
(31:20):
able to test things and try things and burn some money on
fire so that you could multiply other money in this way.
So I wanna kinda pivot and understand,
like, there's probably a bunch of brand owners, a bunch of founders listening and
watching right now, whenever this is live.
What does it look like to work with your agency? Are there any
(31:42):
thresholds that need to be met, certain revenue numbers? And if
so, like, what what's the best way to get in touch with you and and
and connect? Sure. So the we have a
threshold that's set around half a million a month on the 7 figures where
it really starts making sense to work with us and engage us as an agency.
We are pretty boutique, so we only work with 25 brands at any given moment.
(32:05):
The way that we work with brands is we have these six people teams, which
is basically a full six year old team of, like, all of the different specialists
that you need. And we basically, provide this team to any of
the brands you work with, and they just function as a CRO team. They take
over the website. They analyze data. They build
landing pages. They run split test. They change the offer,
(32:27):
upsets, copywriting, basically everything on the page to increase conversions and
average order value. For the people to get in touch with me, the
best is probably Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Just send me a DM. I check
all of those regularly. And then, yeah, I'm always happy to
check out a new potential brand, and I will always give my,
honest opinion whether or not they're a good fit with us because otherwise, it doesn't
(32:49):
make sense to engage us, obviously. So we always, make sure that they
fit before making an offer. Yeah.
Doing half a million a month. Maybe I'm naive to the
ecommerce space, but is there a decent amount of brands that are that
big that you have the ability to take on 25 clients at a time on
a on a regular basis? Yes. Definitely. I mean,
(33:11):
if I've seen bro, like,
probably every every single prod product that you can imagine,
I've seen doing big numbers. Whether that's shapewear,
underwear, jewelry, wallets, caps,
shoes, dog beds, right, resistance bands.
I've seen all of those products do half a million, a million, 2 million a
(33:32):
month. So it's, in the beginning, I was also, surprised
sometimes, like, what type of products would do certain numbers. But
now I've seen it all, and I don't even get surprised anymore when
somebody's in the call and they say tell me, hey. I've I have this
crazy new product and it's linked to me in a month. I'm like, yeah. Well,
I guess it works. That's crazy.
(33:56):
Something that's coming to mind here that's just curious for me,
obviously, the writing on the wall is that there's a potential ban of TikTok
coming soon. It was it looked like it wasn't gonna
happen. Now I think on Polymarket, it's, like, in
75% chance that it gets banned.
Obviously, TikTok shop was a huge growth engine for a lot of these
(34:18):
major companies. Does TikTok shop shutting down
actually play into your hand on, like, now brands are gonna have to
go back to a service like yours or or leverage a team
and expertise like yours because they're gonna have to go back to growing just
traditionally online through a website?
So for the type of brands that we work with, TikTok shop
(34:41):
wasn't really a big thing. So I I obviously know that a lot of people
are making a bunch of money on TikTok shop. But for, like, our types of
direct consumer brands, they either sell, like, most
of the products through their website, or they would potentially have
something like Amazon or, like, offline retail. Right? So those
are pretty the, the the biggest distribution channels for them. So
(35:03):
TikTok shop shutting down is not that big of an issue. The
bigger issue rather is that, historically,
the the the amount you pay for CPM or
for per click just continues to rise on
Facebook, on Google, on, like, all of these advertising platforms because
more and more, as you said earlier, more and more ecommerce founders enter into the
(35:24):
market, more and more competition enters the market that all bid on
the same audience to get their impressions. So that's, I would say, is
the the bigger issue that it just becomes more and more expensive to reach
people. And then also on the other hand, people and consumers
get more sophisticated and smarter. Right? They are bombarded with thousands of
ads everywhere on their phone, on their computer, television,
(35:47):
radio, offline. Right? Like, they see ads all day long, so they
become super smart and sophisticated. So on the one hand side, you're paying more on
the second hand. On the other side, consumers are just,
like, more numb, I would say, to advertising. So those,
that's, like, the biggest challenges that I see going into,
2025. Obviously,
(36:08):
those are two different challenges, but both
have seemingly become harder and harder over time.
What does that make you or or what does that
look like for you in that space over the next five years,
at the trajectory that it's going now? Like, does that concern you in any
bit? Do you think there's gonna be kind of this reshift or
(36:34):
or or or cleanup? Because, obviously, the CPM numbers have consistently
gone up. It's getting harder and harder to get people to click on things
because, like, me personally, I feel like I get served a
million ads on Instagram alone every day.
And before, I used to find myself clicking on more. Now I find myself
clicking on less just because it's just your fatigue. You see so
(36:56):
many. So I'm curious what that looks like for you over the next five
years. Interesting question. So the
the way that I approach it or the way that I view it, yes, it's
going to, just get out a
bunch of people out of business. Right? Because they are not putting in the
effort needed or they have just been stuck. Right? It's this it's this
(37:17):
typical analogy or metaphor of, like, the SME
business owner. Right? Like, small medium enterprise business owner that's
running a brick and mortar business, and they have never heard of the Internet or
how to run Google Ads campaigns to get leads for their brick and mortar business
where they do, like, a nail salon or fitness studio or whatever. Right?
And the analogy to that is an online business owner, but they just, run the
(37:39):
same shit that has been working for the past five years, and they don't adapt.
So my hypothesis is that you continuously need to adapt and
test and iterate and fine tune to stay ahead of the game and not be
left behind. So that's, like, the way that I view it. And
if we talk about advertising specifically, it's it's a bit,
to what I said in the beginning where you have to resonate with people and
(38:01):
you have to cut through the chase. So you have to become really, really
smart and really, like, research driven in terms of
having the best consumer understanding. Like, if you understand your consumer and
target audience better than your competition, you have a crazy competitive edge
because you're going to find unique ways to reach them and unique ways to resonate
with them. And if if, like you said, you're numb for ads.
(38:23):
But if I am going to play out an ad to you and you that
resonates with you, you're still going to click. Right? If I, I don't know, if
I run an ad that's saying, like, hey. This is specifically for podcast
hosts, in this area that are 26 years old, you'll be like, hey. This is
perfectly for me. Right? And then I talk about the pain points, then it's going
to resonate. So that's how I think about advertising and also the website
(38:45):
optimization whereas you just have to be better than your competition at
understanding data, understanding your consumers, and then being able to
resonate better with them to be able to win this, more
and more competitive landscape of advertising in the next couple of years.
Yeah. And I would be a bad host if I didn't
ask. Obviously, AI is something that's just
(39:08):
becoming more and more present in every
aspect of business. I definitely
see, AI getting its
fingers in the advertising space, whether it's
Meta adding a bunch of AI to optimize the platform.
Same thing for Google. I think it'll be
(39:30):
tough for smaller companies because they might get phased out
by a few different features that they did. But a company like yours that's
kinda at the top of the funnel working with some of the biggest brands, like,
are you excited about AI features rolling out on these
platforms, the ability to have AI help you grow your business, or
is it something that's just kind of a neutral point? I mean,
(39:52):
for me, personally, AI is super, super interesting.
Right? And I have a lot of use cases for it. So for me, it's
almost like a personal assistant of some form. And in the business,
we we have started building AI agents and different
AI tools to help us work more efficiently. What I
always like to say is that I never like to give the
(40:14):
control of the bigger picture strategy or
idea making to AI, but I will always have
AI kinda work or help the work flow be more
efficient. So I would never be, going to chat GPT and
say, create an ad campaign for a g one or give me a
headline or something like that. Right? I would never do that. I would
(40:35):
always think about something myself in terms of strategy or idea. So
I'm always independent from AI. So I can always
rely on my own skill set. But then, for example, I will have an
idea, and then I will go into Checkatrade and then just say, hey. This is
my idea. This is what I have in mind. Please write the first concept. And
then boom, five seconds later, I have a one pager with the whole concept, then
(40:56):
I can go to my team. Or I can say, this is my idea for
a campaign. Write a one pager concept, action items,
deadlines, yada yada yada, quick voice note, one minute. I send it into Slack to
my team. They work with it. Would that's hundred times quicker than
me going on to Slack, typing everything, structuring it, and
whatever. So I personally like chat g p t a lot. Again,
(41:17):
I think a lot of people, they just rely on it too much. So they
don't they don't build their skill set. They don't build their own,
critical thinking process or I like, ideation phase or
something. And I think that's really, really,
bad and also really dangerous if you rely on AI too much
because then in ten years, like, you're not going to have
(41:40):
a skill set. Like, if some and for example, if you're on a
call with a client or if you're on a call with anyone,
you are not going to have chat g p t open all the time. Right?
Like, they will ask you, like, if you're going to ask me, hey, Carl. I
have this product. This is my brand. This is my target audience. What can we
do? Then I will give you a couple of ideas. Right? But,
(42:00):
it's like, I would be available for you if you could do the same thing
with Chegg GPT and ask them the same question and get the same answer because
I'm using JetGPT. Right? So, that's the way that I like
to kinda work with AI. Yeah. I
love it. And I I think you're you're spot on. Like,
a a lot of the younger entrepreneurs that I've met with are,
(42:23):
and I I don't blame them. Like, the tool's really awesome. And
I think back at, like, 20 year old me when I'm running these
Discord communities. Like, if I had all these AI
tools, I would be trying to do as little as possible and
play with all these tools and have them help me. But it's true. Like, you're
not building skill sets. And the
(42:45):
writings on the wall, AI is just gonna get better and better and better and
replace some of the meaningless easy tasks.
The people with skill sets and the ability to have
skills that AI can't replicate because at the end of the day, it's never
gonna replicate the thought of thinking like a human and making
decisions that, humans would typically
(43:09):
make, you're gonna be way behind the eight ball if you don't actually have some
of these skills, and you're gonna be potentially at risk. So if there's one
message about AI to leave with the people that are, younger
listening or getting into business, like, don't fall into the
trap of letting AI run your business for
you. Use AI, leverage it, and get the most out of it,
(43:31):
but don't give it too much control because you're just hurting yourself in the long
run.
One question that I always like to ask at the end of episodes,
it's one of those cliche simple questions, but it it, in my
opinion, helps give advice to the younger people listening and the the
(43:51):
wanna the wanna be future entrepreneurs. You're
26, so there hasn't been that much time in between
this, but you've had a, a great career up to this point.
And for me, it's if you could go back and talk to the
18 year old Carl, what piece of advice would you give
yourself?
(44:12):
Great question. The the two pieces or the one piece of advice I
always like to say is, like, everything you can put put your mind to,
you can achieve. If I would only have one, that would be it. Like, everything
you can imagine, you can achieve. The second thing would be,
invest every single dollar you make into,
yourself. Like, learn, educate, buy
(44:34):
courses, buy mentorships, buy programs, buy books. Like, every single
dollar you make, invest. And I still live by those,
two principles to this day. Like, I always believe
in myself, and I always, pay absurd amounts
of money for consultants and coaches and books and seminars,
to educate myself further.
(44:57):
That's awesome. And I I always am excited when
entrepreneurs are willing to mention that because the younger
person and even this whole, like, online world kinda gives a
hard time to courses and paying money for people. And, obviously, you
gotta do your research. Like, there are definitely shitty courses, shitty
mentors. But I have not
(45:19):
come across a single successful entrepreneur, and I've
interviewed now over a hundred and five, CEOs and
founders. I have not come across a single one of them that
hasn't given some type of praise, some type of
recognition, two mentors, two courses, two books.
So if you're listening here and you're wondering what you need to
(45:41):
do to kind of start this journey, start learning,
start being curious, start trying to become a better
version of yourself. And in that, you will start to find
ideas and find your path to be successful. Yep.
Great point. Yeah. I
wanna make sure, anybody here and, obviously, we kind of alluded to it when
(46:03):
it came to the working together. But, for the lazy people,
where can they find you? What is your most, like, active
platform? I know you said Instagram, LinkedIn, x.
What's your what's your ad on those? And and we'll make sure they're all linked
in the description below as well. Yeah. It's all the same. It's all
Karl Weicher. So my first name and my last name, it's pretty much the same
(46:24):
on everything. I would say I'm the I'm active on all
platforms. I probably respond the most on LinkedIn to messages,
and, I probably put the best content out on YouTube just because it's,
like, long form videos of me, like, breaking down pages, breaking down campaigns, and
everything. So that's probably the most valuable if people want to dive
deep into those topics. Okay. Awesome. I
(46:47):
mean, Carl, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much
for being an open book and sharing with our audience and community.
I learned a bunch, and it was a very interesting conversation from my side.
I hope it was great for you as well. And, as you
continue to scale, grow, I try and get on a cadence where
I interview my guests at least once a year, maybe even once every two
(47:09):
years because it's very cool now to be able to, one, be able to be
a part of your story, see where you were at this point, and be able
to come back to it down the road in the interview. But I do wanna
say thank you so much for coming on and and and being an open book.
For sure. Appreciate it. I've been a great host.
Awesome. And thank you everybody that's listened and and and
(47:31):
watched. We will see you all on the next episode, and have a great
rest of your week.
Probably every every single prod product that you can imagine, I've
seen doing big numbers. Whether that's shapewear, underwear,
jewelry, wallets, caps, shoes,
dog beds, right, resistance bands. I've seen all of those
products do half a million, a million, 2 million a month. So it's, in the
beginning, I was also, surprised sometimes, like, what type of products
(00:22):
would do certain numbers, but now I've seen it all.
And I don't even get surprised anymore when somebody's in the call and they say,
tell me, hey. I I have this crazy new product and it's linked to me
in a month. I'm like, yeah. Well, I guess it works.
Welcome back to another episode of the Beyond the Wealth podcast. I'm your
host, Andres Sanchez. And today, I'm here with Carl
(00:45):
Faicha, the founder of the Accelerated Agency doing CRO
for 8 figure brands like Andrew Huberman, Huel,
and a ton of other amazing companies. Carl, thank you so much for
being here today. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to have this
conversation because growth is one of the,
obviously, most important part of any business, but it feels like the
(01:08):
landscape is getting ever more challenging. There's tons
more competition. There's new brands being spun up overnight.
So I'm excited to hear kind of your feedback, what you're seeing
behind the scenes, and even how you work with some of these extremely
successful brands. Yep. Sweet. Let's get into it.
So let's let's let's just start with a little bit of an introduction. Who is
(01:32):
Carl? Why did you get into this space? And we'll take it from there.
Sure. So my name is Kavish. I'm 26 years old. I got into this
space at almost exactly ten years ago, I would say,
when I started buying and reselling, limited sneakers
and limited clothing. So back then there's there was a lot of, like, Yeezy
Boost, Supreme, Jordans, Nikes, all of those, like,
(01:55):
exclusive collections. Right? So back then, a lot of people were getting into the
fashion game, and a lot of people wanted to get their hands on these exclusive
products. So me and my friends all, also would spend, like, all
of our money buying them to wear them. And then at one point, I
just started thinking, well, why don't I just, like, start buying more of them?
Right? Because I kinda knew how to get it. I had no way way around
(02:17):
it and everything. So I started buying them in bigger quantities and then
sold them for higher price on eBay, for example, afterwards. And
that's how I made more money when I was 16 and 17.
Then I got into ecommerce. Right? So I started doing my own online store
of, own electronic products. So, wireless
phone chargers, phone accessories, phone cases, and all of that. And
(02:40):
I started selling that in 2019 on Amazon and on Shopify.
And, from that, I initially hired a freelancer who was
doing conversion optimization, which is the business that I'm in right now, right, with running
the agency. And, this freelancer called
Glass is now my business partner. Right? So back then when I was running the
ecom, brand myself, I hired him. We worked
(03:02):
together. I really, really like what he did, and I also saw a lot of
potential in it. It was really like a blue ocean back then, and that's why
I decided to move into the freelancing space. And now over the
past, yeah, four, five years, we've basically built
Accelerated to be one of the biggest agencies that
specialized in conversion optimization. And, yeah, I have the pleasure to
(03:22):
work with some amazing brands, some amazing people, and that's, that's my
work now. That's where I'm That's amazing. And maybe we
cross paths in an earlier life. We're both. I'm 26 as
well. I was deep in the sneaker and online
resale world. I own one of the biggest bought rental discords
on the market, and that was my first stab in entrepreneurship.
(03:45):
So who knows? Maybe we've crossed paths in an earlier life.
But I love that journey, and it's one of those
that I've come across a bunch. Like, I've met tons of people like
me, realized that there was money in sneakers, pivoted from there,
and said, okay. Well, this is kinda slowing down. Ecommerce is the next natural
progression, and then you end up kind of finding your your niche
(04:07):
along the way. How important was it for you to get
those experiences early on? Like, how impactful
were those early days to where you're at right now? I'll
say super important because, I mean, from from the
way that you would have to get these sneakers, like, you would have to figure
out a way to get your hands on them. Right? Like, that's why you, work
(04:29):
with bots or that's why you work with some backdoor accesses to those stores
to get your hands on them. Right. That was like the first big challenge to
solve, which I think was pretty, pretty interesting and really,
taught me a lot. The second thing would be how to market them afterwards,
like how to take pictures, how to put them online, how to do the copywriting,
how to get people interested in them, finding the right price sensitivity
(04:51):
where you would save them quickly enough, but you would also make enough money.
So I think those initial days back then with sneaker reselling
taught me a lot about how to how to think about online marketing, how to
think about pricing, how to make money, how to invest my time.
And then obviously, the same with ecommerce. Right? Like, I was in the shoes of
a brand owner myself. I got really deep into everything, like the front end,
(05:14):
the back end. I built the Shopify store. I did the product images. I wrote
the copy. I set up email newsletters. I talked to the
suppliers. I figured out how to brand the product, how to package
it. So I think it's it's really, really interesting to,
be in the shoes of, like, a business owner, but in different businesses. Right? Because
then you kinda get the ins and outs of all of the different businesses, and
(05:36):
you really get a look behind the scenes, and you also understand,
how to think like a business owner, how to think like a brand owner, how
to think like a freelancer, right, which is, I think, pretty, pretty interesting.
And all of these experiences and lessons that I got taught in
those earlier business models are super, super beneficial for the business that
I'm running now. Yeah. I I couldn't agree more, and I
(05:58):
always talk to younger entrepreneurs when I come across them,
and just let them know, like, one, you're so ridiculously
early. Like, don't ever get stressed out thinking that you're behind the eight
ball because you heard some 16 year olds clipping videos
making a million dollars a month on TikTok. But
also, like, I always tell them, hey. You need to make sure that you
(06:20):
experience a lot of these different things and trial a lot of these different
businesses because you'll start to learn what it takes to actually build a
successful business when you have the capital, when you have the ability.
So I love that those experiences really made a difference in your
career. You said that, you
partnered up with a freelancer that was helping you with your business.
(06:43):
Where did this media buying and
growth like, why was that interesting to you? Why did that draw you in
to go and pursue that and leave the ecommerce business and go all in?
Yeah. I mean, for me, personally, I was always really, really
obsessed with psychology. So you're probably familiar with books like How to Win
Friends and Influence People. Right? Those kind of books. And I personally
(07:06):
always, like, I just read so many books around psychology
because I wanted to understand how the brain works, how I can influence myself, how
can I have a positive impact that I have on the relationships with other
people, how can I potentially help them or influence them? So that was
always super interesting for me on the private side. And on the business side, it
was always this thing like online marketing, selling products
(07:27):
online. Right? And for me, when I was talking to Lars
and hired him as a freelancer for conversion optimization,
I quickly realized that it was basically, the
overlay of those two, right, of online marketing and psychology
in this field of conversion optimization, which is all based on
consumer psychology and understanding how people behave and how you can influence
(07:49):
that behavior. Right? So for me, when when he told
me, change this copy, change this product description on your
website, change the copy in the email, and you're going to make more money because
you're going to influence more people to buy. I was, like, mind blown.
Right? I was like, okay. You can just change around some things on the
website and get more people to buy because you can influence their behavior. It's crazy.
(08:10):
Right? Crazy to think. But also out of the biggest companies worldwide, like
Amazon, like every single pixel, every single word, like what the
images are, where the buttons on Amazon.com is really well thought through and
tested to be able to influence people to buy
buy quickly, have a high, like, ability to buy and
also, yeah, cross sell them, right, on other products. Just
(08:32):
spend a lot of money and have a high, average order rate.
So I just got really, drawn to that naturally
because it was, yeah, playing to both of my passions of marketing and
psychology. And that's why, why I got into it, and I saw a lot of
potential to it because back then, and I would say even still now to the
state, there aren't a lot of people in this space. So I would really say
(08:55):
it's Blue Ocean, and that's why, yeah, we just push the throttle
and, really invest, into that.
You mentioned that, you started learning a lot of these
little, tricks and tips to get, things
to convert more, to get them to be more, to to have more sales come
(09:15):
through. There's I'm sure there's a
bunch of, ecommerce startups or or
entrepreneurs that wanna get into ecommerce listening or watching right
now. Without giving away all the sauce, what are
some common mistakes you see people make early,
that can be fixed or can be changed,
(09:39):
to to to help them be more successful? Yeah. Great question. I think
the biggest mistake that people make when they get into e commerce is that they
go on like a big website. Right? Like Nike.com,
Dior, Apple, whatever. Right? And then they think, okay, well, this is a
billion dollar, maybe even trillion dollar company. Let me just copy and paste everything that
they are doing because it seems to work for them. But the problem is that
(10:00):
in every niche and in every industry and every product,
the consumer is different and the target audience is different. So they
they have certain pain points. They have certain motivations, but they are super
different in the way that they consume and in the way that they buy the
product. So what I always like to tell people, especially in the beginning,
is to get on the phone with customers, get on the phone with prospects, and
(10:22):
talk to them. Right? Let's say, for example, you sell,
a dog bed. Right? Random product dog bed. Maybe seen
this because it has been a crazy winning product before. Then what I
would really recommend you to do is talk to dog owners. Talk to thirty,
fifty, hundred dog owners and ask them. Right? Like, what is
important for you when you are in the market for dog bed? What do you
(10:44):
watch out for? What is the current pain that you have with the current product
that you're using? How would you use this product in your day to life?
Why would you go for a certain company? Like, what qualities are you
looking for in a dog bed? What is important for you when you think about
your dog? Right? And I would just ask them all of these questions to get
a good understanding of why and how they buy
(11:05):
this specific product that I'm selling. And then they would give you really,
really great valuable answers that you can then use for your ads, for your
copywriting, for your product images, and, really
make it resonate with them. Right? And that's the thing that people get wrong the
most in the beginning is that they just copy and paste something from a big
company. They apply it to their product. They put it online, but then it
(11:27):
doesn't resonate with people. Right? It's it's just a product.
That's not emotional. They don't hit the pain points of people. They don't
show how to use the product, correctly, and they don't resonate with the
target audience at all. And, hence, they don't end up buying the
product. Yeah.
I I think it's so important to actually
(11:49):
get customer data. People are shocked when their
product doesn't sell through, and then you talk to them and they're like, well, how
many customers have you talked to? Oh, I've never talked to one. I just built
this because I thought they'd want it. And it's funny that you
mentioned Dior. Dior has definitely figured out how to do
something right because they served me an email today about their new
(12:09):
collection, and the cheapest thing on the website was a
$400 key chain. And every pair of
sneakers was $1,700. T shirts were a thousand dollars,
and I can't people people buy it and and go
crazy for it. So they're clearly doing something right.
But for you and and
(12:31):
and building this agency, what were some of the do
you have, like, a good story or, like, a a turning point,
when you went from, like, alright. Like, this is a blue ocean. This is something
that we could go all in on to, like, holy shit. Like, this is
actually something that we're gonna crush on, and we're gonna be able to
sign and work with some of the biggest brands. Do you have, like, a moment
(12:52):
that comes back to mind for that? Yes. Definitely.
I mean, that was probably early twenty twenty two. You may be
familiar with Nick Sheckaford. So he's a huge guy also in the agency in
ecom space. And back then, he used to do those mastermind
events called Geek Out, which was one of the best events that I've been to
to this date. And that was the Geek Out Dubai in February
(13:14):
2022, and he was kind enough to invite us as one of the speakers to
that event. And on that event, I, I did the speaking
slot. Right? We were around, I think, like, 10 or 12 people at that
stage. So I did the speaking slot. It got me connected with a bunch of
really, really great people in the audience. And that also got me
recognized by a huge ecom entrepreneurs like David Fogarty who then,
(13:36):
reached out to me via DM on Twitter, for example, and texted me. So
that's how we ended up working together with them and The Oodie, which was our
first, I would say, big home run client because everybody in the
ecommerce field knows The Oodie and David Fogarty. Right? So that was
our first home run. So over 2022, we just
used the Geek Out Dubai and, the case study with David
(13:58):
Fogarty, and that got us, from a team of 10 to a
team of 35 at the end of twenty twenty two. So we just saw an
explosive growth, over the year, hired a bunch of team
people, built the team, onboarded a bunch of clients, and
then went into 2023 with, like, big team, like, three or four
times the size. So that really opened our eyes to,
(14:20):
the the explosive growth that you can have in this sphere. And then we
just doubled down on it. And then 2023, we were
fortunate enough to, start the work with Alex Somozie. So we built the
online store for Alex Somozie for his book launch, and then that obviously
had another domino effect to a bunch of other big brands that we then
onboarded at 2024, like AG
(14:41):
one, Oshuhe, other big, German brands.
And, yeah, we we since then, we just stub it
down, and continue to push the throttle.
That's awesome. And, like, those are such recognizable brands.
You mentioned that the team almost tripled in size. I'm
(15:03):
assuming it's even bigger now than it was in
2022. As a
founder, managing and hiring people is one of the toughest
parts. What were some of the things you learned, some of the mistakes you
might have made early on, and what advice would you give to founders that
are in your 2022 issues that are starting to scale up,
(15:24):
starting to see success, and are having to make that move to bring,
more people on the team? Yep. Good question. I'd say
definitely, have a really solid hiring
process. So the biggest mistake that we did in the beginning when we
started hiring is that, we would talk to people and
we would just get convinced too quick. So we hired the
(15:46):
people that could sell themselves pretty well, but then on the actual job, they did
a really bad job. Right? So we just did,
like, five or 10 bad hires just because they did an amazing job at
the interview. And then we were like, yeah. They're amazing. They can talk to where
they know exactly what we need. We will hire them. We will give them
a bunch of money. It will be amazing. But it wasn't. So the
(16:08):
big thing is probably how to figure out, like, who to hire for a
specific role. And secondly, it's a thing that I would have never thought to be
true, but actually think about your company culture.
Right? Think about the culture and base that you have as the founder and that
you want your team to display. And I really never cared about that.
I was like, yeah, culture, whatever, whatever. Right? Like, they're going to
(16:31):
fit, or we're going to make them fit. But we saw
with every person that didn't fit the company culture a % and didn't
have the same values of the same mindset and, point of view that we
had, they would go over a certain period of time, whether that'd be six
months or a year or two years, but they would go because they wouldn't be
comfortable in the long run. And we also started bumping heads with
(16:52):
them. Right? So, those two aspects are
super, super important. And then the third one would be, it's
difficult to make this in the beginning to hire seniors because they cost a lot.
Right? So in the beginning, you're kinda relying on juniors or people that you have
to train. But as quickly as possible, I would make the switch to
hiring seniors and people that have been doing the exact job that you wanted to
(17:14):
do for three to five years minimum. That's something that I would say we
probably switched too late. So we relied on juniors or we relied
on, training them ourselves too long. Obviously,
also because of cash flow issues. But, yeah, that's also a
switch that I would try to make as quickly as possible because one senior,
one really good player is better than three or four bad players.
(17:37):
And then the the money is well better spent with that senior that
costs a bit more. Yeah.
It's such a tough spot to be an
early stage company because, like you said, senior people want a lot of
money or they're interested in equity if they're coming in and and
are doing a little run on hopping from start up to start up or trying
(17:59):
to find one that they want to spend some time at.
Juniors are the ones that are, like, really motivated, wanna come in, but have no
clue what they're really getting into. Yep. So I
I and I've I've heard that story over and over again. So
I I think it really is one of those times where you just gotta
I mean, entrepreneurship comes with a ton of luck. Sometimes Sometimes you just gotta get
(18:22):
lucky on some of the people you hire. Do you have anybody that was a
junior that you hired that ended up becoming higher in the company now
that's been with you since day one that's, like, one of those, like, fantastic
hires? Yeah. Funnily enough, like, that
it's an friend of mine from university, and he was
actually our first hire. Right? And so
(18:44):
in the beginning, he started out as a developer, then he moved to, like,
a data analyst, then he moved to a team lead. And now he has been
in the c level, which is, like, the highest position managing position in our
company that you can have. And he has been in the c level for, like,
one and a half years now. So he kinda started as a day one
higher and moved up the ranks, like, from the bottom to the top.
(19:05):
And, he was definitely one. I mean, we just trained him from
day one. Right? So, obviously, he was in university with me. He didn't
have any, like, job experience, so we just trained him from day one. But,
he turned out, yeah, to grow into the position
with the skill set that he needed to have. And he just did an amazing
job at that naturally, which is, pretty, pretty sick. And I'm super,
(19:28):
super happy, to still have him. Right? Like, we have, like,
five or six people that have been with us since, like, the early days that
are still with us, which makes me really proud and which also, like, you can
fear the day of the company DNA. Right? Like, they've been
trained and indoctrinated since day one from us as founders, and it's so
able to have them on board because they really, live it. Right?
(19:49):
Like, they have the DNA.
Yeah. And I think there's plenty of people listening
and watching now that are probably in the shoes of
your buddy that are trying to find a company that they can
start at right out of college, somewhere they can sit and learn, somewhere they
(20:09):
can develop. And I I tell a lot of entrepreneurs early
now that if you don't really know what you want or you're trying to figure
out what path you wanna go, like, go try and join a start up.
Go try and work inside of some of these smaller agencies and companies
so you can be close to founders that are scaling because I think that's
a really important place. And, obviously, it worked out for the friend of yours
(20:31):
who's now at the c level and and and and very successful. So that
that that's amazing. I'm curious. Like, working
with all of these big brands, like, just looking at your website, like, you've you've
worked with a ton of major companies at this point. There's gotta
be a story that comes to mind
or a moment that comes to mind that was very challenging.
(20:54):
I know most podcasts are very positive and
everything's sunshine and roses, but I like to highlight
the sometimes the the challenging moments in
creating a successful company, because it's just it's it's a
part of the journey. There's not really any company that goes from
zero to a hundred and has no roadblocks hiccups.
(21:16):
So is there a moment that comes to mind for you as a founder where
it was like, wow, I think we're gonna fail, or wow, I think things are
are kinda getting out of control here. That was, like, a big
moment to overcome for you. Definitely. And I'm I'm happy that
you talk about it because as you said, not a lot of, people on podcast
ask this question. I would say, I mean, we have
(21:38):
had hundreds of moments like this. Right? Like, to
be fair, I I was never convinced that we are going to fail ever.
Right? Like, I just have this weird sense of we are
always going to make it. But definitely, we were with the
bags at at the wall at times multiple times. I would
say the two big challenges as a founder of any business that you're
(22:00):
skating is, on the one hand side, more of like a
personal thing where, like, the amount of stress that you have to be
able to tolerate and manage and still perform is insane.
So I would say that there have been multiple
probably, like, three or four crazy stressful periods where I was
I was sometimes, at evenings or on the weekends sitting there and
(22:22):
just, like, praying or thinking how,
like, how can I find the resources to manage this period? Right?
Like, how how am I going to be able to manage the stress?
The solution was mostly in the mixture
of, qualitative downtime, having
solid routine with gym and a healthy diet,
(22:45):
cutting down on things. Right? Like, just having the business,
maybe your partner, your family, and that's it. Like, there's no time for
hobbies or yada yada yada. Like, you just have to focus on two to three
things at max, which is going to be your health, the business, and
then maybe family or, like, one or two good friends. And And then you have
to cut out everything else because otherwise, you're not going to be able to manage
(23:06):
the stress and work the time that's needed. So I would say that's, like, the
one big thing and the struggle that's coming, like, back
again, like, every couple of months as a business owner depending on,
like, the scaling period you're in the business. The second big thing,
that we have encountered couple of times is, obviously, when you scale
quick, you also bid a certain, fixed cost
(23:29):
block of overheads, of softwares, of an office,
of ad spend. And that, especially in the beginning,
is just growing so quickly because, yeah, you have to you have to hire people.
You have to have software. You have to have certain things in place to deliver
the service. And then the costs are going to a hundred k, 2 hundred, 2
hundred 50, whatever. And then the revenue drops or,
(23:50):
like, you you plan that you get a bunch of new clients, but then you
don't get a bunch of new clients, but then you have to cost. And then
you obviously don't have millions of dollars on your bank account, so you only have
a couple of months of one rate. And then you, yeah, you again have to
figure out how to get a bunch of new clients, how to get the cash
flow in. And, also, those probably are the two
most dangerous situations that you as a foreigner are going to find yourself
(24:13):
in. Maybe there's a third one that I didn't think of now, but those
from my perspective are the two things. They will probably haunt you, like, once
or twice a year minimum, at every stage of the
business. And, yeah, you you just have to be,
prepared for it because they are tough and otherwise they will wipe you out. And
I think most of the founders are not,
(24:36):
failing the company because they are they are dumb or
something. I think most of the founders fail because they either get burned
out or they scale too quickly and then just run into
cash flow issues and then it's dumb. Right? I think those are, like, really, really
too dangerous, situations to be in if you don't manage them correctly.
(24:59):
Yeah. And, obviously, being a founder, you're most people are
like, oh, I wanna leave my nine to five to go be an entrepreneur or
a founder thinking that they're taking the the easier route,
but that's just the farthest thing from true.
Stress through the roof. You you mentioned prioritizing your health
is one of the the three top things. Honestly, the
(25:21):
top two things, it's business and health. Why
do you think that's so important, and and how much
has becoming healthy and and focusing on your diet and and what you put in
and out of your body, been to your success?
Great question. So health has always been a big one for me, but,
I think now over the past couple of months, I just put it as number
(25:43):
one. Like, I hired a personal trainer to, like, optimize
everything from the sleep to the nutrition, to the diet supplements and
training. Before that, I was like, I mean, I'm I've been really
fascinated about the topic. I've been doing tons of research myself just to figure
it out, but now I wanted to get it to the top notch. I think
it's pretty logical, to prioritize health
(26:05):
because, without
half, everything is nothing, if that makes sense. Right? Like, if your half
if your half is your problem, then you only have one problem, which is
the half. You have to get half again. Right? And, if the
like, half is the foundation for everything. Like, all other problems are
secondary if your health is a problem. Right? So I think it's
(26:29):
just logical to make sure that you are healthy, the to make sure that you
have the most possible amount of energy and focus to be able
to work efficiently and, yeah, just have a
solid output. Because otherwise, if you're unhealthy, if you're tired, if you're
fatigued quickly, if you don't sleep well, if you don't have a bunch of energy
or focus, you're just not going to be able to have a solid output. So,
(26:50):
especially as an entrepreneur, I think it's just I mean, for everybody, but
especially as an entrepreneur, I think it's just logical to put your,
health first.
Yeah. I I think that's, that's one of my priorities in
in 2025. I've never been, like, a really unhealthy person,
but, not where I was when I was,
(27:14):
an athlete and and all in on training and things like that. And one
of my goals is to kinda get back there because as I've started to scale
my businesses and take on more responsibilities, it's
hard, like, if you're not really dialed in to actually be able to
put in the output that's needed to be successful.
And I'm learned that the hard way. So I love that that's,
(27:37):
like, a a core part of what you're doing, and I and I think it
should be a core part of every founder's, journey because
maybe at first you could get away with it. But when things get tough
and when things are scaling and things are moving quickly, you will
realize that you just if you're not taking care of yourself, you do
not have the even you don't you don't even have the ability
(27:59):
to perform in the way that your company needs you to
perform because it takes being really dialed in to get that
extra energy, to get that extra hour, two hours of work that needs
to happen and be able to wake up in the morning and get back after
it again. So I love it.
I'm looking at the brand list here. Obviously, we talked about it earlier. AG
(28:21):
one, Alex Hermozzi, Huell. I don't want you
to pick favorites, but is there a campaign that comes to
mind, a project you
did with one of those brands that is your favorite,
was the biggest winner, or, something like that?
(28:43):
I don't have a favorite. I would say that with all of these
huge brands and companies, every single project has been truly
amazing because obviously, like, you're just going to
give it your all when you work with these brands. So every project has been
different, obviously. Right? So every project, was interesting
and fascinating, just by its own appeal. Right? So for example, if I
(29:06):
think about Ericsson Morse, you reboots the whole store for the book
launch event from scratch, which was pretty interesting. For
Huey, we worked on a huge website relaunch that went live in
November, which was also pretty cool.
With AG one, we are working on new paid acquisition funnels at the moment.
So, yeah, that's that's, those all have been pretty
(29:28):
interesting and fascinating, but, like, everything was a bit different if that makes
sense, right, from, like, the way that we approach a project or what exactly we've
been doing. But, interestingly enough, what I found with all of
these big companies, I'm a big believer that they got so
successful because they're also really great people. And,
we have like, in all of these projects with all of these people from those
(29:50):
companies you just mentioned, they've been the most humble, most
grateful, best communicating clients that we've had. Right?
Which is really interesting because sometimes you work with a in
comparison, small brand, and they are super arrogant, or they
have a big ego, or they don't communicate well, and then you're thinking, like,
why? Right? But then you you you can understand that, obviously, like,
(30:13):
these big companies only got to the stage and the level that they're at
because they they're so open to every idea. They communicate really well. They
manage you also really well as an agency, and they also make sure from
their side that the project is becoming a great success.
So, yeah, all of those projects, just have been really interesting and amazing to
work with, I would say. Yeah. That's interesting because you
(30:35):
typically hear it the other way around. Like, sometimes it's hard to work
with some of these major brands because their communication's kinda
poor. They're so big that it's hard to get them on the same page,
but vice versa. And I've experienced this too. It's
like the smallest brand typically brings the biggest
headache. And I feel like it's not their fault. Sometimes if you're
(30:58):
arrogant and you're just not a good person, then that's on you. But
most of them have, like, the tightest budget ever. They're giving you their
last thousand dollars, and they're like, please turn my business around,
which is is is tough from your side as the founder as well of of
an agency because, I mean, we know that growth is
not easy. It's not cheap either, and you have to be
(31:20):
able to test things and try things and burn some money on
fire so that you could multiply other money in this way.
So I wanna kinda pivot and understand,
like, there's probably a bunch of brand owners, a bunch of founders listening and
watching right now, whenever this is live.
What does it look like to work with your agency? Are there any
(31:42):
thresholds that need to be met, certain revenue numbers? And if
so, like, what what's the best way to get in touch with you and and
and connect? Sure. So the we have a
threshold that's set around half a million a month on the 7 figures where
it really starts making sense to work with us and engage us as an agency.
We are pretty boutique, so we only work with 25 brands at any given moment.
(32:05):
The way that we work with brands is we have these six people teams, which
is basically a full six year old team of, like, all of the different specialists
that you need. And we basically, provide this team to any of
the brands you work with, and they just function as a CRO team. They take
over the website. They analyze data. They build
landing pages. They run split test. They change the offer,
(32:27):
upsets, copywriting, basically everything on the page to increase conversions and
average order value. For the people to get in touch with me, the
best is probably Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Just send me a DM. I check
all of those regularly. And then, yeah, I'm always happy to
check out a new potential brand, and I will always give my,
honest opinion whether or not they're a good fit with us because otherwise, it doesn't
(32:49):
make sense to engage us, obviously. So we always, make sure that they
fit before making an offer. Yeah.
Doing half a million a month. Maybe I'm naive to the
ecommerce space, but is there a decent amount of brands that are that
big that you have the ability to take on 25 clients at a time on
a on a regular basis? Yes. Definitely. I mean,
(33:11):
if I've seen bro, like,
probably every every single prod product that you can imagine,
I've seen doing big numbers. Whether that's shapewear,
underwear, jewelry, wallets, caps,
shoes, dog beds, right, resistance bands.
I've seen all of those products do half a million, a million, 2 million a
(33:32):
month. So it's, in the beginning, I was also, surprised
sometimes, like, what type of products would do certain numbers. But
now I've seen it all, and I don't even get surprised anymore when
somebody's in the call and they say tell me, hey. I've I have this
crazy new product and it's linked to me in a month. I'm like, yeah. Well,
I guess it works. That's crazy.
(33:56):
Something that's coming to mind here that's just curious for me,
obviously, the writing on the wall is that there's a potential ban of TikTok
coming soon. It was it looked like it wasn't gonna
happen. Now I think on Polymarket, it's, like, in
75% chance that it gets banned.
Obviously, TikTok shop was a huge growth engine for a lot of these
(34:18):
major companies. Does TikTok shop shutting down
actually play into your hand on, like, now brands are gonna have to
go back to a service like yours or or leverage a team
and expertise like yours because they're gonna have to go back to growing just
traditionally online through a website?
So for the type of brands that we work with, TikTok shop
(34:41):
wasn't really a big thing. So I I obviously know that a lot of people
are making a bunch of money on TikTok shop. But for, like, our types of
direct consumer brands, they either sell, like, most
of the products through their website, or they would potentially have
something like Amazon or, like, offline retail. Right? So those
are pretty the, the the biggest distribution channels for them. So
(35:03):
TikTok shop shutting down is not that big of an issue. The
bigger issue rather is that, historically,
the the the amount you pay for CPM or
for per click just continues to rise on
Facebook, on Google, on, like, all of these advertising platforms because
more and more, as you said earlier, more and more ecommerce founders enter into the
(35:24):
market, more and more competition enters the market that all bid on
the same audience to get their impressions. So that's, I would say, is
the the bigger issue that it just becomes more and more expensive to reach
people. And then also on the other hand, people and consumers
get more sophisticated and smarter. Right? They are bombarded with thousands of
ads everywhere on their phone, on their computer, television,
(35:47):
radio, offline. Right? Like, they see ads all day long, so they
become super smart and sophisticated. So on the one hand side, you're paying more on
the second hand. On the other side, consumers are just,
like, more numb, I would say, to advertising. So those,
that's, like, the biggest challenges that I see going into,
2025. Obviously,
(36:08):
those are two different challenges, but both
have seemingly become harder and harder over time.
What does that make you or or what does that
look like for you in that space over the next five years,
at the trajectory that it's going now? Like, does that concern you in any
bit? Do you think there's gonna be kind of this reshift or
(36:34):
or or or cleanup? Because, obviously, the CPM numbers have consistently
gone up. It's getting harder and harder to get people to click on things
because, like, me personally, I feel like I get served a
million ads on Instagram alone every day.
And before, I used to find myself clicking on more. Now I find myself
clicking on less just because it's just your fatigue. You see so
(36:56):
many. So I'm curious what that looks like for you over the next five
years. Interesting question. So the
the way that I approach it or the way that I view it, yes, it's
going to, just get out a
bunch of people out of business. Right? Because they are not putting in the
effort needed or they have just been stuck. Right? It's this it's this
(37:17):
typical analogy or metaphor of, like, the SME
business owner. Right? Like, small medium enterprise business owner that's
running a brick and mortar business, and they have never heard of the Internet or
how to run Google Ads campaigns to get leads for their brick and mortar business
where they do, like, a nail salon or fitness studio or whatever. Right?
And the analogy to that is an online business owner, but they just, run the
(37:39):
same shit that has been working for the past five years, and they don't adapt.
So my hypothesis is that you continuously need to adapt and
test and iterate and fine tune to stay ahead of the game and not be
left behind. So that's, like, the way that I view it. And
if we talk about advertising specifically, it's it's a bit,
to what I said in the beginning where you have to resonate with people and
(38:01):
you have to cut through the chase. So you have to become really, really
smart and really, like, research driven in terms of
having the best consumer understanding. Like, if you understand your consumer and
target audience better than your competition, you have a crazy competitive edge
because you're going to find unique ways to reach them and unique ways to resonate
with them. And if if, like you said, you're numb for ads.
(38:23):
But if I am going to play out an ad to you and you that
resonates with you, you're still going to click. Right? If I, I don't know, if
I run an ad that's saying, like, hey. This is specifically for podcast
hosts, in this area that are 26 years old, you'll be like, hey. This is
perfectly for me. Right? And then I talk about the pain points, then it's going
to resonate. So that's how I think about advertising and also the website
(38:45):
optimization whereas you just have to be better than your competition at
understanding data, understanding your consumers, and then being able to
resonate better with them to be able to win this, more
and more competitive landscape of advertising in the next couple of years.
Yeah. And I would be a bad host if I didn't
ask. Obviously, AI is something that's just
(39:08):
becoming more and more present in every
aspect of business. I definitely
see, AI getting its
fingers in the advertising space, whether it's
Meta adding a bunch of AI to optimize the platform.
Same thing for Google. I think it'll be
(39:30):
tough for smaller companies because they might get phased out
by a few different features that they did. But a company like yours that's
kinda at the top of the funnel working with some of the biggest brands, like,
are you excited about AI features rolling out on these
platforms, the ability to have AI help you grow your business, or
is it something that's just kind of a neutral point? I mean,
(39:52):
for me, personally, AI is super, super interesting.
Right? And I have a lot of use cases for it. So for me, it's
almost like a personal assistant of some form. And in the business,
we we have started building AI agents and different
AI tools to help us work more efficiently. What I
always like to say is that I never like to give the
(40:14):
control of the bigger picture strategy or
idea making to AI, but I will always have
AI kinda work or help the work flow be more
efficient. So I would never be, going to chat GPT and
say, create an ad campaign for a g one or give me a
headline or something like that. Right? I would never do that. I would
(40:35):
always think about something myself in terms of strategy or idea. So
I'm always independent from AI. So I can always
rely on my own skill set. But then, for example, I will have an
idea, and then I will go into Checkatrade and then just say, hey. This is
my idea. This is what I have in mind. Please write the first concept. And
then boom, five seconds later, I have a one pager with the whole concept, then
(40:56):
I can go to my team. Or I can say, this is my idea for
a campaign. Write a one pager concept, action items,
deadlines, yada yada yada, quick voice note, one minute. I send it into Slack to
my team. They work with it. Would that's hundred times quicker than
me going on to Slack, typing everything, structuring it, and
whatever. So I personally like chat g p t a lot. Again,
(41:17):
I think a lot of people, they just rely on it too much. So they
don't they don't build their skill set. They don't build their own,
critical thinking process or I like, ideation phase or
something. And I think that's really, really,
bad and also really dangerous if you rely on AI too much
because then in ten years, like, you're not going to have
(41:40):
a skill set. Like, if some and for example, if you're on a
call with a client or if you're on a call with anyone,
you are not going to have chat g p t open all the time. Right?
Like, they will ask you, like, if you're going to ask me, hey, Carl. I
have this product. This is my brand. This is my target audience. What can we
do? Then I will give you a couple of ideas. Right? But,
(42:00):
it's like, I would be available for you if you could do the same thing
with Chegg GPT and ask them the same question and get the same answer because
I'm using JetGPT. Right? So, that's the way that I like
to kinda work with AI. Yeah. I
love it. And I I think you're you're spot on. Like,
a a lot of the younger entrepreneurs that I've met with are,
(42:23):
and I I don't blame them. Like, the tool's really awesome. And
I think back at, like, 20 year old me when I'm running these
Discord communities. Like, if I had all these AI
tools, I would be trying to do as little as possible and
play with all these tools and have them help me. But it's true. Like, you're
not building skill sets. And the
(42:45):
writings on the wall, AI is just gonna get better and better and better and
replace some of the meaningless easy tasks.
The people with skill sets and the ability to have
skills that AI can't replicate because at the end of the day, it's never
gonna replicate the thought of thinking like a human and making
decisions that, humans would typically
(43:09):
make, you're gonna be way behind the eight ball if you don't actually have some
of these skills, and you're gonna be potentially at risk. So if there's one
message about AI to leave with the people that are, younger
listening or getting into business, like, don't fall into the
trap of letting AI run your business for
you. Use AI, leverage it, and get the most out of it,
(43:31):
but don't give it too much control because you're just hurting yourself in the long
run.
One question that I always like to ask at the end of episodes,
it's one of those cliche simple questions, but it it, in my
opinion, helps give advice to the younger people listening and the the
(43:51):
wanna the wanna be future entrepreneurs. You're
26, so there hasn't been that much time in between
this, but you've had a, a great career up to this point.
And for me, it's if you could go back and talk to the
18 year old Carl, what piece of advice would you give
yourself?
(44:12):
Great question. The the two pieces or the one piece of advice I
always like to say is, like, everything you can put put your mind to,
you can achieve. If I would only have one, that would be it. Like, everything
you can imagine, you can achieve. The second thing would be,
invest every single dollar you make into,
yourself. Like, learn, educate, buy
(44:34):
courses, buy mentorships, buy programs, buy books. Like, every single
dollar you make, invest. And I still live by those,
two principles to this day. Like, I always believe
in myself, and I always, pay absurd amounts
of money for consultants and coaches and books and seminars,
to educate myself further.
(44:57):
That's awesome. And I I always am excited when
entrepreneurs are willing to mention that because the younger
person and even this whole, like, online world kinda gives a
hard time to courses and paying money for people. And, obviously, you
gotta do your research. Like, there are definitely shitty courses, shitty
mentors. But I have not
(45:19):
come across a single successful entrepreneur, and I've
interviewed now over a hundred and five, CEOs and
founders. I have not come across a single one of them that
hasn't given some type of praise, some type of
recognition, two mentors, two courses, two books.
So if you're listening here and you're wondering what you need to
(45:41):
do to kind of start this journey, start learning,
start being curious, start trying to become a better
version of yourself. And in that, you will start to find
ideas and find your path to be successful. Yep.
Great point. Yeah. I
wanna make sure, anybody here and, obviously, we kind of alluded to it when
(46:03):
it came to the working together. But, for the lazy people,
where can they find you? What is your most, like, active
platform? I know you said Instagram, LinkedIn, x.
What's your what's your ad on those? And and we'll make sure they're all linked
in the description below as well. Yeah. It's all the same. It's all
Karl Weicher. So my first name and my last name, it's pretty much the same
(46:24):
on everything. I would say I'm the I'm active on all
platforms. I probably respond the most on LinkedIn to messages,
and, I probably put the best content out on YouTube just because it's,
like, long form videos of me, like, breaking down pages, breaking down campaigns, and
everything. So that's probably the most valuable if people want to dive
deep into those topics. Okay. Awesome. I
(46:47):
mean, Carl, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much
for being an open book and sharing with our audience and community.
I learned a bunch, and it was a very interesting conversation from my side.
I hope it was great for you as well. And, as you
continue to scale, grow, I try and get on a cadence where
I interview my guests at least once a year, maybe even once every two
(47:09):
years because it's very cool now to be able to, one, be able to be
a part of your story, see where you were at this point, and be able
to come back to it down the road in the interview. But I do wanna
say thank you so much for coming on and and and being an open book.
For sure. Appreciate it. I've been a great host.
Awesome. And thank you everybody that's listened and and and
(47:31):
watched. We will see you all on the next episode, and have a great
rest of your week.
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