---
title: "$50K to $8M ARR in 3 Years: The Warmly Playbook"
episode: 151
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Keegan Otter"
guest_title: "AI Strategy, HubSpot Sales Hub"
date_published: 2026-11-06
date_modified: 2026-11-09
duration: 00:57:56
word_count: 11698
topics: ["gtm-strategy", "sales-leadership", "outbound-sales", "revenue-operations", "brand-positioning", "ai-in-gtm"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/keegan-otter-hubspot-warmly-50k-to-8m-arr/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# $50K to $8M ARR in 3 Years: The Warmly Playbook — Full Transcript

> Episode 151 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Keegan Otter.
> Published November 6, 2026 · 00:57:56 · 11698 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/keegan-otter-hubspot-warmly-50k-to-8m-arr/

## 00:00 — Intro: Keegan Otter, from Warmly to HubSpot

**[0:00]** - It's brand and positioning.

**[0:02]** I would actually double down on brand more than,

**[0:04]** I would shrink my sales development budget

**[0:06]** to go dump more into brand building.

**[0:08]** - My guest today is Keegan Otter,

**[0:10]** who oversees AI strategy for HubSpot Sales Hub products,

**[0:14]** which makes him the operator in the room

**[0:16]** telling the product team whether what they're building

**[0:18]** will actually hold up for a sales team.

**[0:21]** - And I tell people that humility was me again,

**[0:24]** being a sales leader at a series B company prior,

**[0:27]** coming in and saying, hey, I'll be your SDR.

**[0:29]** - That's a huge, huge moment for so many companies.

**[0:33]** - I mean, I was just so ready to go.

**[0:34]** I called and he's like, whoa, whoa, slow down.

**[0:36]** I'm like, no, no, no, no.

**[0:37]** - Speed wins. Speed with a plan wins.

**[0:40]** I'm like, we're not an enterprise, we can't sit and think.

**[0:42]** - I've heard you say, you know, zero to five.

**[0:46]** That's the ruthless, brutal part.

**[0:48]** - The 5.15 starts to get easier.

**[0:50]** - If I hire an AE that makes 140, 150 in the S&P segment,

**[0:54]** they can't be touching deals less than 15 to 20K.

**[1:00]** (upbeat music)

## 01:07 — What he built first: call reviews, the CRM and the three whys

**[1:07]** - Keegan, you walked into Wormly when it was four people,

**[1:10]** about 50 grand in revenue, which you've said might as well

**[1:13]** be zero because nobody's getting paid on that.

**[1:16]** What did you build first before anyone was really selling?

**[1:20]** - Yeah, so I walked in, I actually flew in to meet,

**[1:23]** we were a remote company, but I flew in to meet

**[1:25]** with the founders to have that first work week together.

**[1:28]** Walk in and I'm like, let me see the recordings

**[1:30]** of what we're doing, let me understand how we're tracking

**[1:33]** our customers and how we're tracking, you know,

**[1:36]** how are we tracking like building pipeline?

**[1:38]** And Max, the co-founder and CEO was like, well,

**[1:43]** like we're just automating everything

**[1:45]** and seeing what sticks.

**[1:46]** I'm like, ah, okay, so the just firing off

**[1:49]** on all cylinders, no strategic targeting approach.

**[1:52]** So the first thing I did was review kind of the calls

**[1:55]** that went well and some that didn't.

**[1:57]** So I could see like the talk tracks that were working

**[1:59]** versus weren't.

**[2:00]** And then I actually went in and built out the CRM.

**[2:03]** I chose HubSpot, I've been a huge avid user of HubSpot

**[2:06]** before even getting acquired by HubSpot.

**[2:08]** I've used it a lot of startups.

**[2:09]** I think it's easy for reps to pick up.

**[2:11]** It's easy to build out.

**[2:12]** I don't need a certified expert to help me build it out.

**[2:15]** So I went in there, built out how we track

**[2:18]** from every motion of what channels we're gonna use

**[2:20]** to go get new customers, the timeline, the dates,

**[2:23]** everything, all these timestamps of like meeting set,

**[2:25]** meeting held, who is what, the associated SDR

**[2:28]** and the AE, the deal owner, the stages.

**[2:31]** And then I made almost like a modern med pick

**[2:34]** or medic criteria and we simplified it to the three whys.

**[2:39]** Why buy anything?

**[2:41]** So why are you looking at software?

**[2:43]** Why now?

**[2:44]** Why are you looking to buy now at this time

**[2:47]** versus like just in six months to a year from now?

**[2:50]** And then why are you looking at warmly, right?

**[2:53]** And so that usually actually those three questions

**[2:57]** were so open-ended that it would allow you

**[2:58]** to collect a lot of that data.

**[3:00]** So we created a scalable sales motion and process there.

**[3:04]** And then I actually was the SDR.

**[3:06]** I took a step back from being the, you know,

**[3:09]** always the director of sales or the VP of sales

**[3:11]** to be a SDR to go find the right type of meetings,

**[3:14]** to feed to our co-founder and CEO Max.

**[3:17]** And then when I watched him close a couple that I would set,

**[3:20]** we found a repeatable process

**[3:21]** and then I would be the one closing

**[3:23]** and then we would hire, we then hired an SDR

**[3:25]** overseas to then feed both of us

**[3:27]** while we were also trying to find our own meetings.

**[3:29]** And so it was like a crawl walk run.

**[3:31]** So much fun, a lot of chaos.

**[3:35]** We weren't like a legit company.

**[3:36]** It was, but we actually had to sit down and be like,

**[3:39]** I think we were half a million in revenue

**[3:41]** about three months in, of me and three to four months in.

**[3:44]** And we were like, okay, we're a legit company now.

**[3:46]** We gotta have process.

**[3:48]** And that's kinda that mindset of going in,

**[3:51]** getting nitty gritty, taking step back,

**[3:53]** to make sure everything from beginning to end

**[3:55]** was solid and scalable.

**[3:57]** And then telling everyone the mindset shift of like,

**[4:00]** this is real, like we have to start

**[4:01]** following procedures and process.

**[4:03]** That's what allowed us to scale to total 12 million

**[4:06]** 'cause we had some non SaaS products too.

**[4:08]** So 12 million in sales, 8 million in ARR in three years,

**[4:11]** which for most startups, that's pretty amazing growth.

**[4:15]** That's pretty quick growth.

**[4:16]** - No, it's fantastic.

**[4:17]** It's fantastic growth.

## 04:18 — From VP to SDR: two steps back to go ten forward

**[4:18]** - And I tell people the humility was me again,

**[4:21]** being a sales leader at a series B company prior,

**[4:24]** coming in and saying, hey, I'll be your SDR.

**[4:27]** I'll see how you close first for the first two months,

**[4:30]** and then I'll start closing.

**[4:31]** And a lot of people don't realize like,

**[4:32]** that's what it takes is taking a couple steps back

**[4:35]** to perfect the process to go 10 steps forward.

**[4:37]** And we had fun doing it 'cause we were in Europe.

**[4:40]** (laughing)

**[4:41]** - No, that's awesome.

**[4:42]** That's awesome.

## 04:43 — Fixing the list: no more meetings with everyone's grandmothers

**[4:43]** Can I hang in the gritty part for a little bit?

**[4:46]** Because I think a lot of people

**[4:50]** really underestimate what it takes

**[4:51]** to go from that zero to one stage.

**[4:54]** I'm curious, tactically,

**[4:56]** like what was in your mind of who we needed to target?

**[5:00]** How did you reach out to them?

**[5:01]** What was the messaging?

**[5:03]** Were you hitting them up on LinkedIn, email?

**[5:05]** What was the strategy and tactics

**[5:08]** to get that first group of customers in the door?

**[5:10]** - So it came to building the list.

**[5:13]** It always comes down to who you target.

**[5:16]** I made the joke that when I first came in,

**[5:18]** their meetings were with everyone's mothers

**[5:20]** and their grandmothers,

**[5:23]** 'cause I'm like, this title would never buy.

**[5:26]** This title isn't even in the right department

**[5:27]** we wanna sell to.

**[5:29]** We're just getting meetings to show 'em.

**[5:31]** And we had to go from this,

**[5:32]** oh, we're looking for product designers

**[5:35]** or like early customer, early design partners.

**[5:38]** That's the word.

**[5:39]** We're looking for early design partners

**[5:41]** to being like, no, we're a startup.

**[5:43]** This is what we sell.

**[5:44]** This is what we sell.

**[5:45]** Like, this is what we sell for.

**[5:46]** This is what we sell.

**[5:47]** Would you guys be of interest in trying it?

**[5:49]** Like early adopters, usually if it's a good tool,

**[5:51]** get the benefit.

**[5:53]** So we went with that hardcore tactic of like,

**[5:56]** don't beat around the bush, tell 'em what we do.

**[5:58]** Tell 'em what we do, who we solve for,

**[6:00]** what we solve for, and what it's gonna be.

**[6:05]** Get 'em on a demo so that the expectation's clear.

**[6:07]** We don't need any more free design partners.

**[6:09]** We need customers.

**[6:10]** So that was the first thing

**[6:12]** of getting the messaging right

**[6:14]** and then the lists of who we're gonna target.

**[6:17]** And so I didn't want us to go after SDRs.

**[6:20]** I didn't want us to go after SDR managers.

**[6:22]** I want us to go after directors

**[6:24]** and above revenue, sales, development, marketing.

**[6:27]** That's what we needed.

**[6:28]** And then what we did is figure out the channels

**[6:30]** that would work best.

**[6:32]** Funny enough, I was not,

**[6:36]** I made a lot of money personally

**[6:37]** as a sales rep cold calling,

**[6:39]** but I've led enough teams to realize

**[6:41]** the shift of cold calling and its effectiveness

**[6:44]** was starting to go down.

**[6:46]** And don't get me wrong.

**[6:47]** Every team should always still cold call,

**[6:49]** my team's cold call,

**[6:50]** but it wasn't gonna be the forefront of my KPI.

**[6:52]** It was not gonna be the number one thing

**[6:54]** to lead our growth.

**[6:55]** In fact, actually to date of our growth,

**[6:59]** cold call only attributed to,

**[7:02]** I think it was of the 12 channels we used

**[7:05]** or the 12 styles that we used,

**[7:08]** it was like the bottom, it was under seven or eight.

**[7:12]** It wasn't the most effective for us,

**[7:15]** for the audience we sold to.

**[7:16]** Marketers don't wanna pick up their phones, right?

**[7:18]** Sales people, sure,

**[7:19]** but most of the time we started selling to marketers.

**[7:21]** And so I knew that knowing I've sold to marketers before

**[7:25]** and I've sold to sales people.

**[7:27]** I used to work at outreach.ao as a rep.

**[7:28]** That's where I started my cold calling career.

**[7:30]** And so I told the reps,

**[7:32]** I want you to cold call on engaged leads,

**[7:34]** but I actually really want you to work on getting

**[7:36]** in front of them on LinkedIn and email,

**[7:38]** but then flooding them with educational content.

**[7:41]** Make it seem like we're a consultant.

**[7:43]** Make it seem like we're like these experts

**[7:45]** that everyone should follow

**[7:46]** on how to optimize their inbound if you're a startup.

**[7:50]** And it worked.

**[7:51]** We would connect with people on LinkedIn.

**[7:53]** We would then start posting content as our company.

**[7:56]** People that followed us would see,

**[7:57]** okay, the more people they followed at warmly,

**[7:59]** the more of the content they would see.

**[8:01]** It's almost like advertising, targeted advertising.

**[8:03]** It was like repeat, repeat.

**[8:05]** And then on top of that, we would send case studies.

**[8:06]** We would send industry third-party case studies

**[8:09]** of like how inbound rates have dropped,

**[8:12]** how you have to have other channels

**[8:14]** other than cold calling.

**[8:15]** So a chat bot's another channel, right?

**[8:17]** So we really started educating

**[8:19]** and then we would come over the top with the call.

**[8:21]** So it was basically a long-term marketing play,

**[8:26]** but short-term like get in front of them

**[8:28]** via like human touch points of a call if they're engaged.

**[8:31]** And it worked great.

**[8:32]** It worked great.

**[8:33]** First started with being scrappy of change the messaging.

**[8:36]** Don't be afraid to say what you do and what you're selling.

**[8:41]** Don't beat around the bush.

**[8:42]** No one likes that.

**[8:43]** I don't.

**[8:43]** I've literally taken cold calls and be like,

**[8:45]** you can tell me what you, like, don't make it sound fancy.

**[8:49]** What the heck do you do?

**[8:49]** I'm a busy guy.

**[8:51]** And then when someone goes, oh, okay, we do this.

**[8:53]** I'm like, actually, that's relevant.

**[8:54]** Sweet.

**[8:55]** You're gonna talk to my VP of RevOps

**[8:56]** and he's gonna vet it out first and then you'll get it to me.

**[8:59]** But thank you for being direct.

**[9:00]** Now I know who to point you to, right?

**[9:02]** So you gotta be direct.

**[9:03]** Then what we did is we had to be really good

**[9:06]** with who we were targeting, right?

**[9:08]** We're not going after our moms and our grandparents anymore.

**[9:12]** We're going after real titles, real buyers.

**[9:14]** And then what we did is we had an omni-channel approach

**[9:18]** that had a long-term effect and a short-term effect, right?

**[9:21]** Long-term was get them in our network

**[9:23]** so they could see our content over time

**[9:25]** if we didn't get them right away.

**[9:26]** The short-term was we're gonna also manually touch them

**[9:29]** on LinkedIn with DMs and cold calls.

**[9:32]** And like emails all the time to try to get in front of them.

**[9:35]** On top of the, hey, now that they've followed us

**[9:38]** and they're in our kind of our umbrella,

**[9:40]** we could start posting content on the regular

**[9:42]** and educating them.

**[9:43]** And I would use that playbook again and again.

**[9:46]** - Well, I love the full breadth of the approach

**[9:48]** and taking that omni-channel approach

**[9:50]** 'cause I think a lot of teams will index on one,

**[9:52]** live and die by one of those channels.

**[9:54]** And then, first, build the list.

**[9:59]** And then once you know the people,

**[10:02]** you don't know if they're someone who picks up the phone,

**[10:04]** someone who reads LinkedIn,

**[10:05]** someone who goes through their emails,

**[10:06]** like what type of person are they, it's tough to know.

**[10:08]** So I think just flooding them and then adding value first

**[10:11]** and then coming in over top, incredible.

**[10:12]** - I'm 30, so I'm a millennial.

**[10:15]** I used to be really big at email management

**[10:18]** and now I've switched to LinkedIn.

**[10:20]** So I love managing my LinkedIn inbox, right?

**[10:23]** And so you're not gonna hear from me right away on email

**[10:26]** as if you hit me up on LinkedIn.

**[10:28]** And that was so true for some folks.

**[10:29]** It was like, they're like,

**[10:30]** "I can't believe you'd messaged me on LinkedIn."

**[10:32]** We'd send, right?

**[10:34]** And then we'd send the next person a LinkedIn message.

**[10:36]** They'd be like, "Oh, we love this, yes, let's meet."

**[10:37]** And then vice versa, the email.

**[10:38]** Some would be like, "It's a terrible email.

**[10:40]** "I don't check my email.

**[10:41]** "I get inundated by emails."

**[10:43]** But then the next person would be like,

**[10:44]** "Oh, this is such a thoughtful email, thank you."

**[10:46]** And cold calling, some people pick up, some people don't.

**[10:48]** It's why you gotta do the omni-channel.

**[10:50]** You just never know.

**[10:52]** - No, and I appreciate the effort in that.

**[10:53]** Okay, so you start to get some traction.

**[10:56]** Like, "Hey, we gotta go full force."

**[10:58]** And that's what zero to one is.

**[10:59]** You're not sleeping a lot.

**[11:00]** You're moving fast.

**[11:02]** You're trying new things.

**[11:02]** You gotta do everything.

**[11:03]** You gotta lean team.

## 11:05 — What broke first: no closed-lost data

**[11:05]** What started to break and make you take a step back

**[11:09]** and say, "Okay, we gotta start putting in some process

**[11:12]** "into this."

**[11:13]** What were those early signals of that?

**[11:18]** - The breaking was when I asked him,

**[11:19]** "Hey, where are closed-loss deals?

**[11:22]** "Why did we lose deals?"

**[11:24]** That's when I saw that there was no process

**[11:28]** of collecting the right data to know how to retarget folks.

**[11:32]** 'Cause remember, sales is a losing statistic.

**[11:35]** The revenue game is a losing statistic, even in marketing.

**[11:39]** You're not converting 80 to 100% of your people.

**[11:42]** You're 25 to maybe 40%, right?

**[11:46]** But in baseball, if you have a 300 batting average,

**[11:49]** which is three out of 10, you're gonna be a millionaire.

**[11:51]** You're gonna be a Hall of Famer.

**[11:52]** So you gotta learn that it's a failing statistic.

**[11:56]** So I know that my team will win three of their 10 at bats.

**[11:59]** So if I can collect all this great data along the way,

**[12:02]** I then know how to go target those seven.

**[12:04]** And it's like, "I'm batter up again."

**[12:06]** I have a higher likelihood of getting a hit,

**[12:09]** hitting a home run, getting a customer.

**[12:11]** And so I told him that where it's broken is,

**[12:14]** if we don't start collecting this data now,

**[12:15]** we'll never know how to retarget people

**[12:17]** once we do build out the product more.

**[12:19]** We won't be able to go back

**[12:21]** and get those opportunities the second time around,

**[12:23]** which we have a statistical chance of winning more.

**[12:26]** And so, what I did is I said,

**[12:29]** we're not going to move deals forward

**[12:31]** and start going to make more deals

**[12:34]** until we start lining what data we wanna collect.

**[12:37]** And we made that process super early

**[12:39]** to where I could go back and show in the early days

**[12:42]** on the way to a million what we were tracking

**[12:44]** and why we retargeted folks.

**[12:45]** And if you look at the history of warmly's revenue growth,

**[12:48]** every quarter, we would resurface two to three deals

**[12:52]** that were previous closed loss ops

**[12:53]** and be able to pull one to two as a closed one.

**[12:56]** - That's so impressive.

**[12:57]** And that's gotta be a huge amplification of the growth

**[13:02]** and a testament to how you grew so quickly too.

**[13:06]** And if you're not collecting that data early on,

**[13:08]** you're missing out on so many opportunities as you go.

**[13:12]** - So, basically where I was like,

**[13:14]** it's broken if you can't quickly say,

**[13:16]** we talked to this person a year ago or six months ago

**[13:19]** and here's what they were interested to do.

**[13:21]** Here's the future request they had,

**[13:24]** they asked for that we didn't have that we now do.

**[13:25]** If you couldn't quickly diagnose that,

**[13:27]** like you had a broken, you basically had a leaky bucket.

**[13:31]** If you didn't close them,

**[13:33]** you would just lose them in the ether.

**[13:34]** And so I wanted to stop that and say,

**[13:36]** I wanna put them in a rehash bucket for later.

**[13:40]** - What else?

**[13:40]** Started to feel like maybe the wheels were falling off,

**[13:44]** things that you needed to know

**[13:45]** that you couldn't get visibility into,

**[13:46]** decisions you needed to make

**[13:48]** that you felt you didn't have the right data for

**[13:50]** or people not running as optimally as it was

**[13:54]** when it was a smaller team.

**[13:55]** Were there any other big things that you can recall

**[13:58]** that felt like, okay, this is a turning point

**[14:01]** for where we're gonna need to start shifting?

**[14:03]** - Yeah, I had to be basically the one

**[14:07]** that kind of got everyone together.

**[14:09]** There was like a different team for marketing.

**[14:12]** There was, and this,

**[14:13]** I wasn't overseeing marketing quite then.

**[14:15]** Like this is like sub a million, right?

**[14:17]** So we were still just, hey, everyone's equal titles,

**[14:20]** everyone's this.

**[14:21]** I come from like a structured company previous to this,

**[14:24]** where I'm like, I never operated that way.

**[14:26]** So I kind of had to wrangle everyone together,

**[14:28]** good choice of words, wrangle everyone together

**[14:30]** and say, hey, you're gonna be in charge of this.

**[14:33]** And I just took the leadership reins.

**[14:34]** I said, you're gonna, I was hired to grow this company

**[14:37]** and brought on.

**[14:38]** And like, I was like, you know,

**[14:40]** maybe I'm gonna just take the mindset of a co-founder.

**[14:42]** And funny enough, I became one.

**[14:44]** And so I said, hey, I wanna grow this company

**[14:47]** as if it's my own.

**[14:48]** You're gonna run this 'cause you're really good at this.

**[14:50]** So you're gonna run this part of marketing.

**[14:52]** You're gonna be in charge of this.

**[14:54]** You're gonna look up competitor analysis, Allen,

**[14:56]** our co-founder.

**[14:57]** You're gonna see where our biggest threats are externally.

**[15:01]** Derek, you're gonna help run the marketing.

**[15:03]** And we need to market it this way

**[15:05]** because it needs to also compliment

**[15:06]** what sales is trying to do.

**[15:08]** They need, there needs to be cohesion.

**[15:10]** Okay.

**[15:11]** And then Max, you're gonna give me this X amount of budget.

**[15:14]** So if we do have gaps, we can, you know,

**[15:16]** hire someone to help scale it

**[15:18]** or bring on a tool to help automate more.

**[15:23]** Like upgrading our host pod instance

**[15:25]** or a sequencer or something like that, right?

**[15:27]** And once I kind of started giving everyone like,

**[15:30]** hey, we're a team, here's your different roles

**[15:32]** so we can go win the game.

**[15:34]** Then we started rowing in the same direction.

**[15:36]** It was awesome.

**[15:37]** It was insane.

**[15:38]** Like I had people coming up to me like,

**[15:39]** I'm glad you sat us all down

**[15:40]** and kind of got on us like a football coach.

**[15:43]** Like we needed this.

**[15:44]** So that was nerve wracking, but very needed.

**[15:47]** 'Cause you get nervous, right?

**[15:48]** You're like, oh, am I overstepping here?

**[15:50]** But it needed to be done.

**[15:51]** We needed to come together.

**[15:52]** What I would say where things were broken is,

**[15:56]** you know, marketing originally had it

**[15:58]** where we were only selling to marketers.

**[16:01]** And I said, I think we're selling to go to market leader.

**[16:03]** So once we align that like,

**[16:05]** yes, marketers love the idea of an inbound agent,

**[16:07]** but because we had all these retargeting automations

**[16:10]** like an SDR, an SDR and sales leader might want this.

**[16:13]** So we need to position it for a go to market leader.

**[16:15]** We need to position it for a marketing, a growth

**[16:18]** and a sales leader, all the above.

**[16:21]** And once we changed that message,

**[16:23]** you'd be a little bit more broad

**[16:24]** to how we can grow in different ways.

**[16:26]** Your company, we definitely started scaling further.

**[16:29]** And then the other part was Max being afraid

**[16:32]** to make our first hire outside of me.

**[16:35]** I think he wanted me to be like the main AE

**[16:39]** for the first full year.

**[16:40]** I got him to hire someone three months in

**[16:42]** because we grew to half a million in three to four months.

**[16:46]** I was like, listen, I could take us all the way to a million,

**[16:50]** but then you're losing traction against your competitors.

**[16:52]** We already have the early signs.

**[16:54]** We already have the process.

**[16:55]** Let's hire two people that have worked with me before

**[16:59]** as AEs and SDR like self sourcing AEs and let's scale it.

**[17:04]** And that's what took us to a million in under a year.

**[17:07]** We just really quit in like nine months.

## 17:10 — The first hires: two paths on a whiteboard

**[17:10]** - Can I double click on that moment for a little bit?

**[17:13]** So that's a huge, huge moment for so many companies.

**[17:16]** And I'd say it's probably one of the number one moments

**[17:22]** where people just completely fumble the ball.

**[17:24]** You have either the founder who's closing,

**[17:26]** co-founder in your case.

**[17:27]** I want to get into that story a little bit later too.

**[17:29]** And then once you start bringing in people

**[17:31]** from the outside to try to do what you have been doing

**[17:36]** and you have the benefit of all this context,

**[17:38]** you've been in the field, you've been to the trenches,

**[17:41]** you know, it's resonating, it's not resonating.

**[17:42]** How did you start to pass that down

**[17:44]** in a way that would be effective?

**[17:47]** - I've had a resume already

**[17:49]** like building out teams from scratch.

**[17:50]** Like I've done the whole zero to one,

**[17:53]** one to five at three other companies, right?

**[17:55]** I just told them like, there's two paths.

**[17:57]** And I actually, I remember we were in a room

**[17:59]** and I wrote on the whiteboard.

**[18:00]** There's two paths, Keegan and Max,

**[18:04]** just scale revenue and we'll get there,

**[18:06]** but we will get there in over a year.

**[18:09]** Might take a year, a year and a half

**[18:11]** 'cause we're going to have some churn

**[18:12]** and we don't have someone to manage churn

**[18:13]** because we're not looking at it right now.

**[18:14]** We're just looking at growth.

**[18:17]** So I called out like, you know,

**[18:18]** I know what happens if you only look this way

**[18:20]** and you don't think about the defense of things slip.

**[18:25]** Or what we could do is we're showing good signs.

**[18:28]** We can hire two people letting them know

**[18:31]** that this is a risk upfront for them,

**[18:32]** but it could, if it works out, it's going to be huge growth.

**[18:36]** And it's people I've worked with.

**[18:38]** So we have a bias of how each other's working relationship

**[18:41]** is, how we gel together and how we operate.

**[18:43]** So that's kind of an advantage.

**[18:45]** And we could scale to over a million in less than a year

**[18:48]** and also start attacking churn and work on upsell.

**[18:51]** And he was like, oh my gosh, that was like,

**[18:53]** when I gave him the two paths of like,

**[18:55]** we could grow and focus on this and we will get there,

**[18:58]** but we'll also have some leaky buckets.

**[19:00]** Or we could accelerate the growth

**[19:01]** by dedicating these two people to be really dedicated

**[19:05]** to these two workflows or these functions.

**[19:08]** And then I can oversee this while you as CEO go be CEO.

**[19:13]** And we could slowly move away from founder led,

**[19:16]** which allows for more growth, but it's your choice.

**[19:20]** What do you want to do?

**[19:21]** I'm here regardless.

**[19:24]** I'm in, I'm all in.

**[19:25]** I told him like, I will support,

**[19:27]** but I'm leaning towards this way and here's why,

**[19:28]** 'cause I've done it.

**[19:31]** And he was like, you know what?

**[19:33]** Let me talk to the co-founders.

**[19:34]** And I just grabbed my phone.

**[19:35]** I said, great, let's call him.

**[19:38]** So, I mean, I was just so ready to go.

**[19:41]** I called, we called.

**[19:42]** He's like, whoa, whoa, slow down.

**[19:43]** I'm like, no, no, no, no, speed wins.

**[19:45]** Speed with a plan wins.

**[19:47]** I'm like, we're not an enterprise.

**[19:48]** We can't sit and think and think and think.

**[19:51]** We hopped on a call.

**[19:52]** Obviously he was like, let's not call him now.

**[19:54]** So I didn't call him now.

**[19:54]** And then we hopped on a Zoom, I think the next morning.

**[19:57]** They're all like, you know what?

**[19:59]** He's already surpassed the half a million

**[20:01]** in the faster timeline than we thought.

**[20:03]** Let's do it.

**[20:05]** And so they all voted.

**[20:07]** We did it and we hired them on it.

**[20:09]** And it was just acceleration after that, right?

**[20:11]** But it was the, it's just having to be like real

**[20:14]** and having to, I think CEOs and founders,

**[20:17]** like it's their baby.

**[20:18]** Like I could see it.

**[20:19]** Like Max was like, I can't mess this up.

**[20:21]** Like they've had to pivot three times.

**[20:23]** I came on on the final pivot.

**[20:25]** And I just had to give him the assurance of like,

**[20:27]** here's the two plans, like the paths.

**[20:29]** Here's how they would work

**[20:30]** and the outcomes we would achieve.

**[20:32]** Which one do you want?

**[20:35]** And once I made it clear that we can scale at a faster rate

**[20:38]** and then allow him to go work on other units of the business,

**[20:41]** it made him have that aha moment of like,

**[20:43]** okay, like you do know what you're doing.

**[20:45]** You do have a plan laid out.

**[20:47]** It's a plan that I didn't even,

**[20:48]** the steps that I didn't even think of.

**[20:51]** I should remove myself and go focus on the other things.

**[20:54]** I'm like, there you go.

**[20:56]** - That's, that is awesome.

**[20:57]** That's absolutely awesome.

## 20:58 — Moving the CEO into product: make the boulder smaller

**[20:58]** But I'm curious from your vantage point,

**[21:03]** what did you actually want to push him to go work on?

**[21:05]** What did you feel like were the other fires that,

**[21:07]** hey, give me go to market, give me growth.

**[21:11]** I actually need you to be doing these other things.

**[21:14]** - I needed him to work on maturing the product.

**[21:19]** So people don't realize this.

**[21:20]** Like when I joined,

**[21:21]** 'cause one of these are really

**[21:22]** badass robust inbound agent now in the DNR.

**[21:25]** Like we were, I mean, we have such big logos.

**[21:27]** We can't even share them that used warm and,

**[21:30]** that's why HubSpot was like, yeah, we've heard of you.

**[21:32]** Like we want you guys when they acquired us.

**[21:35]** And so, but there was a time,

**[21:38]** there was a time where the chat bot was,

**[21:42]** all it was was coming on the site and going,

**[21:44]** hi, like it was super manual, like very, very not great.

**[21:50]** And then that the DNR was only company level.

**[21:53]** Like people don't realize like we didn't start

**[21:55]** with person level, we started with company level.

**[21:57]** We were the first to break into person level.

**[22:01]** But we were just like a reseller of six cents down market.

**[22:04]** And so I told him like, listen, I know these space.

**[22:08]** I know MarTech, right?

**[22:09]** I've been in this my whole career.

**[22:11]** If we don't make some product improvements,

**[22:14]** we will hit a wall and then people will start leaving

**[22:17]** in terms of like customers.

**[22:19]** So if you can let me focus on pushing the rock uphill

**[22:22]** to get revenue,

**[22:24]** 'cause that's where we were kind of at

**[22:25]** as a product and maturity of a company.

**[22:27]** And if you can work on working with the team on product

**[22:30]** and unlocking budgets and getting people and motivating them

**[22:34]** and pushing them and maybe more headcount engineering,

**[22:37]** that's gonna make the boulder that we're pushing smaller

**[22:40]** and make it easier.

**[22:42]** And that's was probably one of the most vital points

**[22:46]** of warmly is when he started going into product as CEO

**[22:49]** and really helped because his background was Google.

**[22:51]** He was a project manager.

**[22:52]** So he knows how to manage that in product.

**[22:55]** And so, and to his credit, he's one hell of a seller too.

**[22:58]** He learned to be a really good seller.

**[22:59]** We still would use him later on for the enterprise deals.

**[23:04]** But when he went to product

**[23:06]** and we unlocked person level Dean on

**[23:08]** and then actual agentic chat, we exploded.

**[23:11]** We exploded with growth.

**[23:12]** I mean, at that point people were like,

**[23:14]** it's either you or qualified.

**[23:16]** It's either you or I, I mean we were crushing six cents

**[23:22]** on head to head deals so much

**[23:23]** that they pulled their partnership.

**[23:24]** That's fine, we had other debt vendors.

**[23:26]** And that our win rate against six cents was like 70%.

**[23:30]** 'Cause we could give them exactly what six cents gave them

**[23:34]** plus person level contacts.

**[23:37]** And people were like, this is a no brainer.

**[23:39]** 'Cause if JP Morgan goes on your site, great.

**[23:41]** Who do you do you do you do you Morgan?

**[23:42]** Well, with warmly you'd be like Keegan,

**[23:45]** director of finance JP Morgan out of Seattle office

**[23:48]** is on your site.

**[23:49]** Here's his LinkedIn and email, go get him.

**[23:50]** And that was just mind blowing

**[23:52]** for these at market companies.

**[23:54]** So when we had that product maturity stage

**[23:58]** sales just exploded.

**[24:00]** But thank God for the nitty gritty

**[24:02]** because we had to learn what processes

**[24:04]** would take us to that point that we can then scale further.

**[24:07]** - Before we get into that part

**[24:08]** and I'm very excited to get into that one too.

**[24:11]** You mentioned something and I'm curious

**[24:13]** how you think about it.

**[24:14]** 'Cause I've seen this a couple of times at a few companies.

**[24:19]** What does co-founder mean to you?

**[24:22]** And how does, what was the moment where it made sense

**[24:27]** to have that part of your title?

**[24:31]** - What happened is I got invited to,

**[24:33]** so I've sat in on board meetings

**[24:37]** before I used to make the decks for when I was 25 years old,

**[24:40]** I got the honor to go start making like the rev ops decks

**[24:42]** and the sales decks for the VP of sales and the CEO

**[24:46]** and then the CFO.

**[24:47]** And I was working under CFO at previous companies,

**[24:50]** one of my previous companies that already exited.

**[24:53]** I mean, he walked away with 20 plus million.

**[24:55]** I mean, he would host us at his like,

**[24:57]** he had a mansion in California.

**[24:59]** He would bluntly say like his base salary was like 100 grand.

**[25:02]** He would literally say I came back out of retirement

**[25:05]** 'cause I got bored.

**[25:05]** He was only like 45, no he was 50, he was like 50.

**[25:08]** So he was young, awesome guy.

**[25:11]** Still like connect with him.

**[25:13]** You know, he goes to all the fun like tennis shows

**[25:15]** across the country, he was very involved in his family.

**[25:18]** Like he's someone you look up to like, wow,

**[25:19]** you joined a startup as a CFO employee number four.

**[25:23]** And then that company sold for a billion dollars.

**[25:26]** His executive assistant became a millionaire, right?

**[25:28]** Like, and so he's the example of take a risk, big reward.

**[25:31]** But he had fun with it.

**[25:32]** And he taught me a lot on how to negotiate budgeting

**[25:35]** and pricing, how to fight for things with a CFO.

**[25:39]** Like he's like, I'm gonna teach you how to beat me

**[25:41]** in a conversation so you can get those approvals.

**[25:43]** Like he was really about mentoring the youth.

**[25:46]** And so he would like advocate

**[25:48]** that I should be in some of these board meetings

**[25:50]** since I was a director at the point

**[25:52]** and had a lot of the SDRs and some of the AEs.

**[25:55]** So I got to be in some of these board meetings.

**[25:57]** And when I told Max that like I had experienced

**[26:00]** like with a series B raise under my belt

**[26:02]** and making the decks and being in these meetings,

**[26:04]** he's like, well, you know,

**[26:05]** I think we should let you attend.

**[26:06]** Like maybe we can learn something from you.

**[26:09]** And I would start to go to the board meetings

**[26:12]** and I was not really getting shellacked.

**[26:14]** I was like bringing them,

**[26:15]** like when they had hard questions,

**[26:17]** I already had the data pulled up.

**[26:19]** I had the deck ready and like it was mind blowing.

**[26:22]** And I think what I earned there was like the trust of like,

**[26:24]** oh, he doesn't just care about his role.

**[26:26]** Like he cares about how the company is perceived,

**[26:29]** how it looks, how it's on brand.

**[26:31]** Like I would fly out and live on a plane

**[26:33]** the first year working at Warmly.

**[26:35]** And I lived in Europe partially.

**[26:37]** I would go to New York overnight

**[26:40]** and then fly back to San Francisco.

**[26:41]** And I lived in Arizona still.

**[26:42]** So I wasn't, so New York, San Francisco, home, Seattle,

**[26:47]** go see family, do a pop-up event in Seattle

**[26:49]** 'cause that's a big tech community

**[26:51]** and then come back home.

**[26:52]** Like I was just all over the board.

**[26:54]** I would drive.

**[26:56]** If I knew that I was gonna be somewhere for like

**[26:58]** almost a week, I would just drive.

**[26:59]** So that way I could take my truck to the local gym

**[27:02]** and I would just get an Airbnb.

**[27:03]** So I lived out of Airbnbs and hotels

**[27:06]** for the first nine months.

**[27:08]** I was single.

**[27:09]** I was, you know, I didn't have a dog.

**[27:10]** I didn't have a house, so it made sense.

**[27:12]** And I think when Max saw that conviction

**[27:14]** that I would tell people, you know,

**[27:17]** I am a co-founder so I can get into

**[27:19]** the co-founder invite events.

**[27:20]** And that's what he told me.

**[27:21]** He said, just put yourself as co-founder

**[27:23]** to get in these events.

**[27:23]** I mean, I'm busy.

**[27:25]** Like I'm in Europe, I can't.

**[27:27]** 'Cause he was living in Europe when we started the company.

**[27:29]** And the other co-founders, they were more technical.

**[27:30]** So they didn't wanna, they were busy building

**[27:34]** and they didn't wanna do like the selling part

**[27:36]** of the in-person.

**[27:38]** And so we kinda joked and made me a co-founder.

**[27:40]** Like when I went to Saster, my title said co-founder.

**[27:43]** And it worked.

**[27:44]** I got invited to a lot more events

**[27:46]** and started speaking on behalf of a co-founder.

**[27:49]** And then people would be like,

**[27:49]** yeah, we met your other co-founder Keaton.

**[27:51]** We didn't even know he was a co-founder.

**[27:52]** That's awesome.

**[27:53]** Oh, we wanna try warmly now.

**[27:55]** It's just so nice hearing a co-founder

**[27:57]** of like how they have such conviction in the product.

**[27:59]** Like, you know, we're willing to start.

**[28:01]** And Max was like, okay, he's sitting on our board meetings.

**[28:04]** He's literally telling people he's a co-founder.

**[28:07]** Going to these events and winning them over

**[28:09]** and building trust.

**[28:11]** And he's telling us that we need to build our brand

**[28:13]** as a company.

**[28:14]** And so I was stepping into marketing.

**[28:15]** I was stepping into, you know, conversations

**[28:18]** of how we can negotiate tools across the whole business.

**[28:20]** So I would step in on the HR tools.

**[28:22]** I was trying to do everything to help us win

**[28:25]** and save money and grow our brand.

**[28:27]** And so Karina and Max and Alan sat down and said,

**[28:31]** hey, we have some news for you.

**[28:32]** We voted and we're making you a co-founder.

**[28:35]** And when I went to the board meeting,

**[28:36]** the board said, congrats.

**[28:37]** They're like, we ain't gonna lie.

**[28:38]** We already thought you were a co-founder.

**[28:39]** Like, we thought when you got introduced

**[28:41]** to the board meetings a year ago,

**[28:42]** like that, you were like one of the co-founders.

**[28:46]** So they're like, so we voted all,

**[28:49]** like no one pushed back when they voted at the board level.

**[28:52]** They all thought I was already.

**[28:54]** So it was funny.

**[28:56]** I think it's 'cause we just, you know,

**[28:57]** pretended enough and it happened.

**[28:58]** But I think a co-founder to me going back to that

**[29:01]** is that story tells you like, I just took ownership.

**[29:04]** And that's what Alan, one of,

**[29:06]** he's just such a real co-founder, such a real guy.

**[29:10]** He's very bold with what he says.

**[29:11]** And he thinks a lot before he says something.

**[29:13]** And he goes, you're just such a good owner.

**[29:15]** He's like, you didn't just care only about your number.

**[29:18]** He's like, you cared of like, what was going on in HR.

**[29:22]** You cared about what was going on in product

**[29:25]** and how the engineers were being motivated.

**[29:27]** He goes, the engineering team, when I went to Brazil,

**[29:30]** would literally be like, is Keaton coming?

**[29:32]** You know, like, and I had nothing,

**[29:34]** like when the other co-founder that was technical would go.

**[29:37]** Because I was just wanting to get to know the whole company

**[29:39]** and win as a full fledged team.

**[29:43]** And then, you know, I would work the,

**[29:44]** some of the weekends or whatever to get ahead

**[29:46]** because I had the passion.

**[29:48]** And so I think what happened is we just started this idea

**[29:51]** that, oh yeah, he's an owner, he's a co-founder.

**[29:54]** And then it just became a reality.

**[29:55]** It was such a blessing.

**[29:57]** And I was so proud of when they announced it

**[30:00]** that I actually did cry.

**[30:01]** Like I cried with Max and I was like, thank you, man.

**[30:02]** Like, this is awesome.

**[30:04]** - That is such a cool story.

**[30:05]** And I do think it's unbelievably rare

**[30:08]** to find people that take that level of ownership.

**[30:11]** And there is, there's like a founder gene, founder mode

**[30:14]** that people can operate in and very few people can do it.

**[30:18]** And I know exactly what you mean,

**[30:19]** the level of ownership fully outside of your role.

**[30:23]** And I'm happy, really, really happy that they recognized it.

**[30:26]** And that's hilarious that the board thought

**[30:29]** that that was already the case.

**[30:31]** Like, wait, did I miss some minutes?

**[30:32]** I thought he was the co-founder this whole time.

**[30:34]** Did something happen?

**[30:35]** - And this was before the acquisition.

**[30:37]** Like, this was before we even knew

**[30:38]** all this stuff was gonna happen.

**[30:39]** Like, we thought we were going for our Series B.

**[30:41]** And then HubSpot came in and had other plans,

**[30:43]** which we're stoked about.

**[30:44]** But like, I was telling people like this happened

**[30:47]** 'cause we were like, we're making you a co-founder

**[30:49]** 'cause we're gonna go to this growth.

**[30:50]** And part of being a co-founder I wanna talk about

**[30:52]** is not being a yes man.

**[30:54]** People do not realize this.

**[30:55]** Max and I are friends.

**[30:56]** Like, we know our partners, each other's partners.

**[31:00]** We know each other's families.

**[31:01]** We've traveled together.

**[31:02]** 'Cause we had to live in Europe together while building this.

**[31:04]** So when you're building an idea to a business, you bond.

**[31:06]** And it wasn't just, yes, sir.

**[31:09]** Okay, yes, CEO.

**[31:10]** It was, no, Max, I disagree.

**[31:12]** No, you're wrong.

**[31:13]** And here's why.

**[31:14]** No, you need to step away and let me own it.

**[31:16]** That's why you brought me here.

**[31:18]** And, or it was Max being like, Keegan,

**[31:20]** I appreciate your thoughtfulness on this department.

**[31:24]** Like, I'm CEO.

**[31:25]** Like, let me handle this part.

**[31:26]** Okay, sure.

**[31:27]** You handle this, I'll handle this.

**[31:29]** And you have to, it's a balance.

**[31:32]** And you have to earn that spot.

**[31:34]** But Max and I actually would debate and argue a lot

**[31:38]** about how the business should be ran.

**[31:41]** That's what led me to be president.

**[31:44]** Is he wanted someone in the corner that would challenge.

**[31:50]** And that's what solidified the co-founder movement

**[31:52]** is because the other co-founders liked it.

**[31:54]** We all challenged each other.

**[31:56]** There was obviously times we all voted yes on stuff.

**[31:59]** But I would raise a lot of question of like,

**[32:01]** do we favor this product or do we favor this product?

**[32:04]** Do we hire for this or do we invest into this?

**[32:08]** And like, when he wanted to invest, I would say hire.

**[32:11]** When he wanted to move to this market

**[32:14]** in this product vision, I would counter.

**[32:17]** And sometimes it would be two co-founders

**[32:19]** and two co-founders, but you need that.

**[32:23]** Like you can't, if I would have just been a yes, man,

**[32:26]** we would have made a lot of bad decisions.

**[32:28]** If I would have been approved and he didn't come in

**[32:32]** and say, no, no, I see you, I'm gonna handle this.

**[32:34]** I would have made wrong decisions.

**[32:35]** So it was good to have that.

**[32:38]** - I have a very similar relationship with our COO.

**[32:42]** So him and I actually best friends in high school,

**[32:46]** roommates in college, moved apart after college

**[32:51]** and ended up having our own individual careers in tech.

**[32:53]** He came up through sales.

**[32:55]** He ended up being a CRO of company called Assembly AI.

**[32:58]** He found his own company.

**[33:00]** I navigated RevOps, had a few companies, had an exit at one.

**[33:05]** And then I started LeanScale.

**[33:08]** And then he joined about a year and a half

**[33:11]** after we kicked things off.

**[33:13]** And the relationship you're describing

**[33:16]** is very much how him and I operate.

**[33:19]** So his name's Joe Zegul.

**[33:21]** And I have never had more conflict with anyone,

**[33:26]** I think in my entire life.

**[33:28]** And I'm gonna throw my wife and other people in that too.

**[33:32]** So him and I are butting heads all day long,

**[33:35]** but it is the best thing for the business

**[33:38]** because I've told them time and time again.

**[33:40]** It's like, Joe, you have saved me

**[33:42]** from driving this company off of a cliff so many times.

**[33:46]** And he says the same thing in the other way.

**[33:48]** So if, and before I had that,

**[33:53]** it's a very lonely position to be in because you know,

**[33:58]** you're like, hey guys, I think we should do this.

**[34:00]** And everybody nods their head and says, that sounds great.

**[34:04]** You know, like, okay, is this really good?

**[34:07]** If nobody's pushing back,

**[34:09]** am I really making a good decision here?

**[34:11]** And then you start like questioning,

**[34:13]** but like when you have that iron sharpening iron

**[34:16]** and when you both kind of finally get to that point,

**[34:18]** then you know and have conviction like, yeah,

**[34:21]** we've hashed the hell out of this thing

**[34:23]** let's move forward and go.

**[34:24]** - Oh yeah.

**[34:25]** I mean, there was times where we would have to say like,

**[34:27]** you know what, I don't want to talk to you right now.

**[34:28]** I gotta take a walk and think about this.

**[34:31]** - Yeah.

**[34:32]** - The passion was there, but the respect was also there

**[34:35]** of like, ah, we got to figure out a way to do it.

**[34:37]** But like there was times I would say like he saved my ass

**[34:41]** and there was times where I stepped in to save a pivot.

**[34:44]** And so it's needed, but we look back and we laugh.

**[34:48]** Like we used to, we would have,

**[34:51]** Max isn't drinking anymore, he just, he's very healthy guy,

**[34:55]** trains for marathons, but in the early days,

**[34:57]** we'd go have a beer and just like talk about it at night

**[35:00]** at like 11 to 12 PM, you know, 11 to midnight,

**[35:03]** end of the day on a Tuesday, we'd just go grab a beer

**[35:06]** and we turned it more to, I would still grab the beer

**[35:08]** and he would have a soda or alcohol free.

**[35:11]** But we would just be like, ah man, remember three months ago

**[35:13]** when we were like thinking we should have done this,

**[35:15]** but then we kind of debated and we went this and way

**[35:17]** and he goes, I'm glad that worked out.

**[35:19]** I'm like, hey, remember when I had this crazy idea

**[35:21]** and you were like, I don't think we should do that

**[35:23]** from the CEO's perspective,

**[35:24]** 'cause you knew a little bit more of why not.

**[35:27]** And then we didn't, what if we did, oh my man,

**[35:29]** we wouldn't be here anymore.

**[35:30]** Like, you know, it's key to the moment,

**[35:35]** but when you look back and it all works out,

**[35:36]** you're thankful that you have that.

**[35:39]** - I have a list of moments just like that too.

**[35:43]** - And it makes it fun.

**[35:45]** - It does make it fun.

**[35:46]** And especially, I think it's the respect.

**[35:48]** When you're working with somebody where you have

**[35:49]** that type of respect, it's really productive,

**[35:53]** but you have a good time doing it.

**[35:54]** And I think you find people that have love of the game.

**[35:58]** You're like, yes, we want a good outcome.

**[36:01]** We want to grow, we want to get paid.

**[36:03]** We want to get the accolades for it.

**[36:05]** But at the end of the day,

**[36:07]** like I know we actually just love this game.

**[36:11]** I love thinking about what we should do,

**[36:12]** why we should do it.

**[36:13]** We're running with limited resources.

**[36:15]** Where do we allocate them?

**[36:16]** What's going to be the best bet?

**[36:18]** I think there's very few things

**[36:20]** that are more fun than that.

**[36:21]** - I think the only downside of warmly being acquired,

**[36:24]** and I ran into a lot of people that went their separate ways

**[36:27]** and went to join other startups,

**[36:30]** is I'll get texts out of the blue

**[36:33]** from some of the hardest working ICs I've had,

**[36:36]** or even some of the class clown that crushed it.

**[36:39]** But they were always like the jokester

**[36:40]** and I'll run into them at conferences

**[36:43]** or old leaders that I hired and respected a lot out of them.

**[36:47]** So I would look for them for direction under me.

**[36:50]** And they'd be like, you know what I miss?

**[36:51]** And I'm like, what?

**[36:52]** And we all kind of had it in our head,

**[36:53]** like I miss the culture we had.

**[36:55]** I miss the back and forth.

**[36:58]** I miss the debates.

**[36:59]** I miss the, you know, the riveting moments

**[37:03]** of like end of quarter and we hit.

**[37:06]** Or we had this big goal and we can't hit a growth milestone

**[37:09]** or the hiring is at a freeze until we hit this

**[37:12]** and we would hit.

**[37:13]** I remember, you know, we were thinking

**[37:15]** we were just going to plummet

**[37:16]** and we were going to lose our jobs.

**[37:18]** And we ended up actually having

**[37:19]** one of the best quarters ever.

**[37:20]** They're like, I miss that culture and grit.

**[37:22]** And I go, me too.

**[37:24]** Like I would run into these folks at conferences

**[37:26]** and I'd be like, me too.

**[37:27]** That's the part we did miss was that culture we built.

**[37:31]** Happy to say though, everyone that I've checked in with

**[37:33]** and to go to market side from CS to sales leadership

**[37:36]** to AE to SDRs is killing it at their roles.

**[37:40]** They just miss having that cohesive group together.

**[37:44]** And it's been awesome at HubSpot, I will say that.

**[37:46]** HubSpot on the product side is like a mini series

**[37:49]** of startups 'cause each product's different.

**[37:52]** And so that's been a lot of fun.

**[37:54]** But if I can go back and reflect of how we grew warmly,

**[37:57]** the one thing I was super proud of is the culture.

**[38:00]** Even on the days that were hard, you know, you look back

**[38:03]** and you're like, I would do it all over again.

**[38:04]** It was such a fun place to work.

**[38:06]** - Oh, for sure, for sure.

**[38:08]** And I think you need to have that culture

**[38:11]** to be successful when you're at that stage.

**[38:15]** And especially in that zero to one

**[38:17]** that we kind of talked about, I'm curious though,

## 38:21 — Zero to five vs. five to fifteen: what changes

**[38:21]** you mentioned, I've heard you say, you know, zero to five,

**[38:26]** that's the ruthless, brutal part.

**[38:29]** The 5.15 starts to get easier.

**[38:31]** What do you see start to shift and change

**[38:35]** once you cross that proverbial $5 million mark?

**[38:39]** - I think the zero to like five is a lot

**[38:41]** about building processes that you know

**[38:44]** all are gonna stick, like it's building processes

**[38:46]** to see what works following the data

**[38:48]** and then seeing, okay, now how malleable is this?

**[38:51]** Can I, like, okay, it took us from zero to one.

**[38:53]** Can I bend it and have it take us to zero to five

**[38:55]** or sorry, one to five or will it break, right?

**[38:58]** So once you find out the 25 to 50% of the processes

**[39:03]** that'll take you there, you then have to like reinforce.

**[39:06]** It's like an old building getting remodeled.

**[39:08]** You have to reinforce, you have to add more to it

**[39:11]** for that five to 15.

**[39:12]** And sometimes you just have to really start from scratch.

**[39:15]** Zero to five, I think we maxed out at like three

**[39:18]** or four sellers, including me, I was selling.

**[39:21]** Five to the 15, 'cause we were, you know,

**[39:23]** like I said, the 12, we were on our way to 15.

**[39:26]** That's when we ran into, okay, it doesn't make,

**[39:30]** I had to remove myself from deals.

**[39:31]** I could come in as an executive layer

**[39:33]** 'cause that was more scalable, right?

**[39:35]** And that did help our win rate if I was to be able

**[39:37]** to touch more deals as a CRO and co-founder.

**[39:40]** And then when Max could also come in

**[39:42]** on our enterprise deals we were breaking into,

**[39:43]** like that was a new play, didn't make sense.

**[39:45]** Zero to five, it would just be me

**[39:47]** or the AEs can handle the SMBs.

**[39:48]** But when we got to the really big stakes,

**[39:51]** it made sense to have an executive come on

**[39:52]** to sell that executive vision to them.

**[39:55]** And so that was a new play.

**[39:57]** Another one was routing, right?

**[39:59]** I had 10 AEs.

**[40:02]** The routing for 10 AEs is different between two or three.

**[40:05]** So definitely had to build out a lot new playbooks

**[40:09]** around that and then segments came to life.

**[40:12]** Zero to one or even one to five,

**[40:14]** you don't really need that nuance segments.

**[40:16]** It's this is a self-serve, this is getting in front of an AE.

**[40:21]** And we're still figuring out our ACB.

**[40:24]** By the time you get to five, you're sure you know your ACB.

**[40:26]** But like once you're at five to 15,

**[40:28]** you have to then calculate,

**[40:29]** I need XACB for this segment to hit this revenue growth.

**[40:34]** This ACB usually takes X amount of time, right?

**[40:37]** This other segment, ACB, this other segment,

**[40:39]** the S&B segment, ACB should be this.

**[40:42]** If it's less than this, it should go self-serve

**[40:44]** or we don't even loop into human anymore.

**[40:47]** Those kinds of processes and nuance need to be figured out.

**[40:50]** And especially of like, what's my payback period?

**[40:52]** If I hire an AE that makes 141.50 in the S&B segment,

**[40:56]** they can't be touching deals less than 15 to 20K.

**[41:00]** Doesn't make sense, right?

**[41:03]** And the win rate needs to be X.

**[41:04]** The ad dollars, the ad spend, the SDR spend

**[41:07]** needs to be this with the payback period being this.

**[41:09]** Different equation for what we call our strategic,

**[41:12]** which was our mix of upper mid market to enterprise, right?

**[41:16]** Our six figure deals.

**[41:17]** And that was a whole different beast.

**[41:18]** Like you can't say, oh yeah, it's gonna close in a quarter.

**[41:20]** Nope, I'm paying an AE to work the strategic segment,

**[41:24]** hundreds of thousands of dollars knowing

**[41:26]** that they probably won't close the deal

**[41:27]** until about month five to six or seven or a year.

**[41:31]** But it'll be worth it.

**[41:32]** And it was, it was.

**[41:34]** But you have to train, you have to build the processes

**[41:37]** and then train the other departments of like,

**[41:39]** this is how this operates and here's why.

**[41:42]** So I think there's a lot.

**[41:44]** And I think people that are watching this will understand

**[41:47]** of like, yep, starting to realize that now

**[41:49]** that I'm over 3 million or I'm at 4 million

**[41:51]** or I'm just hitting 5 million, like the game has changed

**[41:54]** of like how I would scale beyond that.

**[41:56]** And you've seen that for your business with scaling

**[41:59]** and you probably have people now,

**[42:01]** you probably have different account managers

**[42:03]** or CSMs that manage, there's one that's really good

**[42:06]** at managing an up market and one that's dedicated

**[42:08]** to the mid market or down market.

**[42:09]** And that's how it should be.

**[42:11]** When you're zero to one on the way to five,

**[42:13]** it doesn't matter as much as when you're at five

**[42:16]** and beyond, you do need that structure.

**[42:19]** - Yeah, I think beyond the five,

**[42:22]** the specialization starts to become important.

**[42:24]** I do think that is the first axis of specialization too.

**[42:27]** It's enterprise, mid-market, SMBs, self-serve,

**[42:30]** if it's a, if you have a product led growth motion.

**[42:35]** But I think you also get a lot of tailwind after that point.

**[42:40]** I actually really love the metaphor.

**[42:42]** I've never heard it described that way.

**[42:43]** Like you're pushing the ball up the hill

**[42:45]** and it feels like after five, that ball gets smaller,

**[42:49]** whether you've made a lot of investments in the product

**[42:51]** or you start to have some tailwind on brand recognition,

**[42:56]** partners know who you are.

**[42:58]** Did you experience the same thing at Wormly as well?

## 43:01 — Build the brand or die

**[43:01]** - I sat us down in an executive retreat in Portugal.

**[43:06]** And I said, hey, if we don't build our brand-

**[43:07]** - Amazing place to have a retreat, by the way.

**[43:09]** I keep having them out here in Phoenix.

**[43:11]** And I think we need to up our venues a little bit.

**[43:15]** - Portugal was an amazing place.

**[43:16]** I can't say that the mountainous region is just,

**[43:18]** it's so beautiful and the little villages, it was cool.

**[43:21]** Like we were almost like off grid for like a week.

**[43:23]** I would say the best conversation I sat down with the team

**[43:27]** was it's like, we have to build our brand or we die.

**[43:29]** I'm like, other people are gonna start creeping up

**[43:31]** in terms of product competitiveness.

**[43:33]** If you don't build a brand,

**[43:34]** we're not gonna differentiate ourselves.

**[43:36]** We're not gonna have that trust in that rapport.

**[43:38]** And people don't follow Wormly.

**[43:40]** They follow Max at Wormly.

**[43:41]** They follow Keegan on revenue tips at Wormly.

**[43:44]** They follow Carina on product,

**[43:46]** how to build product at Wormly.

**[43:47]** They follow Alan for creative marketing

**[43:50]** and what the future of AI is gonna be at Wormly.

**[43:53]** And that paid dividends because a lot of like RB2B

**[43:57]** came to life and he had a good brand.

**[44:00]** And then other companies would try to come up like Vector

**[44:03]** and all these other ones and they had kind of brands.

**[44:05]** But a lot of people were like, oh, I heard of them.

**[44:07]** Or they got in front of me,

**[44:08]** made me realize I should evaluate this.

**[44:09]** And then I remembered, oh, I've heard of Wormly.

**[44:11]** So I need to go evaluate you guys.

**[44:13]** And we would usually win those deals.

**[44:15]** We weren't the first sometimes I got in front of people,

**[44:17]** but because our brand was so well known,

**[44:19]** they had to check out Wormly.

**[44:21]** Some large company that we closed, I can't say who,

**[44:25]** super huge, everyone uses them in tech.

**[44:29]** They said, we're evaluating qualified.

**[44:32]** When we are evaluating qualified

**[44:33]** and we are doing our research,

**[44:34]** Wormly just keeps popping up everywhere.

**[44:36]** Whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's on the LLMs,

**[44:39]** you guys kept popping up as a really great alternative.

**[44:42]** Your G2 reviews say that.

**[44:44]** So, and then Mike, when we look to you guys up,

**[44:46]** we see your founders everywhere.

**[44:48]** So we wanted to do an email.

**[44:49]** We won that deal.

**[44:51]** We were not the first ones to put in there.

**[44:54]** We were not the first ones in their mind.

**[44:55]** But as they started doing their search, our brand appeared.

**[44:58]** So we then became, looped into the process and won.

**[45:02]** Late stage, that was a fun win.

**[45:05]** - That's incredible.

**[45:06]** And moving forward, I mean, new age of AI,

**[45:10]** especially this year, I think it's getting to that,

**[45:13]** at least in the tech industry, that mass adoption range.

**[45:17]** We're seeing barriers of entry to build

**[45:20]** start to drop a little bit.

**[45:22]** So I know technology can still be a differentiator,

**[45:26]** but it's not the only one.

**[45:28]** Do you still think brand is the way to compete?

**[45:32]** Would you invest even more in that

**[45:34]** and index even further on brand than maybe in the past?

**[45:38]** And are there other areas that you need to be cognizant of

**[45:40]** in the age of AI?

**[45:42]** - It's brand and positioning.

**[45:46]** I would actually double down on brand more than,

**[45:48]** I would shrink my sales development budget

**[45:50]** to go dump more into brand building.

**[45:53]** Because you could build the brand and the engagement

**[45:57]** and the community, and then you need someone to go

**[45:59]** after those folks and convert them

**[46:01]** into conversations and opportunities.

**[46:05]** But I advise a couple startups, and it's so hard,

**[46:08]** and I have to remind myself,

**[46:10]** yeah, we were the same way at Warmly,

**[46:11]** but what we found success is when we built a brand.

**[46:14]** So I'm advising these folks, hey,

**[46:16]** invest into content agents,

**[46:18]** invest into content on your website,

**[46:20]** and you need to prioritize content, content, content,

**[46:24]** but it has to make sense, right?

**[46:26]** You need to mix in, here's why I'm in this space,

**[46:29]** here's what I'm changing, here's my background,

**[46:31]** here's who I am.

**[46:32]** So I actually advise the CEO and founder,

**[46:34]** she's breaking into the security space

**[46:39]** after running her own services agency of security.

**[46:42]** So she built an agent that does SOC 2 and all those,

**[46:45]** and it's really robust, it's really proactive,

**[46:47]** it's pretty amazing, 'cause I've used some of the other ones

**[46:50]** as a CRO, or I'm like, okay, this is very reactive,

**[46:52]** and I'm getting bogged down until I get this task done,

**[46:55]** and stuff like that.

**[46:56]** And I told her, lean in on that you're a mother,

**[47:00]** and that you're doing this 'cause you're very passionate

**[47:03]** about the industry, and talk about your experience

**[47:05]** before starting a company, a product company,

**[47:07]** tell them about your agency you ran,

**[47:09]** and how you've definitely done the service side,

**[47:11]** and you know the nuances that go into it,

**[47:12]** which is why you built an agent that could do it.

**[47:16]** And then talk about what motivates you,

**[47:17]** talk about your kids.

**[47:19]** And she's like, really?

**[47:20]** You think, I'm like, you're not selling the SMBs,

**[47:22]** I mean, you are, but you're targeting enterprise.

**[47:25]** Those folks have kids and family.

**[47:26]** They wanna know that these founders have balance.

**[47:28]** They don't wanna know the founder that has the 996.

**[47:30]** That's very unattractive to the upmarket.

**[47:32]** That's very disgusting.

**[47:34]** Like, 996 is not attractive.

**[47:35]** Don't brag about it if you're watching this podcast.

**[47:37]** I'm unattracted by it.

**[47:39]** I'll still do a weekend work here and there,

**[47:41]** but do not brag about your 996.

**[47:44]** It's more of a passionate thing.

**[47:45]** It should be a have-to thing.

**[47:46]** So tell these enterprise people

**[47:49]** that you're passionate about this,

**[47:50]** and you've seen these problems, and you solved it,

**[47:52]** and also your motivation is like,

**[47:54]** you wanna build a good company for people to use,

**[47:56]** but also for your own personal life

**[47:58]** to be able to be around with your kids.

**[48:00]** She started leaning on that,

**[48:01]** and she said it works so well.

**[48:02]** Like, people love seeing that I'm a leader

**[48:06]** and a founder, but also a mother.

**[48:08]** And I'm like, yeah, you're selling the enterprises,

**[48:09]** so lean on that brand, right?

**[48:11]** There's another brand.

**[48:14]** Okay, so for example, the window screen guys.

**[48:16]** Our brand is, we are white collar guys

**[48:20]** turned to a blue collar service business.

**[48:23]** Both co-founders come from working in corporate.

**[48:26]** We were both homeowners.

**[48:27]** We tried to get some specialized contract,

**[48:30]** niche contract work done on our house,

**[48:31]** and we were tired of the unreliable.

**[48:34]** Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll show up,

**[48:35]** and then they never showed up, or they'd show up,

**[48:36]** tell us we'd get a bid, and we never did.

**[48:39]** And so we built a business that's, we use AI,

**[48:41]** and I'm pretty removed now

**[48:43]** because he actually runs it as the CEO.

**[48:45]** I was more of the investor in the visionary

**[48:47]** of how we would market and position our brand.

**[48:49]** And now we explode.

**[48:51]** We have people calling that he's gonna go hire

**[48:53]** another person now because business is picking up.

**[48:56]** Anytime there's a storm, anything,

**[48:57]** people say you guys seem super reliable,

**[49:00]** love the story of how you're homeowners,

**[49:02]** white collar, and you just got tired

**[49:04]** of unreliable contractors, we wanna give you a shot.

**[49:07]** You have less reviews than the other guys,

**[49:10]** but it hits me, or it hits home with me

**[49:13]** on how you're reliable, and you've been in our shoes.

**[49:18]** Love it, brand positioning, and I think,

**[49:22]** going back to what you said at the beginning,

**[49:24]** starting with the list, who you're trying to target

**[49:26]** in the first place, and then reverse engineering

**[49:28]** from there, I have a personal question for you.

**[49:31]** I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm curious

**[49:34]** because I put myself through this thought experiment

**[49:37]** quite often, too, and he said, hey, 996, not impressive.

**[49:40]** I have the same sentiment towards it,

**[49:42]** and I don't know why you're bragging

**[49:44]** that you have to work so hard to make it,

**[49:47]** and then you don't invest anything else in your life

**[49:49]** and nothing else is important,

**[49:50]** but when I looked back earlier in my career,

**[49:53]** I operated that way, for sure.

**[49:56]** Had the luxury of it, though.

**[49:57]** I didn't have kids, I wasn't married,

**[49:59]** so it was easy to do.

**[50:01]** I'm curious, one, if warmly were to start today,

**[50:06]** and you have your family situation now,

**[50:08]** would you take the role?

**[50:10]** Two, if you were to take the role,

**[50:14]** what would you do differently?

**[50:16]** And do you think you'd still be successful?

**[50:18]** - Would I take the role?

**[50:19]** Absolutely.

**[50:20]** My fiance, she knows, and her kiddo,

**[50:24]** her awesome kiddo knows that I love to work.

**[50:27]** I love to build.

**[50:28]** They know I'm a builder, and I'm an entrepreneur,

**[50:31]** so I would take the role again.

**[50:33]** Would I commit to the flying and all that?

**[50:37]** No, I think I've like, you know,

**[50:39]** I would lean on more in-person events.

**[50:43]** I would've probably not done as many Europe trips,

**[50:46]** and had to have like, really spaced it out.

**[50:49]** But would I still have worked on some weekends?

**[50:51]** Yeah, I mean, it's just called, I mean,

**[50:53]** I get up at like 5.30, 6 a.m. or 7 a.m.

**[50:57]** while they're still asleep until 8 or 9 on a weekend,

**[50:59]** and I'll get two, three hours done,

**[51:01]** and then, you know, after dinner,

**[51:02]** when it's time that she's putting her to bed,

**[51:04]** I'll go do another hour or so of work.

**[51:07]** So it's fine, it's more structured.

**[51:11]** It'd be more structured.

**[51:13]** And if I were to do it differently,

**[51:15]** it was something I actually told Max,

**[51:17]** as we matured, of like, you know,

**[51:18]** I am getting towards 30, I'm trying to settle down.

**[51:21]** Let's hire some young bucks, and send them out.

**[51:24]** Give them the opportunity.

**[51:26]** I'll take them the first couple times

**[51:27]** to these in-person events, teach them the way,

**[51:30]** give them the, here's the goals and outcomes,

**[51:32]** and if they keep hitting those goals,

**[51:33]** they get to keep going.

**[51:34]** 'Cause it's fun when you're young,

**[51:36]** and you don't have other responsibilities.

**[51:37]** It is fun going to these conferences,

**[51:38]** these happy hours, these hotel, hotel living.

**[51:41]** It's fun seeing these other places,

**[51:43]** New York and Austin and Chicago, Florida,

**[51:48]** going to like a, I went to a yacht event, right?

**[51:51]** For a business thing, that's fun.

**[51:53]** So I would actually delegate that to, you know,

**[51:56]** a newer rookie hire after training them,

**[51:59]** and showing that they can do it.

**[52:00]** I would have delegated more of that.

**[52:01]** And actually, when we hit that maturity point

**[52:04]** of having reps, I started sending reps

**[52:06]** on my behalf to stuff.

**[52:07]** If it was big, like a HubSpot or a Dreamforce, I'd go.

**[52:12]** If it was a fun event or a cool place,

**[52:14]** I would bring my fiance and family.

**[52:16]** I would say, let's do this.

**[52:18]** I'm gonna be gone these days,

**[52:19]** but we'll come in a day or two early,

**[52:21]** and we'll stay a day later to really enjoy it.

**[52:23]** So there's ways to make it, there's ways to make it work.

**[52:25]** But now with a family, if I were to go,

**[52:27]** and I do aim to start up a company again someday,

**[52:30]** I would definitely prepare the family,

**[52:34]** like, hey, this is what we're gonna do and why,

**[52:35]** or what I'm gonna do and why.

**[52:38]** But with that being said, my commitment is,

**[52:40]** I'm still gonna be a coach.

**[52:42]** I'm gonna have to close my meetings at five

**[52:45]** and get back to it at nine or 10 p.m. before going to bed.

**[52:48]** Or I could just do it at 6 a.m., 5.30 a.m., right?

**[52:51]** So it's just about organizing your priorities and structure.

**[52:55]** Instead of me, single me 27 or 26 when I joined,

**[52:59]** saying, yeah, like, I can do this anytime on a Sunday.

**[53:01]** It's like, nope, I gotta get up early in morning Sunday,

**[53:04]** which means I'm not going out on a Saturday.

**[53:06]** Fun fact, when you become a parent and you get married,

**[53:08]** you don't really go out on Saturdays anyways.

**[53:10]** So, you know, I go to bed earlier, wake up earlier,

**[53:14]** start earlier, and still have a full day

**[53:16]** with what matters most, family.

**[53:19]** - I love it, I love it.

**[53:20]** Well, and I think, especially when you go through,

**[53:23]** you can just work on higher leverage stuff,

**[53:25]** you have more experience too.

**[53:26]** But yeah, you gotta give the next generation

**[53:28]** of young bucks a chance too.

**[53:29]** So they can experience it as well.

**[53:32]** Someone gave me that chance, so why can't I give someone else?

## 53:35 — What he's building at HubSpot now

**[53:35]** - So you've had incredible story with warmly,

**[53:39]** the founding, the scaling, the exit.

**[53:42]** What's next for you, and what are you building at HubSpot?

**[53:46]** - So what's exciting is we're building

**[53:49]** actually a couple agents at HubSpot.

**[53:51]** They liked our inbound agent.

**[53:53]** We were wanting to build that out,

**[53:53]** and now we're building out

**[53:54]** a couple more robust agents in the sales hub.

**[54:00]** It's really exciting because I've been a user of HubSpot

**[54:03]** for many startups, and I know what they're really strong at,

**[54:07]** and then I know where there's areas that we wanna improve,

**[54:10]** and it's fun to actually come in with that experience.

**[54:14]** And sit on boards now, right?

**[54:16]** Because I've kind of been the guy that's like,

**[54:18]** now I've been there, done that,

**[54:19]** and so other people want someone like that

**[54:21]** on the advisory board, and so I get to still stay close

**[54:24]** to startups or growing companies and see their pains,

**[54:26]** and it's cool now to say, okay,

**[54:28]** I'm taking my own personal experience with HubSpot

**[54:31]** of what worked really well

**[54:32]** and what I would like the product to be improved to.

**[54:36]** I'm hearing that echo chamber with the people I'm advising

**[54:38]** where they're seeing gaps.

**[54:40]** And now I can work with the geniuses and product to say,

**[54:43]** hey, this is what we need to build toward,

**[54:45]** this is what the landscape is looking for.

**[54:47]** And we're actually building it.

**[54:49]** So we've actually built the inbound agent

**[54:51]** in HubSpot, I can share that.

**[54:52]** It's a private beta.

**[54:54]** It's called the, we call it the lead qualification agent,

**[54:58]** LQA, so lead qualification agent in HubSpot.

**[55:01]** It's a private beta, people can sign up for it.

**[55:03]** And you can now have AI basically qualify

**[55:07]** and route your leads based off different products,

**[55:11]** verticals, industries.

**[55:13]** You can build it out, train it, and no more workflows.

**[55:15]** You just train it, build it out, and it goes from there.

**[55:18]** You tell it what links you want it to feed,

**[55:20]** whether it's a quote form, whether it's a calendar link,

**[55:23]** you could use external calendar links.

**[55:25]** We've made it where multiple use cases,

**[55:28]** it can work for that.

**[55:30]** So that's been exciting 'cause we're less than six months in

**[55:32]** and that's live, and that's gonna be a public beta

**[55:34]** come December, where more people can have access to it.

**[55:37]** Right now it's a private beta with a lot of good feedback.

**[55:40]** And then we're building out some other really,

**[55:43]** really exciting agents that I was like,

**[55:45]** I had to always buy another tool for this

**[55:48]** to plug into HubSpot, and now we're building it out,

**[55:51]** I think, to be better than those said tools

**[55:53]** that people will like the idea of just being able

**[55:57]** to be in one place to be able to run more

**[55:59]** of their go to market.

**[56:00]** So very excited about that.

**[56:03]** More to come, if they add me on LinkedIn,

**[56:04]** they'll see I actually post videos of new agentic updates

**[56:08]** or workflows that we've come out with at HubSpot.

**[56:10]** Even if I wasn't on that team, I usually get exposed

**[56:13]** to those tools, play with it, and then record a hey,

**[56:15]** if you're not using this in HubSpot, you could,

**[56:17]** and here's how it can affect your business.

**[56:18]** So that's been fun.

**[56:20]** So I would say more AI advanced products

**[56:25]** coming to a HubSpot near you.

**[56:27]** - I love to hear it.

**[56:28]** Well, I'm a huge fan of HubSpot.

**[56:29]** Everyone here at Lean Scale is a fan of HubSpot.

**[56:32]** Always done a fantastic job of making it easy for teams

**[56:37]** to implement, operate, scale,

**[56:39]** get to their next stage of growth.

**[56:41]** And I know you're not gonna be slowing down.

**[56:43]** So with you working on the products there,

**[56:46]** I'm really excited to see what comes next.

**[56:48]** Keegan, thank you so much for sharing your story,

**[56:51]** for sharing the details of how you built, scaled, exited.

**[56:57]** I think it's an excellent example for anybody listening.

**[57:00]** If you're wanting to join a startup,

**[57:02]** what the real world of it actually looks like,

**[57:05]** if you're in one right now and you're leading one,

**[57:08]** hey, get through that zero to five, it gets easier.

**[57:11]** That ball, that boulder that you're rolling up the hill

**[57:14]** is gonna get smaller as your product gets better.

**[57:17]** And then I think the number one piece of advice

**[57:19]** I'm leaving with is you have to invest in brand

**[57:22]** or else you'll die.

**[57:23]** So anyone right now, especially in the age of AI,

**[57:27]** people can build things quickly, easily.

**[57:31]** You have to build a brand that people can trust

**[57:33]** and they can relate to and they wanna buy from.

**[57:35]** So Keegan, thank you so much.

**[57:36]** Can't wait to see what you do at HubSpot next.

**[57:41]** And thank you for being on the show.

**[57:43]** - Thank you, Anthony.

**[57:44]** And I'll see you at some local business events in Arizona.

**[57:48]** I got my pickleball gear ready to rock and roll.

**[57:50]** - Let's do it.

**[57:51]** All right.

**[57:52]** Thanks, y'all.