May 23, 2025 • 17 mins
This week's show is entitled, "Chewing Glass: Stories From an Early-Stage Entrepreneur" and my guest is Ben Henson, Co-Founder, CRO at Peel.
Tune in to learn:
- How to transition from a successful career in marketing to entrepreneurship and find your path.
- The role of AI in creating efficient marketing solutions and addressing unmet market needs.
- Strategies for maintaining balance in life and work, especially during the chaotic phases of starting a business.
Listen Now | Watch the video HERE
Matt interviews the best and brightest minds in sales and Marketing. If you would like to be a guest on Sales Pipeline Radio send an email to acceleration@heinzmarketing.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Heinz (00:16):
All right.
Welcome everybody to anotherepisode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
I'm your host, Matt Heinz.
Very excited to have y'all here.
I can't believe it, Ben.
It is Memorial Day weekend already.
I feel like I just watched the Rose Bowl.
I'm serious.
Like it just, I'm so, um, and here we are.
But, it's all good.
If you are joining us live today,in the middle of your workday and
(00:37):
work week thanks for being here.
We're excited to have you here.
If you wouldn't mind, saying hi in thecomments, we'll be able to see that if you
have a question, if you have a rebuttal,if you have a rant based on what we
talked about today, we'd love to see that.
We can bring your comment up on screenand we'll have some fun with it that way.
If you're watching and listening ondemand, thank you so much for doing so.
You can find every episode ofSales Pipeline Radio on demand
at salespipelineradio.com.
(00:59):
Very excited to have with us today.
B2B legend, co-founder of Peel,graduate of Techstars 2024 Ben Henson.
How you doing man?
Ben Henson (01:08):
I'm doing great, pal.
I'm doing great.
Matt Heinz (01:09):
What did I miss in that list?
What did I miss?
Proud University of Vermont graduate.
Ben Henson (01:14):
Yes.
Proud dad to two wonderfulkids, an 8 and 4-year-old.
Happy.
Happy gardener.
Happy for Spring, Live in Bend, Oregon.
Have never been able toeven consider leaving B2B.
Demand gen. No.
We're stuck here nowover the last 25 years.
I think this is it for me.
I think we're here.
This is it.
The destination has been reached.
Matt Heinz (01:37):
So I wanna talk about Peel.
I wanna talk about entrepreneurship.
I wanna talk about the arc of yourcareer and what you have done.
You were at a, I wouldn't saystartup, but just a tech company
running sales for 11 plus years.
Yeah.
And now you're running a business.
And that's a big change.
I wanna talk about that.
But first you mentioned thatyou're a gardener, like that
could mean a lot of things.
What are we putting in the dirt.
Ben Henson (01:58):
Well, my wife is a master gardener, so a lot
of times I'm just the laborer.
But we have a huge greenhouse.
Bend, Oregon is a very wintry climate.
It's a snow centric town for.
You know, five or six months of the year.
So we have, multiple year oldtomatoes that are, vines this thick.
Mm-hmm.
We grow kale, we grow allthe different hot peppers.
(02:21):
We do all sorts of stuff.
And I'm actually a prettybig hunter as well.
So we have this fantasy dream of,hunting and harvesting the meat and
growing the vegetables and our littlehippie enclave in the middle of Bend.
Matt Heinz (02:33):
That's awesome.
That's really fun.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Yeah.
So like I said, you were atIntegrate for a very long time.
Mm-hmm.
Rose through the ranks,running sales there.
What went through your mind, 'cause I'vebeen through this process as well, why the
hell did you decide to start a business?
What made you decide that going fromemployee to entrepreneur was a good idea?
Ben Henson (02:55):
I have this affliction where I'm an eternal optimist and I
just can only really see things throughrose colored glasses in a lot of ways.
And it was a couple different things, man.
I mean, before 11 years at Integrate,I had worked nearly eight years at
TechTarget, went through their publicoffering and sort of went through
that process and worked with CraigRosenberg and Scott Albro at TOPO.
(03:17):
Then Focus, which is when we first met,which was 2008, 2009, something like that.
And then, yeah, 11 and ahalf years at Integrate.
And when I was exiting there, Iwas thinking about two different
things I was thinking about.
How can I create something formyself, right, where I can be
more in control of my own destiny?
(03:37):
I went through private equityacquisition through Integrate.
I went through an IPO at TechTarget.
I went through a strategic acquisitionof Focus, and in each of those
different cases, I just felt outof control of my own destiny.
Yeah.
And I couldn't actually be incharge of what happened and would
I be able to profit in the goodresults that I had helped create.
Matt Heinz (03:58):
Right.
Ben Henson (03:58):
So that was kind of like one part of it.
And the other part was I had a really.
Great partner who is willing to letme take a risk and is a person who
has insurance and makes a good incomeand sort of like, so the risk seemed
a little bit lighter and it seemedlike I could kind of try and grab
that brass ring a little bit better.
And then the third wasthe market opportunity.
(04:19):
So when a guy spends 25 yearsin demand gen, understanding
that intricacy and where there'sopportunity felt very clear to me.
It just felt very obvious and itwasn't creating a new demand gen
product necessarily was how can weactually give the buyer what they
(04:39):
would be interested in consuming?
And how can we remove frictionfrom a part of a process that
has gotten so overwhelmed thatit's in jeopardy of crashing.
The whole thing, the whole goto market motion is in jeopardy
of being crashed because we'veoverdone all these different things.
Yeah.
And when my co-founders and I wereiterating on later versions of Peel.
(05:02):
It really became obvious to all of usthat, you know, there's a way to do
things differently and there's a wayto be helpful and useful and that just
seemed too good to pass up and then,you know, you meet a couple like-minded
guys that are animals and away we go.
Matt Heinz (05:18):
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Your experience in go-to-marketroles and in MarTech, I think really
made you uniquely positioned tosort of see the problem, right?
And every good product, everygood opportunity starts with
like a problem not being solved.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ben Henson (05:35):
Sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, that to us wasreally the biggest thing.
So in each of those different rolesI've had at each of those companies,
I've always worked with marketerstrying to solve marketing issues.
So I've been a seller living at theintersection between sales and marketing
and how difficult that job is and howthere isn't real opportunity to work
(05:55):
outside of the traditional confines.
Now, in the last two years, AI'scome onto the scene and a whole
bunch of different things havehappened, but the actual process of a
organization and an individual havinga conversation still is disjointed.
So as we looked at it, what weoriginally thought was the part of
the process that seems to be ripefor opportunity isn't the demand gen.
(06:20):
I know I can capture as many CMOsat this size organization as I want.
I can get 'em to download a white paper.
I could get 'em to go to a webinar.
I know what events they're gonna go to.
I can find the people.
But how can I actually engage with themin a useful way and how can I help them?
And that's what the opportunityrang loud and clear to us.
(06:40):
And the buyer has told us whatshe and he have wanted, and
that's, leave us the hell alone.
Don't come at us.
So with AI, was there an asynchronousway to go in there at the time that
they're actually thinking about thisone problem that I could solve for them?
Is there a way for me to engage with themin a meaningful way that's actually gonna
(07:01):
move their process along a little bit?
Mm-hmm.
And then answer the question that'snever been answered, which is.
How do they actually feel about my thingafter they've gotten a little taste of it?
Yeah.
After they've read a white paper, didthey think that was a thinly veiled
sales conversation that they just had?
Yeah.
Or did they think thatthat was actually useful?
Right.
Matt Heinz (07:21):
We're talking today on Sales Pipeline Radio with, Peel co-founder
Ben Henson, animal Welfare enthusiast.
We'll get into that alittle bit later as well.
Yeah.
Um, you are you.
And so, and, and we're using, Imean, just full disclosure, we're
using Peel as well, like you usingit for testimonial development,
using it for customer onboarding.
There's so many interestinguse cases for this.
I assume you guys are still in whatI think Sangram, will describe as
(07:44):
like, problem market fit, right?
And saying like, weknow there's a problem.
Mm-hmm.
Is there a market forsolving that problem?
And how do we monetize amarket to solve that problem?
So it's a little bit of a game ofJenga you play at those early stages.
Talk about that process a littlebit because I think a lot of people
listening to this show, like, you know,have not started a business, have not
been grappling with that firsthand.
(08:05):
Just, I mean, don't want you togive away any secret sauce, but
like, talk about that balancing act.
Ben Henson (08:11):
It's incredibly difficult when I started at Integrate, we were
a B2C company and we very quicklywere rolling into B2B and sort of
had to create a market for that.
And that was, you know, leadorchestration or lead management.
And the great Scott Vaughn and otherssort of helped frame that conversation.
So I do have some experience intrying to create a market, but the
(08:32):
challenge that we face today is.
AI is a mandate with every CMO worldwidepushing down onto their organization, but.
That means nothing.
That's saying like, use technology.
Right?
Right.
So it becomes a question oflike, where is that efficacy?
What's the priority forthem right now, et cetera.
(08:54):
So we have this friction in being an AIcompany when everyone's interested in
AI, but also thinks that they understandand how to use AI in, in myriad ways.
So that.
An interesting market force that happens.
And then the second thing that we'rereally learning more and more about
that has been more of a friction pointthan we planned on is our tool can be
(09:17):
as great as it is, but if they, themarketers aren't getting it out to
the market, then people don't see it.
Matt Heinz (09:26):
Yeah.
Ben Henson (09:26):
So being able to have ownership and influence over things
outside of our control has beenprobably the most interesting
challenge in the whole process oncewe've actually onboarded a client.
Mm-hmm.
It's actually easier in the sales process.
'cause when you're talking aboutit, it's a lot easier than saying,
okay, now we need ownership of,we gotta get nurture emails out.
(09:47):
We got to, you know, wegotta hang off your page.
So now you have.
Your web people sort ofgetting involved, et cetera.
So it's just a bit of, a bit moreof the complexity in addition to
finding that product market fit.
The, last interesting thing for usis we have such a horizontal product.
When you think about.
Who all would you want tohave a conversation with?
(10:08):
That list gets real long, real fast.
Matt Heinz (10:10):
Yeah.
Ben Henson (10:10):
And so stacking the priority and the intent around, okay, this is
the thing that we have to go solve for.
Let's go learn how todo this well, and then.
Bring that out into other spaces has beenan interesting challenge in of itself.
I bet it has.
Matt Heinz (10:26):
Yeah.
I'll definitely encouragefolks to check out peel.ai.
I think there's so many differentuse cases for this and definitely,
you know, give it a whirl.
Let Ben know what you think along the way.
I wanna change gears a littlebit and just talk about life.
And just finding your path.
You know, you've had a long,successful career in Go to Market in
the midst of your time at Integrate,moved from the Bay Area up to Bend.
(10:47):
Talk about life design a littlebit as the way you think about it.
Mm-hmm.
You know, in terms of like, youjust, even in this, in our last
10 minutes, you've talked about,your amazing partner, your kids.
Living in Bend, spending time outsideI mean, work's important obviously.
And when you're starting something,you have a passion for it.
And I know firsthand it can beall consuming, but if it's all
consuming, then that doesn't leadto a very good life, quite honestly.
(11:11):
Mm-hmm.
So I just would love to hear you for,for others that are in some version
of that journey, maybe early stageof it kinda what have you learned
Ben Henson (11:20):
When I was getting ready to exit, Integrate.
I created a mind map for myselfand anyone that's interested, I'd
be more than happy to share it.
We can link it in the commentsof this post on LinkedIn.
But the, idea to me was.
I don't know what the answers are, butI can think of a bunch of questions
and a bunch of those questionsthat came up to me were lifestyle.
(11:43):
Do I wanna make a comfortableliving and try and figure out
a way to work 25 hours a week?
Do I want to try and go grab abrass ring and create financial
independence for my family and myself?
Do I want to incorporate mentorship,which is something I really
enjoy into my professional world,or do I wanna pull that back?
(12:05):
Do I wanna work for somebody else?
And if I work for somebody else, whatdo I want that opportunity to be?
Do I want it to be safe and securein an enterprise, or do I want
it to be wilder more chaotic,but highly creative in a startup?
Right?
And I just kept asking myself more andmore questions, and ultimately, through
my questioning, even without answeringthose questions, it became abundantly
(12:29):
clear to me what I wanted to do.
And the thing, the catalyst for me endedup being, do I want to be a W2 anymore?
I could answer that question as, no, Idid not wanna work for someone anymore.
I wanted to chart my own path.
Yeah.
So that was my first clear decision that Imade, and then I was able to very quickly
(12:50):
build a whole bunch of other things.
Do I work in an advisory for myself?
Do I start a company, et cetera?
So I think that to me, it's askingthe right questions, even if
you're not capable of answeringthem right now for yourself.
That is so incrediblyuseful and impactful.
And because I was able to dothat at times, when I get out of
(13:12):
balance, which I'm often out ofbalance as a founder I can actually
say, okay, this is intentional.
This is a period of time.
This is what I'm doing for it.
I can name it, I cantalk to my wife about it.
I can even talk to my kids about it.
Sort of like make thisstuff known and understood.
And I'm also, a huge fan of constantevolution of myself and who I am.
(13:34):
I don't wanna be known as this personwho I was 10 years ago, or 15 years ago,
or even six months ago, because I'm not,I'm trying to evolve every single day.
And a lot of that means like MondayI'm taking off and, my family and I
are going camping for three days upat a lake and it's gonna be awesome.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm probably gonna take the weekof July 4th off, and that was awesome.
(13:56):
The first.
10 months of this businessuntil really probably February.
I was working pretty close to a hundredhours a week probably, and I got way
the hell out of balance and I got reallyscrewed up and I was having actual,
like physical things happening and myco-founders were having the same thing.
So we, we realized and we wereable to adjust and recalibrate
(14:18):
almost in real time to say, okay.
Nothing's gonna get resolved if Idon't send that 97th email today.
You know, it's okay.
Like I can peel, I can peel sort ofa couple layers back here and see the
goodness, see the forest for the trees.
And I think just that actual perspectiveof looking around for a minute has
(14:38):
been really, really good for me.
Mm-hmm.
And then the last thing would be.
There's certain non-negotiablesthat became negotiable.
Physical fitness for me was onewhere I had really prioritized
that for a long period of time.
I stopped doing it.
I was getting depressed, Iwas getting more anxious.
I was, I. Sort of just work,work, work, work, work.
(14:58):
I've refound those things, those coresfor me that helped me throughout my
day and now I realize their valuemore than I think I did before.
Matt Heinz (15:08):
That's awesome.
Thank you for sharing all that.
I think that was great.
I think it's definitely,to me it's a journey.
It's a journey that is forward progress,but not always in that direction.
Sometimes there's up, you know,sometimes there's up and down, sometimes
there's wobbling where you are.
Sometimes it's a little backward.
But I think a lot of this is, youknow, it's all written in pencil man.
I mean, you know where you wannaspend your time, what you value,
(15:30):
different seasons of your life,maybe different parts of that.
But I liked your idea of justbeing intentional about what
those things are, communicatingthat with the people you love.
And, you know, being willing to, to adjustand, your concept of having questions
that you don't have the answers to.
I think it was Donald Rumsfeld talkedabout those as the known unknowns, right?
Things you don't know, butthings you know you don't know.
(15:50):
And that's valuable, right?
Because not only if you name those, you'remore likely to see them and identify
them later or to know that, like kindof put them in perspective and say like
how many of those are really importantand what else is really important in
your life that you wanna prioritize.
So, totally.
I appreciate it.
Well, we're out time for today.
Um, definitely Everybody checkout peel.ai, Ben, where else
(16:11):
can people know more about you?
Ben Henson (16:12):
Yeah it's get peel.ai.
Right.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
And yeah we're on LinkedIn.
We're all over LinkedIn.
We haven't gotten backon the other socials.
That's one of those balance things.
Yeah.
In action that that we've chosen onesocial platform and that's where we live.
So we.
I love to see anybody,any feedback anyone has.
We just put a really, really incredibleupdate on Get peel.ai, which is really
(16:36):
leaning into the whole notion of vibecoding and vibe marketing, and you can
build a conversation all by yourself.
So any feedback, boy we'd just loveto hear it and any other way that
we can ever help we're here for it.
Thanks Matt so much, man.
Matt Heinz (16:48):
Thank you so, so much for being here.
Yeah.
Thanks everyone forlistening and watching.
We'll see you next week, another episode.
Sales Pipeline Radio.
Ben Henson (16:53):
Happy.
Happy Memorial Day.
Thanks.
Matt Heinz (16:56):
Have good weekend everybody.
Ben Henson (16:56):
See ya.
All right.
Welcome everybody to anotherepisode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
I'm your host, Matt Heinz.
Very excited to have y'all here.
I can't believe it, Ben.
It is Memorial Day weekend already.
I feel like I just watched the Rose Bowl.
I'm serious.
Like it just, I'm so, um, and here we are.
But, it's all good.
If you are joining us live today,in the middle of your workday and
(00:37):
work week thanks for being here.
We're excited to have you here.
If you wouldn't mind, saying hi in thecomments, we'll be able to see that if you
have a question, if you have a rebuttal,if you have a rant based on what we
talked about today, we'd love to see that.
We can bring your comment up on screenand we'll have some fun with it that way.
If you're watching and listening ondemand, thank you so much for doing so.
You can find every episode ofSales Pipeline Radio on demand
at salespipelineradio.com.
(00:59):
Very excited to have with us today.
B2B legend, co-founder of Peel,graduate of Techstars 2024 Ben Henson.
How you doing man?
Ben Henson (01:08):
I'm doing great, pal.
I'm doing great.
Matt Heinz (01:09):
What did I miss in that list?
What did I miss?
Proud University of Vermont graduate.
Ben Henson (01:14):
Yes.
Proud dad to two wonderfulkids, an 8 and 4-year-old.
Happy.
Happy gardener.
Happy for Spring, Live in Bend, Oregon.
Have never been able toeven consider leaving B2B.
Demand gen. No.
We're stuck here nowover the last 25 years.
I think this is it for me.
I think we're here.
This is it.
The destination has been reached.
Matt Heinz (01:37):
So I wanna talk about Peel.
I wanna talk about entrepreneurship.
I wanna talk about the arc of yourcareer and what you have done.
You were at a, I wouldn't saystartup, but just a tech company
running sales for 11 plus years.
Yeah.
And now you're running a business.
And that's a big change.
I wanna talk about that.
But first you mentioned thatyou're a gardener, like that
could mean a lot of things.
What are we putting in the dirt.
Ben Henson (01:58):
Well, my wife is a master gardener, so a lot
of times I'm just the laborer.
But we have a huge greenhouse.
Bend, Oregon is a very wintry climate.
It's a snow centric town for.
You know, five or six months of the year.
So we have, multiple year oldtomatoes that are, vines this thick.
Mm-hmm.
We grow kale, we grow allthe different hot peppers.
(02:21):
We do all sorts of stuff.
And I'm actually a prettybig hunter as well.
So we have this fantasy dream of,hunting and harvesting the meat and
growing the vegetables and our littlehippie enclave in the middle of Bend.
Matt Heinz (02:33):
That's awesome.
That's really fun.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Yeah.
So like I said, you were atIntegrate for a very long time.
Mm-hmm.
Rose through the ranks,running sales there.
What went through your mind, 'cause I'vebeen through this process as well, why the
hell did you decide to start a business?
What made you decide that going fromemployee to entrepreneur was a good idea?
Ben Henson (02:55):
I have this affliction where I'm an eternal optimist and I
just can only really see things throughrose colored glasses in a lot of ways.
And it was a couple different things, man.
I mean, before 11 years at Integrate,I had worked nearly eight years at
TechTarget, went through their publicoffering and sort of went through
that process and worked with CraigRosenberg and Scott Albro at TOPO.
(03:17):
Then Focus, which is when we first met,which was 2008, 2009, something like that.
And then, yeah, 11 and ahalf years at Integrate.
And when I was exiting there, Iwas thinking about two different
things I was thinking about.
How can I create something formyself, right, where I can be
more in control of my own destiny?
(03:37):
I went through private equityacquisition through Integrate.
I went through an IPO at TechTarget.
I went through a strategic acquisitionof Focus, and in each of those
different cases, I just felt outof control of my own destiny.
Yeah.
And I couldn't actually be incharge of what happened and would
I be able to profit in the goodresults that I had helped create.
Matt Heinz (03:58):
Right.
Ben Henson (03:58):
So that was kind of like one part of it.
And the other part was I had a really.
Great partner who is willing to letme take a risk and is a person who
has insurance and makes a good incomeand sort of like, so the risk seemed
a little bit lighter and it seemedlike I could kind of try and grab
that brass ring a little bit better.
And then the third wasthe market opportunity.
(04:19):
So when a guy spends 25 yearsin demand gen, understanding
that intricacy and where there'sopportunity felt very clear to me.
It just felt very obvious and itwasn't creating a new demand gen
product necessarily was how can weactually give the buyer what they
(04:39):
would be interested in consuming?
And how can we remove frictionfrom a part of a process that
has gotten so overwhelmed thatit's in jeopardy of crashing.
The whole thing, the whole goto market motion is in jeopardy
of being crashed because we'veoverdone all these different things.
Yeah.
And when my co-founders and I wereiterating on later versions of Peel.
(05:02):
It really became obvious to all of usthat, you know, there's a way to do
things differently and there's a wayto be helpful and useful and that just
seemed too good to pass up and then,you know, you meet a couple like-minded
guys that are animals and away we go.
Matt Heinz (05:18):
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Your experience in go-to-marketroles and in MarTech, I think really
made you uniquely positioned tosort of see the problem, right?
And every good product, everygood opportunity starts with
like a problem not being solved.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ben Henson (05:35):
Sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, that to us wasreally the biggest thing.
So in each of those different rolesI've had at each of those companies,
I've always worked with marketerstrying to solve marketing issues.
So I've been a seller living at theintersection between sales and marketing
and how difficult that job is and howthere isn't real opportunity to work
(05:55):
outside of the traditional confines.
Now, in the last two years, AI'scome onto the scene and a whole
bunch of different things havehappened, but the actual process of a
organization and an individual havinga conversation still is disjointed.
So as we looked at it, what weoriginally thought was the part of
the process that seems to be ripefor opportunity isn't the demand gen.
(06:20):
I know I can capture as many CMOsat this size organization as I want.
I can get 'em to download a white paper.
I could get 'em to go to a webinar.
I know what events they're gonna go to.
I can find the people.
But how can I actually engage with themin a useful way and how can I help them?
And that's what the opportunityrang loud and clear to us.
(06:40):
And the buyer has told us whatshe and he have wanted, and
that's, leave us the hell alone.
Don't come at us.
So with AI, was there an asynchronousway to go in there at the time that
they're actually thinking about thisone problem that I could solve for them?
Is there a way for me to engage with themin a meaningful way that's actually gonna
(07:01):
move their process along a little bit?
Mm-hmm.
And then answer the question that'snever been answered, which is.
How do they actually feel about my thingafter they've gotten a little taste of it?
Yeah.
After they've read a white paper, didthey think that was a thinly veiled
sales conversation that they just had?
Yeah.
Or did they think thatthat was actually useful?
Right.
Matt Heinz (07:21):
We're talking today on Sales Pipeline Radio with, Peel co-founder
Ben Henson, animal Welfare enthusiast.
We'll get into that alittle bit later as well.
Yeah.
Um, you are you.
And so, and, and we're using, Imean, just full disclosure, we're
using Peel as well, like you usingit for testimonial development,
using it for customer onboarding.
There's so many interestinguse cases for this.
I assume you guys are still in whatI think Sangram, will describe as
(07:44):
like, problem market fit, right?
And saying like, weknow there's a problem.
Mm-hmm.
Is there a market forsolving that problem?
And how do we monetize amarket to solve that problem?
So it's a little bit of a game ofJenga you play at those early stages.
Talk about that process a littlebit because I think a lot of people
listening to this show, like, you know,have not started a business, have not
been grappling with that firsthand.
(08:05):
Just, I mean, don't want you togive away any secret sauce, but
like, talk about that balancing act.
Ben Henson (08:11):
It's incredibly difficult when I started at Integrate, we were
a B2C company and we very quicklywere rolling into B2B and sort of
had to create a market for that.
And that was, you know, leadorchestration or lead management.
And the great Scott Vaughn and otherssort of helped frame that conversation.
So I do have some experience intrying to create a market, but the
(08:32):
challenge that we face today is.
AI is a mandate with every CMO worldwidepushing down onto their organization, but.
That means nothing.
That's saying like, use technology.
Right?
Right.
So it becomes a question oflike, where is that efficacy?
What's the priority forthem right now, et cetera.
(08:54):
So we have this friction in being an AIcompany when everyone's interested in
AI, but also thinks that they understandand how to use AI in, in myriad ways.
So that.
An interesting market force that happens.
And then the second thing that we'rereally learning more and more about
that has been more of a friction pointthan we planned on is our tool can be
(09:17):
as great as it is, but if they, themarketers aren't getting it out to
the market, then people don't see it.
Matt Heinz (09:26):
Yeah.
Ben Henson (09:26):
So being able to have ownership and influence over things
outside of our control has beenprobably the most interesting
challenge in the whole process oncewe've actually onboarded a client.
Mm-hmm.
It's actually easier in the sales process.
'cause when you're talking aboutit, it's a lot easier than saying,
okay, now we need ownership of,we gotta get nurture emails out.
(09:47):
We got to, you know, wegotta hang off your page.
So now you have.
Your web people sort ofgetting involved, et cetera.
So it's just a bit of, a bit moreof the complexity in addition to
finding that product market fit.
The, last interesting thing for usis we have such a horizontal product.
When you think about.
Who all would you want tohave a conversation with?
(10:08):
That list gets real long, real fast.
Matt Heinz (10:10):
Yeah.
Ben Henson (10:10):
And so stacking the priority and the intent around, okay, this is
the thing that we have to go solve for.
Let's go learn how todo this well, and then.
Bring that out into other spaces has beenan interesting challenge in of itself.
I bet it has.
Matt Heinz (10:26):
Yeah.
I'll definitely encouragefolks to check out peel.ai.
I think there's so many differentuse cases for this and definitely,
you know, give it a whirl.
Let Ben know what you think along the way.
I wanna change gears a littlebit and just talk about life.
And just finding your path.
You know, you've had a long,successful career in Go to Market in
the midst of your time at Integrate,moved from the Bay Area up to Bend.
(10:47):
Talk about life design a littlebit as the way you think about it.
Mm-hmm.
You know, in terms of like, youjust, even in this, in our last
10 minutes, you've talked about,your amazing partner, your kids.
Living in Bend, spending time outsideI mean, work's important obviously.
And when you're starting something,you have a passion for it.
And I know firsthand it can beall consuming, but if it's all
consuming, then that doesn't leadto a very good life, quite honestly.
(11:11):
Mm-hmm.
So I just would love to hear you for,for others that are in some version
of that journey, maybe early stageof it kinda what have you learned
Ben Henson (11:20):
When I was getting ready to exit, Integrate.
I created a mind map for myselfand anyone that's interested, I'd
be more than happy to share it.
We can link it in the commentsof this post on LinkedIn.
But the, idea to me was.
I don't know what the answers are, butI can think of a bunch of questions
and a bunch of those questionsthat came up to me were lifestyle.
(11:43):
Do I wanna make a comfortableliving and try and figure out
a way to work 25 hours a week?
Do I want to try and go grab abrass ring and create financial
independence for my family and myself?
Do I want to incorporate mentorship,which is something I really
enjoy into my professional world,or do I wanna pull that back?
(12:05):
Do I wanna work for somebody else?
And if I work for somebody else, whatdo I want that opportunity to be?
Do I want it to be safe and securein an enterprise, or do I want
it to be wilder more chaotic,but highly creative in a startup?
Right?
And I just kept asking myself more andmore questions, and ultimately, through
my questioning, even without answeringthose questions, it became abundantly
(12:29):
clear to me what I wanted to do.
And the thing, the catalyst for me endedup being, do I want to be a W2 anymore?
I could answer that question as, no, Idid not wanna work for someone anymore.
I wanted to chart my own path.
Yeah.
So that was my first clear decision that Imade, and then I was able to very quickly
(12:50):
build a whole bunch of other things.
Do I work in an advisory for myself?
Do I start a company, et cetera?
So I think that to me, it's askingthe right questions, even if
you're not capable of answeringthem right now for yourself.
That is so incrediblyuseful and impactful.
And because I was able to dothat at times, when I get out of
(13:12):
balance, which I'm often out ofbalance as a founder I can actually
say, okay, this is intentional.
This is a period of time.
This is what I'm doing for it.
I can name it, I cantalk to my wife about it.
I can even talk to my kids about it.
Sort of like make thisstuff known and understood.
And I'm also, a huge fan of constantevolution of myself and who I am.
(13:34):
I don't wanna be known as this personwho I was 10 years ago, or 15 years ago,
or even six months ago, because I'm not,I'm trying to evolve every single day.
And a lot of that means like MondayI'm taking off and, my family and I
are going camping for three days upat a lake and it's gonna be awesome.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm probably gonna take the weekof July 4th off, and that was awesome.
(13:56):
The first.
10 months of this businessuntil really probably February.
I was working pretty close to a hundredhours a week probably, and I got way
the hell out of balance and I got reallyscrewed up and I was having actual,
like physical things happening and myco-founders were having the same thing.
So we, we realized and we wereable to adjust and recalibrate
(14:18):
almost in real time to say, okay.
Nothing's gonna get resolved if Idon't send that 97th email today.
You know, it's okay.
Like I can peel, I can peel sort ofa couple layers back here and see the
goodness, see the forest for the trees.
And I think just that actual perspectiveof looking around for a minute has
(14:38):
been really, really good for me.
Mm-hmm.
And then the last thing would be.
There's certain non-negotiablesthat became negotiable.
Physical fitness for me was onewhere I had really prioritized
that for a long period of time.
I stopped doing it.
I was getting depressed, Iwas getting more anxious.
I was, I. Sort of just work,work, work, work, work.
(14:58):
I've refound those things, those coresfor me that helped me throughout my
day and now I realize their valuemore than I think I did before.
Matt Heinz (15:08):
That's awesome.
Thank you for sharing all that.
I think that was great.
I think it's definitely,to me it's a journey.
It's a journey that is forward progress,but not always in that direction.
Sometimes there's up, you know,sometimes there's up and down, sometimes
there's wobbling where you are.
Sometimes it's a little backward.
But I think a lot of this is, youknow, it's all written in pencil man.
I mean, you know where you wannaspend your time, what you value,
(15:30):
different seasons of your life,maybe different parts of that.
But I liked your idea of justbeing intentional about what
those things are, communicatingthat with the people you love.
And, you know, being willing to, to adjustand, your concept of having questions
that you don't have the answers to.
I think it was Donald Rumsfeld talkedabout those as the known unknowns, right?
Things you don't know, butthings you know you don't know.
(15:50):
And that's valuable, right?
Because not only if you name those, you'remore likely to see them and identify
them later or to know that, like kindof put them in perspective and say like
how many of those are really importantand what else is really important in
your life that you wanna prioritize.
So, totally.
I appreciate it.
Well, we're out time for today.
Um, definitely Everybody checkout peel.ai, Ben, where else
(16:11):
can people know more about you?
Ben Henson (16:12):
Yeah it's get peel.ai.
Right.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
And yeah we're on LinkedIn.
We're all over LinkedIn.
We haven't gotten backon the other socials.
That's one of those balance things.
Yeah.
In action that that we've chosen onesocial platform and that's where we live.
So we.
I love to see anybody,any feedback anyone has.
We just put a really, really incredibleupdate on Get peel.ai, which is really
(16:36):
leaning into the whole notion of vibecoding and vibe marketing, and you can
build a conversation all by yourself.
So any feedback, boy we'd just loveto hear it and any other way that
we can ever help we're here for it.
Thanks Matt so much, man.
Matt Heinz (16:48):
Thank you so, so much for being here.
Yeah.
Thanks everyone forlistening and watching.
We'll see you next week, another episode.
Sales Pipeline Radio.
Ben Henson (16:53):
Happy.
Happy Memorial Day.
Thanks.
Matt Heinz (16:56):
Have good weekend everybody.
Ben Henson (16:56):
See ya.
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