This episode with Matt Britton reveals how branding has transformed in the age of Gen Z and the significant influence this generation has on consumer behavior. We discuss the shift from traditional advertising to personal branding, the importance of authenticity in marketing, and the financial mindset of younger people today.
• Exploration of how Gen Z shapes brand perception
• Discussion on the importance of individual creators and influencers
• Insights on consumer behavior changes and brand adaptation
• Highlights from Matt's entrepreneurial journey and rebranding of Suzy
• Examination of generational shifts in financial attitudes and spending
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I think the new brands are individuals, and the
reason the new brands areindividuals is that, you know,
gen Z grew up with the iPhone inthe house, and so when they're
staring at the iPhone, they'restaring at content, but they're
staring at content not from bigmedia organizations.
They're staring at content fromother people.
Right, that's just where theireyeballs are, and, because of
that, those are the brands thatmatter, the creators and those
(00:21):
are the people who are, I think,going to create the next big
crop of brands, just like theold world was around TV and
television advertising, and Ithink that's why it's shifting
that direction.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's about the medium .
Welcome to today's episode ofSeat to Exit.
I'm Rhys Keck and today I'mjoined by Matt Britton, a
leading expert on consumertrends and the intersection of
technology, marketing andculture.
Matt is the founder and CEO ofSuzy, a pioneering consumer
intelligence platform thatempowers brands with real-time
insights.
Under his leadership, suzy hassecured over $100 million in
venture capital funding andserves clients like Google,
(00:56):
procter Gamble and Walmart.
Before founding Suzy, mattestablished MRY, a digital and
social media marketing agency,in 2002.
He grew MRY from a one-personstartup to a global powerhouse
with over 500 employees.
Matt is also the author of theNew York Times bestselling book
Youth Nation, which explores theimpact of millennials and Gen Z
on business and brand building.
(01:16):
In our conversation, we'regoing to talk more about Matt's
entrepreneurial journey, ai andconsumer engagement,
generational trends, how toengage with younger demographics
, consumer behavior shifts andsome of his leadership
philosophy.
I'm really excited for you tolisten.
Let's go ahead and dive intothe episode.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Welcome to Seed to Exit, the podcast where we
uncover the stories, strategiesand insights that power the
startup ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I'm your host.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Rhys Keck, founder of MindHire a talent acquisition
firm specializing in helpingstartups build exceptional teams
.
Each week, I sit down withfounders, investors and industry
leaders to explore the journeysbehind iconic companies and
game-changing ideas.
Whether you're building,investing or just curious about
what it takes to succeed in thestartup world, I want this
(02:03):
podcast to be your go-toresource for actionable insights
and inspiring conversations.
Now, if you enjoy the show,please don't forget to subscribe
, leave a review or share itwith your network.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Your support means the world and really helps bring
more incredible conversationsto life.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Matt, thanks for coming on board.
Excited to have you.
Glad to be here, absolutely Allright.
Well, let's dive into things.
I'm really excited to talk toyou.
You have done a lot in yourcareer, both in terms of
services, business, running atech company.
You've obviously written acouple of books, done some
speaking, and so I'm reallyexcited to dive into your brain
a little bit and pull some ofthat out for the folks listening
(02:39):
and for those listening.
Maybe it would be helpful ifyou could just give a quick
overview of yourself to getstarted, and then we'll dive
into things from there.
Sure, so I've spent my entirecareer, so the last 25 years,
helping brands really connectthe dots between their business
of today and the consumer oftomorrow.
That's kind of been the commontheme.
(03:00):
Earlier stages of my career, Ispent a lot of time in the
marketing services business.
I started an agency way back in2002 called Mr Youth, which is
really at the dawn of theY, tobecome the first ever social
media marketing agency andcreate the social media
(03:26):
marketing practice of companieslike Visa and Microsoft and P&G
Built the company up to about500 people.
It was acquired by thePulpacist Group in 2014.
And then, prior to selling thecompany.
I spun a software companycalled CrowdTap, which was
originally kind of an influenceractivation platform, but kind
(03:46):
of evolved over time andbasically after I left the
publicist group, the companybrought me back on as CEO and I
pivoted that business intosomething called Suzy, which was
launched in 2018, which is amarket research software
platform, which is a now latestage software company servicing
over 500 leading brands.
Oh, yes, please, please, go on,go on, please.
(04:07):
I was going to dive more intoSusie, but it sounded like you
were beating me to the punch.
Yeah, I was about to say likethe common thread is, you know,
helping brands understand thenew consumer, and the consumer
keeps changing.
You know, if you look at thetrajectory of my career, when I
first came out in themarketplace, the internet was a
thing and then it was socialmedia, then it was mobile and
now it's AI and with every newinnovation, there's so much
(04:31):
disruption that takes place.
The legacy incumbents try tohold on or many of them go away.
There's new upstarts and theconsumer adopts the way they
live their life, the way theyspend their time and their money
and their behaviors and helpingbrands sort of effort.
The first half of my career ishelping them reach them, based
upon those new behaviors.
Now it's helping themunderstand them, and you know,
(04:52):
I've always been an entrepreneurand always been really
fascinated by the topic, which Ithink makes me effective in
terms of what I do every day.
So tell me a little bit moreabout the consumer behavior,
because obviously it's shifted aton in the past two decades.
How have you kept to that?
What would you say are some ofthe most meaningful shifts that
you have seen?
Well, I mean, the shifts areall driven by largely societal
(05:12):
and technological changes.
You know, on the technologicalside, you know I mentioned the
big ones it's the internet, itwas social media, it was the
mobile device and now it's AIthat's going to have a huge
impact into how consumers andindividuals communicate with one
another.
If you look at the internet andyou look at mobile, how many
families are created because ofsomething like Tinder, right?
(05:33):
You look at how much wealth isbeing created by cryptocurrency
or new jobs and new industriesthat were spawned by these new
technologies.
So it really changes consumersin every single way.
I think some overarching trendsthat go across all those is that
younger people now aredictating the future of business
, culture and society.
(05:54):
So if you look at a pre-socialmedia age, the music people
listen to, the styles that theyadorned, the way they live their
life, is really driven by theboardroom.
It was driven by companies thatcould dictate the popular
discourse because theycontrolled the airwaves.
They controlled the radio.
Clear Channel, basically, couldmake an artist a hit or a flop
(06:17):
because they controlled most ofthe radio stations, same with
the big three TV stations.
So young people didn't reallyhave a voice and now it's
completely flipped where brandsand the boardroom, frankly, is
in barely any control at all.
It's really about what theconsumer wants and that's really
why I started, suzy, is thatthe way business is done now and
(06:37):
the way culture is formed is nolonger from the people that
work their way up to thecorporate ladder.
It's from the people that havea phone and that share content
and have a voice, and that's athat's a sea change in the way
that every company should go tomarket.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What are?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
businesses underestimating today when it
comes to thinking about youngeraudiences.
Well, I think theyunderestimate their broader
influence among people of allages.
So if you look at likeCoachella, you know you'll see a
50 year old there and it won'tlook strange.
But if my dad when he was 50,was at Coachella, he'd be
wearing a suit and tie andpeople would be like, why is he
(07:14):
here?
Right, and the reason that a 50year old can be at Coachella
now, right, and Mark Zuckerbergcan kind of go through his you
know fashion transformation theway he is and people look at his
cool, can kind of go throughhis you know fashion
transformation the way he is andpeople look at his cool is that
young, older people are now intouch with what younger people
are doing because of Instagram,because of social media.
So because of that, they feellike it gives them license to
(07:37):
live younger later in life.
And because of that, you havepeople with a bigger you know
disposable income that areliving younger later in life.
They're going to Coachella.
They're buying, wearing AirJordans to work right, they're
buying fashion that theynormally wouldn't, they're
traveling.
People are having startingfamilies later in life.
(07:57):
The average age of a first-timemother in the US is now 10
years older than it was threedecades ago time.
Mother in the US is now 10years older than it was three
decades ago.
That means it's 10 more yearsof people going out to bars to,
you know, to basically going outto brunch in the morning versus
buying diapers for the kids anddoing all these things.
So that changes the way thatpeople spend, so I think.
And so if people with biggerkind of disposable income are
(08:22):
acting younger later in life,well then, who dictates what
acting younger means has morepower?
Right, and that's where I wrotemy book, youth Nation, which I
created back here.
It's about young people kind ofdictating culture, and I think
that's probably the one thingthat I think a lot of brands
overlook, because they look atthe spending power of young
people as inhibitor to reallyfocusing on them.
(08:42):
But you're marketing not tothem, but you're marketing
through them, if that makessense, and that's, I think, it's
lost on a lot of brands.
Very interesting, when you werewriting Youth Nation, what did
your research process look like?
How did that all come together?
It was interesting.
You bring that up because Ijust finished writing my second
book yesterday and I haven'tpublicly announced yet, but it's
(09:03):
called Generation AI and it'sbasically about Gen Alpha and
the age of AI and how it's goingto change the world.
And writing that book was acompletely different experience
than writing Youth Nation 10years ago.
Right, because I had a researchteam.
When I wrote Youth Nation, Iwrote it within my agency walls
at MRY and I had a whole team ofresearchers and when I had a
(09:25):
thesis, I needed to back up thatthesis with data, which would
result in infographics andcharts and things like that.
I would basically have to briefmy research team.
They would come back to me fivedays later with either saying
what you said is right andhere's the data to support it,
or what you said is wrong andhere's the data to support it.
But either way, I had to waitfive days.
(09:45):
Now, when I was writing, I hadtwo screens open One had
perplexity open and one had myyou know my tool Scrivener,
which I was writing a book.
And to give you an example, youknow and I would talk about
when I went to college in 1997and I brought a TV with me and
the difference being the point Iwas making is that when I
dropped my daughter off atColumbia.
No one had TVs right Last year.
(10:07):
So it was just kind ofemblematic of how things have
changed.
But to color in that story, Iwanted to not just say I brought
my TV, I wanted to say whattype of TV I brought.
So I basically went perplexed.
I said if I would have beengoing to college in 1997, what's
the most likely brand of TVthat I would have brought?
And it said it's a Magnavox.
Blah, blah, blah.
So I can say I vividly remembergoing to college with a
(10:29):
Magnavox Model 7 TV freshmanyear.
And that adds color to thestory, right.
Or I can say something like giveme five examples throughout
history where people demonized anew technology.
And it would tell me thatSocrates demonized the advent of
writing because you know hebelieved it would make people
(10:50):
not have to remember as much andit would basically like rot
their brains and obviouslywriting ended up being huge,
like think of where humanitywould be if we never adopted
writing.
So it was to prove a point thatpeople are doing the same thing
with AI right now.
But I never would have had thatexample in the flow of writing
without a tool like that.
And there's just so manyexamples.
Actually, the last chapter ofthe book was how I used AI to
(11:12):
help me write the book and no, Ididn't have AI write the book,
because if I did, it would soundlike a robot and it wouldn't be
my story but it allowed me towrite it so much more fluently
and, frankly, I think it's goingto be a much better product as
a result.
Well, I'm excited to read it.
Yeah, we copy for you.
All right, I will give you-.
It doesn't come out till May ofnext year, which is another
(11:32):
challenge, because I'm writing abook here in November.
It doesn't come out for sixmonths, and in AI, that's like
three lifetimes.
So the things I'm talking aboutis innovative today.
That was that's the concernabout writing a book, but I'm
using it more as a platform.
Totally makes sense Anyinteresting findings you can
share prior to the release ofthe book that we can look
forward to?
(11:53):
Well, I mean, I explore allcorners of society, so I explore
healthcare, I explore parentingEducation is a huge piece.
I explore commerce, media, thefinancial world, how people
spend their money.
Like, one insight I came towhich makes sense when you say
it, but it was something Ihadn't formulated is the
(12:15):
relationship with money that GenZ has versus baby boomers is
the polar opposite.
So you know, you look at babyboomers.
So what my father passed away acouple of years ago.
When he did, I was shocked withhow much wealth he accumulated
relative to how he lived.
Right, he lived like he didn'treally have a lot of money and
he did relative to what Ithought.
Right, he's not a gazillionaire, but I was like wow, and it was
(12:45):
.
It was shocking because I wasthinking like why did he live
the way he did?
Like why didn't he go on anextra vacation or actually do
more?
And as I did research for thebook, what I found is baby
boomers grew up with parents whowent through World War II and
the Great Depression and theirrelationship with money was one
of the scarcity and they passedthat down to their kids.
So their brains are hardwiredthat way.
And then, if you look at Gen Z,you know, gen Z, what happened
when we had all the fiscalstimulus during COVID Meme
(13:08):
stocks, nfts, cryptocurrencycollectibles, like it was.
It's the polar opposite.
It's a relationship of risk.
And now you have, like sportsbetting becoming legal and you
could bet on the presidentialelection and it's really playing
into the hands of this, of thisgeneration that has more of a
YOLO kind of risk onrelationship with money.
And what we're about to seeover the next 10 years is the
(13:31):
biggest wealth transfer inhistory, as Gen Z and Gen Alpha
inherit from an aging outpopulation of baby boomers.
So you're going to have over$40 trillion of assets transfer
hands to people who had ascarcity relationship with money
, to people who have a YOLOrelationship with money.
So what is that going to do tothe economy?
(13:51):
And we're already kind ofseeing it start to happen.
Like credit card debt passed atrillion dollars for the first
time ever.
Savings is a percentage ofhousehold incomes at the lowest
level that we've ever seen.
It's because that youth kind ofmind frame is spreading up to
the broader population.
But actually once they havethat much money to spend, what's
it going to do to the economy?
Right, and it's justfascinating.
(14:12):
So that's a topic that I didn'texpect to stumble into.
That was so rich until I did,and then, during the process and
that was in my section aboutfinance, and it really was
fascinating, the deeper I duginto it it's really interesting
that you say that, becausethere's something I read a
couple of years ago and Icouldn't tell you where it was
(14:33):
from.
It might've been on Reddit orsomething, but it was the
overall message is somethingthat really resonated with me,
and it was.
It was talking about cryptoinvesting since you mentioned
the meme stocks and it was alsoabout the younger relationships,
the younger generation'srelationship with money,
basically saying that things ingeneral have become so expensive
(14:53):
.
There is so much wealthinequality.
You know we're having to pay,you know, on a per capita GDP
basis, a far bigger percentageof our income for rent than our
parents did.
So we almost have to take thatYOLO, because the only way that
we think we're going to be ableto have a shot is by striking it
big.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Did you see that?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
in your research at all.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Does that make sense to you With?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
risk comes, reward Right, right.
So that's why you know,robinhood, like you know, has
taken off Right, and they pushoptions trading.
And when Robinhood first cameout, everyone's like, oh no,
it's not a gambling site, it'sinvesting, yet you it's
investing, yet you were able tonow use Robinhood to bet on who
would win the presidentialelection.
That just happened.
So they kind of just proved thepoint right that it is about
risk.
It's not like fidelity, right.
(15:38):
So there's a payoff to risk on,right, and the payoff to risk
on is a quick reward, right,it's instant.
And that's why, you know, Iwant to be an influencer and be
a millionaire, like the notionof patience and hard work which
is also embedded in baby boomersbecause their parents had.
That is not really the caseright now, but that's obviously
(16:00):
that's not a great thing, right,because more often than not,
risk doesn't pay off.
When you make that big parlaybet on FanDuel, you're not going
to win.
But you see, in social media,the only people who post big
bets are the ones that were won.
But nobody wins in gambling,right, and same with options
trading and same withinfluencers and all these things
(16:20):
.
People compare themselves toother people's highlight reels,
which drives that yellowmentality.
But we're also seeing the kindof downside of that, which is
depression and addiction that'shitting our younger population
like we've never seen before.
You know, we're seeing aloneliness epidemic that's
occurring and you know, moremales are living at home at age
(16:41):
30 than ever before and it's atough thing for our country and
that's why you see thispolarized, politicized political
environment.
Right, because when people arelonely they want to gravitate
towards something, so they'llgravitate towards a cult
mentality and that's when youhave, you know, these extreme
extremist groups and bad thingshappen and you kind of see it
(17:01):
all happening.
So I'm definitely worried forour country as a result of this.
I think that the risk onappetite with capital is a
symptom versus the cause.
You know, and I think, and thecause is ultimately people
feeling disenfranchised andwanting a quick way out, and
they assimilate a quick way outwith a quick hit of dopamine or
(17:24):
money and that's what's drivingtheir behavior.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sensewhen we also talk about the
loneliness epidemic and in thecontext of AI, I've seen a lot
of people who are using chat,gpt or clot or whatever your
poison is, almost as a therapist, or they're fine tuning it for
areas to make it almost like aquasi type of therapist.
(17:47):
Do you think that's valid?
Do you think that riskstrapping people in their own
echo chamber, of just wantingthe AI telling them what they
want to hear?
What are your thoughts on that?
It's interesting that youbrought that up, so that was
another chapter of my book.
It's about relationships and Italked about kind of evolution
we've seen from how people usedto meet to dating apps and to
now kind of this what's calledloneliness paradox, which is
(18:10):
technology has made us much moreconnected but more alone than
ever before.
Right, and because you know, wefeel like we're connected when
we're on our phones, but kidsare not going out after school.
They're sitting on their phonesand scrolling or connecting
with people and it's making themless happy.
How I feel about, you know, aibased therapy, which is
basically what you're asking, is.
(18:30):
I do think there's a role forit, because the fact is that
therapy is expensive, that youknow what healthcare covers is
not as wide-ranging as it usedto be, right, and a lot of times
people are embarrassed forthings that they're going
through and they keep it insideand then we both know that
creates depression, that createssuicide.
It creates bad things, and thenwe both know that creates
(18:52):
depression, that creates suicide.
It creates bad things.
So if serious companies cancreate solutions that are AI
based, yes, I think that it canyield great results.
But the problem is and we justsaw this happen with that
company character AI whereallegedly somebody you know was
talking to a chatbot on you knowa startup and the chatbot told
him allegedly to kill himselfand he killed himself and you
(19:16):
know that wasn't the purpose ofthat platform, right?
So it's a lot of it, and Iwrote about this in my parenting
section on the book, and thisis actually the first time I'm
talking about the book publicly,so but so it's a good primer
for me.
But you know that that'ssomething parents have to
address, because Gen Alpha isgoing to be the first generation
to grow up with AI in ahousehold, so they're never
going to know a world where AIdidn't exist, just like Gen Z
(19:38):
never knew a world where theiPhone didn't exist.
Millennials never knew a worldwhere the internet didn't exist,
right?
I was born for all those thingsand, based upon your upbringing,
it wires your brain into a newreality and when parents don't
have that same reality.
There becomes a generationaldivide in the household that can
create a rift of understanding.
And now the good news for GenAlpha is their parents are
(20:01):
predominantly going to bemillennials, who, at least, are
digitally savvy, where Gen Z'sparents were Gen Xers who
weren't as digitally savvy.
So that divide really existed,so it'll be interesting to see
how it plays out.
So I think everything with AIis going to have positive and
negatives, just like socialmedia caused wars and it created
(20:23):
reunions of long lost familymembers.
Right, and that's just thereality, but it doesn't matter
because it's going to stop forno one.
Yep, absolutely.
When we go back to thediscussion around brands a
little bit, how do Gen Z and Idon't know if you did the
research on Gen Alpha yet- howdo they?
generally differ in what theirexpectations of brands are, and
(20:46):
how do you think businesses canadapt to that?
Yeah well, the oldest Gen Alphais just turning 15 and you
can't really collect data,because of the Children's Online
Privacy Act, with people whoare under 14.
So it is challenging still toget data like that from Gen
Alpha, but I don't see therebeing that big of a change
between a 17-year-old and a15-year-old.
Brands are changing Because ifyou look at the most prolific
(21:12):
brands that we have in America,right, it's Nike, it's Starbucks
, it's Hershey's, it's Tide.
Right, it's Gillette, it'sthese brands, all of which were
built in the golden age oftelevision, where those brands
were built based upon having abig checkbook and essentially
forcing your brand message downpeople's throats, and all the
taglines that we know are froman era where we were watching
(21:34):
television, live television, andwe had to watch it, when now
the last bastion of livetelevision, which is sports, is
going away.
Then there's news, but evennews is now more accessible.
So broadcast television isslowly going away and with it
comes that mass brand buildingtool that also is going to
(21:55):
wither away and in its wakeyou're seeing new upstarts.
So Nike is really struggling,right Because you have On
Running and these othercompanies, because the kids that
are buying sneakers yes, so youhave the sneakerhead population
, but they're open to otherbrands because Nike didn't get
to reinforce their brand messageduring these kids' upbringing
because they didn't watch TV.
So I do think that these bigbrands that were built in a
(22:18):
different era are going to havean increasingly challenging time
of maintaining brand as moat,especially when the barriers to
entry to do anything are so lowto create a website, to build
software, to manufacture aproduct, to ship product.
You know, now anybody can sellanything instantly, Right, and I
think the new I do believe thenew brands are people.
(22:42):
I think people are brands andbrands are people and and you
know, you saw Mr Beast had10,000 people show up to his
burger shop in New Jersey whenhe opened it because he
commanded that.
I don't know if McDonald's orBurger King would be able to get
10,000 people to go to any onelocation unless they had Taylor
Swift perform there or something, and that's a big thing.
So I think the new brands areindividuals.
(23:04):
And the reason the new brandsare individuals is that Gen Z
grew up with the iPhone in thehouse, and so, when they're
staring at the iPhone, they'restaring at content.
They're staring at content, butthey're staring at content not
from big media organizations.
They're staring at content fromother people, right?
That's just where theireyeballs are and, because of
that, those are the brands thatmatter, the creators and those
are the people who are, I think,going to create the next big
(23:27):
crop of brands, just like theold world was around TV and
television advertising, and Ithink that's why it's shifting
that direction.
It's about the medium, Right?
Well, it's like I have a TikTokand I scroll more than I'm
going to admit on here.
And you're right, it's, it's.
It's not brands at all.
I mean, there are a couple offriends anymore?
No, it's not.
It's it's largely justindividuals who are have created
(23:51):
this platform for themselves,you know, and media, Right, and
that's interesting that it'sanother point that young people
seek community, and we used tosee community on social media.
We used to be able to track ourour old high school friend on
Facebook, but now all thesesocial platforms have optimized
for creators and and traditionalmedia content creators and you
(24:11):
don't see your friends anymore.
So now people are going toReddit or they're going to, you
know, texting or WhatsApp tocreate those communities,
because social media doesn'teven bring it anymore.
Social media has basicallyreplaced TV and now there's
going to be a new place thatpeople go to create community.
That's off social media.
It's kind of like a shiftthat's slowly occurring.
(24:32):
So really the message is thenis that you know, brands are
going to be probably made upmore of people, but then and
really that just makes it moreaccessible People will create
the brands.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, People will create the brand because you, as
an individual person, you don'tneed to have anywhere near the
marketing budget that a Nike has, right?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So then, what is the key to building a brand?
As a person or as an influencer, I mean?
And it could be a brand likeyou know, like Logan Paul, right
?
Or it can be a brand like me,or it can be a brand like you
know somebody who is, you know,a dentist, right?
(25:11):
Like you know, it doesn'tmatter, right?
We're all brands.
Brands are what people say aboutyou when you're not in the room
.
Brands equal reputation.
So, if people are brands, whatyour brand is is your reputation
, right.
It's what people know you as,and your ability, first of all,
to know what you want yourreputation to be ie who you are
and what makes you unique andspecial is number one, right?
(25:33):
So it's like what do we douniquely?
I can tell from talking to you.
You know you're a great listener, you're very introspective, you
have a good view of the world,like that's part of what makes
you unique, right?
And we all have to figure outwhat that is.
After we figured out what it is, we have to commit to sharing
that on a consistent basis anddoing it in a way where we don't
feel like it has to be scripted, because people don't want
(25:56):
scripted content.
That's why they're going topeople and not watching
traditional TV anymore, right?
So we have to be comfortabledoing that and pushing ourselves
out there in an authentic way,like, if you look at, like I've
wrote about him in my book KBLame I think that's how you
pronounce it it's 160 millionfollowers on TikTok and doesn't
have any special talent.
It was all about him beingauthentic.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Isn't that the guy who does the motion?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, and he's created a great career for
himself just by doing the basics.
The reality is, the reason mostpeople don't and won't do this
is because of insecurity.
It's like you know, I'm notgoing to get enough likes,
people aren't going to like me,I don't like that pimple on my
face and in this new world, it'sthe only way really to stand
out.
And I think, in a world where alot of work is being
(26:41):
increasingly commoditized andautomated with AI, your personal
brand becomes a moat.
Right, and listen, I should becreating 10 times as much
content and I just don't havetime for it.
And sometimes I have theinsecurity block, like we all do
.
Right, it's not perfect, blah,blah, blah but I think it's
ultimately about authenticityand knowing what makes you
unique.
And obviously, if you're thebest freestyle rapper in the
(27:02):
world, you're going to get a lotmore engagement than somebody
who knits blankets.
But that's OK, right, I mean,if you knit blankets, you could
start a blanket knittingbusiness.
But you know, but, and you can,and you attach your name to the
brand and we see it throughouthistory, like I would watch the
documentary on Martha Stewart,right, like she was the original
influencer and she created abrand, and there's Oprah, and
(27:23):
there's Dr Dre with beatsheadphones, and there's Ryan
Reynolds with aviator gin.
I mean, the list goes on and on, and I just think that all the
next great brands, or most ofthem, are going to be created by
people, because I think thatcreating great products is going
to become increasinglycommoditized just because of the
automation and technologythat's out there.
(27:44):
You know that we can all creategreat stuff, but why would I
buy your thing versus someoneelse?
Because I believe and I have arelationship with the person
that is pushing it to me right,which is why podcasts are great
as well.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, and I mean it's funny.
You touch on the insecuritything.
I think I hate the sound of myown voice.
I think probably 99% of peopletoo.
I think you have a great voice.
Oh well, thank you.
I hardly listen to my ownpodcast, because I can't stop
listening to myself, but I getit, but I think the other thing,
too, that I would say, theother thing that the vast
majority of people miss out on,is just consistency.
(28:19):
Right, like they release one tofive podcast episodes, they
post one to five times on socialmedia and maybe it doesn't get
the traction that they thoughtit would, and they stop.
It's like exercise.
It's like exercise.
It's like exercise, you know,you go to the gym January 1st
through 5th, new year, new meand then you just life gets in
the way and you stop and youknow, and that's just kind of
(28:40):
the way it is with almosteverything in life.
It's the same way it is with AI.
It's like so many people I talkto are like, oh, I use chat GPT
a little bit and I'm likethat's not AI, that's just
retail entry level.
If you really want to understandit, you have to go deep, you
have to do research, you have toknow what you're trying to
solve.
For I wrote about that in mybook, too, and I think that's so
(29:00):
.
I think most of the importantthings you're right is about
perseverance and just stickingto it, just like starting
running a business, like I couldhave given up so many times in
the early days of Susie.
Um, you know, and, and you knowhow many times, when I was
first trying to sell a license,where you know, it was the 20th
email or 20th call that got methe business, and if I would
have quit on number 19, Iwouldn't have and I might not be
(29:22):
here today.
Yep, um, well, it's funny yousay about the improper use of
search engine or of uh, chatptor other, because I feel like
most people use it as a searchengine, but that's a different
conversation.
Any, and I want to get a littlebit more into the origins and
kind of growth of Susie in aminute.
But you mentioned the sincewe're talking about the
consistency part, any tips otherthan just buckling down and
(29:47):
doing it, to ensure that you canconsistently do the same thing
every day, whether that be Well,I think, first of all, now it's
definitely easier than everbefore because of AI, because
you can put in anything you'vecreated in the past and say
here's my voice, here'severything I've created in the
past.
Give me a content calendar forthe next, like I think, if
everyone just did that.
Give me a content calendar forthe next three months of exactly
(30:09):
the topic I should post aboutand why, based upon, obviously,
unique information.
So, like, most people wouldjust say what should I post?
And it doesn't know you, soit's going to be generic, it's
garbage in, garbage out.
But if the more you have right,like, so I basically use it my
transcripts from my podcast andI load it into a model and I say
what should my next topics be?
Because it reads it.
So the more content you have,the better.
(30:30):
You can create more content ofright, because it just that's
what AI can do it's extract more, more, more.
So if you told AI, based upondata that's relevant to you or
content relevant to you, whatshould I post for the next three
months?
And it gave you a schedule andyou followed that schedule.
You would be in a differentplace in your career.
You'd have at least oneopportunity.
Like I do a lot of publicspeaking and it never is a
(30:52):
direct like.
I saw your post on LinkedIn.
I want to hire you, but there'sa direct correlation to me
posting on LinkedIn and gettinga lot of inbound speaking
engagements.
There just is, and we'vetracked it and so.
But it's like again, it's likedoing sit-ups.
You're not going to do sit-upsonce and go to the mirror and be
(31:13):
like I look great.
It doesn't work that way.
It's the best correlation withexercise and, just like exercise
, you need to carve out time forit, you need to commit it, you
need to be committed, you haveto be goal-oriented, just like
anything else.
And it's the epitome ofsomething that is important but
not urgent.
So, basically, our brains arewired to go on whatever the most
urgent thing isond to that text, respond to that email, you
know, and posting content isnever something that's urgent,
(31:33):
it's always just somethingthat's important.
So I think and exercise is thesame thing, right, and that's
why a lot of people don't do itLike you want to eat, because
your body's telling you I'mhungry, so that becomes urgent,
but your body's never tellingyou I need to exercise right now
, so you just don't do it orcall your mom or whatever those
things are.
And I think that's the peoplewho I've seen in my career who
(31:54):
are the most successful are thepeople that do things that
aren't urgent but are importantacross life, whether it's how
they focus on family time,whether how it's, you know,
their goal oriented in terms ofhow much time they want to spend
with their kids, or focusing onthe business strategy versus
responding to that one clientright.
Or you know, figuring out howto hire people versus how to go
(32:16):
win a customer, because hiringpeople, you know responding to
the customer season urgentbecause there's a business right
there.
But if you focus on hiringpeople, you could have 10
clients right, but it's and butfocusing on talent is the
clearest correlation betweenpeople I've seen being
successful, interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
And I think that's a great delineation of urgent
versus important.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Quick side note question just tactically, you
mentioned feeding a bunch ofyour podcast stuff into the
model.
Is that just like a custom GPTyou use, or what else are you
using?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
So I've built a ton of custom applications in AI.
Yeah, so I've built a ton ofcustom applications in AI.
When AI first came about we'rea 300-person company and I have
an engineering team of about 85people I gave my engineering
team AI to figure out and it wasgoing nowhere.
And the reason why is givingthem AI and say figuring it out
is the same thing as basicallygiving somebody I don't know
(33:08):
flour and say make a recipe likethat, you have.
No, I make a dish like you haveno idea what to make.
Right, and ultimately that wasthe wrong approach.
I took it back to myself.
I took over AI myself and I'mnot an engineer, but I'm fairly
tech savvy and I started withlike, what problem do I need to
solve versus how do I use AI?
And I, I I made the decisionthat before I solved anything
(33:31):
for the business, I was going tosolve something for myself
personally, because in doing so,I'd be more motivated to solve
it and going through thatprocess would teach me about AI.
And I'm turning 50 next year.
I have young children, so Imade the decision I want to keep
myself alive and that's what Iwant AI to help me do and any
great use of AI is based upondata, as I mentioned earlier,
and in keeping myself alive,it's data about my body.
(33:53):
So I went through 20 years ofinformation about.
I got my hands on every bloodtest, every MRI, every x-ray,
every doctor's notes,information from my Apple Watch
on my heart rate, informationfrom my Wi-Fi scale, and I
trained a custom GPT tobasically say your one job is to
keep me alive, act like aworld-leading doctor from Johns
Hopkins, et cetera.
And I start to ask questionslike if I was going to die five
(34:17):
years from now, 10 years fromnow, 15 years from now, based
upon what you know, what's themost likely cause?
And it didn't care aboutpissing me off.
It just told me what the datashowed and it woke me up and I'm
like well, how do I presentthat?
What showed?
And it woke me up and I'm likewell, how do I prevent?
Present that?
What am I doing?
You know what should my diet be, and now I, um, I use it
several times a day and I thencreate the same thing for my
financial information, where Iupload it.
(34:38):
Um, you know my bank statements, my tax returns, all those
things, and you know whereshould I be investing my network
statement and it's incredible.
So then I turn into business.
What's the business?
What's the blood test PDF of mybusiness?
And we use a tool called Zoom Imean not Zoom Gong which
basically it sits on top of Zoom, which basically records every
(34:58):
call.
And our company has been remotesince the pandemic and, as it
turned out, we had access toover 20,000 hours of call
transcripts from customers andprospects.
So I got my hands on those20,000 hours of transcripts, I
fed that into a model and itchanged our entire business
Because from that we couldunderstand what you know company
(35:19):
is like about Susie, what theydon't, what comparatives they
use, why not?
I overlaid customer revenuedata so you know, if a customer
jumped in revenue, tell me whatwas the correlation in the last
six months of everything thatwas said during that call.
What did the salesperson say?
What did the customer say?
Well, that equals good.
You want more of that, you needless of this.
It helped us, you know, come upwith an SEO strategy, a
(35:41):
customer segmentation strategy.
So we built all theseautomations on top of that data
and now our whole business runson that data, because that's the
source of truth, that's thevoice of our customers in the
wild.
So, from that whole journey,starting with the health bot all
the way through now, I feellike I am more knowledgeable
(36:02):
about AI than 99.99% of peopleout there and I can build
anything and I'm not even anengineer.
And I'll see people on stagetalk about AI but they've never
done any of this stuff right.
They just go on and chat GBTand talking about what it could
do.
And that's kind of thedifference.
I often give the analogy oflike people go to a national
park like Yosemite, right, and90% of people just go to the
(36:25):
gift shop and they go behind thegift shop and take a selfie
because of the waterfall in thebackground.
Right, 9% of people go down thesteps to the trail that's paved
and walk around the lake andthen 1% go deep into the woods
and really experience thenatural beauty of the park and
they sleep outside and they seethe stars and they get the peace
and solitude that it was meantfor.
The same thing exists with AI90% of people will just go on
(36:48):
chat GBT and do a couple ofthings.
Exists with AI 90% of peoplewill just go on chat GBT and do
a couple of things.
Maybe another 9% will reallythink about it and reprompt and
do things, and then 1% will dowhat I do and actually build
applications that are scalable.
And it's going to be those 1%of people that are going to be
the people that are going to beon the right side of this
innovation, because they'regoing to be able to do the work
of 99 other people, and that'skind of where I think it's all
(37:10):
headed.
No, that's fascinating, and I'vedone some similar things.
I mean even for the podcast.
I've trained it in my voice.
I have fed it some transcripts.
Yeah, I do that too.
I'm a little late on it, so Iprobably got to feed it some
updated ones, but that'sincredibly helpful.
The question is what you'regoing to do with the transcripts
, right and like how you'regoing to leverage it.
Ultimately, I think the biggestthing about ai is it's less
(37:33):
about how to solve the problemand it's more about
understanding, in terms ofpeople's success, what problem
needs to be solved.
Yes, because data analysis andlike a lot of these things can
now be done by ai, but you haveto tell, you have to figure out,
what problem you want ai tosolve for you.
So people have to become morestrategists and less tacticians,
and a lot of people who arevery tactician-oriented are the
(37:55):
people that are going to belosing their jobs because
they're going to be automatedout of a job.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's reallyjust like a bigger, better gun,
but you still have to knowwhere to point it right.
Well put yeah, and so I thinkyou combine that and then you
combine what we were talkingabout a little bit earlier with
the personality of being a brand, and one person can really just
a hundred X what they couldhave done.
(38:16):
Yeah, and we're starting to seethat.
Yeah, I'm excited about that.
Switching gears a little bit.
I know we mentioned we would.
We would come back to talking alittle bit more about Susie and
just kind of this buildingcomponent.
So help me understand.
I know that you mentioned itwas rebranded a few years ago.
How?
has the company evolved itselfover the last several years and
what does it look like now?
So when I joined Susie,basically the company had raised
(38:40):
about $12 million and it wasoriginally called CrowdTap,
which was the software company.
I spun out of my agency andwhat CrowdTap had done is
amassed about a millionregistered users, consumers who
could earn points for creatingand sharing content on behalf of
brands.
So, like Huggies would say, ifyou're a mom with a baby, take a
picture of your baby in aHuggies box and share it on
Facebook and earn rewards.
That was like their businessmodel.
(39:00):
But once Facebook launchedprogrammatic advertising, that
became less in demand and thebusiness just kind of hit a wall
.
They stopped growing.
They were burning too muchcapital and since I had a vested
interest in the businessbecause I incubated it, the
board asked me to come back andbasically try to figure it out.
And after talking to thecustomers, the one functionality
that customers liked hadnothing to do with content
(39:21):
creation.
There was a polling tool whereyou could ask the users like you
know, what new packaging ofdeodorant do you like best?
And they loved the fact that itwas so instant in terms of the
response from consumers.
There was no sophisticatedresearch tools or analysis there
.
It was just kind of rudimentary, like ABC, like multiple choice
, but they loved it.
So I made the decision thatthat was going to be the
(39:44):
business and at that point thecompany was doing about 10
million in revenue and of it,maybe $500,000 was from this
insights or research tool.
I had to tell the board we'rewalking away from 95% plus of
our revenue to focus on thisother thing.
How did that conversation go?
The main investor from FoundryGroup, seth Levine.
(40:06):
He wanted me to come back onbecause we had a great
relationship and he trusted me.
He wanted me to come back onbecause we had a great
relationship and he trusted me.
The reason he is a prolificentrepreneur is that he isn't
afraid to take risks and heknows how to bet on experienced
entrepreneurs.
Not only did he say go for it,but he gave me an extra $5
(40:26):
million because I needed it tobasically get there, basically
took that next year, tore downthe old business, tried to sell
it.
Nobody wanted to buy it.
Um, and you know, cut the stafffrom 130 people to 30 people
cause we were going to run outof money.
They had just taken on debtthey barely service and
basically came up with a newbusiness model.
I had to rebrand the B2B sidebecause I didn't want to have to
explain that it's crowd tap nowdoes something completely
(40:48):
different.
Um, so came up with Susie.
Came up with the name Susiebecause I'm a huge fan of the
band Phish and I was at MadisonSquare Garden with a friend.
They played the song SusieGreenberg.
I said I'm going to call itSusie, but the reason I chose
somebody's name is that I knewwe were going to be hitting this
age of AI where we were goingto be talking to our
technology-led people.
So I could have called susie,sally or john, it didn't matter,
(41:09):
I wanted to give it a name of aperson and susie was just
ownable.
Um, for letters we were able tobuy the url, etc.
Um, at first it was very quickand dirty.
It was an extension of of kindof the functionality I inherited
, which is like ask these peoplequestions.
You know we kept that originalbase of crowd tap members as
kind of like our panel, if youwill.
Will, and over time I start tolearn more about the market
(41:32):
research industry, because Ididn't know anything about it
and I learned that it's verysophisticated and there's kind
of a lot of deep domainexpertise in terms of the way
that you ask questions, the waythat you analyze the data, the
way that you weight to datastatistical significance.
All these different types ofmethodologies I had never even
heard of and I quickly realizedthat was kind of like over my
(41:55):
head in terms of expertise.
So I hired a woman who's nowour president, katie Gross, who
is a market research veteran andshe's been around working for
the biggest companies out therefor years and when she first saw
our product she was like Ican't believe you guys actually
are this successful with thistype of product.
But it's because I know how tosell and how to storytell, et
cetera.
And she brought on basicallythis whole other faction to the
company of people who areresearch experts and over time
(42:19):
we had kind of this dual path ofkind of my DNA, which has been
storytelling and contentcreation and consumer trends
right, which is ultimately likeone of the outputs of research,
and her and her expertise, whichis on research methodology,
deep domain expertise,understanding different ways to
get panels and differentsegmentations of panels and all
(42:41):
these things that I never eventhought of, and when you combine
the two it ended up being likea Peter Butter and Jelly where
we're able to be very unique inan industry that was starving
for innovation, that had a bunchof sleepy legacy incumbent
companies out there that haven'treally innovated.
And there have been a couple ofsoftware companies, like
Qualtrics being the mostprolific, that had first mover
(43:03):
advantage, surveymonkey beinganother one.
But SurveyMonkey never got tothe enterprise because they
never knew how to service theenterprise.
And Qualtrics the founder, ryanSmith, who's a great
entrepreneur.
He left and when founders leave, a lot of the innovation comes
out.
He owns a bunch of sportsfranchises.
Hopefully I'll follow suit inhis steps one day.
But so we knew that we had anopportunity out there to
(43:26):
innovate and innovate.
We have.
It hasn't all been up and tothe right, but you know we've
taken our lumps.
We've learned a lot over time.
We made the decision just tofocus on servicing large
enterprises, which I think hasbeen a great move, um, and we've
kind of rounded out ouroffering, whether it be enhanced
data security, um, or uh, youknow, very sophisticated service
offerings which clients want.
(43:47):
They just they don't want, whenthey're conducting research,
just to use their password.
Um, leaning into consumertrends and things, I do well to
really build a differentiatedbrand.
So we're nearing 100 million inannual recurring revenue, which
is a big number.
I think it's 0.001% of softwarecompanies get there.
We've raised now $120 million todate and it's a different phase
(44:09):
in the business because, youknow, up until I would say a
year ago, when AI came on board,I was kind of like running a
big ship and I wasn't able to dothe things that I really love
to do as an entrepreneur.
But now with AI, it gives me anability to kind of get my hands
dirty again and it's kind ofreinvigorated me to run the
company and I'm fortunate enoughto be surrounded by just a
(44:33):
great executive team, whichdidn't come easily and we've had
to make a lot of changes to getto the team that we built today
.
But we have a great exec teamthat each has different kind of
specialties and we work welltogether and we have incredible
supportive investors.
Seth, who I told you about,from Foundry Group, is still our
lead investor and througheverything he supported me and
(44:54):
us, as well as the otherinvestors we've had.
So, very fortunate, it'sdefinitely been the best
experience of my career.
Obviously, we're in a verytenuous time running a SaaS
company based upon thedisruption that AI will bestow
on our industry and our company,which is like, it's like
innovate or be or disrupt, or bedisrupted sort of thing, if you
(45:15):
will and that's why, like I,it's like a such a sense of
urgency for me too, to really be, because we're in a position
where we're small enough that wecan move fast, but we're big
enough that we work with a thirdof the fortune 100.
So we're in a really good spot.
There's a lot of new startupscoming up every day, but you
know it's going to take them twoyears to get an MSA with a big,
leading advertiser.
(45:35):
And we're already there.
So we have a headstart.
But we can't rest on ourlaurels or else one day we'll be
the sleepy legacy incumbent,right, and that's kind of where
we're at from a businessstandpoint.
Cool, we'll love that.
I mean congrats on all thesuccess and everything that
you've you've done to get so far.
Um, final question for you whatare some of the key lessons or
guiding principles that you'vefollowed along the way to get
(45:56):
you to where you're at?
I think you always have to bereinventing yourself, both in
terms of your business and youas a person.
Um, you know, so I don't knowif you saw, like Beyonce was
just in a TV commercial for ajeans company and it was like
country-themed and I was like,what does Beyonce have to do
with country?
Well, she's reinventing herself, right?
She's exploring new parts ofmusic and her persona and how
(46:17):
she feels and it's going to keepher relevant.
And I think you have to do thatas an individual, right, and
you have to continually becurious.
You know, I had Mr Youth, whichis focused on reaching young
people, but then social mediacame out and I rebranded it as
MRY, because we wanted to be asocial media company.
And then I went to do asoftware company and that's what
(46:37):
reinventing yourself looks like.
I think there's a big risk ofbeing complacent and doing the
same thing and a company thatkeeps doing the same thing.
And then, quickly, you lookback in the last 20 years,
you're like what have Iaccomplished besides forwarding
emails and joining meetings?
I think you have to reinventyour business and yourself
constantly, based upon how fastthings are moving.
(46:58):
That's not easy to do becausewe're creatures of habit.
I think people alwaysunderestimate the value of a
network, of their personalnetwork.
Just like it's harder to meetclose friends later in life.
It's harder to form yourbusiness network later in life.
When you're young, you should begoing to every single event,
every single corporate gathering, every single group that you
(47:21):
can possibly join, because younever know, like I made the
mistake where I would go to aconference when I was in my
twenties.
If somebody had, like, anonprofit badge, I would like
not sit next to him or her and Iwould like be a heat-seeking
missile to the person that hadNike on their badge.
But, like you never know, ifthe person with Nike is
decision-making power and anonprofit person could be the
CMO of Procter Gamble in fiveyears.
(47:41):
So you also have to have along-term purview it goes back
to important but not urgent andbuild relationships with as many
people as possible, not basedupon like a transactional
approach of what can they do forme today, but just if they look
intelligent and smart and theyhave something interesting to
say, talk to them and then, mostimportantly, mind that
relationship over time.
Find ways to add value.
(48:02):
When I started, suzy, you know,I got a couple of clients off
the bat and the only reason theybecame clients is they were
people who knew and trusted me.
And if, if I didn't have thosepeople to call on, well then I
wouldn't have gotten thebusiness off the ground, because
I don't know anything aboutresearch and the tool wasn't
even that great, right.
So if you're changing jobs, ifyou're going through something
in your, in your career, if youwant to get your kid an
(48:24):
internship one day, your networkis all that matters um,
personally and professionally.
But I think a lot of peopleoverlook building a long-term
professional network becausethey're focused again on the
urgent contact of the moment andthey lose touch with the people
that can't help them in thatmoment but, over a long term,
are most likely to be able tohelp them.
I love that.
(48:44):
I agree with that in everyaspect and I think that's some
incredible wisdom.
So, matt, really appreciate yourtime.
Thank you so much for coming on.
It's been great, thank you.
Thank you for tuning into thisepisode of Seat to Exit.
I hope you found today'sconversation insightful and
valuable.
If you enjoyed the episode,please take a moment to
subscribe, leave a review andshare it with your network, your
(49:06):
support means the world helpsus continue to grow and bring
more incredible guests onto theshow.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Now for more content and updates, follow me on
LinkedIn or Twitter, or you cancheck out MindHire, where we
help startups build exceptionalteams.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Thanks again for listening and I'll see you in
the next episode of Seed to Exit.
So I think the new brands are individuals, and the
reason the new brands areindividuals is that, you know,
gen Z grew up with the iPhone inthe house, and so when they're
staring at the iPhone, they'restaring at content, but they're
staring at content not from bigmedia organizations.
They're staring at content fromother people.
Right, that's just where theireyeballs are, and, because of
that, those are the brands thatmatter, the creators and those
(00:21):
are the people who are, I think,going to create the next big
crop of brands, just like theold world was around TV and
television advertising, and Ithink that's why it's shifting
that direction.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's about the medium .
Welcome to today's episode ofSeat to Exit.
I'm Rhys Keck and today I'mjoined by Matt Britton, a
leading expert on consumertrends and the intersection of
technology, marketing andculture.
Matt is the founder and CEO ofSuzy, a pioneering consumer
intelligence platform thatempowers brands with real-time
insights.
Under his leadership, suzy hassecured over $100 million in
venture capital funding andserves clients like Google,
(00:56):
procter Gamble and Walmart.
Before founding Suzy, mattestablished MRY, a digital and
social media marketing agency,in 2002.
He grew MRY from a one-personstartup to a global powerhouse
with over 500 employees.
Matt is also the author of theNew York Times bestselling book
Youth Nation, which explores theimpact of millennials and Gen Z
on business and brand building.
(01:16):
In our conversation, we'regoing to talk more about Matt's
entrepreneurial journey, ai andconsumer engagement,
generational trends, how toengage with younger demographics
, consumer behavior shifts andsome of his leadership
philosophy.
I'm really excited for you tolisten.
Let's go ahead and dive intothe episode.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Welcome to Seed to Exit, the podcast where we
uncover the stories, strategiesand insights that power the
startup ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I'm your host.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Rhys Keck, founder of MindHire a talent acquisition
firm specializing in helpingstartups build exceptional teams
.
Each week, I sit down withfounders, investors and industry
leaders to explore the journeysbehind iconic companies and
game-changing ideas.
Whether you're building,investing or just curious about
what it takes to succeed in thestartup world, I want this
(02:03):
podcast to be your go-toresource for actionable insights
and inspiring conversations.
Now, if you enjoy the show,please don't forget to subscribe
, leave a review or share itwith your network.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Your support means the world and really helps bring
more incredible conversationsto life.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Matt, thanks for coming on board.
Excited to have you.
Glad to be here, absolutely Allright.
Well, let's dive into things.
I'm really excited to talk toyou.
You have done a lot in yourcareer, both in terms of
services, business, running atech company.
You've obviously written acouple of books, done some
speaking, and so I'm reallyexcited to dive into your brain
a little bit and pull some ofthat out for the folks listening
(02:39):
and for those listening.
Maybe it would be helpful ifyou could just give a quick
overview of yourself to getstarted, and then we'll dive
into things from there.
Sure, so I've spent my entirecareer, so the last 25 years,
helping brands really connectthe dots between their business
of today and the consumer oftomorrow.
That's kind of been the commontheme.
(03:00):
Earlier stages of my career, Ispent a lot of time in the
marketing services business.
I started an agency way back in2002 called Mr Youth, which is
really at the dawn of theY, tobecome the first ever social
media marketing agency andcreate the social media
(03:26):
marketing practice of companieslike Visa and Microsoft and P&G
Built the company up to about500 people.
It was acquired by thePulpacist Group in 2014.
And then, prior to selling thecompany.
I spun a software companycalled CrowdTap, which was
originally kind of an influenceractivation platform, but kind
(03:46):
of evolved over time andbasically after I left the
publicist group, the companybrought me back on as CEO and I
pivoted that business intosomething called Suzy, which was
launched in 2018, which is amarket research software
platform, which is a now latestage software company servicing
over 500 leading brands.
Oh, yes, please, please, go on,go on, please.
(04:07):
I was going to dive more intoSusie, but it sounded like you
were beating me to the punch.
Yeah, I was about to say likethe common thread is, you know,
helping brands understand thenew consumer, and the consumer
keeps changing.
You know, if you look at thetrajectory of my career, when I
first came out in themarketplace, the internet was a
thing and then it was socialmedia, then it was mobile and
now it's AI and with every newinnovation, there's so much
(04:31):
disruption that takes place.
The legacy incumbents try tohold on or many of them go away.
There's new upstarts and theconsumer adopts the way they
live their life, the way theyspend their time and their money
and their behaviors and helpingbrands sort of effort.
The first half of my career ishelping them reach them, based
upon those new behaviors.
Now it's helping themunderstand them, and you know,
(04:52):
I've always been an entrepreneurand always been really
fascinated by the topic, which Ithink makes me effective in
terms of what I do every day.
So tell me a little bit moreabout the consumer behavior,
because obviously it's shifted aton in the past two decades.
How have you kept to that?
What would you say are some ofthe most meaningful shifts that
you have seen?
Well, I mean, the shifts areall driven by largely societal
(05:12):
and technological changes.
You know, on the technologicalside, you know I mentioned the
big ones it's the internet, itwas social media, it was the
mobile device and now it's AIthat's going to have a huge
impact into how consumers andindividuals communicate with one
another.
If you look at the internet andyou look at mobile, how many
families are created because ofsomething like Tinder, right?
(05:33):
You look at how much wealth isbeing created by cryptocurrency
or new jobs and new industriesthat were spawned by these new
technologies.
So it really changes consumersin every single way.
I think some overarching trendsthat go across all those is that
younger people now aredictating the future of business
, culture and society.
(05:54):
So if you look at a pre-socialmedia age, the music people
listen to, the styles that theyadorned, the way they live their
life, is really driven by theboardroom.
It was driven by companies thatcould dictate the popular
discourse because theycontrolled the airwaves.
They controlled the radio.
Clear Channel, basically, couldmake an artist a hit or a flop
(06:17):
because they controlled most ofthe radio stations, same with
the big three TV stations.
So young people didn't reallyhave a voice and now it's
completely flipped where brandsand the boardroom, frankly, is
in barely any control at all.
It's really about what theconsumer wants and that's really
why I started, suzy, is thatthe way business is done now and
(06:37):
the way culture is formed is nolonger from the people that
work their way up to thecorporate ladder.
It's from the people that havea phone and that share content
and have a voice, and that's athat's a sea change in the way
that every company should go tomarket.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What are?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
businesses underestimating today when it
comes to thinking about youngeraudiences.
Well, I think theyunderestimate their broader
influence among people of allages.
So if you look at likeCoachella, you know you'll see a
50 year old there and it won'tlook strange.
But if my dad when he was 50,was at Coachella, he'd be
wearing a suit and tie andpeople would be like, why is he
(07:14):
here?
Right, and the reason that a 50year old can be at Coachella
now, right, and Mark Zuckerbergcan kind of go through his you
know fashion transformation theway he is and people look at his
cool, can kind of go throughhis you know fashion
transformation the way he is andpeople look at his cool is that
young, older people are now intouch with what younger people
are doing because of Instagram,because of social media.
So because of that, they feellike it gives them license to
(07:37):
live younger later in life.
And because of that, you havepeople with a bigger you know
disposable income that areliving younger later in life.
They're going to Coachella.
They're buying, wearing AirJordans to work right, they're
buying fashion that theynormally wouldn't, they're
traveling.
People are having startingfamilies later in life.
(07:57):
The average age of a first-timemother in the US is now 10
years older than it was threedecades ago time.
Mother in the US is now 10years older than it was three
decades ago.
That means it's 10 more yearsof people going out to bars to,
you know, to basically going outto brunch in the morning versus
buying diapers for the kids anddoing all these things.
So that changes the way thatpeople spend, so I think.
And so if people with biggerkind of disposable income are
(08:22):
acting younger later in life,well then, who dictates what
acting younger means has morepower?
Right, and that's where I wrotemy book, youth Nation, which I
created back here.
It's about young people kind ofdictating culture, and I think
that's probably the one thingthat I think a lot of brands
overlook, because they look atthe spending power of young
people as inhibitor to reallyfocusing on them.
(08:42):
But you're marketing not tothem, but you're marketing
through them, if that makessense, and that's, I think, it's
lost on a lot of brands.
Very interesting, when you werewriting Youth Nation, what did
your research process look like?
How did that all come together?
It was interesting.
You bring that up because Ijust finished writing my second
book yesterday and I haven'tpublicly announced yet, but it's
(09:03):
called Generation AI and it'sbasically about Gen Alpha and
the age of AI and how it's goingto change the world.
And writing that book was acompletely different experience
than writing Youth Nation 10years ago.
Right, because I had a researchteam.
When I wrote Youth Nation, Iwrote it within my agency walls
at MRY and I had a whole team ofresearchers and when I had a
(09:25):
thesis, I needed to back up thatthesis with data, which would
result in infographics andcharts and things like that.
I would basically have to briefmy research team.
They would come back to me fivedays later with either saying
what you said is right andhere's the data to support it,
or what you said is wrong andhere's the data to support it.
But either way, I had to waitfive days.
(09:45):
Now, when I was writing, I hadtwo screens open One had
perplexity open and one had myyou know my tool Scrivener,
which I was writing a book.
And to give you an example, youknow and I would talk about
when I went to college in 1997and I brought a TV with me and
the difference being the point Iwas making is that when I
dropped my daughter off atColumbia.
No one had TVs right Last year.
(10:07):
So it was just kind ofemblematic of how things have
changed.
But to color in that story, Iwanted to not just say I brought
my TV, I wanted to say whattype of TV I brought.
So I basically went perplexed.
I said if I would have beengoing to college in 1997, what's
the most likely brand of TVthat I would have brought?
And it said it's a Magnavox.
Blah, blah, blah.
So I can say I vividly remembergoing to college with a
(10:29):
Magnavox Model 7 TV freshmanyear.
And that adds color to thestory, right.
Or I can say something like giveme five examples throughout
history where people demonized anew technology.
And it would tell me thatSocrates demonized the advent of
writing because you know hebelieved it would make people
(10:50):
not have to remember as much andit would basically like rot
their brains and obviouslywriting ended up being huge,
like think of where humanitywould be if we never adopted
writing.
So it was to prove a point thatpeople are doing the same thing
with AI right now.
But I never would have had thatexample in the flow of writing
without a tool like that.
And there's just so manyexamples.
Actually, the last chapter ofthe book was how I used AI to
(11:12):
help me write the book and no, Ididn't have AI write the book,
because if I did, it would soundlike a robot and it wouldn't be
my story but it allowed me towrite it so much more fluently
and, frankly, I think it's goingto be a much better product as
a result.
Well, I'm excited to read it.
Yeah, we copy for you.
All right, I will give you-.
It doesn't come out till May ofnext year, which is another
(11:32):
challenge, because I'm writing abook here in November.
It doesn't come out for sixmonths, and in AI, that's like
three lifetimes.
So the things I'm talking aboutis innovative today.
That was that's the concernabout writing a book, but I'm
using it more as a platform.
Totally makes sense Anyinteresting findings you can
share prior to the release ofthe book that we can look
forward to?
(11:53):
Well, I mean, I explore allcorners of society, so I explore
healthcare, I explore parentingEducation is a huge piece.
I explore commerce, media, thefinancial world, how people
spend their money.
Like, one insight I came towhich makes sense when you say
it, but it was something Ihadn't formulated is the
(12:15):
relationship with money that GenZ has versus baby boomers is
the polar opposite.
So you know, you look at babyboomers.
So what my father passed away acouple of years ago.
When he did, I was shocked withhow much wealth he accumulated
relative to how he lived.
Right, he lived like he didn'treally have a lot of money and
he did relative to what Ithought.
Right, he's not a gazillionaire, but I was like wow, and it was
(12:45):
.
It was shocking because I wasthinking like why did he live
the way he did?
Like why didn't he go on anextra vacation or actually do
more?
And as I did research for thebook, what I found is baby
boomers grew up with parents whowent through World War II and
the Great Depression and theirrelationship with money was one
of the scarcity and they passedthat down to their kids.
So their brains are hardwiredthat way.
And then, if you look at Gen Z,you know, gen Z, what happened
when we had all the fiscalstimulus during COVID Meme
(13:08):
stocks, nfts, cryptocurrencycollectibles, like it was.
It's the polar opposite.
It's a relationship of risk.
And now you have, like sportsbetting becoming legal and you
could bet on the presidentialelection and it's really playing
into the hands of this, of thisgeneration that has more of a
YOLO kind of risk onrelationship with money.
And what we're about to seeover the next 10 years is the
(13:31):
biggest wealth transfer inhistory, as Gen Z and Gen Alpha
inherit from an aging outpopulation of baby boomers.
So you're going to have over$40 trillion of assets transfer
hands to people who had ascarcity relationship with money
, to people who have a YOLOrelationship with money.
So what is that going to do tothe economy?
(13:51):
And we're already kind ofseeing it start to happen.
Like credit card debt passed atrillion dollars for the first
time ever.
Savings is a percentage ofhousehold incomes at the lowest
level that we've ever seen.
It's because that youth kind ofmind frame is spreading up to
the broader population.
But actually once they havethat much money to spend, what's
it going to do to the economy?
Right, and it's justfascinating.
(14:12):
So that's a topic that I didn'texpect to stumble into.
That was so rich until I did,and then, during the process and
that was in my section aboutfinance, and it really was
fascinating, the deeper I duginto it it's really interesting
that you say that, becausethere's something I read a
couple of years ago and Icouldn't tell you where it was
(14:33):
from.
It might've been on Reddit orsomething, but it was the
overall message is somethingthat really resonated with me,
and it was.
It was talking about cryptoinvesting since you mentioned
the meme stocks and it was alsoabout the younger relationships,
the younger generation'srelationship with money,
basically saying that things ingeneral have become so expensive
(14:53):
.
There is so much wealthinequality.
You know we're having to pay,you know, on a per capita GDP
basis, a far bigger percentageof our income for rent than our
parents did.
So we almost have to take thatYOLO, because the only way that
we think we're going to be ableto have a shot is by striking it
big.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Did you see that?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
in your research at all.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Does that make sense to you With?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
risk comes, reward Right, right.
So that's why you know,robinhood, like you know, has
taken off Right, and they pushoptions trading.
And when Robinhood first cameout, everyone's like, oh no,
it's not a gambling site, it'sinvesting, yet you it's
investing, yet you were able tonow use Robinhood to bet on who
would win the presidentialelection.
That just happened.
So they kind of just proved thepoint right that it is about
risk.
It's not like fidelity, right.
(15:38):
So there's a payoff to risk on,right, and the payoff to risk
on is a quick reward, right,it's instant.
And that's why, you know, Iwant to be an influencer and be
a millionaire, like the notionof patience and hard work which
is also embedded in baby boomersbecause their parents had.
That is not really the caseright now, but that's obviously
(16:00):
that's not a great thing, right,because more often than not,
risk doesn't pay off.
When you make that big parlaybet on FanDuel, you're not going
to win.
But you see, in social media,the only people who post big
bets are the ones that were won.
But nobody wins in gambling,right, and same with options
trading and same withinfluencers and all these things
(16:20):
.
People compare themselves toother people's highlight reels,
which drives that yellowmentality.
But we're also seeing the kindof downside of that, which is
depression and addiction that'shitting our younger population
like we've never seen before.
You know, we're seeing aloneliness epidemic that's
occurring and you know, moremales are living at home at age
(16:41):
30 than ever before and it's atough thing for our country and
that's why you see thispolarized, politicized political
environment.
Right, because when people arelonely they want to gravitate
towards something, so they'llgravitate towards a cult
mentality and that's when youhave, you know, these extreme
extremist groups and bad thingshappen and you kind of see it
(17:01):
all happening.
So I'm definitely worried forour country as a result of this.
I think that the risk onappetite with capital is a
symptom versus the cause.
You know, and I think, and thecause is ultimately people
feeling disenfranchised andwanting a quick way out, and
they assimilate a quick way outwith a quick hit of dopamine or
(17:24):
money and that's what's drivingtheir behavior.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sensewhen we also talk about the
loneliness epidemic and in thecontext of AI, I've seen a lot
of people who are using chat,gpt or clot or whatever your
poison is, almost as a therapist, or they're fine tuning it for
areas to make it almost like aquasi type of therapist.
(17:47):
Do you think that's valid?
Do you think that riskstrapping people in their own
echo chamber, of just wantingthe AI telling them what they
want to hear?
What are your thoughts on that?
It's interesting that youbrought that up, so that was
another chapter of my book.
It's about relationships and Italked about kind of evolution
we've seen from how people usedto meet to dating apps and to
now kind of this what's calledloneliness paradox, which is
(18:10):
technology has made us much moreconnected but more alone than
ever before.
Right, and because you know, wefeel like we're connected when
we're on our phones, but kidsare not going out after school.
They're sitting on their phonesand scrolling or connecting
with people and it's making themless happy.
How I feel about, you know, aibased therapy, which is
basically what you're asking, is.
(18:30):
I do think there's a role forit, because the fact is that
therapy is expensive, that youknow what healthcare covers is
not as wide-ranging as it usedto be, right, and a lot of times
people are embarrassed forthings that they're going
through and they keep it insideand then we both know that
creates depression, that createssuicide.
It creates bad things, and thenwe both know that creates
(18:52):
depression, that creates suicide.
It creates bad things.
So if serious companies cancreate solutions that are AI
based, yes, I think that it canyield great results.
But the problem is and we justsaw this happen with that
company character AI whereallegedly somebody you know was
talking to a chatbot on you knowa startup and the chatbot told
him allegedly to kill himselfand he killed himself and you
(19:16):
know that wasn't the purpose ofthat platform, right?
So it's a lot of it, and Iwrote about this in my parenting
section on the book, and thisis actually the first time I'm
talking about the book publicly,so but so it's a good primer
for me.
But you know that that'ssomething parents have to
address, because Gen Alpha isgoing to be the first generation
to grow up with AI in ahousehold, so they're never
going to know a world where AIdidn't exist, just like Gen Z
(19:38):
never knew a world where theiPhone didn't exist.
Millennials never knew a worldwhere the internet didn't exist,
right?
I was born for all those thingsand, based upon your upbringing,
it wires your brain into a newreality and when parents don't
have that same reality.
There becomes a generationaldivide in the household that can
create a rift of understanding.
And now the good news for GenAlpha is their parents are
(20:01):
predominantly going to bemillennials, who, at least, are
digitally savvy, where Gen Z'sparents were Gen Xers who
weren't as digitally savvy.
So that divide really existed,so it'll be interesting to see
how it plays out.
So I think everything with AIis going to have positive and
negatives, just like socialmedia caused wars and it created
(20:23):
reunions of long lost familymembers.
Right, and that's just thereality, but it doesn't matter
because it's going to stop forno one.
Yep, absolutely.
When we go back to thediscussion around brands a
little bit, how do Gen Z and Idon't know if you did the
research on Gen Alpha yet- howdo they?
generally differ in what theirexpectations of brands are, and
(20:46):
how do you think businesses canadapt to that?
Yeah well, the oldest Gen Alphais just turning 15 and you
can't really collect data,because of the Children's Online
Privacy Act, with people whoare under 14.
So it is challenging still toget data like that from Gen
Alpha, but I don't see therebeing that big of a change
between a 17-year-old and a15-year-old.
Brands are changing Because ifyou look at the most prolific
(21:12):
brands that we have in America,right, it's Nike, it's Starbucks
, it's Hershey's, it's Tide.
Right, it's Gillette, it'sthese brands, all of which were
built in the golden age oftelevision, where those brands
were built based upon having abig checkbook and essentially
forcing your brand message downpeople's throats, and all the
taglines that we know are froman era where we were watching
(21:34):
television, live television, andwe had to watch it, when now
the last bastion of livetelevision, which is sports, is
going away.
Then there's news, but evennews is now more accessible.
So broadcast television isslowly going away and with it
comes that mass brand buildingtool that also is going to
(21:55):
wither away and in its wakeyou're seeing new upstarts.
So Nike is really struggling,right Because you have On
Running and these othercompanies, because the kids that
are buying sneakers yes, so youhave the sneakerhead population
, but they're open to otherbrands because Nike didn't get
to reinforce their brand messageduring these kids' upbringing
because they didn't watch TV.
So I do think that these bigbrands that were built in a
(22:18):
different era are going to havean increasingly challenging time
of maintaining brand as moat,especially when the barriers to
entry to do anything are so lowto create a website, to build
software, to manufacture aproduct, to ship product.
You know, now anybody can sellanything instantly, Right, and I
think the new I do believe thenew brands are people.
(22:42):
I think people are brands andbrands are people and and you
know, you saw Mr Beast had10,000 people show up to his
burger shop in New Jersey whenhe opened it because he
commanded that.
I don't know if McDonald's orBurger King would be able to get
10,000 people to go to any onelocation unless they had Taylor
Swift perform there or something, and that's a big thing.
So I think the new brands areindividuals.
(23:04):
And the reason the new brandsare individuals is that Gen Z
grew up with the iPhone in thehouse, and so, when they're
staring at the iPhone, they'restaring at content.
They're staring at content, butthey're staring at content not
from big media organizations.
They're staring at content fromother people, right?
That's just where theireyeballs are and, because of
that, those are the brands thatmatter, the creators and those
are the people who are, I think,going to create the next big
(23:27):
crop of brands, just like theold world was around TV and
television advertising, and Ithink that's why it's shifting
that direction.
It's about the medium, Right?
Well, it's like I have a TikTokand I scroll more than I'm
going to admit on here.
And you're right, it's, it's.
It's not brands at all.
I mean, there are a couple offriends anymore?
No, it's not.
It's it's largely justindividuals who are have created
(23:51):
this platform for themselves,you know, and media, Right, and
that's interesting that it'sanother point that young people
seek community, and we used tosee community on social media.
We used to be able to track ourour old high school friend on
Facebook, but now all thesesocial platforms have optimized
for creators and and traditionalmedia content creators and you
(24:11):
don't see your friends anymore.
So now people are going toReddit or they're going to, you
know, texting or WhatsApp tocreate those communities,
because social media doesn'teven bring it anymore.
Social media has basicallyreplaced TV and now there's
going to be a new place thatpeople go to create community.
That's off social media.
It's kind of like a shiftthat's slowly occurring.
(24:32):
So really the message is thenis that you know, brands are
going to be probably made upmore of people, but then and
really that just makes it moreaccessible People will create
the brands.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, People will create the brand because you, as
an individual person, you don'tneed to have anywhere near the
marketing budget that a Nike has, right?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So then, what is the key to building a brand?
As a person or as an influencer, I mean?
And it could be a brand likeyou know, like Logan Paul, right
?
Or it can be a brand like me,or it can be a brand like you
know somebody who is, you know,a dentist, right?
(25:11):
Like you know, it doesn'tmatter, right?
We're all brands.
Brands are what people say aboutyou when you're not in the room
.
Brands equal reputation.
So, if people are brands, whatyour brand is is your reputation
, right.
It's what people know you as,and your ability, first of all,
to know what you want yourreputation to be ie who you are
and what makes you unique andspecial is number one, right?
(25:33):
So it's like what do we douniquely?
I can tell from talking to you.
You know you're a great listener, you're very introspective, you
have a good view of the world,like that's part of what makes
you unique, right?
And we all have to figure outwhat that is.
After we figured out what it is, we have to commit to sharing
that on a consistent basis anddoing it in a way where we don't
feel like it has to be scripted, because people don't want
(25:56):
scripted content.
That's why they're going topeople and not watching
traditional TV anymore, right?
So we have to be comfortabledoing that and pushing ourselves
out there in an authentic way,like, if you look at, like I've
wrote about him in my book KBLame I think that's how you
pronounce it it's 160 millionfollowers on TikTok and doesn't
have any special talent.
It was all about him beingauthentic.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Isn't that the guy who does the motion?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, and he's created a great career for
himself just by doing the basics.
The reality is, the reason mostpeople don't and won't do this
is because of insecurity.
It's like you know, I'm notgoing to get enough likes,
people aren't going to like me,I don't like that pimple on my
face and in this new world, it'sthe only way really to stand
out.
And I think, in a world where alot of work is being
(26:41):
increasingly commoditized andautomated with AI, your personal
brand becomes a moat.
Right, and listen, I should becreating 10 times as much
content and I just don't havetime for it.
And sometimes I have theinsecurity block, like we all do
.
Right, it's not perfect, blah,blah, blah but I think it's
ultimately about authenticityand knowing what makes you
unique.
And obviously, if you're thebest freestyle rapper in the
(27:02):
world, you're going to get a lotmore engagement than somebody
who knits blankets.
But that's OK, right, I mean,if you knit blankets, you could
start a blanket knittingbusiness.
But you know, but, and you can,and you attach your name to the
brand and we see it throughouthistory, like I would watch the
documentary on Martha Stewart,right, like she was the original
influencer and she created abrand, and there's Oprah, and
(27:23):
there's Dr Dre with beatsheadphones, and there's Ryan
Reynolds with aviator gin.
I mean, the list goes on and on, and I just think that all the
next great brands, or most ofthem, are going to be created by
people, because I think thatcreating great products is going
to become increasinglycommoditized just because of the
automation and technologythat's out there.
(27:44):
You know that we can all creategreat stuff, but why would I
buy your thing versus someoneelse?
Because I believe and I have arelationship with the person
that is pushing it to me right,which is why podcasts are great
as well.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, and I mean it's funny.
You touch on the insecuritything.
I think I hate the sound of myown voice.
I think probably 99% of peopletoo.
I think you have a great voice.
Oh well, thank you.
I hardly listen to my ownpodcast, because I can't stop
listening to myself, but I getit, but I think the other thing,
too, that I would say, theother thing that the vast
majority of people miss out on,is just consistency.
(28:19):
Right, like they release one tofive podcast episodes, they
post one to five times on socialmedia and maybe it doesn't get
the traction that they thoughtit would, and they stop.
It's like exercise.
It's like exercise.
It's like exercise, you know,you go to the gym January 1st
through 5th, new year, new meand then you just life gets in
the way and you stop and youknow, and that's just kind of
(28:40):
the way it is with almosteverything in life.
It's the same way it is with AI.
It's like so many people I talkto are like, oh, I use chat GPT
a little bit and I'm likethat's not AI, that's just
retail entry level.
If you really want to understandit, you have to go deep, you
have to do research, you have toknow what you're trying to
solve.
For I wrote about that in mybook, too, and I think that's so
(29:00):
.
I think most of the importantthings you're right is about
perseverance and just stickingto it, just like starting
running a business, like I couldhave given up so many times in
the early days of Susie.
Um, you know, and, and you knowhow many times, when I was
first trying to sell a license,where you know, it was the 20th
email or 20th call that got methe business, and if I would
have quit on number 19, Iwouldn't have and I might not be
(29:22):
here today.
Yep, um, well, it's funny yousay about the improper use of
search engine or of uh, chatptor other, because I feel like
most people use it as a searchengine, but that's a different
conversation.
Any, and I want to get a littlebit more into the origins and
kind of growth of Susie in aminute.
But you mentioned the sincewe're talking about the
consistency part, any tips otherthan just buckling down and
(29:47):
doing it, to ensure that you canconsistently do the same thing
every day, whether that be Well,I think, first of all, now it's
definitely easier than everbefore because of AI, because
you can put in anything you'vecreated in the past and say
here's my voice, here'severything I've created in the
past.
Give me a content calendar forthe next, like I think, if
everyone just did that.
Give me a content calendar forthe next three months of exactly
(30:09):
the topic I should post aboutand why, based upon, obviously,
unique information.
So, like, most people wouldjust say what should I post?
And it doesn't know you, soit's going to be generic, it's
garbage in, garbage out.
But if the more you have right,like, so I basically use it my
transcripts from my podcast andI load it into a model and I say
what should my next topics be?
Because it reads it.
So the more content you have,the better.
(30:30):
You can create more content ofright, because it just that's
what AI can do it's extract more, more, more.
So if you told AI, based upondata that's relevant to you or
content relevant to you, whatshould I post for the next three
months?
And it gave you a schedule andyou followed that schedule.
You would be in a differentplace in your career.
You'd have at least oneopportunity.
Like I do a lot of publicspeaking and it never is a
(30:52):
direct like.
I saw your post on LinkedIn.
I want to hire you, but there'sa direct correlation to me
posting on LinkedIn and gettinga lot of inbound speaking
engagements.
There just is, and we'vetracked it and so.
But it's like again, it's likedoing sit-ups.
You're not going to do sit-upsonce and go to the mirror and be
(31:13):
like I look great.
It doesn't work that way.
It's the best correlation withexercise and, just like exercise
, you need to carve out time forit, you need to commit it, you
need to be committed, you haveto be goal-oriented, just like
anything else.
And it's the epitome ofsomething that is important but
not urgent.
So, basically, our brains arewired to go on whatever the most
urgent thing isond to that text, respond to that email, you
know, and posting content isnever something that's urgent,
(31:33):
it's always just somethingthat's important.
So I think and exercise is thesame thing, right, and that's
why a lot of people don't do itLike you want to eat, because
your body's telling you I'mhungry, so that becomes urgent,
but your body's never tellingyou I need to exercise right now
, so you just don't do it orcall your mom or whatever those
things are.
And I think that's the peoplewho I've seen in my career who
(31:54):
are the most successful are thepeople that do things that
aren't urgent but are importantacross life, whether it's how
they focus on family time,whether how it's, you know,
their goal oriented in terms ofhow much time they want to spend
with their kids, or focusing onthe business strategy versus
responding to that one clientright.
Or you know, figuring out howto hire people versus how to go
(32:16):
win a customer, because hiringpeople, you know responding to
the customer season urgentbecause there's a business right
there.
But if you focus on hiringpeople, you could have 10
clients right, but it's and butfocusing on talent is the
clearest correlation betweenpeople I've seen being
successful, interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
And I think that's a great delineation of urgent
versus important.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Quick side note question just tactically, you
mentioned feeding a bunch ofyour podcast stuff into the
model.
Is that just like a custom GPTyou use, or what else are you
using?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
So I've built a ton of custom applications in AI.
Yeah, so I've built a ton ofcustom applications in AI.
When AI first came about we'rea 300-person company and I have
an engineering team of about 85people I gave my engineering
team AI to figure out and it wasgoing nowhere.
And the reason why is givingthem AI and say figuring it out
is the same thing as basicallygiving somebody I don't know
(33:08):
flour and say make a recipe likethat, you have.
No, I make a dish like you haveno idea what to make.
Right, and ultimately that wasthe wrong approach.
I took it back to myself.
I took over AI myself and I'mnot an engineer, but I'm fairly
tech savvy and I started withlike, what problem do I need to
solve versus how do I use AI?
And I, I I made the decisionthat before I solved anything
(33:31):
for the business, I was going tosolve something for myself
personally, because in doing so,I'd be more motivated to solve
it and going through thatprocess would teach me about AI.
And I'm turning 50 next year.
I have young children, so Imade the decision I want to keep
myself alive and that's what Iwant AI to help me do and any
great use of AI is based upondata, as I mentioned earlier,
and in keeping myself alive,it's data about my body.
(33:53):
So I went through 20 years ofinformation about.
I got my hands on every bloodtest, every MRI, every x-ray,
every doctor's notes,information from my Apple Watch
on my heart rate, informationfrom my Wi-Fi scale, and I
trained a custom GPT tobasically say your one job is to
keep me alive, act like aworld-leading doctor from Johns
Hopkins, et cetera.
And I start to ask questionslike if I was going to die five
(34:17):
years from now, 10 years fromnow, 15 years from now, based
upon what you know, what's themost likely cause?
And it didn't care aboutpissing me off.
It just told me what the datashowed and it woke me up and I'm
like well, how do I presentthat?
What showed?
And it woke me up and I'm likewell, how do I prevent?
Present that?
What am I doing?
You know what should my diet be, and now I, um, I use it
several times a day and I thencreate the same thing for my
financial information, where Iupload it.
(34:38):
Um, you know my bank statements, my tax returns, all those
things, and you know whereshould I be investing my network
statement and it's incredible.
So then I turn into business.
What's the business?
What's the blood test PDF of mybusiness?
And we use a tool called Zoom Imean not Zoom Gong which
basically it sits on top of Zoom, which basically records every
(34:58):
call.
And our company has been remotesince the pandemic and, as it
turned out, we had access toover 20,000 hours of call
transcripts from customers andprospects.
So I got my hands on those20,000 hours of transcripts, I
fed that into a model and itchanged our entire business
Because from that we couldunderstand what you know company
(35:19):
is like about Susie, what theydon't, what comparatives they
use, why not?
I overlaid customer revenuedata so you know, if a customer
jumped in revenue, tell me whatwas the correlation in the last
six months of everything thatwas said during that call.
What did the salesperson say?
What did the customer say?
Well, that equals good.
You want more of that, you needless of this.
It helped us, you know, come upwith an SEO strategy, a
(35:41):
customer segmentation strategy.
So we built all theseautomations on top of that data
and now our whole business runson that data, because that's the
source of truth, that's thevoice of our customers in the
wild.
So, from that whole journey,starting with the health bot all
the way through now, I feellike I am more knowledgeable
(36:02):
about AI than 99.99% of peopleout there and I can build
anything and I'm not even anengineer.
And I'll see people on stagetalk about AI but they've never
done any of this stuff right.
They just go on and chat GBTand talking about what it could
do.
And that's kind of thedifference.
I often give the analogy oflike people go to a national
park like Yosemite, right, and90% of people just go to the
(36:25):
gift shop and they go behind thegift shop and take a selfie
because of the waterfall in thebackground.
Right, 9% of people go down thesteps to the trail that's paved
and walk around the lake andthen 1% go deep into the woods
and really experience thenatural beauty of the park and
they sleep outside and they seethe stars and they get the peace
and solitude that it was meantfor.
The same thing exists with AI90% of people will just go on
(36:48):
chat GBT and do a couple ofthings.
Exists with AI 90% of peoplewill just go on chat GBT and do
a couple of things.
Maybe another 9% will reallythink about it and reprompt and
do things, and then 1% will dowhat I do and actually build
applications that are scalable.
And it's going to be those 1%of people that are going to be
the people that are going to beon the right side of this
innovation, because they'regoing to be able to do the work
of 99 other people, and that'skind of where I think it's all
(37:10):
headed.
No, that's fascinating, and I'vedone some similar things.
I mean even for the podcast.
I've trained it in my voice.
I have fed it some transcripts.
Yeah, I do that too.
I'm a little late on it, so Iprobably got to feed it some
updated ones, but that'sincredibly helpful.
The question is what you'regoing to do with the transcripts
, right and like how you'regoing to leverage it.
Ultimately, I think the biggestthing about ai is it's less
(37:33):
about how to solve the problemand it's more about
understanding, in terms ofpeople's success, what problem
needs to be solved.
Yes, because data analysis andlike a lot of these things can
now be done by ai, but you haveto tell, you have to figure out,
what problem you want ai tosolve for you.
So people have to become morestrategists and less tacticians,
and a lot of people who arevery tactician-oriented are the
(37:55):
people that are going to belosing their jobs because
they're going to be automatedout of a job.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's reallyjust like a bigger, better gun,
but you still have to knowwhere to point it right.
Well put yeah, and so I thinkyou combine that and then you
combine what we were talkingabout a little bit earlier with
the personality of being a brand, and one person can really just
a hundred X what they couldhave done.
(38:16):
Yeah, and we're starting to seethat.
Yeah, I'm excited about that.
Switching gears a little bit.
I know we mentioned we would.
We would come back to talking alittle bit more about Susie and
just kind of this buildingcomponent.
So help me understand.
I know that you mentioned itwas rebranded a few years ago.
How?
has the company evolved itselfover the last several years and
what does it look like now?
So when I joined Susie,basically the company had raised
(38:40):
about $12 million and it wasoriginally called CrowdTap,
which was the software company.
I spun out of my agency andwhat CrowdTap had done is
amassed about a millionregistered users, consumers who
could earn points for creatingand sharing content on behalf of
brands.
So, like Huggies would say, ifyou're a mom with a baby, take a
picture of your baby in aHuggies box and share it on
Facebook and earn rewards.
That was like their businessmodel.
(39:00):
But once Facebook launchedprogrammatic advertising, that
became less in demand and thebusiness just kind of hit a wall
.
They stopped growing.
They were burning too muchcapital and since I had a vested
interest in the businessbecause I incubated it, the
board asked me to come back andbasically try to figure it out.
And after talking to thecustomers, the one functionality
that customers liked hadnothing to do with content
(39:21):
creation.
There was a polling tool whereyou could ask the users like you
know, what new packaging ofdeodorant do you like best?
And they loved the fact that itwas so instant in terms of the
response from consumers.
There was no sophisticatedresearch tools or analysis there
.
It was just kind of rudimentary, like ABC, like multiple choice
, but they loved it.
So I made the decision thatthat was going to be the
(39:44):
business and at that point thecompany was doing about 10
million in revenue and of it,maybe $500,000 was from this
insights or research tool.
I had to tell the board we'rewalking away from 95% plus of
our revenue to focus on thisother thing.
How did that conversation go?
The main investor from FoundryGroup, seth Levine.
(40:06):
He wanted me to come back onbecause we had a great
relationship and he trusted me.
He wanted me to come back onbecause we had a great
relationship and he trusted me.
The reason he is a prolificentrepreneur is that he isn't
afraid to take risks and heknows how to bet on experienced
entrepreneurs.
Not only did he say go for it,but he gave me an extra $5
(40:26):
million because I needed it tobasically get there, basically
took that next year, tore downthe old business, tried to sell
it.
Nobody wanted to buy it.
Um, and you know, cut the stafffrom 130 people to 30 people
cause we were going to run outof money.
They had just taken on debtthey barely service and
basically came up with a newbusiness model.
I had to rebrand the B2B sidebecause I didn't want to have to
explain that it's crowd tap nowdoes something completely
(40:48):
different.
Um, so came up with Susie.
Came up with the name Susiebecause I'm a huge fan of the
band Phish and I was at MadisonSquare Garden with a friend.
They played the song SusieGreenberg.
I said I'm going to call itSusie, but the reason I chose
somebody's name is that I knewwe were going to be hitting this
age of AI where we were goingto be talking to our
technology-led people.
So I could have called susie,sally or john, it didn't matter,
(41:09):
I wanted to give it a name of aperson and susie was just
ownable.
Um, for letters we were able tobuy the url, etc.
Um, at first it was very quickand dirty.
It was an extension of of kindof the functionality I inherited
, which is like ask these peoplequestions.
You know we kept that originalbase of crowd tap members as
kind of like our panel, if youwill.
Will, and over time I start tolearn more about the market
(41:32):
research industry, because Ididn't know anything about it
and I learned that it's verysophisticated and there's kind
of a lot of deep domainexpertise in terms of the way
that you ask questions, the waythat you analyze the data, the
way that you weight to datastatistical significance.
All these different types ofmethodologies I had never even
heard of and I quickly realizedthat was kind of like over my
(41:55):
head in terms of expertise.
So I hired a woman who's nowour president, katie Gross, who
is a market research veteran andshe's been around working for
the biggest companies out therefor years and when she first saw
our product she was like Ican't believe you guys actually
are this successful with thistype of product.
But it's because I know how tosell and how to storytell, et
cetera.
And she brought on basicallythis whole other faction to the
company of people who areresearch experts and over time
(42:19):
we had kind of this dual path ofkind of my DNA, which has been
storytelling and contentcreation and consumer trends
right, which is ultimately likeone of the outputs of research,
and her and her expertise, whichis on research methodology,
deep domain expertise,understanding different ways to
get panels and differentsegmentations of panels and all
(42:41):
these things that I never eventhought of, and when you combine
the two it ended up being likea Peter Butter and Jelly where
we're able to be very unique inan industry that was starving
for innovation, that had a bunchof sleepy legacy incumbent
companies out there that haven'treally innovated.
And there have been a couple ofsoftware companies, like
Qualtrics being the mostprolific, that had first mover
(43:03):
advantage, surveymonkey beinganother one.
But SurveyMonkey never got tothe enterprise because they
never knew how to service theenterprise.
And Qualtrics the founder, ryanSmith, who's a great
entrepreneur.
He left and when founders leave, a lot of the innovation comes
out.
He owns a bunch of sportsfranchises.
Hopefully I'll follow suit inhis steps one day.
But so we knew that we had anopportunity out there to
(43:26):
innovate and innovate.
We have.
It hasn't all been up and tothe right, but you know we've
taken our lumps.
We've learned a lot over time.
We made the decision just tofocus on servicing large
enterprises, which I think hasbeen a great move, um, and we've
kind of rounded out ouroffering, whether it be enhanced
data security, um, or uh, youknow, very sophisticated service
offerings which clients want.
(43:47):
They just they don't want, whenthey're conducting research,
just to use their password.
Um, leaning into consumertrends and things, I do well to
really build a differentiatedbrand.
So we're nearing 100 million inannual recurring revenue, which
is a big number.
I think it's 0.001% of softwarecompanies get there.
We've raised now $120 million todate and it's a different phase
(44:09):
in the business because, youknow, up until I would say a
year ago, when AI came on board,I was kind of like running a
big ship and I wasn't able to dothe things that I really love
to do as an entrepreneur.
But now with AI, it gives me anability to kind of get my hands
dirty again and it's kind ofreinvigorated me to run the
company and I'm fortunate enoughto be surrounded by just a
(44:33):
great executive team, whichdidn't come easily and we've had
to make a lot of changes to getto the team that we built today
.
But we have a great exec teamthat each has different kind of
specialties and we work welltogether and we have incredible
supportive investors.
Seth, who I told you about,from Foundry Group, is still our
lead investor and througheverything he supported me and
(44:54):
us, as well as the otherinvestors we've had.
So, very fortunate, it'sdefinitely been the best
experience of my career.
Obviously, we're in a verytenuous time running a SaaS
company based upon thedisruption that AI will bestow
on our industry and our company,which is like, it's like
innovate or be or disrupt, or bedisrupted sort of thing, if you
(45:15):
will and that's why, like I,it's like a such a sense of
urgency for me too, to really be, because we're in a position
where we're small enough that wecan move fast, but we're big
enough that we work with a thirdof the fortune 100.
So we're in a really good spot.
There's a lot of new startupscoming up every day, but you
know it's going to take them twoyears to get an MSA with a big,
leading advertiser.
(45:35):
And we're already there.
So we have a headstart.
But we can't rest on ourlaurels or else one day we'll be
the sleepy legacy incumbent,right, and that's kind of where
we're at from a businessstandpoint.
Cool, we'll love that.
I mean congrats on all thesuccess and everything that
you've you've done to get so far.
Um, final question for you whatare some of the key lessons or
guiding principles that you'vefollowed along the way to get
(45:56):
you to where you're at?
I think you always have to bereinventing yourself, both in
terms of your business and youas a person.
Um, you know, so I don't knowif you saw, like Beyonce was
just in a TV commercial for ajeans company and it was like
country-themed and I was like,what does Beyonce have to do
with country?
Well, she's reinventing herself, right?
She's exploring new parts ofmusic and her persona and how
(46:17):
she feels and it's going to keepher relevant.
And I think you have to do thatas an individual, right, and
you have to continually becurious.
You know, I had Mr Youth, whichis focused on reaching young
people, but then social mediacame out and I rebranded it as
MRY, because we wanted to be asocial media company.
And then I went to do asoftware company and that's what
(46:37):
reinventing yourself looks like.
I think there's a big risk ofbeing complacent and doing the
same thing and a company thatkeeps doing the same thing.
And then, quickly, you lookback in the last 20 years,
you're like what have Iaccomplished besides forwarding
emails and joining meetings?
I think you have to reinventyour business and yourself
constantly, based upon how fastthings are moving.
(46:58):
That's not easy to do becausewe're creatures of habit.
I think people alwaysunderestimate the value of a
network, of their personalnetwork.
Just like it's harder to meetclose friends later in life.
It's harder to form yourbusiness network later in life.
When you're young, you should begoing to every single event,
every single corporate gathering, every single group that you
(47:21):
can possibly join, because younever know, like I made the
mistake where I would go to aconference when I was in my
twenties.
If somebody had, like, anonprofit badge, I would like
not sit next to him or her and Iwould like be a heat-seeking
missile to the person that hadNike on their badge.
But, like you never know, ifthe person with Nike is
decision-making power and anonprofit person could be the
CMO of Procter Gamble in fiveyears.
(47:41):
So you also have to have along-term purview it goes back
to important but not urgent andbuild relationships with as many
people as possible, not basedupon like a transactional
approach of what can they do forme today, but just if they look
intelligent and smart and theyhave something interesting to
say, talk to them and then, mostimportantly, mind that
relationship over time.
Find ways to add value.
(48:02):
When I started, suzy, you know,I got a couple of clients off
the bat and the only reason theybecame clients is they were
people who knew and trusted me.
And if, if I didn't have thosepeople to call on, well then I
wouldn't have gotten thebusiness off the ground, because
I don't know anything aboutresearch and the tool wasn't
even that great, right.
So if you're changing jobs, ifyou're going through something
in your, in your career, if youwant to get your kid an
(48:24):
internship one day, your networkis all that matters um,
personally and professionally.
But I think a lot of peopleoverlook building a long-term
professional network becausethey're focused again on the
urgent contact of the moment andthey lose touch with the people
that can't help them in thatmoment but, over a long term,
are most likely to be able tohelp them.
I love that.
(48:44):
I agree with that in everyaspect and I think that's some
incredible wisdom.
So, matt, really appreciate yourtime.
Thank you so much for coming on.
It's been great, thank you.
Thank you for tuning into thisepisode of Seat to Exit.
I hope you found today'sconversation insightful and
valuable.
If you enjoyed the episode,please take a moment to
subscribe, leave a review andshare it with your network, your
(49:06):
support means the world helpsus continue to grow and bring
more incredible guests onto theshow.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Now for more content and updates, follow me on
LinkedIn or Twitter, or you cancheck out MindHire, where we
help startups build exceptionalteams.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Thanks again for listening and I'll see you in
the next episode of Seed to Exit.
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