RS362: Hidden Multipliers with Jason Cohen

[00:00:00] Speaker A: We can't predict the future, especially now, it's extra uncertain. Almost all products can be repositioned so that you're selling more value, more transformation, more of something positive that they value rather than less of a negative thing they'd like to go away. And when you do, you can often charge 10 times as much. Chess. Computers have been better than humans at chess for 25 years and nobody watches computers play chess and nobody watches computer generated chess stuff. Any job where there is such a thing as a best version of that job will get automated. [00:00:37] Speaker B: I just had a fantastic discussion with Jason Cohen all about growth and he knows a thing or two about it. Creating two unicorn companies worth over a billion dollars. And Jason is the deepest kind of smartest thinker I've maybe ever run across. And if you've read his Smart Bear bl, you know what I'm talking about. In his new book, Hidden Multipliers is just an extension and amplification of his deep kind of first principled thinking about business and operating a business and growth and in Hidden Multipliers and in this conversation he talks about how we can all find those untapped opportunities that may be unique to us in growing and sustaining, especially in this age of AI the a durable business of any kind. But I think especially his experience is all in SaaS. And so I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Jason Cohen. I sure got a lot out of it that I'm going to take and implement and buy business. And I hope you do too. I want to start by talking about your new podcast because I saw it on Twitter and I love the format and I think it talks to something we're going to discuss later, which is like growth challenges. But I'd love to hear the kind of Superman origin story of kind of how this came back around. Because you had a podcast before. I think this first episode I saw was the first reincarnation of the new kind of season of it, but I'd love to just hear the story there. [00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really simple. I've always been a person who likes to help other people, but I have this kind of, you might say abrasive but very direct and honest style. And hopefully it's the kind where you. You feel like. Yeah. But since I have your best interests at heart too, and I want you to succeed and we're going to spend most of the time talking about how to solve it, but I just want to get to the problem and get to the crux really fast. And that can be, that can be hard and what I found is, and this is when I say over years, I mean, like 20 years, as I would talk to people, what would happen is they might get a little frustrated or feel bad in the moment, but then I get an email in a week or two that would say, I've talked to a lot of people and you're the only one who told me the truth. And so while it was uncomfortable, can we do that again? So about 15 years ago, oh, and I should say I was a founding mentor and an investor in Capital Factory, which is an incubator in Austin. This was in 2009 that it started. And so I did this a lot with startups, even in person. So there was a reason why, you know, why was I doing this? There was a reason. Anyway, so I started doing this show I called Smart Bear Life, because I was already Smart Bear on Twitter and everything because of my company, Smart Bear. And so, yeah, I would sometimes do it at an event, but it would be. It would often it would be live, helping a founder with something or challenging them, you know, whether they see. Hopefully they see it as help later. And it's sort of like Dr. Laura for startups, or maybe it's more like Esther Perel, because half of it feels like therapy, you know, so it just happens to be in my wheelhouse of I have all this experience with startups, but also I have this, you know, this style that some people like. And I'm very fast in the moment. I don't mind. I don't need any prep or anything. That's actually part of the fun, I think. And so it's in the sweet spot of mine also. I don't have to make money. Like, I don't have to run ads on it. I don't need sponsors. I don't need any of that stuff. That's great because I can just make the best my best work. Same with the book I just wrote. It's just my best work. I don't need to. I don't sell courses, I don't sell consulting. I'm not trying to push a product Like, I had no other. I have no other motivation but ego and wanting to do stuff right, like, that's my only motivation. So that means I'm motivated to do my best work, period. Not for a financial reason. Isn't that nice? So there's an intersection there of just my personality and what my strengths are and the fact that I don't need to make money and so on. That makes. In this intersection, that's if not Unique, then. Okay, Special. And so, yeah, I revived it now. So I got this book coming out, Hidden Multipliers. I got this podcast, Smart Beer Live. Both of them are that dot com. And. But I mean, I don't want this to be an ad. So for any of these things, I'd rather, like, get into some good stuff and if people like it, then they'll [00:04:35] Speaker B: go see, that's other stuff I think that, like, from conference talks and sidebars and, you know, other, other episodes of the podcast that I always try to, like, abstract away. Not like the specific thing you told to this one founder about their challenge, because I think that's only helpful to them and maybe some other people, but more so like the mentality of a founder who's stuck, because I think that's the thing. And like, speaking for myself, like, it's hard. Like when you're stuck in business is super freaking hard right now. [00:05:02] Speaker A: Well, I think it's a combination of we can't predict the future, especially now, it's extra uncertain. I have a lot more to say about that. But it is. What we can't use is, is the past to predict the future. And. And your current experience is not that relevant to what's going to happen in the future, so you can't use that current experience and things like pro cons lists and rubrics. That's not going to be the answer this time. There's some kinds of puzzles where they are, but not this. And also, we've never done it before, so there's that. And we can't use statistics and probability. That's obviously not a useful tool in this case. So you're in this space which I call uncertainty, meaning we don't know. But I can't use tools like I just mentioned to apply to that to make a decision. So I need different ways to make good decisions. It's still uncertain. And some of those decisions will work, of course. Right. But still, I need different tools than those to make smart decisions. Now, people aren't accustomed to that, so I think that's one thing. And then also it's just always hard to know what's important. Like, it's easy to say, well, one or two of these things is more important than all the rest put together, so just focus on that. And that is true. Except which of the things is the most important thing that I suppose, like, it's completely uncertain or unknown. How do I decide which of those things they are? And so not wanting to make a decision because you're not sure, you tend to spread around many, many things or fail to make a strong decision, which kind of. Which is. Which makes sense. But the result is that, okay, if you spread yourself thin over a bunch of stuff, which, you know, most of which doesn't matter, that's just not going to work. And so, but, but when things are uncertain, sometimes we're stuck in not making a decision, and there we are. So to me, that's what a lot of people are doing. And it's all very understandable. This is not me. Like, look at how dumb everyone is. Not at all. Like, that's just. It's just natural. So it just begs these questions. Or it's. It raises these questions, okay, so how do I still figure out what's important? Or how do I make decisions when it's uncertain? How should I think about AI in particular? Or just, you know, these, these things in general? It's always been hard to do strategy, which a lot of this is. That's what it is. Finding the most important things, making decisions based on it. That's a lot of what strategy is. [00:07:06] Speaker B: How are you finding the best founders approach this uncertainty to get past that? Almost kind of like, I don't say mental block, but like, yeah, a lot of folks are looking at it and say, gosh, I don't know what to do. I'm going to do nothing. Obviously not the answer. Or do a whole bunch of stuff and see what sticks. Also not the answer. How have you found the best founders? Navigate to pick out the best. Couple of things to focus on. [00:07:29] Speaker A: There's a number of things. So one is the old Jeff Bezos thing of what will still be true in 10 years. Because of course, we don't know how AI will change things, but we can still guess what people will want. People always want to save money and time. People want more leads. People want to close stuff and get more revenue. People want to be entertained. In the case of Ibizos, what he always cited is that people want to receive the products as soon as possible, and there's no limit to how fast people want the product. And in 10 years, they'll still want it as fast as possible, or good customer service. There always be a premium market for people willing to pay for things like better service or quality and this and that. And also there will always be literally a billion people who want the cheapest thing that they can to solve the. Solve the problem. So what things are still true, even in AI? Well, almost everything I listed, actually. And so one of the things to do is to realize that AI is part of the solution space. Like how will I execute this product? Not problem, part of the problem space, which is what is it the customer's trying to do? So marketers will always try to get more leads. If you have a product or service that gets more leads, they want that and they definitely have a budget for it. Often they can even measure that. But anyway, there's a budget for getting more leads or more good leads anyway, so can AI. So you're thinking, oh, well, you know, how do I use AI for that? That's fine. But the question is, how do I use AI to get more leads? Not just how do I put AI on the page. Now I understand you just have to say powered by AI on your homepage because everyone else does. And because a lot of people are being told by their bosses, we gotta do AI stuff. And so they have to buy AI things whether they care or not. So I understand that it's on the homepage, I get it. But that's, that's to check a box so that you get a scene or maybe bought. That's not really what they want. What they want is to get more leads. If they get more, if they double the number of hot leads and revenue increases because of you, they will definitely give you lots of money. No matter how you achieve that could be gremlins in a box doing that, could be AI, it doesn't matter. Like, if you're actually delivering value like that, then it's going to work. So one of the things is to say, what is that core value or transformation that I'm doing for my customers? Okay, sure. You can ask, how will AI do that? More or better or more efficient or faster, whatever. Okay, fine. But if you can't articulate what that core value is, that transformation that's happening there, or it could be something like, there's. They're very entertained. That's okay. There's lots of things that could be that they're getting, but like is it really doing that? And then when you say AI, is it increasing that? And often the answer is no. I just put in AI because I heard that or I just have yet, you know, the 372nd tool that does something in AI and just because other people are doing it and that's okay. I'm not saying you can't do that. It's just don't be surprised when no one cares because, you know, either you're not delivering value or it's just the same as everything else. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Is this a messaging and Positioning challenge as much as anything, then. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Well, many things are. I mean, in my experience, it's common to find a product where, if you reposition it, it sells much better, even though it's the same product. Now, one of my hobby horses that I'm always on about this because I think you can do this with literally any product. So that's why I'm, you know. Well, I should say a product that sells to a pain point, not for entertainment, that entertainment is all different. And I'm not an expert, so I don't know. But for things that you're selling to, especially a business. But anyway, with a pain point, you know, pain solve, the common thing to do is say, I'm saving time, saving money, saving hassle, this kind of thing. And you probably are like most tools probably do that. So I understand. And is it worth paying to save time, Paying to save money? Yes, in general, that's true. So because none of that is like false or whatever, it's easy to fall into that. And yet almost all products like that can be repositioned so that you're selling more value, more transformation, more of something positive that they value rather than less of a negative thing they'd like to go away. Almost all can. And when you do, you can often certainly sell close more. But what I find is you can often charge 10 times as much. Now that's a big statement without an example. So let me explain why, because that's just. That's silly to just say that and not not explain. So let's say what your tool does. And this is the example I use in the book Hidden Multipliers. Oh, go get the book. Okay, so now I'm giving one thing in one chapter book. All right, fine. Spoiling it. Okay, so. So you have a tool that saves that, that can double or. Sorry, it cuts the cost of AdWords in half. So marketer gets it in magic, let's say, AI, what the hell? And oh, look, you know, I still get the 200 leads a month that are good out of AdWords, but it cost me half the amount. So let's say I spend 40 grand on that now. So now I only spend 20 grand. I've saved 20 grand. Awesome. What am I willing to pay for this product? A good amount, but not 20 grand, because that's much I saved. There'll be no point on that, not even 10 grand. Like I need. I need to keep most of the savings, so maybe I can spend five grand. So I save 20 grand a month. I paid five grand a month for that. All right, now I'm really saving 15 grand a month. But that's pretty good. And that is good. And that's one way to sell that product. But here's the other way to sell that product is you say, wait a minute, if, I mean my budget for AdWords is 40k, right? Like that's what I'm doing now. So if the leads cost less than that same 40k, if I continue to pay the 40k, I could actually have way more leads. And in fact, if you think about it, I'm willing to pay a certain amount per lead. Maybe I'm paying 100 bucks a lead out of that 40k. Maybe that's what's happening. Well, if I could pay another 40k and still get another double the number of leads rather than half the cost, but double the number of leads at the same cost per lead at the same 40k. So now I'm spending 80k. I would way prefer that because now when I go to the CEO, I don't say, I say 15k a month, which the CEO is happy about. I doubled leads, which doubled revenue. What, like you're going to like you. You'd even spend more than 40k for that? Like, I mean, who knows what you'd spend for that. [00:13:23] Speaker B: A lot. [00:13:25] Speaker A: So I could charge 40k a month for the same product that have the number, the half the cost per lead. If I pitched it as double the leads at the same price per lead. So now the person's paying 80k instead of 40k, except me, the product, I'm getting that 40k, 40k, not 5k. And all I did is position it as, wait, if it's cheaper, you can get more leads. That's the actual thing they want, not just the saving of the money. So by pitching it as double the number of leads at the same price per lead, I can 10x or okay, 8x in this case, whatever the price of the product. Same product. So that's obviously a contrived example. But the point is that the customer already values certain things a lot. They're already spending tons of money on that thing and they'd spend even more if they get more of it, because that's what they actually value. And if you can pitch it as creating more of that, then you can charge a whole lot more or maybe close a lot more rather than eliminating a cost or time. And in the book, I give like 15 other quick examples just of all, you know, in all kind of shapes and sizes and consulting companies, other things just to show how you can, how you can do that. But maybe it's obvious. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think what's interesting is like going back to AI at a, almost like policy level or like, you know, PR level. It's followed the same paradigm change it used a year ago was like, we're gonna, we're gonna reduce costs, we're Gonna lay off five people a year for the next 50 years, or 5% of the people a year for the next 50 Years. And this will be a one person billion dollar company. Now I don't hear a lot of people talk about that. The smarter folks I know, at least they talk about like, hey, what if we can use this to gain the upside with more leads, more business, more output, more widgets, whatever it is. So it's interesting that to me just the talk track around AI at a societal level has been from reducing cost to the abundance conversation. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, it's both. I mean, the job market's really tough right now and that's because not enough people are being hired to do stuff because of the expectation that AI will do it. And we all know it's not doing that. Not that AI can't do anything. Not that. I mean, AI definitely supercharges a senior developer, for example, but it actually doesn't supercharge a junior developer. They produce demo ware that you can't turn into a real product. And all senior developers who are working with junior developers will tell you that. And of course, this is why Vibe coded stuff is not ever a real product. It's really cool because it can one shot stuff, you know, but not. But when it actually comes to a real product with all the other stuff and ongoing maintenance and also as the code base grows, AI gets worse, right? So like when there's nothing there yet, it can make something pretty neat. But when you have a large mature code base and try to use AI, you realize, oh, there's a lot of limitations, it does a lot of stuff wrong. Engineer developers don't know that's the case. And so they're ineffective still. So yeah, I mean, the truth is it doesn't work that well for a lot of these things that we're saying, oh, we won't hire people. I think the companies that understand that will just do better. They'll have better marketing because they didn't fire all their marketers. They'll have better content because they didn't, you know, they'll realize that people don't watch AI generated YouTube and they don't listen to AI generated podcasts and so you can do that. And it's getting better and better and nobody wants it ever. And they. And I don't think they'll ever want it. And. Which is a big statement. But here's why I think that chess. Computers have been better than humans at chess for 25 years. And you can call it AI or not, I don't care, a computer is better than a human at chess. Let's call it A.I. [00:16:57] Speaker B: i don't know. [00:16:58] Speaker A: For 25 years. And so chess has never been more popular. It's never been that more people have played or played online or played in tournaments, both. And in person too. And the chess content, like there's multiple creators with millions and millions of followers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And nobody watches computers play chess. And nobody watches computer generated chess stuff. It's all humans even. But computers are better forever. Yeah, but we never want to watch a computer. We want to see a creator who's a human. We want to watch games from a human. We want to try to get better ourselves as a human. Right. And so that's not to say computers haven't changed chess, they have. We've learned things from the way computers play chess that humans never could. So how we value bishops and knights and win has changed since the accepted how it should be from the seventies. It's no longer. Now we think of it differently how we value a pawn and where it is a pawn on the seventh or sixth is worth way more than we thought. We already knew on the seventh rank was a lot, but now we know something else about how much you can sacrifice a pawn for position. Because computers have showed us. So it's not that it hasn't changed the game. Oh, an analysis. Oh my God. Now everyone has a super grandmaster to show. [00:18:12] Speaker B: I'll have to friend you on chess.com because I play with my son a little bit. [00:18:17] Speaker A: Okay, yeah. So computers have changed not how I play because I'm an idiot, but how good people play. [00:18:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:23] Speaker A: It has changed the game in that way. And so it's not that AI won't change all the stuff. Duh, of course it will. But we don't want to watch any of that stuff. We want the human aspect. And so now when it comes to coding, that's different because that's not entertainment. So yeah, if the AI can do. Can do better, do it faster and get rid of busy work and all this stuff, of course we're going to do it. I do it too, of course. It's great. So in that Case it will change things a whole lot more. It already has, I think, but for other things, like entertainment or let's say marketing and, you know, videos that I. From the company I actually want to watch, I don't see it. And when I see companies that have great ads or great videos that people actually see, it's never AI. It's always persons, people and personalities. So never is a strong word. So obviously that's pretty silly for me to say that's so ridiculous, but I just don't see that for now because that is not what's happening even when it could. [00:19:19] Speaker B: The lens I always look at this through actually is my kids. I have two teenage kids. And it's really interesting to ask them about AI generated content and their perspective on it because, like, you know, we. We had a life before AI and after. And I mean, my kids, like, they were in elementary school when ChatGPT came out. So, like, not really for their, like, you know, kind of like semi adult conscious life. They don't remember a time before it. Their radar, their like, AI radar is super strong and they're really passionate about it, which I think is interesting because I think we especially being in tech, are a little more accepting maybe of it, but they're definitely not. They're very prejudiced against it, which I think is probably more representative of like the general society. [00:20:06] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well, also, even just the general threat of AI hurting people in the sense of their careers and jobs is already enough to dislike it. [00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, so I want to talk. We spoiled the fun a little bit before about the book, but I want to hear about the book. You and I talked off camera about the mechanics of it a little bit, and that's fascinating. But okay, so hidden multipliers, all of your kind of best tips and secrets and strategies on how to grow a business. Why write a book like you've made it like you're a double unicorn guy. Right? Like, why write a book? [00:20:37] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, I've been writing for 20 years again, I just like it. It's just in me to do that. I don't know why. [00:20:42] Speaker B: Yep, okay. [00:20:43] Speaker A: I've just been doing it forever. And having written for so long, what was interesting about the book is that I had this voice and style and of course, ideas too. But a book obviously is different from articles, and I didn't want it to be some kind of anthology or disconnected thing. So it was still a lot of work, even though I had a lot going for me to do. A book that I was proud of because again, that's all my only motivation is something that I'm proud of. So. And then I recorded the audiobook myself and I wanted that to be smooth. So, you know, editing for reading aloud, not just editing for the page on my blog posts, I only edit for writing. And I think it would. It would actually be somewhat awkward to read a lot of my posts because again, I have a certain writing for the reader style with cute little things in there. And I don't know, I have a certain thing when read aloud, those things don't necessarily work or things that would be terse and crisp when you're just reading it, when you're reading aloud, it's like not enough words because that's not how people speak. So it's very interesting there too. But here I am talking about writing the book. Yeah, the ideas obviously are the interesting part for anyone listening, not that part of they're not just tips and tricks. So. So to me, like, what I never write about, I. I never have written about is either the news. I try to write everything evergreen. Maybe I succeed, maybe I don't, but I try. And I don't do things like tips, tactics, workshops, checklists. I just don't ever do that. There's plenty of that, that's fine, but it's not me. So I'm always trying to think or trying to ask, like, is there strategic concepts, patterns that are real and can we understand what those are deeply enough that now you can make really good decisions based on that? Just as you were saying, like, it's the thought process and the analysis and what is this and what are the salient things so that I can apply it to myself rather than, I don't know, a worksheet that you tick through. And now you've written, now you have an ICP statement because it says as a blank, I blank because blank. And since I filled that out now I'm doing well. Like, I just don't believe in that. And so. And so it prompts you to think. So another fun thing I did is I did make a set of AI skills to go with the book. So at that hidden multipliers.com you can go see that because of course those are free and open. Anyway, you don't have to buy the book. The book is obviously explains what's behind them, but you know, you don't have to, I guess. But I was adamant when I made the skills that the AI will never tell you what to do. They're all facilitation, grilling you Using some kind, you know, using my ideas, my philosophy. Right. And not letting you off the hook for wishy washy answers or not. Right. Like, so it drives you into, through these, these, these ideas so that you come up with hopefully better answers because it's facilitating it like a consultant would. Now, obviously a real consultant would be better, but you can do this whenever you want and your own language and stuff like that. So obviously there's benefits there. So early feedback, and that's really good. And again, they're open and free. You can just take them, do whatever. So there's kind of no reason not to not to look at that. So those are things like, how do I build it? A good set of interview questions for customers to actually learn something, or how do I find my icp? Really? Yeah. How do I find. How do I take what is special about me and even my weaknesses and find a good corporate strategy or product strategy that leans into my strengths and sidesteps my weaknesses, that it's a good business for me, not just like, is it a good business? Like, in theory, these are. Of course, all these things are in the book, but they're also all these things are skills on that website too. [00:24:00] Speaker B: I want to ask about your thought and writing process because I find your writing the most unique writing I probably read on any kind of regular basis. Thank you. [00:24:12] Speaker A: I appreciate that. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and even pre AI and especially post AI, I don't use AI to write post apocalyptic. No, I'm sure not. I mean, your stuff is so deep and so original and so thought provoking and frankly, like, it's intimidating. Like, I read some of your stuff and I'm like, I'm a fucking idiot. Like, I don't even know what he's saying. Like, I know you pretty well. Like, you're obviously, like, incredibly smart and like, I think that's fine, but, like, there's a lot of smart people who can't take that and then put it on paper so that we all can absorb and process it. Like, how do you do that? Because that's what's really special, I think. [00:24:51] Speaker A: Well, I really appreciate it. I didn't want to interrupt you while you were saying such nice things. I got to clip this for myself and listen to this every time I [00:24:58] Speaker B: wake up for you. Yeah. [00:25:00] Speaker A: Remember, ego. That's why I'm doing this. This is great. This is the only payment I need. It's like the whole thing about magic, right? It's that someone spent so much time on it that it looks effortless or whatever. The quote is. That's not the quote. But it's like that. I mean, again, I've been writing for 20 years and whenever, in every article I write, I spend a lot of time on it, like a lot. I rewrite it, I look at it. And also I have hundreds of drafts of ideas that just I felt weren't good enough or I couldn't figure out the best way to say it. And I'm not gonna, you know, I never, I never had something like I have to publish every week or else, you know, because it says so in the algorithm. I just, again, because I don't have to make money on it and I don't have to maximize quote, unquote followers. So again, if I'm just doing my best work, then there can't be a schedule because it has to just be whenever I think, okay, this is as good as I can do for now. Which, of course, I'm never satisfied, but, okay, that's. Everybody who's, you know, who tries to do well is never satisfied. That's okay. So it's just whenever I think I have something good enough, so sometimes that's more frequent and sometimes it's not, because that's life, you know. So if I'm not going to publish stuff I'm not proud of, that's something. So many years and so much time per article, you know, that there's a lot in there. So, like, I don't know. How did you just, you know, oh, man, this is just so good. Well, yeah, if I came up with that, like, just immediately, that would be really good. It's not what happened, you know. Now another thing is a lot of these things, especially in the last five to 10 years, these are things where there's this idea and we tried it, you know, an idea for, for business or for growth or how metrics work or something. So then we try it at WP Engine. Is this what our metrics are saying? Well, what if we acted like this? What if we ran this workshop? What if we tried this framework and then sometimes it. Often it didn't work or it wasn't that good. Well, then I didn't write it up. Right? But then, but then sometimes it was, okay, pretty good. And then we morph it and try again and maybe another team tries it. And then, okay, so after iteration after iteration of both teams actually doing this and, you know, kind of making it better and better in practice and also me explaining it or re explaining it or other people explaining it or I'm, you know, those are reps too. Just like, just like if you're selling your product over and over again or like go to a conference and you talk to people all day long about your product, by the end of the conference you have a great pitch just because you've tried it a hundred times and you just sort of naturally get to a nice tight thing that lights up their eyes. Well, that's kind of what happened, you know, if we're. And so things like the Talk Walk framework and now I'm just listing things that are on my blog so everyone can just go read it. The Talk Walk framework or how we think product KPIs or a lot of the stuff about the in command, about how I think about a self managed team or the administrative versus individuality and how to, how to bridge those things, the communication, how different parts of the company talks differently and you have to translate. There's all these and many more but those just right off the top of my head articles, where those all came from, what I just said, where there's so many iterations inside WP Engine and finally, okay, this is maybe a thing that resonates, that's pretty good. And still what I find is most of these frameworks and ideas if a company tries to just if like one person at the company's like oh, I'm excited and they try to bring it in, it usually fails. Not always, but usually fails. And I think that's because there's so much of the culture and mechanism of that company that has to mesh with that framework and thing. Otherwise it just the body rejects the organ even though it was a perfectly good organ. And so I don't know how to mesh that up perfectly or what. So like what characteristics of our culture and processes and everything at WP Engine makes these work for us? I don't know. I honestly don't know. So it's good that if you're excited about it because that suggests maybe it would fit because you're excited. But I think that's true of anything. So like there's, you know, maybe 20 really good frameworks for let's say prioritizing product features. I have some again that I've blogged about that are not in the book by the way, only in the blog. And they work for me. But I would bet it does not work for the majority of people. But there's 20 other ones and out of the 20, a couple of them will work for you and most won't. Even though they're all good. Like mine's good and so are the other ones, right? They're all fine. And so I don't know how to match that up other than trying it. So I don't think my ideas are the best the end. But at least they're good. At least they're plausibly going to work. Plausibly, they work somewhere. That's a start. That's better than most random blog posts you read. So okay, but who knows? [00:29:20] Speaker B: I mean, and conversely, some things that have worked other places wouldn't have worked. At WP Engine, we did have that. [00:29:27] Speaker A: So we tried VRs like 4 times and never worked. [00:29:30] Speaker B: Why? [00:29:30] Speaker A: OKRs are good, I love them. They never worked. So yeah, absolutely. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if, if like founders listening to this and they're like, okay, I'm gonna go like binge this stuff, I'm gonna plug chat my chatgpt into this and like pull all the best ideas and we're gonna implement like one a month. That's a terrible idea. Don't do that. But like, if it's like, hey, I'm gonna go look at like Smart Bear blog and pull an idea. The founder's looking at this to evaluate like testing a framework and their business. How would they think about almost that kind of founder market fit? Like founder framework fit of like this probably will work. [00:30:05] Speaker A: See, that's what I don't know. Like I know it usually doesn't work and I'm not sure like what are the characteristics of Framework X that means it will or won't work. Like what are the parts of that, what is necessary out of that culture? I don't know. So there are some things you could say about it, but those are the obvious ones that you've already passed through your filter. So for example, a big slow planning waterfall thing and you have a little agile startup that hates that. Of course it's not a fit, but you already knew that. So there's something more subtle than that that's going to determine it. And that's why I don't know. I will say that if the other. Okay, if you're a solo founder, you can obviously do what you want. I will say if there's other people at the company who are not already interested in trying something new and also excited about the particular thing you want to try, it will almost never work. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you didn't want it to work right, any process, any framework, if you already didn't want it to work, I'm sure you will discover you were right. It doesn't work for you. So I will say that didn't really answer your question because it was. How do you know whether it's a fit? I'm not really answering because again, I'm saying I don't know. I will say, so if you're excited about it, what I would do is bring other people, the other people together and let's say a team that you wanted to do. And maybe you only have one team, okay? And say, hey, check this out, and maybe there's a video or an article or whatever it was that got you stoked about it and ask them to read it and just say, do you think this might work? Like, and if they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, like, let's try it then. There you go. You know, it's still, you know, who knows? But that's a good start. But a lot of the times that's not what they'll say, well, I don't want to do this, or, you know, I don't. In which case you'll either have to convince them, which, good luck, or. Or you'll have to find something else. Another thing is, of course, you can always try a subset of it to see. Another thing you can do is, no matter what I wrote and said, surely something's different about your case. So if you go in with the mentality of, look, this is probably better than what we're doing now, but it's also probably just 70% of what it needs to be. So if everyone agrees, including the person who's excited, bringing in, this is not gospel. This is not a Bible. This is not fixed, what this is, the only thing we're going to agree is this is better than what we're doing now. It's smarter than what we're doing now, and it's still wrong. It's still not right for us, but it's better because right now it's a disaster. And this will be, like, not perfect. And so what if we agreed to do this and every two weeks we're going to pop up and say, now wait a minute, we knew it was wrong. We knew it was better, but wrong. So let's literally say, what is still wrong? What do we want to change? What do we want to morph? And just going with that attitude the whole time, maybe that's more likely to succeed because you're not trying to impose on people, blah, blah, blah. Instead they can just be like, okay, well, I did like this one thing. That one thing is cool, but blah, blah, dot, and there you go. And also, I think that's true. I think it's highly unlikely. You take a framework and that it's perfect. It's possible, but just, you know, unlikely. [00:33:01] Speaker B: That was our experience with okrs. I mean, I came in super hard. We're doing this. I read the book. We're doing this. We're a team of. Of like five people at the time, I think. And everybody's like, this, you know, this guy. Can you believe it? Since then, it's morphed a lot into just what works for us right now. It works for us. It's great. It doesn't really resemble OKRs at all, but kind of the spirit of OKRs is there and the ownership of it. And yeah, I think that's a really good way of like, hey, this is the concept. How do we fit this into our culture? Probably more than anything. [00:33:33] Speaker A: CULTURE PROCESS FOUNDER so one technique I did use, there's a book called Crucial Conversations, which is actually about, like, I have to have a difficult conversation with somebody else. And it's a great book, by the way. It's again, one of these books that like, well, it could be 30 pages and not 300. On the other hand, if it was just a blog post, you would read it and go, that's cool. And then you wouldn't do it. So maybe, you know, like, okay, by the way, my book, I was so adamant that not be the case that you couldn't summarize it and that you couldn't just say, it's one idea that I heard 10 times. And I was so adamant that not be the case, by the way. So, like, that's, you know, not it. Anyway, so this is a great book, Crucial Conversations. And one of the things it says at the top is you have to find common truth, meaning if we don't agree on the facts and the assumptions, none of the rest of it will work. Which is kind of obvious once you say it. Right. But people jump right in. Well, I think we should do this and you did that. And like, but if we have different goals or assumptions or ideas of what even going on, we'll be talking past each other, actually. And often just getting to the common truth is 70% of the conversation. Because intelligent people often can agree on possible things from here. Once we've resolved, solve that. So it's sort of like in a debate, once we agree in the definitions, a lot of the rest of it kind of follows. Right? So using that mentality or using that idea here, with this notion of the process to bring in, do we agree on what is wrong with our current process and what we're doing and what we need to do. So, for example, you could say, hey, let's use okrs, because now we'll have metrics and keep ourselves accountable. Well, do they want to be accountable? Do they want metrics about themselves? Usually the answer is no. So it's not the OKRs, it's that they didn't want any way of being accountable. And so it's not really about OKRs. And if we don't agree that we should have some metrics, then why are we, what are we talking about frameworks for that none of them will work. So I found that to be the case a lot of times. Often the better way to make that case is for people saying we do a lot of important things that aren't numbers. Which I agree with. And my retort is often, well, that's right. And so we can't measure those things. But some of the things we do are numbers. Maybe we should not be blind to those things. Why would we not want to know that? So again, I have a KPI framework, again, that's on my, on my blog, so you can just go take it and everything. What I found with that framework is I felt like that framework was much more honest and open about what metrics can do, but also what they cannot do, including what I just said. And so it's framed in such a way that takes away a lot of those usual objections. And so the other thing I would do with that framework for teams that don't normally like it is I would say, hey, what if we just picked from this huge framework and all these choices, just pick one metric that you actually believe in, that you think that number is real and true. And even further, you actually do want to know that number for yourself. Like, forget the rest of the company. It's not published to anyone else. It's just for you and your team and no one else will ever see it. What number would you actually want? I don't care if it's unimportant, I don't care, like, just that you would actually want for yourself. Pick that. And then just use this framework, though, for mapping it. Because there's this little chart of where it kind of appears in the, in the world of the company. And there's all these tips about what makes a good metric or not. So it has to be a good metric, quote unquote, as defined there, and blah, blah, blah that you'll never tell anyone about. So you can't Be held accountable to it because no one else is going to see it. Like, put it in a Google spreadsheet that's limited to only you guys. Right. Like, make it physically impossible for people to see it and just start with that. And what that did is it sort of just introduced this notion that, like, metrics can be good. It's just the question of an under what conditions, under what context? And that just gets them comfortable with it and might do that for just one quarter. It's just that that's it. And then. Okay, now, is there any other ones that are on this chart? Maybe we do show it, but with caveats. And maybe in the same slide that we show that metric, we actually. We have two columns. One is a couple of metrics that are visible and the other whole column. So half the slide is the things that are not metrics but important. And we'll list it there. That will prove to the viewer we've got numbers and we've got things that are equally important, like visually equally important that we're tracking, you see? So you can kind of baby step into what the article said in the first place. But if you tried to do the whole thing at once, you know, like, that's too much. So I know that's a long way of saying that. But everything I just said I've done, like, I've actually done that with the team. Exactly like I just said. And that helped the team get used to metrics, as opposed to the four times we tried OKRs that all failed. So it's a real example. [00:38:04] Speaker B: Yeah. One interesting learning for me, just as like, being a manager is this concept and I do a bit of coaching and I tell, like, my clients this a lot is as founders, like, we don't want to be told what to do. Like, that's my worst nightmare is, like, having a job where somebody tells me what to do. Employees want to be told what to do. I think they all have this. Okay, fair. Yeah. But I think they all have this degree of, I don't want to say uncertainty, but they want to know they're doing a good job. And a way you can do that is with metrics. And that's been one of the most empowering things in our business. It's like, hey, dude, it's black and white here. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Here. I would say yes and no. Yes. But metrics can be gamed, which everybody knows. And that doesn't mean they're doing well and they know it. The other thing is sometimes metrics don't go the right way. And that doesn't mean they're doing a bad job. True. So this could be really in anything fun example from let's say customer service just to like change it up a bit. Right. Here's a person who does 27 tickets a day in all, like with superstar responses from the customer. So obviously they're doing great, they're efficient, they're productive, customers love them. What's not to like? They're on the leaderboard or something. Here's someone else who only does two tickets a day. The customer responses are mixed. So does that person suck? [00:39:23] Speaker B: Maybe not necessarily. [00:39:24] Speaker A: But what if I told you that they're the best person on the service, the customer service team. So they get the hardest, worst, thorniest problems. That's why it takes so long. And the customer, are they happy? I don't know. Because often the answer isn't what they wanted to hear. So are you sure one of them did a good job? One didn't for metrics that otherwise make sense. So now, of course, if you're listening to this, you probably know all that and okay, I'm just trying to point out like yes, they can, but we have to put big asterisks next to all this. And so I guess I would say yes, everyone wants to know how they're doing. That is absolutely true. Everyone, even founders want to know how they're doing. I want to know if people like the book. Right? Like I'm still like that, right? So where do I stand? What does good look like? Am I getting there? What's the next step in my career? How do I make more money here? How do we get more, you know, of course everybody wants to know that and deserves to. Right? If we want to make good jobs that people want to have. Okay. Metrics to me are a two way sword or two sided sword there. They can help and they can even hurt or be neutral. So yes, but we have to be super careful there. And that is not going to make up for being a bad manager and not doing these things for people. It's going to be an ingredient in a much bigger thing. I would say I want to take [00:40:37] Speaker B: just a few minutes to get. I don't want to say your take on AI, but it's first part of August 2026, I guess. What do you see affecting our lives as software entrepreneurs over the next 18 months when it comes to AI and just things that we think are true today that might not be? [00:40:57] Speaker A: Well, see, that's the part I just said. I don't know anybody Knows. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, but you're. Here's another wildflower. [00:41:03] Speaker A: Let me also justify that in one other way. If two years ago you asked me what it's going to be like in 18 months, it would be random, what I would get right and wrong. For example, I would think OpenAI is still the leader and they're not. Wow, that's. Nobody saw that coming. Not one person was predicting that. Okay, maybe a crazy person in the corner, but you know what I mean, that was not what people thought. And these models and techniques seem to come in these jumps, like they're kind of the same, or even reverse. Like, how many times have you seen people say, I think Opus 5 is a regression. I'm back to Opus 4:8. But then on the other hand, sometimes it's like insanely better. And those are completely not random, but let's say unpredictable when those appear. So that's why, I don't know in terms of that kind of progression of like, what's going to happen. But we can ask what's going right now? And so. And so what should you do? And so clearly the things that AI is accelerating today, it will continue to accelerate and maybe more so it does accelerate software development for senior developers, not for juniors. That only accelerates vibe coding. So, you know, that's not that interesting, competitively speaking, or even on a team. It can accelerate education. If you use it for education, if you use it to replace your own thinking, which too many junior developers do, then it's actually hurting your education. But if you use it to facilitate something, then it increases education. So it can be used for that. But really it's used for both. At the moment, people are using as an excuse to either fire or quietly fire. Meaning like not rehire type of thing. Right. Whether or not AI is working, that I think will continue. But there are things which I don't see are changing today. Of course they could change in the future, but at the moment they're not. Like if you're a SaaS product and you are the system of record for something, AI is not changing that. People are using AI and finance everywhere. But the financial systems where you put the numbers in and report and pay taxes, and that's not change, that's not AI. That has to be right. The customer service desks, they still exist. And there's people, even if AI is helping more and more. Same thing with sales, even in engineering. AI doesn't replace GitHub, we still need GitHub. It doesn't replace CICD, we still need CICD in fact, AI needs GitHub and CICD more than ever. Like it uses all kinds of crazy branches and stuff, you know. Right. So that it can do that. Like we need those, those systems more than ever with AI. So an interesting question is like that if there's more and more automation and whatever, which of these systems, like systems of record or tools where being precise and right are. Are important, those are not being replaced by LLMs, which we all know are amazing and not precise. So. And of course there's all these techniques. Well, here's why I make the agents better. I do a panel of experts. Yes, those are better. But like for things that matter, like the code and the CI CD and the deploy and the customer service desk and the sales and the finance, you can go on and on. Those are not being replaced by LLMs or AI. So that's a whole universe of stuff. Again, in entertainment, anything where we actually want the human AI is not replacing, it's augmenting how we do it. Right, right, right, right. But like ultimately we want the human. So the person in, in the, in the quote unquote content, that's really an ad that needs to be a human with a personality. The end. That's the only thing that works even, even. Even now. And I think in the, you know, I would bet on that anyway. And look, even if a lot of people did AI instead, okay, well, even better now you'll be more special because it's not AI good, you know, but actually it's not AI right now. That's not what's happening. So here's another way. I. Here's yet another dimension to this because there's like lots of dimensions to poke at it. Right? Okay, here's what I think. Any job where there is such a thing as a best version of that job will get automated. But there are many jobs where there's no such thing as a best. So I'll give you. And that AI can help. But actually AI doesn't just solve it and make it go away. And I'll give you. Let me give an example. So I was at the Honda a Honda construction plant in Columbus, Ohio. This is several startups ago when we were outfitting with our hardware, the stuff with our hardware and at it watchdogs. And there's this machine where it puts the bolts on the wheels. So there's like five bolts that goes right. And so we saw this machine and it was, it was a mechanical machine and there's this little screen next to it and it was recording Exactly. The tension or torsion or whatever the right unit is that it put on each bolt. And that's because later, if the wheel fell out, fell off six months later, they could prove it wasn't us. Because see, we didn't over overturn it or underturn it, and it was all recorded. And so it's not us. And also they don't want the wheels to fall off. Like, they also want the wheels to be put on. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:22] Speaker A: And also. Right. So for putting bolts on a wheel, there is a best. The best is that the tension is perfect, it's measured, it's recorded. There's a best. If there's a best, then the robot's better than human. It's gonna be faster and more accurate, more repeatable. And so a robot will eventually do that job. And that could be a literal robot, it could be AI. Okay, but then there's things, there's no such thing as best. Like design and making software and writing stuff and ideas and entertainment. There's no such thing as the best. We're done, we're done here. We've done the best YouTube videos. We're not doing any more of YouTube videos. That doesn't exist. In that case, AI will change how we do it. Of course, it already has, but it doesn't replace it and automation doesn't replace it because there's nothing, there's no best to sort of cap out at where now it's better to have automation. So I don't know that this is a law like a, like the, like conservation of energy, but I think it's a guiding thing of like what jobs get replaced or what is good to invest in. So if investing in a consulting company that helps with strategy, AI is not replacing that right now. It's augmenting in various ways. But you're not listening to an AI to change the strategy of your business. You're just not even in stuff like design. Of course we're replacing basic design like just make a thing or just make a this, or take the same thing we've done 80 times and do it an 81st time. Maybe we can ask AI, but then again, that's not really high level thinking, is it? But deciding to make linear instead of Jira is not something AI does. So this, this general notion of if there's a best, then not that you shouldn't do it, but like a product that does it like that, that's a product that might be replaced by AI, that can also do the best, but cheaper. Because that, because once I'M at the best. The only thing left is cost, really. Maybe customer service. I mean, there's maybe a couple of things, but you know, it's starting to get limited here. Whereas if there's no such thing as the best, that doesn't mean there's nothing left to do. There's plenty to do. But like, at least that one way that your legs could be cut out from underneath you, that is not the way your legs will be cut out. So again, none of these things is the be all end. All right. But it's just things to think about when you're like, how do I come up with a strategy where my legs aren't just going to be cut out for sure in a year? [00:47:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. And I think to me, that kind of comes full circle to the concept of the book and hidden multipliers and growth strategies. That's kind of the ultimate meta growth strategy for this phase we're coming into is what is your opportunity? Or Unique Advantage is like a question we should all be asking ourselves. [00:47:40] Speaker A: I think Unique Advantage is overplayed. If I think about a lot of successful companies of all sizes, Solo, Bootstrapped and Google, I don't necessarily think about Unique Advantage. Like Gmail's not unique, but it's the winner. But like Yahoo has a lot of customers on Yahoo Mail, you know, like, what is unique? You know, so if it's unique, that's great because of course you need to be differentiated in some way. There's gotta be some reason to buy your thing over something else. But there's so many reasons you could come up with for that also, you know, so special. Yes, Unique. That's nice. But I'll take special. Why is it, what are your strengths and capabilities and assets you've built up over time? How does that make this particular strategy or positioning or product or market? Why does that make it really easy for you or natural for you, or you will automatically do a better job that other people will, where they'll have to spend 10 times as much because it's unnatural. And even then it's probably not as good because this is you. And then same thing with the customers. The customers, of course, I say the customers. I mean some subset of the market that in. In what subset is there some customers where, oh my God, do they agree just the things they want and don't care about and don't like and do like, just, oh my God, does that match? And that's not most of the market, but it's this part and that Puzzle piece. That's where you win. And I didn't say unique anywhere in there. It's a great fit, it's special. Special to the market. Special. You're special in some way. Okay, now we're talking. And the fact is, you'll do some things outside your wheelhouse and you'll get customers that aren't the perfect icp, they'll sign up too. The fact is the business will do all those things. But when you're clear on what those are, which is very hard, but the book shows you how and so do the skills, though that is when you have a good strategy, meaning it's good for the market, it's good for you, and it's still very hard to get that. Don't get me wrong, but you know when we say things like, well, what's your unique selling proposition? I just think like, eh, aren't there a ton of successful companies without a usp? So that's not really it. Right. And probably you don't know something completely unique like probably. And can't someone else just copy it? Not always, but often. Yeah. So like I just don't think that's the right mentality. [00:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah, fair. Fair. Jason, like, wonderful to chat. Congratulations on the book. The book will be out as of this episode. Going live. This episode will go live on the 13. So the book will be live by then? [00:50:03] Speaker A: Yes, you can buy it on hiddenmultiplayers.com from me, which is in a way cheaper because I bundle all the stuff. Like you can get the audiobook and the epub or and the book and it's for less money than buying them separately. And plus since it's for me, I can afford a higher quality book. So you also get a better print job because other vendors aren't taking money from me. So I can just put it in having really high quality books in terms of the print. But it's also on Amazon with the paperback, with Audible with Kindle, so you can just get it through the usual. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Awesome. Awesome. Well, congratulations and thank you for coming on the show. It's been great to chat. [00:50:40] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. This was fun. Good conversation.