February 5, 2025 • 36 mins
Join us for a fascinating conversation with Adam Nathan, the innovative mind behind Blaze.ai, a game-changing AI-driven marketing tool crafted specifically for small businesses. Adam's journey from a family business background to spearheading his own venture is nothing short of inspiring. He opens up about how Blaze.ai empowers small business owners to navigate the digital landscape by simplifying content creation, scheduling, and posting, even if they lack marketing expertise. His insights reveal how AI is not just a tool but a transformative force leveling the playing field for entrepreneurs everywhere.
Our discussion takes you through the exhilarating but challenging path of building a successful small business. With anecdotes from his experiences with his previous venture, Almanac, Adam shares how finding the right product-market fit is crucial, and why persistence and customer feedback are more valuable than hefty financial resources. We delve into why a dedicated team with shared goals is essential, and how Adam's stints at giants like Apple and Lyft perfectly equipped him to embrace the entrepreneurial path with passion.
Explore how Blaze.ai is changing the game for small businesses, offering powerful marketing capabilities at an affordable price. Learn about Blaze.ai's mission to democratize marketing resources, enabling small businesses to compete with larger corporations. Adam walks us through Blaze.ai's innovative use of AI to create personalized, brand-consistent content, highlighting how even businesses without an established brand presence can benefit. Experience the excitement of discovering how AI can open new opportunities for growth in today's digital age, making a significant impact in the markets small businesses aim to conquer.
Adam Nathan: Founder & CEO, Blaze
Website: https://www.blaze.ai/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adampnathan/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Blaze-ai
#AdamNathan #BlazeAI #SmallBusinessMarketing #AIMarketing #ContentCreation #DigitalMarketing #SmallBusinessGrowth #AIForEntrepreneurs #StartupSuccess #MarketingInnovation #BusinessSuccess #SmallBusinessOwners #BusinessGrowthTips #BusinessStrategy #EntrepreneurshipTips #SmallBusinessPivots #BusinessPodcast #MichaelDMorrison #BOSS #BusinessOwnership #OklahomaCity
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome to another Small Business, pivots.
I know that business owners canonly say their name and their
company like they can, so we'regoing to let you introduce
yourself to our listeners todaywho you are, where you're from,
your company and a little bitabout you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
My name is Adam Nathan.
I'm the founder and CEO of acompany called Blazeai.
We're the number one AImarketing tool for small
businesses and teams of one.
We help small business owners,entrepreneurs, freelancers,
creatives, consultants, agenciesand so many more people who
really, from the backbone ofAmerica, grow their businesses
faster on the internet, and wedo that by helping you produce
social media content, blog posts, newsletters and websites all
in your brand voice uh that getgenerated, edited, scheduled and
(00:50):
posted automatically for you.
So, uh, we help um a lot offolks that don't have the time
or skills to do marketing, butneed to do great marketing to
grow um to uh get months worthof content out on the internet
to grow awareness and needs and,ultimately, sales.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Wow.
So we got some heavyinformation here, because most
business owners don't have time.
You mentioned that and thengrow your business faster.
So I think you got some earsperked.
So let's introduce the showreal quick and we'll be right
back.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast produced for
small business owners.
(01:27):
I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of BOSS, where
we make business ownershipsimplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(01:48):
as 24 to 48 hours.
Atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom,
let's start with your backgrounda little bit so that our small
business owners can relate.
I know for a lot of ourlisteners they're stuck and it
sounds like you've gottenunstuck.
You found a way to help peoplefaster, so let's start with your
(02:09):
background.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, well, I'm originally from New York City,
born and raised.
I come from a family ofentrepreneurs.
My brother is also a startupfounder, my grandfather started
an insurance company and we allgrew up around my parents who
run a small business together inthe city.
They've been working togetherfor 30 or 40 years, so
throughout my childhood I sawthem really grow and scale their
(02:33):
business across the UnitedStates successfully.
But as the internet came about,they struggled to really move
their business from the offlineworld into the online world and
over the years, at familydinners, my brother and I would
talk to my parents and encouragethem to create more content for
social media or build a websitethey still don't have one or
email with our customersconsistently, which we know is
(02:54):
critical.
For you know, engaging folks,and for my brother and I, this,
all this stuff is second nature.
We both have worked at startupsin the digital world for a long
time, so for us we'd always saythings like oh, it's so easy,
it would just take you a coupleminutes.
But the reality is it's noteasy to figure out how to grow
your business online for manypeople.
Most folks don't have theskills of professional marketers
(03:18):
and they also don't have thetime to learn them on their own
or the resources to hire someone, and so, even though it's
really important for people likemy parents to use the internet
to grow and that's a hugeopportunity to make literally
millions of dollars they didn'thave the skills or time to
really profit from the internet,and so I started Blaze to help
people like my parents, and,obviously, the hundreds of
(03:40):
millions of small businessowners across the world, take
advantage of the internet as agrowth opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Wow, that takes a lot of time to create that content.
Let's go back to the early daysof your company and what that
was like, because I know it'slike a getting married or
honeymoon at first, and then itturns into just I hate my
business, I'm working so manyhours.
Did you go through anythinglike that or did you just blaze
(04:07):
right away?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, I've before Blaze.
I started two other companiesbefore this, and Blaze is
actually the second product thatour team has built together.
We built an initial productcalled Almanac, which was a
collaboration tool for remoteteams, and we sold to really
large enterprises, big companieswho had distributed workforces
across the world.
(04:31):
It was a pretty successfulproduct and we had been working
on that for four years and thenstarted Blaze about a year ago
with a lot of the samecomponents that we had built for
Almanac.
Almanac was a document editorwith things like file management
, and so we were able to use alot of the same code to build an
entirely different product fora different type of customer.
With Blaze, but certainly forthe last, I've been working on
(04:54):
Almanac and Blaze for five years.
Most of that time has been likeeating glass, getting off the
ground in early stages of thecompany.
In startup land we call ittrying to find product market
fit, where you're trying tofigure out how to build a
product that meets an unservedneed in the market, and I think
that's much more art thanscience.
(05:15):
It's a lot of iteration andit's mostly, you know, trying
stuff and then listening tocustomers about why or why not
they like the thing, why, or whynot, they would pay for the
thing and then continuing to trynew stuff from there.
But obviously, even if you'relistening and learning along the
way, you can still make wrongguesses a lot of the time.
And finding product market fitrequires so many things to be
(05:39):
exactly in alignment how yourcustomers, the specific
attributes of the product thatare different than the
competition, how you market,what channels you pick to reach
those customers, your pricing,your onboarding all that needs
to be perfectly in alignment forthings to start to really work.
And that takes time and I thinksome people are lucky to figure
(06:00):
it out pretty quickly.
But you know most uhentrepreneurs, small business
owners, I know uh, you know ittakes some years to become an
overnight success and so, um,with blaze, we actually uh got
product market fit probablywithin the first hours of
launching the product.
So we were really lucky to find, um you know, a sense of fit
with our customers uh, reallyquickly.
(06:20):
But I think you know, even thattook me took me years of
building muscles around,listening to customers and
knowing exactly what to takefrom things that they say to get
to the point where I'm able todo it quickly now.
But yeah, I think you know, formost folks it's starting a
business is not something thatimmediately works overnight.
It takes a long time to get itright and I think the secret is
(06:41):
just to keep going get it right,and I think the secret is just
to keep going.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, that's, that's nice.
What would you say contributedgreatly to your success that
you're experiencing today?
Was it your team?
Was it the knowledge, theexperience?
Kind of share some of that.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, well, I think, overall, it's just about
persistence.
I think you know there's noshame, obviously, in stopping to
work on something, but I likethis idea that, at least in
startups, in tech startups, nostartup dies mid-keystroke,
meaning that it's not like inmost cases, you just run out of
money, the lights turn off asyou're furiously writing code
(07:18):
and that's why you die.
Of course, some companies diebecause they run out of money,
but most companies die becausethey run out of momentum and the
people on the team getdemoralized, they get tired.
They'd rather work on somethingthat's new and exciting.
I think often, the key resourceyou're dealing with in early
stages is momentum, is energy,is excitement.
(07:39):
It's not actually cash.
I think if you have momentumand you're running in the cash,
you will often find more becauseyou're so excited and motivated
to find money.
You're going to ask yourfriends, you'll get a loan,
you'll figure it out.
And I know lots of other people, conversely, who have a lot of
money right now working atbusinesses that don't have
product market fit, that arelike zombie companies, and they
(08:00):
basically failed even thoughthey had millions of dollars in
the bank.
And so I think, early on, it'sreally about persistence and
just putting one foot in frontof the other and not staring
down at your feet but reallylooking up and learning and
listening along the way, and Ithink if you do that for long
enough, you will eventuallyfigure it out.
You will succeed.
But I think you know, certainlyI've worked with the same team
(08:21):
here at Blaze for the last fiveyears.
We have a core group of folksmy co-founder, our head of
design, our head of engineering,our lead engineers who have
been with the company for fiveyears and we all work really
really well together.
Now we understand each other.
We have the same long-termexpectations and desires for
what we want for ourselves, foreach other, for our company.
(08:41):
And that investment and thatdedication, that kind of
security, knowing like no one'sgoing to leave, we're all in
this for the same reasons, forthe long haul, I think helps to
build that sense of it, createssome comfort in the difficulty
of like, yes, even if we haven'tfigured this out, even if some
days are hard, we know that it'snot going to fall apart.
No one's just going to, um,leave each other, we're we're
like, you know, the people oncolumbus's ship, yeah, going to
(09:03):
find a new land where, uh, we're, like you know, the people on
Columbus's ship going to find anew land, where we're in it for
the long haul and no one'sjumping off just when things get
tough.
So I think, yeah, a lot of itis about mentality.
And you know, certainly for mepersonally, I've worked in many
big companies.
Before I worked at Apple, I ranpricing at Lyft.
I worked in, you know, bigconsulting firms.
(09:23):
I worked at the White House.
I worked at many bigorganizations.
But for me, the job I do now,being a founder, is the best job
I've ever had.
It's the job I invest at.
I think my skills, my strengthsas a person, as a professional,
are most closely aligned withthings you need to be good at in
my job.
And so I look at being afounder, being an entrepreneur,
as my career and hopefully know,hopefully Blaze.
(09:43):
I believe Blaze will be aroundfor a very long time, but even
if, for some reason, it ends orwe sell the company or something
happens, you know, I know thatI will go do this again,
probably several more times.
And so I look at what I do asmy career, not just a job.
It's kind of like a calling forme, and so I think about being
an entrepreneur as a 30-yearproject, and so learning along
(10:04):
the way, getting better at mycraft, is a motivation besides
just the company beingsuccessful, because I know that,
no matter what happens withBlaze, I'm not going to go work
for somebody else ever again.
I love working for myself, Ilove having this kind of control
and over my days.
I love being good at the thingsI'm already good at, and so
(10:26):
that helps, I think, get methrough the tough days and
knowing like, hey, there'snothing else I'd rather do,
there's nothing else I can doexcept for this.
So I better buck up.
And you know, if it's a reallybad day, shut the computer, go
to sleep, wake up tomorrow andtry again.
And certainly there's been alot of days like that.
But you know, I think, becauseI've made it through those days,
(10:47):
we're now at the point whereour company is growing, you know
, 30% every single month.
We've gone from from $0 inrevenue last year to um $10
million, uh, in about 15 months.
And so we're, we're goinginsanely fast.
And I know that's, that's,that's yeah.
If you look at just that,you're like, well, adam's a
genius, you know, he's so goodat what he does, but really it's
just the years of practicebefore that have that have
(11:10):
helped, that have trained meessentially, and the rest of our
team, to take advantage of theopportunity that we have now.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
One is the momentum, because I think sometimes
business owners, we forget thisisn't a job, and I love how you
phrased that was it's not a job,and if we were to remember that
at all times, the freedom thatwe have to explore, be creative
and do our own thing is faroutweighs a job in my opinion.
(11:40):
But one of the things youmentioned was your team.
So I know for a lot of smallbusiness owners listening, one
of their biggest challenges isattracting and retaining good
people for their team.
Any insights, any ideas, tipsyou can add to that how you've
done that.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The first thing I'd say is that I think too many
folks think about compensationtoo narrowly, and so obviously
you're hiring someone to do workfor you, but the company in
return provides value to theemployee and there's, I think,
five different types ofcompensation you can offer.
There's cash, which most peoplefocus on, obviously, but then
(12:18):
there's equity, which somebusinesses can provide but some
can, where you actually givesomeone a sense of actual
ownership in the businessthrough shares or options.
There's benefits, so basicallynon-cash tools like healthcare
is a traditional one, butthere's also non-traditional
benefits like innovativevacation policies or remote work
, time off or stipends, lots ofother things you can do to give
(12:43):
people a sense of value beyondjust cash or equity compensation
.
There's also professionalgrowth and development, and so a
lot of people value becomingbetter at what they do while
they work for you, and that'ssomething a company can give to
folks that they value.
And then, lastly, I think it'smission or impact, which is the
sense that you're using yourtime well to benefit other
people besides yourself, thesense that you're using your
(13:06):
time well to benefit otherpeople besides yourself.
And so we look at compensationin those five areas and we try
and maximize.
We've thought reallyintentionally about how do we
craft our value proposition tofind the right people for our
company.
And so our company is.
You know, we have a reallysmall team.
We have 19 people on our teamserving, you know, hundreds of
thousands of users every day,and so we have a high ownership
culture.
(13:26):
Everybody does a lot ofresponsibility With a lot of
trust.
We don't have a lot ofmanagement, we don't have a lot
of meetings, and so we needpeople who thrive under
ownership, are highly, highlycompetent, so that they can do
the job without a lot offeedback or guidance, and so we
have a culture of excellence.
We have very, very highstandards for our work.
We try to get a lot of feedbackor guidance, and so we have a
culture of excellence.
We have very, very highstandards for our work.
We try and get a lot done in ashort period of time, which
(13:48):
means we need people who areable to manage themselves and
really execute with minimalsupervision.
Obviously that's for ourcompany, but many companies are
different.
You can say you know, we have aculture where we need a bunch of
people to do kind of rote tasks, and so we're going to design a
value proposition for thosefolks, but for our company,
(14:08):
that's who we need and so, forexample, the way that we look at
compensation is because we're astartup, we look at cash as
something that we want to makesure that everyone can come to
work every day being their bestselves, and so we want people to
be able to pay their rent ormortgage, go on vacation, make
sure there's food on the table,obviously.
But we don't look at cash asthe main way we can provide
(14:29):
compensation, because we're astartup, we're really early and
so we pay 60% 70% of the marketin terms of cash.
But we really focus on we give90% to 100% of the market on
equity because we want ouremployees to feel like owners in
the business.
Because there's very few people, we want them to stay around
for a long time.
I want them to have the sameincentives as me by thinking,
(14:50):
okay, what's the best long-termthing for the company for me?
And so we think equity is theplace where we can align
incentives there.
We also care a lot aboutprofessional growth and
development because we know ourpeople that come to work at
Blaze are A players.
Even though they're really good, they want to get better, they
want to be pushed kind of likean elite athlete, and so that's
something we really invest inhere.
(15:11):
We also because you can besaying, okay, well, we're
looking.
If you're listening to me,you're like, wow, they're
looking for a needle in thehaystack, that's right.
And so we've broadened theHaystack to be anywhere in the
world.
We have a remote team, we'refully distributed.
We have no offices, so we'reable to find really, really good
(15:32):
people in places like NorthernUtah or Texas or Maine or
Uruguay, where we basically getreally, really great talent for
a relatively cheaper cost thanwe would in San Francisco or New
York City or LA, and thatallows us to that remote benefit
, which is great for a lot offolks, actually helps us find
high quality talent for a cheapprice.
Obviously, I'm talking as a techstartup.
We're able to do a lot of thisstuff that a brick and mortar
(15:54):
business in a local communitycan't.
But I think the same theoryapplies, which is, what are the
skills and behaviors that youthink will help create success
in your business?
What are the skills andbehaviors that you think will
help create success in yourbusiness?
What are must-haves in terms ofthe type of people that you
need?
And then how do you thinkcreatively about how to offer
something to those types ofpeople that would bring them
(16:14):
uniquely into your company?
And I think a lot of companiesthink too much just about cash
and not enough about okay, whatare all the other things we can
offer?
I think, for example, if you'rea local business, you know
there may be a lot of likeworking parents in your town.
Can you offer flexible work orremote work some days to access
a certain part of the talentpool that may be underutilized,
(16:37):
that you can even get for lesscash than you could for somebody
who could work full-time.
Can you think about yourmission or impact?
If you really care about whoyou serve in your community, you
think you're providing anessential good or service.
How do you really emphasize that, build that into your culture?
For example, in all of our allhands, which is a company-wide
meeting we have every Friday, italways starts with examples of
(17:00):
ways that we've helped customersthroughout the week.
There's a channel, a Slack inour Slack where we share.
We call it the love wall, whereanytime a customer says a nice
thing, posts a great review orwe get great feedback in a call,
we share a clip or share ascreenshot, and so we really try
and bring our customers intoour culture, just into kind of
(17:20):
the daily heartbeat of how wework, because we know that that
makes people feel really good,it motivates them, it gives them
a sense of compensation orrewards, even though it's not
paying them.
And again, you know, I think alot of people want meaning and
purpose in what they do and theywill actually take a job for
less cash if they feel like, atthe end of the day, they've done
(17:40):
something good for the world.
And so, again, these are allkind of creative levers that
almost substitute for each other.
And I think if a company isreally clear on it starts with
what do you need to do to besuccessful, what are the core
behaviors or skills, what arethe types of people that have
those and what do those peoplecare about?
And most companies, I justdon't think, have gone through
that intentional strategicexercise of thinking about what
(18:04):
will uniquely make our companysucceed and how does that
translate into a set of skillswe look to hire in folks and how
can we build a valueproposition around that.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Out of all of that, you have clarity and most
business owners.
They've never taken the time toclearly define who they are,
what they stand for, what theycan offer, and they think of a
paycheck, right.
So that's, that is all goodstuff.
Let's talk.
Let's talk about the companyitself.
So we have this thing called AI, which most people You're
(18:33):
listening to Small BusinessPivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours.
Atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(18:53):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
Let's talk about the companyitself.
So we have this thing called AI, which most people have heard
about it.
I say most because I justtalked to a business owner.
He's like I still don'tunderstand what this does.
So let's talk about AI itselfand the benefit, where you think
(19:19):
it's going, how it helps, andsome people are kind of nervous
and scared about it.
So just since you're in thatspace, can you share that and
then we'll talk about yourcompany yeah, so you're right.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Where do you start explaining ai?
How do I explain ai to like alate?
A late person is that wouldthat be helpful?
sure yeah, yeah, well, yeah,certainly, ai has been in the
news a lot this year.
Uh, and it can be confusing,you know ai is is just the kind
of new frontier technology, justlike anything else.
Things like GPS used to becalled AI 20 years ago, and so
(19:52):
what we call AI today will soon,and is rapidly becoming
commonplace.
It's just a way to solve aproblem with technology for
folks.
The AI we talk about today islargely a technology called LLMs
, or large language models, andthe way LLMs work is that, if
you think about the way a lot oftechnology works before, llms
(20:14):
is what I would calldeterministic code, so it's like
A plus B equals C, and so ifyou go to a website and you type
something in um, it says ifthis, then that.
So if you type in uh, you knowI dog plus blue into a, into a
visual studio, you know it willcolor the dog blue, that kind of
(20:35):
thing, um, and so it's very,very logical way of getting
stuff done.
Uh, the way that lms work,though, is probabilistic, and so
it's more like our human brains, where, if we look out into the
world, our brain is saying, ohwell, I can't see that thing in
the distance, but it kind oflooks like a house, and you know
it's shaped like a house andit's colored like a house, so I
think it's a house.
And so the way our human brainswork is is much more inference
(20:57):
or probability based, and soit's.
Even if we don't know somethingto be true, we're kind of
reasoning with the incompletedata.
We have to figure something outbased on our experience in the
past, and so we have now built atechnology that can do that,
where we're able to say you know, if you say, hey, I want to
write a blog post about bluedogs, the way an LLM will work
(21:21):
is that it will read all theinformation on the Internet to
find out anything anyone hasever written about blue dogs,
and it will basically try andmap what you've typed in into
the prompt with all theinformation on the Internet to
come up with a reason to answer.
And so it's not as precisenecessarily as deterministic
code it's not A plus B equals C,but it's much more accurate
(21:43):
most of the time, and so you getto an answer that actually
sounds and feels much morehuman-like than what technology
could do before.
And so what we've done at Blazeis take that essential
technology and combine it withinformation about your brand,
and so in Blaze, you can createa brand kit where, if you give
us even just your website orintegrate your social account,
like your Instagram or yourFacebook page us even just your
(22:04):
website or integrate your socialaccount, like your Instagram or
your Facebook page, we can readthrough all of the posts that
you created, even all of yourinternal documents, to
understand how you write, whattypes of visual content you
typically do, like the vibes ofyour photos, your logo, your
colors or your fonts, along withinformation about your products
and services to createmarketing content like other
social media posts, newsletters,blogs that look and sound and
(22:26):
feel like you.
And so, unlike going to chat GPTif anyone's tried that, which
is basically using kind ofgeneric information from the
internet, what Blaze does is usespecific information about your
business to create content thatis super personalized to you,
and so we think about Blaze asbasically like a virtual
marketer on your team.
It's not just automating partsof your process, but it actually
(22:47):
replaces the person that youmight hire to do social media
content, or an agency that youspend a lot of money to work
with or spending all that timeon your own to try and figure
out what good content looks likewhen you hire Blaze.
It's basically like bringingsomeone on your team who's like
an expert on social media butthat also deeply understands
(23:09):
your business.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
What about those businesses that haven't quite
figured it out?
Does this help them?
So I know that most businessowners they've got so much on
their plate they don't reallyhave a branding guide or a style
guide.
How does this work for those?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I'd say about a third of our customers have
basically no presence in thechannel that they want to invest
in, so they don't have awebsite, or they don't have an
Instagram account or Facebookaccount yet, or they don't have
a blog.
And yeah, when it comes tocreating a brand kit, all you
need is like a sentence or aparagraph of what you do.
If you've texted your friendabout hey, our business does
this, or you've writtensomething in a proposal, you can
(23:41):
even use a document or just asingle paragraph of copy to
create a brand voice.
We also have the ability tocreate a logo or a visual style
from a set of templates, so youcan describe the kind of brand
you want and we can create onefor you in the product and you
can adjust it from there.
Or if there's another brand outthere that you like say a
competitor, where you're likehey, I really like their photo
style or I like their colors ortheir vibe, you can insert their
(24:04):
website into our tool and wecan create a brand for you based
on those benchmarks that youlike.
And so it's definitely a tooldesign for even people that have
done nothing yet on socialmedia or on SEO or on their
website, and we can help thosefolks.
But I'd say the other 70% ofpeople and your listeners your
listeners might fall into thiscategory as well um, are doing
(24:27):
some stuff today but, veryadmittedly, they don't like
anything they're doing and, moreimportantly, it's not working.
And so you know they post onsocial media once a week or
twice a week, but they think thecontent's bad, it's not
converting at all.
You know no one's liking it orgoing or using it to go to the
website, and that's where we canalso really help.
We have a feature in Blazewhere you can create a month's
(24:51):
or a quarter's worth of content.
So it can create 30, 60, 90,120 posts for Instagram just
from a single prompt.
So you can say, hey, I want totalk about pet food for the
holidays and I want content forall of November and December,
and Blaze can create thecaptions, the visual content.
It will schedule it, it willpost it for you, and that
consistency of getting contentout there, along with the high
quality content that we knowworks, we've seen generates a
(25:14):
ton of growth for our customers.
We've had customers grow fromzero to 10,000 Instagram
followers in a couple months.
We've had customers go fromnothing to the first page of
Google, and all that's basicallythe consistency of content,
along with the quality thatleads to actual growth in
awareness and leads in sales forour customers.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
That's amazing and, having come from the marketing
world myself that's myeducational background, I'm a
business coach.
Now, that could give them somuch time back not having to
worry about it.
So how do all the algorithmsbecause we hear about this from
time to time where Google'schanging this and that, and
Facebook and LinkedIn?
(25:54):
How does it work with them asfar as their policies or their
updates, whatever regulations Iguess that you call it?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
policies or their updates, whatever regulations I
guess that you call it.
Certainly, uh, google changessometimes how its algorithms
work and, yeah, linkedin orother platforms may change, um,
you know how their feedprioritizes content.
Um, spend time on our side, uh,updating the prompts so that,
on the back end, how webasically take what you want and
turn it into content to reflectthe latest changes and we can
see how the how our content, howhow content that plays creates
(26:32):
is performing, and so we can seekind of the efficacy of how our
tool is working and makeadjustments along the way.
We also hear from customers allthe time, so if content is not
working, they'll say, hey, uh,you know, um, for example,
linkedin just allowed you, uhusers to attach a document or
PDF to a post, and so nowthere's a ton of uh new content
(26:53):
that's not just showing an imageon LinkedIn, but it's actually
leading to a document, and so,um, that's something a lot of
our customers wanted, and so, um, we we heard about that last
week.
This week we added a feature.
We were super responsive aboutBlaze to what our customers are
telling us, because our strategyis generally, if we build stuff
that our customers want,they'll stay with us, they'll be
happy with us, and that's howwe grow our business.
We generally, I'd say none ofthe stuff that we do is just a
(27:17):
bright idea on our side.
It almost always comes fromcustomers who write in to us.
I talk to two to threecustomers every single day on
the phone just to see how theproduct's working for them and
what we can do to improve it ormake it even better for them.
And all of that data both whatwe hear in the world about
PopFriends but, even moreimportantly for us, what our
customers are asking for guideshow we get all the products.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
That's just incredible, and so, for all of
our listeners, I encourage youto explore this, because not
only do you get brandingconsistency, you don't have to
try to figure out the ongoingmoving algorithms, and I mean
the list just goes on.
Plus, it's not even a fractionof the cost of having someone on
your team.
It's like pennies not evenpennies compared to having one
(28:05):
or two people that may not beexperienced in all those areas.
So this helps with Google andsocial media.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, so we do social media content Instagram,
facebook, linkedin, twitter.
We do video content for TikTok,youtube.
We do SEO content, so that'sblog posts that help you rank on
Google.
Newsletters and lifecycleemails, sales materials.
If you have a service businesswhere you need to email or text
(28:35):
folks, we can create SMSmessages or outbound emails and
then also customer service copy,so email responses to typical
complaints or issues yourcustomers bring up help center
documentation.
So it's really the fulllifecycle of everything you need
to help grow your business.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That's amazing, amazing.
Where do you see AI going?
In your opinion, what's kind ofthe next thing we can look
forward to?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That's a great question.
You know there's amazing stuffcoming out every day, but you
know, we we at Blaze are reallyfocused on really our customers
more than the technology, and sowe were basically, you know,
the biggest and, I'd say, one ofthe only tools that serves
small businesses, entrepreneurs,freelancers, and so I think for
too long, the customers weserve have not had good enough
(29:25):
tools that have helped themcompete with larger competitors
or even make the most of theirown opportunities, and so we see
AI doing usually leveling theplaying field for these really
small teams or teams of one thataren't professional marketers,
don't have the time or skills tofigure out how to do enough
marketing or good enoughmarketing to grow their business
.
And what we already seehappening is that AI is leveling
(29:48):
the playing field for thesebusinesses where now, even if
you're a team of one, you canbasically have an expert social
media manager, an expert emailmarketer, an expert organic
content lead to boost your SEOon your team for $35 a month,
and so now, basically, this bigthing that businesses couldn't
do before, which is figure outhow to grow, they now can do
really cheaply, reallyefficiently, really quickly, and
(30:10):
so I think we'll continue thetechnology will continue to make
it easier and better and fasterto make more social media
content, more video content,better emails, fast, better
websites.
But already I think the gamehas changed for small businesses
, where this thing that you hadno ability to do before, which
is, yeah, you can post to socialmedia, but you couldn't figure
(30:30):
out what is good content.
Or yeah, I could send an email,but I couldn't figure out well,
what should I write thatconverts users.
Or yeah, I could build awebsite in Squarespace, but what
should I put in the websitethat's good.
All of those unsolved problemsare now solvable.
They're all things that anysmall business owner can solve,
and so I think the dynamics ofbusiness I think in this country
, around the world are changing,where the businesses that win
(30:52):
now won't be large businesses,but they'll be businesses that
take advantage of this newtechnology, and I think you'll
see really small businesses beable to make millions of dollars
from the Internet in ways theycouldn't before.
And so it won't be necessarilyjust about what the technology
is doing, but which businessesout there, even in a local
market, take advantage of allthese rapid changes to help grow
(31:13):
their business faster.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, that's.
The window of opportunity forsmall business owners has never
been more open.
If you will, I know for me,when I started my business
decades ago, that we didn't haveaccess to what the big boys and
girls had.
You know, the corporations, theenterprises and if you did, it
cost you hundreds of thousandsof dollars to even get on the
(31:37):
same playing field.
And today this technology is.
You're playing in the same sameplayground with the
corporations and making somenoise, if you will, and this, in
my opinion, is good for thosebusiness owners that you know.
If you're a service-basedbusiness with you know kind of
employee staff, this still worksfor you too.
(31:58):
You still got to get your brandout there, and so it's not just
for the tech people or thesolopreneurs, it's for everybody
.
It sounds like.
And I did look at your pricingListeners go.
You can't get this kind ofstuff for less money.
It's very affordable.
I love the website and all thatit offers.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, making our products affordable is really
important to us.
There's many products out therethat you know just do one part
of what our product does.
They just do LinkedIn posts,for example, or just do SEO that
are, you know, hundreds ofdollars or thousands of dollars,
even per month, and ourproducts $35.
And we, we we set that priceattention intentionally because
we want to make sure that thetechnology that we're building
(32:41):
is accessible to as many smallbusinesses and entrepreneurs as
possible.
We don't think it should costyou thousands of dollars to grow
your business faster, and it'sreally cool to see the amount of
growth in terms of sales orleads we produce for customers.
And if you were to calculatethe per lead price or the price
per dollar that it costs you togenerate that dollar With Blaze,
(33:03):
it's like a cent or less than acent, and so it can produce
amazing efficiencies if youreally lean into the technology
and I know it kind of soundsscary AI and there's all these
movies out there of like AItaking over the world.
You know, I think the thing tofear is not that AI is going to
take your job or anything else,but that a company that knows
how to use AI is going to takeyour customers, they're going to
(33:24):
take your markets there,they're going to take your
revenue, and I think it's just abig opportunity for lots of
folks that have struggled withyou know how do I get more
customers?
How do I get how to make moremoney to really get a leg up in
their local market and make themost of the idea that they have?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Well, our purpose as a company and a podcast is to
help businesses grow faster, andthis is one of those tools they
can use to do that.
So I appreciate you sharing,and I bet a lot of our listeners
have more questions or theywant to follow you for more
information.
Where's the best place to findyou and do that?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, so everything I talked about is available at
blazeai.
We have a ton of free resources.
Early next year, we'relaunching a community where
other small business owners willhelp.
Other small business ownerswill be there too, but it's
really a free resource for folksto get answers to questions
around marketing and growth andcustomer service, and we'll have
different communities for alldifferent types of industries.
(34:19):
We serve from real estate tofinancial advising, to fitness,
to small local businesses onMain Street, and so we want
anybody who is trying to figureout these questions on how to
grow faster to be able toleverage information and
community.
Even if you don't pay for ourproducts as a customer, we still
want you to come and try andhelp yourself to make more money
(34:39):
from the internet.
So all that's available atblazeai very cool and listeners.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I encourage you.
Another reason to explore thisis because you're passionate
about small business owners anda lot of businesses out there
are not.
They're just out there to makemore money and you're really
here to serve and help growsmall businesses because, like
you said, they're the backboneof our country.
So grow small businesses Cause,like you said, they're the
backbone of our country.
So you've been a wealth ofinformation and a blessing to
(35:06):
many, and I always end ourconversations with one question.
If you were speaking in frontof a large audience of small
business owners in all seasonsof life, business, different
sizes, what's one thing that'sapplicable to all of them?
It could be a quote, a book,just insight.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, I just tell people just keep going If you
don't give up, you won't succeed.
So yeah, I know it's hard andsome days suck, but winning
comes from not losing.
Winning comes from just puttingone foot in front of the other,
and every great business heroor leader you see out there that
(35:46):
you look up to has had thosesame tough days, probably even
tougher, and the only reasonthey're where they are is
because they didn't give up, andso neither should you.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Awesome, awesome.
Well, thank you again, adam.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for listening toSmall Business Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing yours.
Boss offers flexible businessloans with business coaching
support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(36:14):
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom
dot com.
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at Michael at
Michael D Morrison dot com.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
All right, welcome to another Small Business, pivots.
I know that business owners canonly say their name and their
company like they can, so we'regoing to let you introduce
yourself to our listeners todaywho you are, where you're from,
your company and a little bitabout you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
My name is Adam Nathan.
I'm the founder and CEO of acompany called Blazeai.
We're the number one AImarketing tool for small
businesses and teams of one.
We help small business owners,entrepreneurs, freelancers,
creatives, consultants, agenciesand so many more people who
really, from the backbone ofAmerica, grow their businesses
faster on the internet, and wedo that by helping you produce
social media content, blog posts, newsletters and websites all
in your brand voice uh that getgenerated, edited, scheduled and
(00:50):
posted automatically for you.
So, uh, we help um a lot offolks that don't have the time
or skills to do marketing, butneed to do great marketing to
grow um to uh get months worthof content out on the internet
to grow awareness and needs and,ultimately, sales.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Wow.
So we got some heavyinformation here, because most
business owners don't have time.
You mentioned that and thengrow your business faster.
So I think you got some earsperked.
So let's introduce the showreal quick and we'll be right
back.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast produced for
small business owners.
(01:27):
I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of BOSS, where
we make business ownershipsimplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(01:48):
as 24 to 48 hours.
Atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom,
let's start with your backgrounda little bit so that our small
business owners can relate.
I know for a lot of ourlisteners they're stuck and it
sounds like you've gottenunstuck.
You found a way to help peoplefaster, so let's start with your
(02:09):
background.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, well, I'm originally from New York City,
born and raised.
I come from a family ofentrepreneurs.
My brother is also a startupfounder, my grandfather started
an insurance company and we allgrew up around my parents who
run a small business together inthe city.
They've been working togetherfor 30 or 40 years, so
throughout my childhood I sawthem really grow and scale their
(02:33):
business across the UnitedStates successfully.
But as the internet came about,they struggled to really move
their business from the offlineworld into the online world and
over the years, at familydinners, my brother and I would
talk to my parents and encouragethem to create more content for
social media or build a websitethey still don't have one or
email with our customersconsistently, which we know is
(02:54):
critical.
For you know, engaging folks,and for my brother and I, this,
all this stuff is second nature.
We both have worked at startupsin the digital world for a long
time, so for us we'd always saythings like oh, it's so easy,
it would just take you a coupleminutes.
But the reality is it's noteasy to figure out how to grow
your business online for manypeople.
Most folks don't have theskills of professional marketers
(03:18):
and they also don't have thetime to learn them on their own
or the resources to hire someone, and so, even though it's
really important for people likemy parents to use the internet
to grow and that's a hugeopportunity to make literally
millions of dollars they didn'thave the skills or time to
really profit from the internet,and so I started Blaze to help
people like my parents, and,obviously, the hundreds of
(03:40):
millions of small businessowners across the world, take
advantage of the internet as agrowth opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Wow, that takes a lot of time to create that content.
Let's go back to the early daysof your company and what that
was like, because I know it'slike a getting married or
honeymoon at first, and then itturns into just I hate my
business, I'm working so manyhours.
Did you go through anythinglike that or did you just blaze
(04:07):
right away?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, I've before Blaze.
I started two other companiesbefore this, and Blaze is
actually the second product thatour team has built together.
We built an initial productcalled Almanac, which was a
collaboration tool for remoteteams, and we sold to really
large enterprises, big companieswho had distributed workforces
across the world.
(04:31):
It was a pretty successfulproduct and we had been working
on that for four years and thenstarted Blaze about a year ago
with a lot of the samecomponents that we had built for
Almanac.
Almanac was a document editorwith things like file management
, and so we were able to use alot of the same code to build an
entirely different product fora different type of customer.
With Blaze, but certainly forthe last, I've been working on
(04:54):
Almanac and Blaze for five years.
Most of that time has been likeeating glass, getting off the
ground in early stages of thecompany.
In startup land we call ittrying to find product market
fit, where you're trying tofigure out how to build a
product that meets an unservedneed in the market, and I think
that's much more art thanscience.
(05:15):
It's a lot of iteration andit's mostly, you know, trying
stuff and then listening tocustomers about why or why not
they like the thing, why, or whynot, they would pay for the
thing and then continuing to trynew stuff from there.
But obviously, even if you'relistening and learning along the
way, you can still make wrongguesses a lot of the time.
And finding product market fitrequires so many things to be
(05:39):
exactly in alignment how yourcustomers, the specific
attributes of the product thatare different than the
competition, how you market,what channels you pick to reach
those customers, your pricing,your onboarding all that needs
to be perfectly in alignment forthings to start to really work.
And that takes time and I thinksome people are lucky to figure
(06:00):
it out pretty quickly.
But you know most uhentrepreneurs, small business
owners, I know uh, you know ittakes some years to become an
overnight success and so, um,with blaze, we actually uh got
product market fit probablywithin the first hours of
launching the product.
So we were really lucky to find, um you know, a sense of fit
with our customers uh, reallyquickly.
(06:20):
But I think you know, even thattook me took me years of
building muscles around,listening to customers and
knowing exactly what to takefrom things that they say to get
to the point where I'm able todo it quickly now.
But yeah, I think you know, formost folks it's starting a
business is not something thatimmediately works overnight.
It takes a long time to get itright and I think the secret is
(06:41):
just to keep going get it right,and I think the secret is just
to keep going.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, that's, that's nice.
What would you say contributedgreatly to your success that
you're experiencing today?
Was it your team?
Was it the knowledge, theexperience?
Kind of share some of that.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, well, I think, overall, it's just about
persistence.
I think you know there's noshame, obviously, in stopping to
work on something, but I likethis idea that, at least in
startups, in tech startups, nostartup dies mid-keystroke,
meaning that it's not like inmost cases, you just run out of
money, the lights turn off asyou're furiously writing code
(07:18):
and that's why you die.
Of course, some companies diebecause they run out of money,
but most companies die becausethey run out of momentum and the
people on the team getdemoralized, they get tired.
They'd rather work on somethingthat's new and exciting.
I think often, the key resourceyou're dealing with in early
stages is momentum, is energy,is excitement.
(07:39):
It's not actually cash.
I think if you have momentumand you're running in the cash,
you will often find more becauseyou're so excited and motivated
to find money.
You're going to ask yourfriends, you'll get a loan,
you'll figure it out.
And I know lots of other people, conversely, who have a lot of
money right now working atbusinesses that don't have
product market fit, that arelike zombie companies, and they
(08:00):
basically failed even thoughthey had millions of dollars in
the bank.
And so I think, early on, it'sreally about persistence and
just putting one foot in frontof the other and not staring
down at your feet but reallylooking up and learning and
listening along the way, and Ithink if you do that for long
enough, you will eventuallyfigure it out.
You will succeed.
But I think you know, certainlyI've worked with the same team
(08:21):
here at Blaze for the last fiveyears.
We have a core group of folksmy co-founder, our head of
design, our head of engineering,our lead engineers who have
been with the company for fiveyears and we all work really
really well together.
Now we understand each other.
We have the same long-termexpectations and desires for
what we want for ourselves, foreach other, for our company.
(08:41):
And that investment and thatdedication, that kind of
security, knowing like no one'sgoing to leave, we're all in
this for the same reasons, forthe long haul, I think helps to
build that sense of it, createssome comfort in the difficulty
of like, yes, even if we haven'tfigured this out, even if some
days are hard, we know that it'snot going to fall apart.
No one's just going to, um,leave each other, we're we're
like, you know, the people oncolumbus's ship, yeah, going to
(09:03):
find a new land where, uh, we're, like you know, the people on
Columbus's ship going to find anew land, where we're in it for
the long haul and no one'sjumping off just when things get
tough.
So I think, yeah, a lot of itis about mentality.
And you know, certainly for mepersonally, I've worked in many
big companies.
Before I worked at Apple, I ranpricing at Lyft.
I worked in, you know, bigconsulting firms.
(09:23):
I worked at the White House.
I worked at many bigorganizations.
But for me, the job I do now,being a founder, is the best job
I've ever had.
It's the job I invest at.
I think my skills, my strengthsas a person, as a professional,
are most closely aligned withthings you need to be good at in
my job.
And so I look at being afounder, being an entrepreneur,
as my career and hopefully know,hopefully Blaze.
(09:43):
I believe Blaze will be aroundfor a very long time, but even
if, for some reason, it ends orwe sell the company or something
happens, you know, I know thatI will go do this again,
probably several more times.
And so I look at what I do asmy career, not just a job.
It's kind of like a calling forme, and so I think about being
an entrepreneur as a 30-yearproject, and so learning along
(10:04):
the way, getting better at mycraft, is a motivation besides
just the company beingsuccessful, because I know that,
no matter what happens withBlaze, I'm not going to go work
for somebody else ever again.
I love working for myself, Ilove having this kind of control
and over my days.
I love being good at the thingsI'm already good at, and so
(10:26):
that helps, I think, get methrough the tough days and
knowing like, hey, there'snothing else I'd rather do,
there's nothing else I can doexcept for this.
So I better buck up.
And you know, if it's a reallybad day, shut the computer, go
to sleep, wake up tomorrow andtry again.
And certainly there's been alot of days like that.
But you know, I think, becauseI've made it through those days,
(10:47):
we're now at the point whereour company is growing, you know
, 30% every single month.
We've gone from from $0 inrevenue last year to um $10
million, uh, in about 15 months.
And so we're, we're goinginsanely fast.
And I know that's, that's,that's yeah.
If you look at just that,you're like, well, adam's a
genius, you know, he's so goodat what he does, but really it's
just the years of practicebefore that have that have
(11:10):
helped, that have trained meessentially, and the rest of our
team, to take advantage of theopportunity that we have now.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
One is the momentum, because I think sometimes
business owners, we forget thisisn't a job, and I love how you
phrased that was it's not a job,and if we were to remember that
at all times, the freedom thatwe have to explore, be creative
and do our own thing is faroutweighs a job in my opinion.
(11:40):
But one of the things youmentioned was your team.
So I know for a lot of smallbusiness owners listening, one
of their biggest challenges isattracting and retaining good
people for their team.
Any insights, any ideas, tipsyou can add to that how you've
done that.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The first thing I'd say is that I think too many
folks think about compensationtoo narrowly, and so obviously
you're hiring someone to do workfor you, but the company in
return provides value to theemployee and there's, I think,
five different types ofcompensation you can offer.
There's cash, which most peoplefocus on, obviously, but then
(12:18):
there's equity, which somebusinesses can provide but some
can, where you actually givesomeone a sense of actual
ownership in the businessthrough shares or options.
There's benefits, so basicallynon-cash tools like healthcare
is a traditional one, butthere's also non-traditional
benefits like innovativevacation policies or remote work
, time off or stipends, lots ofother things you can do to give
(12:43):
people a sense of value beyondjust cash or equity compensation
.
There's also professionalgrowth and development, and so a
lot of people value becomingbetter at what they do while
they work for you, and that'ssomething a company can give to
folks that they value.
And then, lastly, I think it'smission or impact, which is the
sense that you're using yourtime well to benefit other
people besides yourself, thesense that you're using your
(13:06):
time well to benefit otherpeople besides yourself.
And so we look at compensationin those five areas and we try
and maximize.
We've thought reallyintentionally about how do we
craft our value proposition tofind the right people for our
company.
And so our company is.
You know, we have a reallysmall team.
We have 19 people on our teamserving, you know, hundreds of
thousands of users every day,and so we have a high ownership
culture.
(13:26):
Everybody does a lot ofresponsibility With a lot of
trust.
We don't have a lot ofmanagement, we don't have a lot
of meetings, and so we needpeople who thrive under
ownership, are highly, highlycompetent, so that they can do
the job without a lot offeedback or guidance, and so we
have a culture of excellence.
We have very, very highstandards for our work.
We try to get a lot of feedbackor guidance, and so we have a
culture of excellence.
We have very, very highstandards for our work.
We try and get a lot done in ashort period of time, which
(13:48):
means we need people who areable to manage themselves and
really execute with minimalsupervision.
Obviously that's for ourcompany, but many companies are
different.
You can say you know, we have aculture where we need a bunch of
people to do kind of rote tasks, and so we're going to design a
value proposition for thosefolks, but for our company,
(14:08):
that's who we need and so, forexample, the way that we look at
compensation is because we're astartup, we look at cash as
something that we want to makesure that everyone can come to
work every day being their bestselves, and so we want people to
be able to pay their rent ormortgage, go on vacation, make
sure there's food on the table,obviously.
But we don't look at cash asthe main way we can provide
(14:29):
compensation, because we're astartup, we're really early and
so we pay 60% 70% of the marketin terms of cash.
But we really focus on we give90% to 100% of the market on
equity because we want ouremployees to feel like owners in
the business.
Because there's very few people, we want them to stay around
for a long time.
I want them to have the sameincentives as me by thinking,
(14:50):
okay, what's the best long-termthing for the company for me?
And so we think equity is theplace where we can align
incentives there.
We also care a lot aboutprofessional growth and
development because we know ourpeople that come to work at
Blaze are A players.
Even though they're really good, they want to get better, they
want to be pushed kind of likean elite athlete, and so that's
something we really invest inhere.
(15:11):
We also because you can besaying, okay, well, we're
looking.
If you're listening to me,you're like, wow, they're
looking for a needle in thehaystack, that's right.
And so we've broadened theHaystack to be anywhere in the
world.
We have a remote team, we'refully distributed.
We have no offices, so we'reable to find really, really good
(15:32):
people in places like NorthernUtah or Texas or Maine or
Uruguay, where we basically getreally, really great talent for
a relatively cheaper cost thanwe would in San Francisco or New
York City or LA, and thatallows us to that remote benefit
, which is great for a lot offolks, actually helps us find
high quality talent for a cheapprice.
Obviously, I'm talking as a techstartup.
We're able to do a lot of thisstuff that a brick and mortar
(15:54):
business in a local communitycan't.
But I think the same theoryapplies, which is, what are the
skills and behaviors that youthink will help create success
in your business?
What are the skills andbehaviors that you think will
help create success in yourbusiness?
What are must-haves in terms ofthe type of people that you
need?
And then how do you thinkcreatively about how to offer
something to those types ofpeople that would bring them
(16:14):
uniquely into your company?
And I think a lot of companiesthink too much just about cash
and not enough about okay, whatare all the other things we can
offer?
I think, for example, if you'rea local business, you know
there may be a lot of likeworking parents in your town.
Can you offer flexible work orremote work some days to access
a certain part of the talentpool that may be underutilized,
(16:37):
that you can even get for lesscash than you could for somebody
who could work full-time.
Can you think about yourmission or impact?
If you really care about whoyou serve in your community, you
think you're providing anessential good or service.
How do you really emphasize that, build that into your culture?
For example, in all of our allhands, which is a company-wide
meeting we have every Friday, italways starts with examples of
(17:00):
ways that we've helped customersthroughout the week.
There's a channel, a Slack inour Slack where we share.
We call it the love wall, whereanytime a customer says a nice
thing, posts a great review orwe get great feedback in a call,
we share a clip or share ascreenshot, and so we really try
and bring our customers intoour culture, just into kind of
(17:20):
the daily heartbeat of how wework, because we know that that
makes people feel really good,it motivates them, it gives them
a sense of compensation orrewards, even though it's not
paying them.
And again, you know, I think alot of people want meaning and
purpose in what they do and theywill actually take a job for
less cash if they feel like, atthe end of the day, they've done
(17:40):
something good for the world.
And so, again, these are allkind of creative levers that
almost substitute for each other.
And I think if a company isreally clear on it starts with
what do you need to do to besuccessful, what are the core
behaviors or skills, what arethe types of people that have
those and what do those peoplecare about?
And most companies, I justdon't think, have gone through
that intentional strategicexercise of thinking about what
(18:04):
will uniquely make our companysucceed and how does that
translate into a set of skillswe look to hire in folks and how
can we build a valueproposition around that.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Out of all of that, you have clarity and most
business owners.
They've never taken the time toclearly define who they are,
what they stand for, what theycan offer, and they think of a
paycheck, right.
So that's, that is all goodstuff.
Let's talk.
Let's talk about the companyitself.
So we have this thing called AI, which most people You're
(18:33):
listening to Small BusinessPivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours.
Atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(18:53):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
Let's talk about the companyitself.
So we have this thing called AI, which most people have heard
about it.
I say most because I justtalked to a business owner.
He's like I still don'tunderstand what this does.
So let's talk about AI itselfand the benefit, where you think
(19:19):
it's going, how it helps, andsome people are kind of nervous
and scared about it.
So just since you're in thatspace, can you share that and
then we'll talk about yourcompany yeah, so you're right.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Where do you start explaining ai?
How do I explain ai to like alate?
A late person is that wouldthat be helpful?
sure yeah, yeah, well, yeah,certainly, ai has been in the
news a lot this year.
Uh, and it can be confusing,you know ai is is just the kind
of new frontier technology, justlike anything else.
Things like GPS used to becalled AI 20 years ago, and so
(19:52):
what we call AI today will soon,and is rapidly becoming
commonplace.
It's just a way to solve aproblem with technology for
folks.
The AI we talk about today islargely a technology called LLMs
, or large language models, andthe way LLMs work is that, if
you think about the way a lot oftechnology works before, llms
(20:14):
is what I would calldeterministic code, so it's like
A plus B equals C, and so ifyou go to a website and you type
something in um, it says ifthis, then that.
So if you type in uh, you knowI dog plus blue into a, into a
visual studio, you know it willcolor the dog blue, that kind of
(20:35):
thing, um, and so it's very,very logical way of getting
stuff done.
Uh, the way that lms work,though, is probabilistic, and so
it's more like our human brains, where, if we look out into the
world, our brain is saying, ohwell, I can't see that thing in
the distance, but it kind oflooks like a house, and you know
it's shaped like a house andit's colored like a house, so I
think it's a house.
And so the way our human brainswork is is much more inference
(20:57):
or probability based, and soit's.
Even if we don't know somethingto be true, we're kind of
reasoning with the incompletedata.
We have to figure something outbased on our experience in the
past, and so we have now built atechnology that can do that,
where we're able to say you know, if you say, hey, I want to
write a blog post about bluedogs, the way an LLM will work
(21:21):
is that it will read all theinformation on the Internet to
find out anything anyone hasever written about blue dogs,
and it will basically try andmap what you've typed in into
the prompt with all theinformation on the Internet to
come up with a reason to answer.
And so it's not as precisenecessarily as deterministic
code it's not A plus B equals C,but it's much more accurate
(21:43):
most of the time, and so you getto an answer that actually
sounds and feels much morehuman-like than what technology
could do before.
And so what we've done at Blazeis take that essential
technology and combine it withinformation about your brand,
and so in Blaze, you can createa brand kit where, if you give
us even just your website orintegrate your social account,
like your Instagram or yourFacebook page us even just your
(22:04):
website or integrate your socialaccount, like your Instagram or
your Facebook page, we can readthrough all of the posts that
you created, even all of yourinternal documents, to
understand how you write, whattypes of visual content you
typically do, like the vibes ofyour photos, your logo, your
colors or your fonts, along withinformation about your products
and services to createmarketing content like other
social media posts, newsletters,blogs that look and sound and
(22:26):
feel like you.
And so, unlike going to chat GPTif anyone's tried that, which
is basically using kind ofgeneric information from the
internet, what Blaze does is usespecific information about your
business to create content thatis super personalized to you,
and so we think about Blaze asbasically like a virtual
marketer on your team.
It's not just automating partsof your process, but it actually
(22:47):
replaces the person that youmight hire to do social media
content, or an agency that youspend a lot of money to work
with or spending all that timeon your own to try and figure
out what good content looks likewhen you hire Blaze.
It's basically like bringingsomeone on your team who's like
an expert on social media butthat also deeply understands
(23:09):
your business.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
What about those businesses that haven't quite
figured it out?
Does this help them?
So I know that most businessowners they've got so much on
their plate they don't reallyhave a branding guide or a style
guide.
How does this work for those?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I'd say about a third of our customers have
basically no presence in thechannel that they want to invest
in, so they don't have awebsite, or they don't have an
Instagram account or Facebookaccount yet, or they don't have
a blog.
And yeah, when it comes tocreating a brand kit, all you
need is like a sentence or aparagraph of what you do.
If you've texted your friendabout hey, our business does
this, or you've writtensomething in a proposal, you can
(23:41):
even use a document or just asingle paragraph of copy to
create a brand voice.
We also have the ability tocreate a logo or a visual style
from a set of templates, so youcan describe the kind of brand
you want and we can create onefor you in the product and you
can adjust it from there.
Or if there's another brand outthere that you like say a
competitor, where you're likehey, I really like their photo
style or I like their colors ortheir vibe, you can insert their
(24:04):
website into our tool and wecan create a brand for you based
on those benchmarks that youlike.
And so it's definitely a tooldesign for even people that have
done nothing yet on socialmedia or on SEO or on their
website, and we can help thosefolks.
But I'd say the other 70% ofpeople and your listeners your
listeners might fall into thiscategory as well um, are doing
(24:27):
some stuff today but, veryadmittedly, they don't like
anything they're doing and, moreimportantly, it's not working.
And so you know they post onsocial media once a week or
twice a week, but they think thecontent's bad, it's not
converting at all.
You know no one's liking it orgoing or using it to go to the
website, and that's where we canalso really help.
We have a feature in Blazewhere you can create a month's
(24:51):
or a quarter's worth of content.
So it can create 30, 60, 90,120 posts for Instagram just
from a single prompt.
So you can say, hey, I want totalk about pet food for the
holidays and I want content forall of November and December,
and Blaze can create thecaptions, the visual content.
It will schedule it, it willpost it for you, and that
consistency of getting contentout there, along with the high
quality content that we knowworks, we've seen generates a
(25:14):
ton of growth for our customers.
We've had customers grow fromzero to 10,000 Instagram
followers in a couple months.
We've had customers go fromnothing to the first page of
Google, and all that's basicallythe consistency of content,
along with the quality thatleads to actual growth in
awareness and leads in sales forour customers.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
That's amazing and, having come from the marketing
world myself that's myeducational background, I'm a
business coach.
Now, that could give them somuch time back not having to
worry about it.
So how do all the algorithmsbecause we hear about this from
time to time where Google'schanging this and that, and
Facebook and LinkedIn?
(25:54):
How does it work with them asfar as their policies or their
updates, whatever regulations Iguess that you call it?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
policies or their updates, whatever regulations I
guess that you call it.
Certainly, uh, google changessometimes how its algorithms
work and, yeah, linkedin orother platforms may change, um,
you know how their feedprioritizes content.
Um, spend time on our side, uh,updating the prompts so that,
on the back end, how webasically take what you want and
turn it into content to reflectthe latest changes and we can
see how the how our content, howhow content that plays creates
(26:32):
is performing, and so we can seekind of the efficacy of how our
tool is working and makeadjustments along the way.
We also hear from customers allthe time, so if content is not
working, they'll say, hey, uh,you know, um, for example,
linkedin just allowed you, uhusers to attach a document or
PDF to a post, and so nowthere's a ton of uh new content
(26:53):
that's not just showing an imageon LinkedIn, but it's actually
leading to a document, and so,um, that's something a lot of
our customers wanted, and so, um, we we heard about that last
week.
This week we added a feature.
We were super responsive aboutBlaze to what our customers are
telling us, because our strategyis generally, if we build stuff
that our customers want,they'll stay with us, they'll be
happy with us, and that's howwe grow our business.
We generally, I'd say none ofthe stuff that we do is just a
(27:17):
bright idea on our side.
It almost always comes fromcustomers who write in to us.
I talk to two to threecustomers every single day on
the phone just to see how theproduct's working for them and
what we can do to improve it ormake it even better for them.
And all of that data both whatwe hear in the world about
PopFriends but, even moreimportantly for us, what our
customers are asking for guideshow we get all the products.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
That's just incredible, and so, for all of
our listeners, I encourage youto explore this, because not
only do you get brandingconsistency, you don't have to
try to figure out the ongoingmoving algorithms, and I mean
the list just goes on.
Plus, it's not even a fractionof the cost of having someone on
your team.
It's like pennies not evenpennies compared to having one
(28:05):
or two people that may not beexperienced in all those areas.
So this helps with Google andsocial media.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, so we do social media content Instagram,
facebook, linkedin, twitter.
We do video content for TikTok,youtube.
We do SEO content, so that'sblog posts that help you rank on
Google.
Newsletters and lifecycleemails, sales materials.
If you have a service businesswhere you need to email or text
(28:35):
folks, we can create SMSmessages or outbound emails and
then also customer service copy,so email responses to typical
complaints or issues yourcustomers bring up help center
documentation.
So it's really the fulllifecycle of everything you need
to help grow your business.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That's amazing, amazing.
Where do you see AI going?
In your opinion, what's kind ofthe next thing we can look
forward to?
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That's a great question.
You know there's amazing stuffcoming out every day, but you
know, we we at Blaze are reallyfocused on really our customers
more than the technology, and sowe were basically, you know,
the biggest and, I'd say, one ofthe only tools that serves
small businesses, entrepreneurs,freelancers, and so I think for
too long, the customers weserve have not had good enough
(29:25):
tools that have helped themcompete with larger competitors
or even make the most of theirown opportunities, and so we see
AI doing usually leveling theplaying field for these really
small teams or teams of one thataren't professional marketers,
don't have the time or skills tofigure out how to do enough
marketing or good enoughmarketing to grow their business
.
And what we already seehappening is that AI is leveling
(29:48):
the playing field for thesebusinesses where now, even if
you're a team of one, you canbasically have an expert social
media manager, an expert emailmarketer, an expert organic
content lead to boost your SEOon your team for $35 a month,
and so now, basically, this bigthing that businesses couldn't
do before, which is figure outhow to grow, they now can do
really cheaply, reallyefficiently, really quickly, and
(30:10):
so I think we'll continue thetechnology will continue to make
it easier and better and fasterto make more social media
content, more video content,better emails, fast, better
websites.
But already I think the gamehas changed for small businesses
, where this thing that you hadno ability to do before, which
is, yeah, you can post to socialmedia, but you couldn't figure
(30:30):
out what is good content.
Or yeah, I could send an email,but I couldn't figure out well,
what should I write thatconverts users.
Or yeah, I could build awebsite in Squarespace, but what
should I put in the websitethat's good.
All of those unsolved problemsare now solvable.
They're all things that anysmall business owner can solve,
and so I think the dynamics ofbusiness I think in this country
, around the world are changing,where the businesses that win
(30:52):
now won't be large businesses,but they'll be businesses that
take advantage of this newtechnology, and I think you'll
see really small businesses beable to make millions of dollars
from the Internet in ways theycouldn't before.
And so it won't be necessarilyjust about what the technology
is doing, but which businessesout there, even in a local
market, take advantage of allthese rapid changes to help grow
(31:13):
their business faster.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, that's.
The window of opportunity forsmall business owners has never
been more open.
If you will, I know for me,when I started my business
decades ago, that we didn't haveaccess to what the big boys and
girls had.
You know, the corporations, theenterprises and if you did, it
cost you hundreds of thousandsof dollars to even get on the
(31:37):
same playing field.
And today this technology is.
You're playing in the same sameplayground with the
corporations and making somenoise, if you will, and this, in
my opinion, is good for thosebusiness owners that you know.
If you're a service-basedbusiness with you know kind of
employee staff, this still worksfor you too.
(31:58):
You still got to get your brandout there, and so it's not just
for the tech people or thesolopreneurs, it's for everybody
.
It sounds like.
And I did look at your pricingListeners go.
You can't get this kind ofstuff for less money.
It's very affordable.
I love the website and all thatit offers.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, making our products affordable is really
important to us.
There's many products out therethat you know just do one part
of what our product does.
They just do LinkedIn posts,for example, or just do SEO that
are, you know, hundreds ofdollars or thousands of dollars,
even per month, and ourproducts $35.
And we, we we set that priceattention intentionally because
we want to make sure that thetechnology that we're building
(32:41):
is accessible to as many smallbusinesses and entrepreneurs as
possible.
We don't think it should costyou thousands of dollars to grow
your business faster, and it'sreally cool to see the amount of
growth in terms of sales orleads we produce for customers.
And if you were to calculatethe per lead price or the price
per dollar that it costs you togenerate that dollar With Blaze,
(33:03):
it's like a cent or less than acent, and so it can produce
amazing efficiencies if youreally lean into the technology
and I know it kind of soundsscary AI and there's all these
movies out there of like AItaking over the world.
You know, I think the thing tofear is not that AI is going to
take your job or anything else,but that a company that knows
how to use AI is going to takeyour customers, they're going to
(33:24):
take your markets there,they're going to take your
revenue, and I think it's just abig opportunity for lots of
folks that have struggled withyou know how do I get more
customers?
How do I get how to make moremoney to really get a leg up in
their local market and make themost of the idea that they have?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Well, our purpose as a company and a podcast is to
help businesses grow faster, andthis is one of those tools they
can use to do that.
So I appreciate you sharing,and I bet a lot of our listeners
have more questions or theywant to follow you for more
information.
Where's the best place to findyou and do that?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, so everything I talked about is available at
blazeai.
We have a ton of free resources.
Early next year, we'relaunching a community where
other small business owners willhelp.
Other small business ownerswill be there too, but it's
really a free resource for folksto get answers to questions
around marketing and growth andcustomer service, and we'll have
different communities for alldifferent types of industries.
(34:19):
We serve from real estate tofinancial advising, to fitness,
to small local businesses onMain Street, and so we want
anybody who is trying to figureout these questions on how to
grow faster to be able toleverage information and
community.
Even if you don't pay for ourproducts as a customer, we still
want you to come and try andhelp yourself to make more money
(34:39):
from the internet.
So all that's available atblazeai very cool and listeners.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I encourage you.
Another reason to explore thisis because you're passionate
about small business owners anda lot of businesses out there
are not.
They're just out there to makemore money and you're really
here to serve and help growsmall businesses because, like
you said, they're the backboneof our country.
So grow small businesses Cause,like you said, they're the
backbone of our country.
So you've been a wealth ofinformation and a blessing to
(35:06):
many, and I always end ourconversations with one question.
If you were speaking in frontof a large audience of small
business owners in all seasonsof life, business, different
sizes, what's one thing that'sapplicable to all of them?
It could be a quote, a book,just insight.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, I just tell people just keep going If you
don't give up, you won't succeed.
So yeah, I know it's hard andsome days suck, but winning
comes from not losing.
Winning comes from just puttingone foot in front of the other,
and every great business heroor leader you see out there that
(35:46):
you look up to has had thosesame tough days, probably even
tougher, and the only reasonthey're where they are is
because they didn't give up, andso neither should you.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Awesome, awesome.
Well, thank you again, adam.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for listening toSmall Business Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing yours.
Boss offers flexible businessloans with business coaching
support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(36:14):
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom
dot com.
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at Michael at
Michael D Morrison dot com.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
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