---
title: "Why You Can't Automate Reddit"
episode: 110
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Shawn Tenam"
guest_title: "Co-Founder"
date_published: 2026-09-03
date_modified: 2026-09-14
duration: 01:03:44
word_count: 11490
topics: ["demand-generation", "ai-in-gtm", "gtm-strategy", "brand-positioning", "outbound-sales"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/shawn-tenam-lila-rest-clearbox-why-you-cant-automate-reddit/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# Why You Can't Automate Reddit — Full Transcript

> Episode 110 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Shawn Tenam.
> Published September 3, 2026 · 01:03:44 · 11490 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/shawn-tenam-lila-rest-clearbox-why-you-cant-automate-reddit/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** If you're blind being using AI, whether Reddit, LinkedIn, Substack, or any of your content,

**[0:05]** you're doing yourself so much of a disservice. I mean, maybe a year ago, it was okay because,

**[0:11]** you know, less people were doing it. So, like, you know, you can get away with it,

**[0:15]** but those patterns are starting to become much more and more clear.

**[0:18]** And the model's getting smaller. It isn't going to change that, in my opinion.

**[0:23]** My guests today are Sean Tenham and Lila Rest, the co-founders of Learbox,

**[0:28]** a tool that turns Reddit into a real go-to-market channel.

**[0:33]** Yeah, he's like, "By the way, I'm with my grandma. I didn't have much time to work,

**[0:36]** but I quantized Gemma for 31B and optimized it for our use case.

**[0:42]** I managed to have her running for 10X cheaper than via API."

**[0:46]** This is back in March.

**[0:47]** Super casual. Just a very average Sunday with my grandma.

**[0:51]** Yeah, I'm quantizing a Gemma model over the weekend.

**[0:54]** What do you think are some misconceptions, or how do you think people can take

**[0:59]** advantage of the channel, especially in a B2B SaaS and AI context?

**[1:04]** So, I would say one of the biggest misconceptions about Reddit, or, like, any channel right now

**[1:10]** that you want to grow in, is almost like the need or the feel that you have to automate that process.

**[1:16]** Like, distribution has always been a big thing, and you just said it, like,

**[1:21]** before Sean talks, like, more than ever, you have to be connected with the audience.

**[1:26]** You have to have empathy. You have to show, like,

**[1:30]** you're really understanding the problems, because there's just so much noise.

**[1:43]** Sean, you spent about 10 years as a plumber before any of this.

## 01:44 — From plumbing to Claude Code: Shawn's origin story

**[1:48]** Take me back to the moment you got, as you put it,

**[1:51]** cloud code-pilled, and how that turned into building Clearbox.

**[1:56]** Right, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, being a plumber, I was always a builder first, right?

**[2:02]** And part of, like, my whole persona or part of my branding while I was...

**[2:07]** So, I went from plumber to SDR to founding BDR to cloud code-pilled, go-to-market engineer.

**[2:13]** But I was always a builder at heart. I always wanted to, you know, take on this persona,

**[2:18]** somebody who builds in public, and, you know, just, I would say it was around that

**[2:23]** late December time where the models just got that much more intelligent.

**[2:27]** You know, you had 4.5, 4.6 was coming out, and I just said I was tired of just, you know,

**[2:34]** drag-and-dropping in tabs, and I wanted to actually start building stuff.

**[2:38]** So, it's kind of like a funny story where I just took a YouTube video where somebody

**[2:44]** was just telling you how to use cursor to build, and I wrote a post even on LinkedIn

**[2:49]** where I was like, I built a meme generator in a weekend just because I needed to break something.

**[2:55]** Because I was like, well, I'm not gonna, like, just upload or a CSV of all my client data or

**[3:01]** my partner data and start just messing around like that. I need to, like, figure this out, like,

**[3:05]** understand the UI, understand the differences between, you know, a coding agent and a coding

**[3:11]** editor. And, you know, it's like what I tell anybody else that's trying to learn, go to market,

**[3:15]** like, a code base, go to market engineering right now or programmable GTM, is you need the

**[3:21]** time and the terminal, you need the time to really spend working with the agents, breaking things,

**[3:26]** figuring it out, and then, like, okay, you get to that next phase and that next phase.

**[3:31]** So, for me, it was really just, you know, having a laptop with a clay table open, a Slack,

**[3:36]** a ClickUp, and five other, you know, Google Docs and just the computer moving at, like,

**[3:42]** turtle speed. And I'm just like, man, I know what I'm doing, I know how to get to where I need to go,

**[3:48]** but this isn't doing it. You start to hear about how you can use Cloud Code, not just to code for

**[3:53]** you, but to, like, organize files, ensure that your memory is being used efficiently. And that

**[4:00]** just kind of opened up that whole wormhole of, oh, what else can I do with this? Well, that next stage

**[4:05]** was actually building a website and then building a website was, well, how do I get people to know I

**[4:10]** even built one, right? So, Reddit kind of became that, like, initial channel where I was already

**[4:17]** growing my brand on LinkedIn, but, you know, we all know how LinkedIn is. It's like you're shouting

## 04:20 — Why Reddit, when LinkedIn is shouting into the void

**[4:22]** into the void sometimes where the beauty of Reddit and it's what kind of really got me immersed into

**[4:28]** it is that the communities or the cultures will tell you whether or not the content is relevant.

**[4:34]** No one's fake there, right? If you drop a, you know, a blog post about how you built a website

**[4:40]** using Next.js and Versal, people will read it and they'll give you their feedback. Some will be

**[4:45]** good. Some will be like, I mean, I used to joke when I, when I first dropped in Cloud Code, this

**[4:50]** website that I built and somebody wrote, like, yeah, he's got 40 features, but zero users.

**[4:56]** I thought it was funny because, like, a lot of people outvoted, but a lot of people were defending

**[5:00]** me at the same time and it just really gave you the idea of what, how Reddit works and how the

**[5:05]** threads work and how the sentiment can really help you, like, shape what you're doing, right? Like,

**[5:12]** you know, one of the biggest things I see in, like, the Reddit channels or specifically when it comes

**[5:17]** to builders or people who are, like, you know, trying to build their own tools in AI or whatnot

**[5:22]** is how do I get my first users? Where does that come from? And a lot of them will ask the question

**[5:28]** on Reddit and I'm like, you're, you're kind of on the channel where you can find those users.

**[5:34]** It's just about doing it the right way and being organic. It does take time. But in reality, the,

**[5:40]** you know, I started using Reddit at the same time I got Cloud Code build and both just became hand

**[5:47]** in hand. So, you know, you're six months later and yes, me and my co-founder who helped me build,

**[5:53]** helped build this brilliant, brilliant product. But it's the fact that I'm also doing the go to

**[5:58]** market engineering and sharing the workflows and the skills that, you know, just it makes it all

**[6:03]** work together, I would say. So, yeah, that's just my part of it. Like, you know, from that question.

**[6:10]** So, Lila, how did you end up getting involved? It sounded like you turned down the initial

**[6:15]** co-founder courtship, but what got you over the line and had you jump in?

**[6:22]** Yeah. So the previous startup I was working at, they're also good friends I've shown. And so we

**[6:28]** met like two years ago without ever really talking. I knew his name, he knew my name, but yeah,

**[6:35]** we never really had a talk. And when he started working on that, the same people, the same

**[6:40]** co-founders, they just suggested him that he reach out to me so we can have a talk.

**[6:46]** And we just started talking. Like I like, I like helping people. I'm just passionate

**[6:50]** about solving problems and startups in general. So I'm like always keen to a good conversation.

**[6:56]** And so at the beginning, yeah, it was very clear to me that I was not into jumping into a new

**[7:01]** startup. I was already working on some stuff. My schedule was packed, and there was no room for

**[7:09]** anything else. And then we have like this three, four weeks exchange time. And at the beginning,

**[7:15]** Sean comes with this idea is like, I see the value, but there's like features everywhere.

**[7:20]** And it's a bit overwhelming. And like we talked through it. And we come to that version that is

**[7:27]** like super minimal, doesn't try to do anything, but tries to just like, deliver the opportunity,

**[7:32]** the opportunity, like you have just an inbox. And the places you should spend your time on,

**[7:38]** on Reddit, they just land here. And it's, it's almost no learning curve, because everyone knows

**[7:44]** what a mailbox is. And I started getting excited. I remember I started getting excited about this

**[7:49]** idea. And I'm like, maybe it's a good time investment for me, maybe I should spend two,

**[7:54]** three weeks with Sean, I build that the guy looks solid on the GTM side and end up like starting

**[8:01]** building that that product, it takes of course, a little bit more time than expected took me like a

**[8:05]** month and a half to get to what third boxes today. But yeah, that's how we went. And since then the

**[8:12]** product is mainly the same now we are iterating on distribution and messaging and how to actually

**[8:18]** introduce you to the market. So I know Reddit is a very unique world. And I think some people

**[8:26]** just get it or some people haven't even stepped into it. But I think it's where the real operators

## 08:32 — The biggest misconceptions about Reddit

**[8:33]** and the real builders are living. I think there's a lot of LinkedIn famous people, I might be one of

**[8:39]** the people contributing to the noise that's out there in the void. But the people who are really

**[8:43]** building are on Reddit. What do you think are some misconceptions? Or how do you think people

**[8:50]** can take advantage of the channel, especially in a B2B sass and AI context? So I would say one of

**[8:57]** the biggest misconceptions misconceptions about Reddit, or like any channel right now that you

**[9:02]** want to growing is the almost like the need or the feel that you have to automate that process.

## 09:07 — The automation trap: why AI kills trust

**[9:08]** Right. Like, you know, especially you're in the go to market space, it's like we want to automate

**[9:11]** everything we want to automate LinkedIn's now we want to with AI, we can like create content packs,

**[9:16]** we can, you know, send cold email that's personalized to every single person. And the

**[9:22]** more we do that, the less trust I see we build, not just on Reddit, but just on everything like

**[9:27]** you can imagine, you get a cold email where somebody's mentioning, you know, the company

**[9:32]** that you left six months ago, and they're like, Hey, you know, what are you guys doing at x,

**[9:36]** and it happens all the time. And it's like, if you just like rather than focusing on that

**[9:41]** personal is a I know I'm going in a little more into the cold email side, but it applies even more

**[9:46]** on Reddit, because LinkedIn is, in my opinion, a lot less. What's the word? There are a lot chill

**[9:56]** more chill when it comes to people using AI, they're not going to call you out on it as much.

**[10:01]** Now, mind you, I believe that you should be as genuine as possible, you use AI to get you to that

**[10:06]** like 80% point where you have like a template, or you have an idea, or maybe you did the research

**[10:12]** to back up your thesis. But it should be you the human that's either posting or commenting. And

**[10:18]** with Reddit, it's even more important because, aside like LinkedIn, you know, somebody can like

**[10:24]** your vote, or they can just scroll past it. On Reddit, they can downvote it, they can comment,

**[10:29]** hey, this is AI slop, or they can complain to a moderator and get you banned for it. So it's like,

**[10:37]** you know, and I always say this to anybody that's like a user, I'm like, you know, I get it, the

**[10:41]** concept is you're online, and you want to talk and you want to be smart, and you don't want people to

**[10:46]** call you out for, you know, being incorrect. But specifically on Reddit, and I'm actually seeing

**[10:52]** this on LinkedIn, too, when I comment is being imperfect, but just being genuine and just showing

**[10:58]** that you're you showed up, and you gave your opinion will always just get a higher end reaction.

**[11:05]** You know, a lot of us we chase virality and hooks and, like, especially on LinkedIn with

**[11:10]** trying to pack as much into a comment as possible. I think I'd rather get a comment that has 50

**[11:16]** impressions to 100. But the three, four people that actually read it understood that this guy

**[11:23]** tried and he those guys might try and hire you. Like, you know, and it's the same vibe where

**[11:29]** LinkedIn and Reddit where you see the patterns, when people use AI to comment, where it's almost

**[11:35]** like contrived in a way where, like, if, like I have certain people like they'll comment on my

**[11:40]** post on LinkedIn and Reddit, and it's the same person, I don't even have to read the comment to

**[11:45]** know what the style or the phrasing is going to be. And it's just like, you know, I sometimes I'm

**[11:52]** like, I want to be like, yeah, hey, guys, maybe you want to figure a better way to do this. But,

**[11:57]** you know, that's the other issue. It's like, how do you, you know, educate people on that

**[12:01]** without offending them. So my best way to do that is just by leading by example, right? Like,

**[12:07]** I built a Reddit growth playbook that I share with a lot of our that I share with all our

**[12:12]** users. It's on my website. And the cool thing about that is because I'm not a go to market

**[12:16]** I'm gonna go to market engineer, he's the AI engineer, I can actually just give him that

**[12:20]** code, and he's able to actually input it into the landing page. And so that's the other beauty of

**[12:27]** the dynamic of how we work together. You know, I'm not just like, I mean, I'm a co founder,

**[12:32]** but I'm not just like a seller, I literally have been in the in the weeds the last two years

**[12:38]** working with API is working with data and like creating data relationships. So I think that was

**[12:43]** another appeal to Lila when working with me because, you know, like I said, he has his projects,

**[12:48]** he has his things and knowing that he has somebody on the team that can take in not I mean, look,

**[12:55]** I'm not trying to build features on a clear box. But being that ultimate, you know, hey, this is

**[13:01]** certain things we can phrase or say and give him real examples based on user input, I think is like

**[13:07]** another huge moat that we have together. But yeah, all this to say, like when it comes to

**[13:13]** how I view Reddit or really any growth channel right now is make sure at the end of the day,

**[13:19]** that it's your voice that is pressing send or, you know, you had that input. If you're blindly

**[13:25]** using AI, whether for Reddit, LinkedIn, sub stack, or any of your content, you're doing yourself so

**[13:31]** much of a disservice. I mean, maybe a year ago, it was it was okay, because, you know, less people

**[13:36]** were doing it. So like, you know, you can get away with it. But those patterns are starting to become

**[13:41]** much more and more clear. And the models getting smarter isn't going to change that, in my opinion.

**[13:47]** I agree. I like that Reddit is a community that holds each other accountable. I'd actually really

**[13:52]** like to see LinkedIn put in a dislike button. I think a lot of us could use that on the platform.

**[13:58]** But but I think you're right. I think there's there's a really high value to the currency of

**[14:04]** authenticity right now. And I think AI is exasperating that dynamic, where Reddit really

**[14:13]** holds that true. I'm curious, though, Lila, maybe in your perspective, this is a relatively complex

**[14:21]** product to build in a meaningful way. And how do you make sure that you're building something

**[14:28]** that isn't setting up your customers for failure, or just getting banned out of the Reddit community

**[14:34]** altogether? Yeah. So just to add on the previous question, which also answers this one, I think

**[14:42]** it's important to see that Reddit is a player highly incentivized to keep his content as human

## 14:47 — Why Reddit is structurally incentivized to stay human

**[14:47]** as possible. LinkedIn, they're making their money from ads, and they're making their money from

**[14:52]** subscriptions. Reddit, they make most of their money with data contract with Google and for

**[14:56]** picking up an AI. So Reddit will be very picky at what is high quality content. And first of all,

**[15:06]** lately, we've seen like the call email subreddit being entirely banned, because it was not properly

**[15:11]** being moderated. And that's a very good signal. Because you have like multiple layers. First,

**[15:16]** you have like Reddit company, highly incentivized at keeping its contest to its content of the

**[15:22]** highest quality possible, then you have the moderators that maintain a specific subreddits

**[15:27]** same, if they don't keep their content fine, they'll get banned by Reddit. And people will go less on

**[15:34]** the subreddit because they will not be satisfied with what they're reading and the community

**[15:39]** overall. So it's like you have multiple layers of people that are highly incentivized to keep the

**[15:45]** content of high, like at highest quality possible. And I think to answer your second question, this is

**[15:54]** exactly what is important in Reddit. You should not aim for automation like sending hundreds of

**[15:59]** comments on Reddit every day. What clearbox delivers is all the places where else someone

**[16:06]** is mentioning the problem you solve, else the competitor is engaging, or other similar topics

**[16:13]** where you could bring value without pitching your product. When you have this data, what

**[16:19]** what you want to do is like give it to Claude, Claude or chat DPT or whatever automation you want

**[16:25]** to understand where you should spend your time today. For example, let's say you have like 100

**[16:30]** opportunities. And five of them are on very big subreddits and the thread is already like going

**[16:36]** viral, like 5000 impressions and a lot of votes and it's been only 15 minutes, you want to comment on

**[16:43]** this one, you want to be there, you know, because you know, this thread is going to go viral and more

**[16:48]** and more people will come and read it, it will reference on Google, it will be visible on Claude

**[16:53]** and open AI like and chat DPT. So that's a matter of like, doing less, but at the right place and

**[17:03]** writing like human contents. I think that's the most important part. So even when we have this

**[17:09]** feature where people can export clear box opportunity to their Claude and chat DPT or whatever

## 17:12 — Do less, in the right place: 70 leads in week one

**[17:14]** agent, we include an impromptu like we discourage actually the agents to help the user writing

**[17:21]** message, we encourage the agent to educate the user about prioritizing their time and then writing

**[17:28]** like high value content. I think that's the most important part of like being successful on Reddit,

**[17:34]** because it really sucks when you get one account banned, you have to build your reputation again,

**[17:38]** you have to build karma. You really don't want that. On the other hand, like if you're just posting

**[17:44]** just 510 times a day, but you do right, you're gonna have like the cumulative effects of your

**[17:51]** work every day because more people are going to see it is going to be visible to AI agents.

**[17:56]** And you will even find direct leads, like on clear box, you have direct leads, there's

**[18:01]** hands of people, for example, on our first week of using clear box for clear box, because like 70

**[18:07]** leads, just for ourselves, like 70 people clearly mentioning on on Reddit, I need help with

**[18:14]** distribution and help with Reddit marketing. And just that, even if you ignore competitors and

**[18:21]** game engagement opportunities, it's already like so much value, especially if you're an early

**[18:26]** business trying to validate your market trying to find your first customers, it's just people

**[18:29]** openly complaining about the problem you solve. I'm curious, internally, who tend to be the

**[18:39]** operators who are going in responding to these subreddits, prioritizing those or go to market

**[18:47]** engineers handling this? Is a marketing team handling it? Do you need product experts?

**[18:52]** How are you seeing teams kind of operationalize this strategy?

**[18:57]** It's a good question. So what we're very much seeing is and it's funny, because we just had

**[19:02]** this conversation before the call, as far as, you know, really where the value sits for go for

**[19:07]** clear box, because if you're like, I'm a go to market engineer. So for me, like, or for the few

**[19:12]** go to market engineers that are working with the tool, it really is the API, it's being able to

**[19:17]** pull it out and be able to a know who, like, if I have 70 opportunities, I want at minimum,

**[19:24]** me personally, like, I want to comment at least five times a day naturally.

**[19:29]** But then there's, you know, there could be 60, depending on my offering, and depending on the

**[19:33]** amount I have, there might be other things that I want to do with that data, maybe I want to create

**[19:39]** content for SEO, geo purposes, because a lot of the posts and the content that, you know,

**[19:47]** how, where do I find my first users on Reddit, or something like that, that can be reverse

**[19:52]** engineered into how to find your first, you know, users on Reddit as a, you know, in a blog format.

**[20:01]** And for me, it's easy, because it's like a very easy channel to find people that are looking

**[20:07]** for this. But we also have users that have very like niche tech, like we have a user that's also,

**[20:14]** she's a consultant for a law firm, and she's also building her own law tech. So while she's able to

**[20:21]** read some subreddits like, like our SaaS and startup where, you know, it's not about law tech,

**[20:30]** but people are asking about compliance laws and things like that, she's able to use that data,

**[20:36]** where it's not maybe a direct lead, or there can be. So, you know, the API in that sense is like,

**[20:42]** my opinion, it's probably one of the strongest things. Also, I feel like we are coming into this

**[20:47]** place where as important is to have a valid UI that shows and shares with your teams, the real

**[20:53]** operators that are coming in, are saying, hey, what can I do with the API that keeps that I can

**[21:00]** respect the UI, but I have 100 other processes, I'm connected to Slack, like, like I said, when I,

**[21:06]** when I when I left my agency, it's because, you know, you're connected to Slack, ClickUp,

**[21:11]** chatgbt as a chat, Claude, and whatever other five other tools, and they were all siloed.

**[21:19]** And this was like back in like December last year, then it started being, oh, I can do this

**[21:24]** with cursor and MCPs. And that was cool. But then you would hit limits. And I was like,

**[21:30]** hard to justify telling my agency that I spent $200 in the first week of just like in Richmond.

**[21:36]** So I ate that one up. But that's how I learned more about context engineering, how you can,

**[21:42]** like really use the APIs and the terminal and the CLI. And it was like, oh, we can do this with

## 21:48 — The karma gate and the "scroll and speak" weekend

**[21:48]** Reddit. But like, I also joke that the first time I tried to grow on Reddit, I tried to automate the

**[21:54]** process. I tried to see if I can get the Reddit API, because Claude will tell you, yeah, you can

**[21:59]** just get it. And it might take you 24 hours, mind you, 24 hours, maybe $10,000. But Claude failed

**[22:06]** to mention that, which is a funny story. And I wasn't the only one who went through that whole

**[22:11]** thing. So it was funny just seeing other people do it. But my best thing was a weekend where I just

**[22:16]** said, screw it. I'm going to really just go into the channels and just scroll and speak is how I

**[22:22]** called it. I was like, if I don't have nothing to say, I won't say it. If there's something

**[22:26]** interesting and I can share value or share my take or my advice, I would. And literally it was about

**[22:33]** three, four days. And again, with Reddit, there's this thing called the karma gate. Right. So you

**[22:39]** gain karma by people upvoting your comments or your posts. But usually most subreddits won't

**[22:46]** accept you to even post until you have at minimum, say like 50 karma to 100. Some are about 100.

**[22:53]** So, you know, the idea is like with clear box, you can absolutely use it to build your karma

**[22:59]** and grow your community because we're basically we're sharing the the places that you can scroll

**[23:06]** and speak without having to think. And on top of that, the AI becomes more of a suggestive engine

**[23:12]** and then just another data layer that can say, hey, this is what my buyers are talking today.

**[23:17]** Right. Like, you know, I look at it like this. If you're reading clear box for your ICP

**[23:23]** and maybe, you know, your ICP or sales folks and, you know, you can imagine in Q1 right before

**[23:31]** President's Day, you know, President's Club comes in. Those subreddits might have a lot more data or

**[23:39]** sentiment onto something. Right. You know, the seller is trying to close his quota, but he's

**[23:44]** complaining about I can't find the 10 deals in my CRM. He might mention that more and then might

**[23:50]** have more people agree with him on, you know, different seasonal times. Right. You know,

**[23:55]** Christmas or summertime. Things are slow right now. People are on vacation. It's like,

**[24:00]** what are what are your buyers talking about during the summertime? And then it's like,

**[24:04]** yeah, there are leads, but they're also, you know, content. And one of the biggest also things I

**[24:10]** always say to people about the lead or the person asking for your tool in Reddit is it's not just

**[24:17]** one person because he's asking me in the subreddit. He's validating that that there's a need to the

**[24:23]** 10 or 50 or 100 other lurkers that might be just viewing that. So like I'm very much also the one

**[24:32]** like me and him, we I share screenshots of him every day. And, you know, we roll back feedback.

**[24:38]** One of my biggest things is I have a co-founder that I trust to the bone and not just on features,

**[24:45]** but on email copy and everything. It's like, I don't send an email before I get his critique

**[24:51]** on it. And then usually I will take his critique. And it was one of the hardest things for me

**[24:56]** growing up was taking people's critique. So, you know, having a co-founder that I trust to the

**[25:00]** point where, you know, I embrace the critique is almost like it's like an interesting factor. But

**[25:07]** yeah, so I'll pause there on my point. No, I have a similar relationship with our COO who happens to

**[25:16]** be my childhood best friend. He's the best fan of my wedding. He's the godfather of my kids. So him

**[25:22]** and I are super close. And that is one thing that him and I do all the time. We'll screenshot a

**[25:27]** Slack we're about to send. We screenshot an email we're about to send and be like, Hey, is this right?

**[25:32]** And I think the people you trust, they have taste too. Like, Oh, this word, don't use that word.

**[25:37]** That's kind of an applying XYZ or take that out, or don't use the punctuation this way. We used to

**[25:43]** use them dashes a lot. Now we take them all out because people think that we use AI to write

**[25:47]** everything. But I think it's important to have that relationship. And I think that is something

**[25:54]** where it's important to eat. And I don't, I don't necessarily think you should manufacture this too

**[26:02]** much. But it is important to signal that this thing that's being written is authentic. And on Reddit

**[26:10]** in particular, I think that's going to be really important for you to get upvotes, keep your karma

## 26:13 — How to fail at Reddit: warmed accounts and bad research

**[26:13]** where you need it to be. What are some of the biggest ways you could fail at Reddit? Because I

**[26:20]** assume there are so many companies that go, all right, awesome. There's lots of leads, lots to

**[26:27]** build the pipeline up and Reddit. So we're just going to go all out and start blasting into the

**[26:34]** Reddit world. And I'm assuming they just kind of run themselves into brick wall. If you were giving

**[26:40]** any advice to a company, that's like, all right, I'm going to start start making Reddit a part of

**[26:44]** our strategy. What are like the top things that you need to absolutely avoid? I would say so A is

**[26:51]** absolutely making sure you do the research as far as which are the right subreddits where,

**[26:56]** you know, the people that are going to interact with you are there are subroutes, like, especially

**[27:02]** if you're, you're some you're in B2B sass, you're a marketer, you are trying to grow, you are going

**[27:08]** to be trying to promote in any in some capacity or the other. So you have to kind of be able to read

**[27:13]** that room where, you know, there's new subreddits popping up every day that do embrace sharing

**[27:18]** build sharing promotion. But one thing I do always say, like a lot when a user asked me should I buy

**[27:25]** warmed accounts or buy multiple accounts? And I say no to that. The reason why is one strong

**[27:32]** account, I didn't even know that was a thing. Is there is there a marketplace for warmed up Reddit

**[27:36]** accounts that yeah, you can go by are a few companies I won't name names. But yeah, it's

**[27:42]** just one of those things where they either have built their own accounts, and then they'll use

**[27:46]** them to help up your community. But Reddit is very, very like onto that. It's like, in a way

**[27:54]** where they're looking to catch you, right? They're looking for the gotchas. But if you don't have any,

**[27:58]** then you're almost like free reign. Like one of the biggest things I always recommend with Reddit

**[28:03]** to to like users is diversify yourself. Meaning, you don't just have to use Reddit as a growth

**[28:08]** channel, you can just use it for your own personal, like interest or gains. Like for example, I love

**[28:15]** this one example where I bought a new digital camera a few months back. And it was like a Fujifilm,

**[28:22]** but I just bought the bare camera and I needed a lens for it. So I was like, I don't know which lens

**[28:26]** to buy. I'm like new to photography, I'm trying to figure it out. So Google, hey, I just bought the

**[28:31]** Fujifilm XM5. What's the best lens for me to do in room vlogging? Sure enough. Four different

**[28:38]** citations all from Reddit threads where real users are giving real advice as far as, yeah, no,

**[28:45]** you can use the pancake lens, but this is going to be the trade off. And then you get like an AI

**[28:50]** consensus on, hey, this is your budget of these four. This is probably the best one. And I'm like,

**[28:56]** I trust that. I bought that lens based on that recommendation. But it was real. It's like, you

**[29:02]** know, people in those channels aren't necessarily going to use AI slop to give recommendations

**[29:06]** because it's natural to them to be helpful, right? Like, oh, somebody's asking about the Fujifilm,

**[29:12]** I bought it three months ago. It was awesome. Let me tell them about it. And I think that same concept

**[29:17]** can very much apply to B2B SaaS. And for me, it does. Like I very much like, I have one company

**[29:24]** that I like, I have a signed contract with as a vendor where I, you know, I do content for them,

**[29:29]** but I do content about pretty much every single tool I use. If the tool helps me win or helps me

**[29:36]** get from point A to point B 30 minutes faster than it would have been like six months ago,

**[29:41]** and I'm going to promote it on LinkedIn on Reddit, and I'm going to share the value. So it's like,

**[29:47]** yeah, I share value on clearbox, but because I diverse and I share value on so many other

**[29:53]** aspects, no one's going to call me an astroturfer or say that because I'm not one. I genuinely use

**[29:58]** the channel, not just for selfish reasons. And I think that's one of the biggest advice is I can

**[30:05]** give people is, you know, like, it's like anything else, right? You get what you give, and that's why

**[30:10]** it's called karma too, right? I think karma is one of the best names you can give something like this

**[30:14]** because karma is a real thing, you know, you give, you get. And the other big thing, like I've seen

**[30:22]** is like, you know, everybody thinks, oh, you have to backlink on Reddit in order for people to

**[30:26]** cite you. You actually don't even have to backlink. If I just reference clearbox in a useful way,

**[30:33]** like, Hey, I found this thread. I'm also using my own tool clearbox, which helps me surface

## 30:35 — You don't need a backlink to get cited

**[30:37]** the right leads. I don't have to say clearbox.to. A will get cited. And B, I see a lot of times

**[30:45]** people will just genuinely be like, Hey, can I get the link? So, you know, dropping a link in

**[30:52]** certain channels is perfectly acceptable. But I'm always and I and this is part of what I share in

**[30:57]** my playbook is live examples, because, you know, I build and I post on Reddit because I like it.

**[31:03]** But I also feel like it's not like, like, almost like not the obligation, but one of my duties as

**[31:08]** somebody who's, you know, building in the space in Reddit, like, why should you buy my tool if I

**[31:13]** can't prove that I'm using it to grow, right? So that was a big, that's a big thing for me. And

**[31:20]** that's why I'm like, you know, I built this Reddit playbook. And I think it's on like v4, because,

**[31:25]** you know, I use quad code to build websites and five code the websites. But my biggest thing is,

**[31:30]** I don't say, Claude, build me a website, I say, let's go through five, let's go into plan mode.

**[31:36]** And I want to run this through six phases until I'm absolutely happy with five different tests on

**[31:42]** the dev server before we push it into production. And I won't forget, I was still like dissatisfied

**[31:48]** with the playbook, but I shared it with Leela and his, the way he embraced it, and the way he liked

**[31:54]** it was like my, okay, this is something, you know, like, I'm a go to market engineer, and I can love

**[31:59]** everything I do. I need to hear from the person that I know will criticize me when he's when it's

**[32:04]** off. And it's like another thing I always say is like, if the person that's like on your team or

**[32:10]** is your co founder is always agreeing with you, that's probably the wrong co founder, you need

**[32:14]** somebody that's going to disagree and keep you honest. Because if he just agrees with everything,

**[32:20]** how do you know that he's, he's being real when he actually does like something?

**[32:25]** Yep, yep. And which it, you know, the Reddit community is like that pretty authentic, they'll

**[32:29]** give you the positive, they'll give you the negative. One thing tactically, I'm curious,

**[32:35]** the best way to approach this in most social platforms, business pages don't do very well.

**[32:41]** If you're looking at LinkedIn, if you're looking at meta, like the company page itself,

**[32:47]** usually is a poor performing page. So what tends to happen is you have people on the team that have

**[32:53]** presence on that platform that tend to lead the charge. The only issue is, of course, if they end

**[32:59]** up switching companies going somewhere else doing their own thing, they tend to take a lot of that

**[33:04]** with them. Is it a similar concept on Reddit? Or do you sometimes see companies pull off useful,

**[33:14]** like company specific users that can really stay with the business as it grows?

**[33:21]** I would say yes and no, like on Reddit, a lot of people are anonymous. But the way you're speaking,

**[33:28]** like people they want to people want to talk to people. That's why you were saying like,

**[33:32]** on X, for example, company accounts, organization level accounts, they tend to perform well, worse

**[33:39]** compared to like personal branding, like having the CEO, the CPO, or even like the engineers of

**[33:45]** the company talking about the product. It's just because you can connect to people. And on Reddit,

**[33:52]** it's pretty much the same, like Sean was talking about sharing links. If you're just on a Monday

**[33:58]** morning, you have a problem in your job, you go to Reddit, you ask a question, and you have like

**[34:01]** five people answering with a link with a product that is like not exactly the solution that you

**[34:07]** were looking for. It's just you're not going to engage with that. And you might even report

**[34:12]** these people. It was not like it's about advertisement. It sounds like advertisement.

**[34:17]** So I think on Reddit, it's different because most of the time people prefer to stay anonymous.

**[34:26]** So you don't really know if it's a person or a company, you don't really know the context

**[34:30]** of like the author. But the way they write is how you know if this is a company or not.

**[34:37]** And to summarize what Sean was saying, I would say like, don't share your links,

**[34:42]** don't share your products before people begs you about it. That's like the biggest rule on Reddit.

**[34:53]** Are there any other etiquette items, Leela, that you think would be important for people to know?

**[34:57]** So don't share your links, talk like a human, don't have AI, write your responses.

**[35:04]** But anything else that people should be aware of if they're kind of stepping in for the first time?

## 35:08 — Reddit etiquette: post the problem, not the product

**[35:09]** Yeah, I think it's very easy to be excited and say, oh, I'm going to be on all subreddits and

**[35:13]** posts everywhere, comments everywhere. You're just going to get banned. Because if you do that,

**[35:18]** unless you have like a big team and you trust a lot of people to do copywriting, you'll have to use

**[35:22]** LLMs. And I'm not saying this is not possible. For example, with Sean, we've been working on skills

**[35:28]** that make like a cloud generating copy that looks pretty much human. And we're pretty satisfied

**[35:34]** about it. But this is not something I would recommend because it requires like a lot of

**[35:39]** prompt engineering before you can come to something that just looks close to human.

**[35:43]** So I would say just don't be excited by the volume. There's so many opportunities, but start small,

**[35:48]** start with like five to 10 comments a day. You can post also, that is a great way to talk about

**[35:55]** your product or the problem you're solving. If you post about just pitching your product,

**[36:00]** that's probably not going to work. Some communities accept it, some like accept like you share the

**[36:06]** project you're building, some don't. So sometimes you want to post about the problem you're solving.

**[36:12]** Like for example, let's say we are building on Reddit, so we know a lot of things about Reddit.

**[36:17]** I could post on SaaS, the SaaS subreddit. I'm not going to come and say, "Hey, Clearbox is the

**[36:23]** solution for distribution and everything." I'm going to come and say, like talk about the problem

**[36:28]** we're solving. Like, for example, with AI and like all the noise, like everyone can create SaaS

**[36:34]** right now. And it's very hard to distribute. And so I'm going to bring my insight on how I've been

**[36:40]** using Clearbox Reddit in the last month to actually grow my SaaS. And people will ask in the comments,

**[36:48]** like, I don't even have to share the link of my startup inside of the posts. Like people will just

**[36:54]** share about it. I will engage with people. And the cool thing is that you know that if someone engages

**[36:59]** with your posts, you know that person is possibly in the same boat. You just DM them. And you're like,

**[37:07]** "Hey, by the way, I wrote that post and I ended up creating a solution, which is Clearbox." And

**[37:13]** I think this is just the smartest way of doing it, you know, like just being a real human,

**[37:18]** putting yourself in the shoes of the person commenting and asking for help. Yeah.

**[37:24]** Yeah, I just think there's going to be so much temptation to try to scale this thing. And I

**[37:31]** think it's just going to completely go up in flames for these companies that are not really like,

**[37:37]** well, first of all, they have inauthentic motives for being in these channels. And I think you have

**[37:45]** to have some type of approach where you're feeling like, "Hey, this is an opportunity for me to give

**[37:50]** real value to the market." And make the bet that the business will come if you're doing a good job

**[37:57]** at that. And it sounds like if you can at least hone in a particular brand voice or company voice

**[38:05]** and keep it to a small group of people that genuinely enjoy responding to things and then

**[38:11]** prioritizing things where they can add value to these problems, it's probably a good way to go.

**[38:16]** And you could actually, in a lot of ways, this might be one of the few platforms you could build

**[38:22]** a company dedicated user that can grow over time and doesn't leave with the person behind it.

**[38:34]** Yeah, I actually looked at it like this. We have SDRs or sales reps today that they spent half

**[38:41]** their day either cold calling and the other half sending automated emails through sales

**[38:44]** love that don't even work anymore. Especially in the big... It's like, why not? If I was a business

**[38:50]** development manager, why wouldn't I want to have my rep dedicate an hour a day to

**[38:56]** being useful in a community like Reddit? Or even if it's not Reddit, somebody might be like a

**[39:01]** sub stack or something. But that compounds in so many ways because now you have your people in the

**[39:08]** weeds that are on... You're an SDR and you're calling a VP of sales or VP of finance. You might

**[39:15]** know the product that you're trying to sell them, but you don't really understand that VP of sales.

**[39:19]** You don't understand what he's feeling on Q3 when it's holidays and he's worried about his

**[39:25]** reps hitting quota. So it's almost like it's so early and it's so new, but it's just, I guess,

**[39:34]** maybe the SDR and then the go to market engineer in me is part of the reason why I valued Reddit

**[39:40]** and saw the aha for me was that real sentiment into the buyers, what they're talking and how

**[39:47]** they're talking. Cause it's like all go to market engineers. We all know we can build a copy. We can

**[39:53]** get the best email infrastructure possible. We can make sure the list is great. But do you know what

**[40:00]** those buyers really care about just based on the features and everything? Maybe, but especially

**[40:05]** like I worked for an agency where I had seven to eight clay workspaces and then every single one,

**[40:12]** it was like, I spent more time focusing on, you know, getting the right copy and the right variables

**[40:18]** than I did building out the infrastructure that includes two weeks of warmup and everything else

**[40:24]** involved. So, um, you know, it's so early, but I really do see a world where like reps really

**[40:30]** understand that they can use Reddit correctly for their words to, you know, a like just be involved

**[40:36]** share. Like, you know, you have, um, you know, an audit list of like the best tech stack for finance,

**[40:42]** um, operators that they should use it in, in February or whatever, like things like that you

**[40:48]** can find and it will be on Reddit. And the beauty again about Reddit is that karma threshold and

**[40:53]** that ratio. So meaning if the post is valid and it's good and it's useful and you want to extract

**[41:00]** it, you're not going to extract it if it's been downvoted or everybody is just in the comments

**[41:05]** saying this is AI slop. But if everybody's saying, Hey, this is super cool. Can you share more or x,

**[41:11]** y, like, Oh, maybe there's something here that, you know, I can reverse engineer and I can use

**[41:16]** for my own copy or for my own, um, work. So it's like, we're, we're also, you know, we're talking

**[41:22]** with certain companies that have their own orchestration layer tools, like a, like a deep

**[41:26]** line or even clay where like I use clay for so long and you know, we would get the copy. We would do

**[41:32]** the research. We would run clay agents to research every domain or a fire crawl to grab it. And that

**[41:39]** gives you something, but it doesn't tell you anything about the person buying. Right. Um,

**[41:45]** you know, you know, it's interesting. So, so many brands have deep empathy and love for their

**[41:55]** customers that they just can't help but get involved in the community. And I think SAS companies

## 42:00 — SaaS lost its moat — what replaces it?

**[42:04]** has been a, it's been a very, very interesting category where they didn't have to do that.

**[42:10]** They just built something that was before a few years ago, difficult to replicate.

**[42:16]** So they had a moat in the tech that they built and they could just kind of scale it and then

**[42:21]** just scale through advertising, which is a very like at the time also cheap way to grow.

**[42:27]** But now SAS, all of those advantages that kind of put it on this special pedestal of a category

**[42:35]** have completely been wiped away. People can build their own products with Claude right away. There's

**[42:41]** some production grade stuff, of course, that, that has a little bit of a moat, but they also have to

**[42:47]** start having real domain expertise and differentiate with experience and differentiate with their

**[42:53]** service and how they show up for customers and how they serve customers. And then I think

**[42:58]** this final portion, the way SAS companies have to show up in their marketing has to be authentic.

**[43:05]** It has to be real. It has to be connected to their customers. It can't just be this advertising

**[43:10]** cannon that they hope people will click on the link and then buy the product. They have to really

**[43:16]** put in the effort, which I think a lot of these SAS companies are just not used to doing.

**[43:22]** Totally. I think when it comes to things like ads where like me and him, when we talk,

**[43:26]** we'd love to do ads, but I want to do ads when I have messaging that already lands, right? Like,

**[43:31]** it's like the whole Gary V concept where it's like, put like it with like TikToks and stuff.

**[43:36]** You can do a hundred TikToks, but the ones that get those thousand that pass that threshold and

**[43:41]** get high views, those are the ones you can double down, put the ads, put into real things because

**[43:46]** the algorithm in that sense, like if you use it, right, it doesn't lie. It's like, if people are

**[43:52]** scrolling past, that means you're not interesting. If they're scrolling for five seconds, maybe you

**[43:57]** caught them on that first hook, but it's not interesting enough. So I'm very much like learning

**[44:03]** all of those aspects of, you know, how to, you know, ensure that, you know, we share the value

**[44:09]** of Reddit because it can be interesting, but it's also how you deliver it and how you share it.

**[44:14]** Right. So it's like, you know, you know, when your co-founder signed up for Clearbox,

**[44:21]** you know, normally that's like the product guys thing where he sees the signups, but, you know,

**[44:26]** I'm a go to market engineer. I was like, Lila, let me get the, not just postdoc. I have the key to

**[44:31]** convex, the read one, not write one, but just enough so I can understand our, our client data,

**[44:37]** our product data, like who's using Clearbox the right way? Who's not? You know, ideally, I always

**[44:43]** say like to every user, when I speak to them, I want you to win with this tool. Like, you know,

**[44:48]** and because, you know, we're in that situation where Reddit as a growth channel is new, you know,

**[44:55]** anybody else can build what we're building. It's not hard to build a Reddit scraper,

**[44:58]** but not everybody can, not everybody has spent the last, you know, half a year really like diving

**[45:06]** in, posting, commenting, interacting, engaging with people, testing things that work, showing

**[45:12]** even the failures. Like I keep my posts and my comments all public for a reason because, you know,

**[45:19]** while most of my posts and comments do good, some don't, some might have gotten down voted now,

**[45:23]** leave it there because I'm not hiding anything. I want people to see what's working and what's not

**[45:28]** working. I think that's super important, that transparency. And, you know, again, it's, we're

**[45:34]** in an era where anybody can take a weekend with a cloud code session and really build something

**[45:39]** cool, but can you distribute that? Can you make it secure? Can you sell it to other people? You know,

**[45:45]** like my first user was Leela, fortunately. And that's, you know, that's why we got to this point,

**[45:52]** like, you know, and yeah, so it's, it's, it's just really cool. But, you know, it's one of those

**[45:59]** things where, you know, you do it right and you, you take the time and the research and that word

**[46:05]** karma really does just come into play in so many ways with the, with the whole Reddit world.

**[46:11]** Like distribution has always been a big thing. And, but you, you just said it like, before

**[46:17]** shown talks, like more than ever, you have to be connected with the audience. You have to have

**[46:23]** empathy. You have to show like, you're really understanding the problems because there's just

## 46:28 — The new SaaS model: distribution, cost, and speed

**[46:28]** so much noise, like everyone can create a SAS in a few minutes. And that's true. Like anyone could

**[46:34]** create like a clear box competitors in a minute, probably not in a minute, because the main value

**[46:41]** we bring is cost optimization. So I think that's also a great insight. I know if this audience is

**[46:46]** made of founders, but I've spent a lot of time in the last month questioning myself on where is the

**[46:54]** place I can bring the most value to people in companies right now is SAS just dead. And I have

**[47:03]** to move to something else is SAS evolving to something. And so my conclusion is that distribution

**[47:09]** is more important than ever. And as you said, you need to like be with your audience, engage with

**[47:14]** communities, advertisement, cold email, they still work. They're just very expensive, especially if

**[47:20]** you're if you're starting. And the two other things is cost and speed. No one wants to learn

**[47:29]** a SAS that is super complex. And you have like a huge learning curve, you have to work on it for

**[47:34]** an entire month before you can get any value. And that's speed and costs like, first of all,

**[47:43]** with Clearbox, if you wanted to ask cloud code right now, like build me a Reddit scraper, that

**[47:50]** is going to surface up on the opportunities for my business, you can do it, you're going to plug like

**[47:55]** API, whatever, and cloud is going to pull all that data and run else the cloud code SDK or whatever

**[48:04]** model to analyze every single comment, it's going to cost you like $5,000 a month minimum. And on

**[48:10]** Clearbox, it costs you $75 a month. Or you will have to use less precise approach like keywords

**[48:15]** matching or semantic search, which we've discarded because they have shown to contain a lot of noise.

**[48:20]** And when you open Clearbox, you know that 90% of the things you see, they're just signal, they're

**[48:26]** just value, you might decide to invest your time on them or not. But at least you're not losing your

**[48:32]** time on something that is clearly someone not talking about your problem or not your competitors

**[48:37]** or not an engagement opportunity, you know, it's like, you have signal, then you decide.

**[48:43]** So I think that's where SAS is going, enabling agents that enable people,

**[48:50]** or like very minimalistic. First of all, I like the new product that Landlist is releasing. It's

**[48:56]** like every day you get 10 leads, which are the 10 people in the market that today are have the

**[49:03]** highest intent, basically in your product. It contrasts so much with like the previous model

**[49:09]** of like building lists of 1000s of people and like reaching out to call the email is like no,

**[49:13]** you just have 10 people and just focus your time on them. Because these people are already overwhelmed.

**[49:18]** So find a way to reach out to them, give them a call, send them a message on LinkedIn,

**[49:24]** build personalized message like this 10 people's they deserve your time more than the 1000s people

**[49:30]** that were on your previous list. And I think this is where SAS is going, like cutting through the

**[49:36]** noise, allowing people to do the same thing for like 500 times cheaper, allowing people to do

**[49:42]** the same thing for just 10 minutes a day, instead of like hours a day, like if you had to scroll

**[49:48]** Reddit every day, instead of using Clearbox, you would not do that. That would be just so

**[49:54]** much time consuming with Clearbox, you just open your inbox, and you have all these opportunities

**[49:59]** just sitting here for you. And that's like a no brainer, you know, like paying 75 bucks a month to

**[50:06]** have all this value, like save $5,000, being able to just spend 10 minutes on Reddit every day and

**[50:13]** make it one of your main distribution channel. That's like a no brainer, like $75, even less than

**[50:18]** what you pay for lead agency, you know, for a single lead. So yeah, that's my vision of it.

## 50:25 — Anthony's take: SaaS isn't dead, it's becoming a service

**[50:25]** I'm curious what you think about about all of that. I definitely do not think SAS is dead. I think

**[50:30]** we're just going to get more sober valuations of what they're actually worth as a business and as

**[50:38]** a company. And for all the reasons that you mentioned, so it takes time, even if you could

**[50:44]** build it, I could build 20 billion things, it's possible for me to go into terminal and build

**[50:49]** whatever the hell I want. It doesn't mean I should. There's a few things that are really core to me

**[50:56]** and my business and things where we have exceptional domain expertise and exceptional value

**[51:04]** that we have spent years going into potholes, tripping over ourselves and taking that experience

**[51:12]** to build things that have all that experience baked in. And I think that's where SAS is going. I

**[51:17]** think SAS is really going to move more to a service industry. So people who build these products,

**[51:25]** they're really service companies because they're aiming, they're forming their expertise into

**[51:32]** something that is repeatable, which is very similar to a consulting company or a service company.

**[51:39]** Like you have all of your expertise, you build it into frameworks, you build it into things that

**[51:44]** you can then use. Now it's just a new way of doing that. I think the foundations of SAS and AI are

**[51:52]** almost like everyone has access to Excel. Everyone has access to PowerPoint or Google Sheets, Google

**[51:57]** Slides, whatever. But that's not really the secret sauce. The secret sauce is what do you put on that

**[52:03]** canvas and what problem are you aiming that brain power towards to solve for someone? And I think

**[52:10]** that only comes when you have deep empathy for your customer, a group of people that are experiencing

**[52:15]** a problem or they have aspirations and you build something that's just for them. And then you find

**[52:21]** ways to get involved in the world that they're living. I think that's where SAS is going. And

**[52:26]** I think that's a good thing. I think we had overvalued bloated valuations, people spending

**[52:33]** money on nonsense. And now it's, hey, let's let the real companies adding value in the market

**[52:39]** survive and they will. And it gives an opportunity to have even more diversity of product

**[52:45]** and customization to meet the market's needs better.

**[52:52]** I agree. It's like, you know, the concept that just because people are now using AI to build that

**[52:57]** they're, you know, they're doing less or being less productive. Most people, if you ask them if

**[53:02]** they've been in the terminal for the past six months, they're spending more hours building

**[53:06]** and more time working and reiterating because now it's like, oh, there's so much more I can do,

**[53:12]** you know, a software like I've spoken to real software, senior software engineers and,

**[53:18]** you know, seven, eight years in the industry. And they're like, yeah, I embraced coding agents

**[53:23]** two years ago and I haven't looked back. I'm more productive. I love my job more because

**[53:29]** it lets me do more than I was ever capable. I've heard people say that they were CS majors and

**[53:34]** dropped out of programming completely. And then once they started realizing they can do this with

**[53:39]** coding agents, it's like, okay, this is how my brain works. It's like, my brain is not wired to,

**[53:45]** you know, type out every single code base, but I understand programming. I understand the

**[53:49]** functionality of, you know, the components and why this should click and this should turn this to

**[53:55]** that. So, you know, the ability to be able to do that is just great, but there's also groundedness

**[54:01]** into it too, right? Like, yeah, I five coded or, you know, built the features for the original

**[54:07]** version, but I wasn't delusional, delusional enough to think that, Hey, I should just, you know,

**[54:12]** go out in the market and try and sell this. Like, let me find the right team or the right person to,

**[54:18]** you know, make sure that if we have a hundred people giving us a credit card, I'm not, you know,

**[54:23]** letting somebody hack into my Mac mini and take that information, God forbid. So, you know, there

## 54:29 — The Gemma quantization story

**[54:29]** was that, but like, I would say this, he's too humble. One of the biggest things that he was

**[54:33]** able to do for clear boxes. And in reality, this is why we're still even running right now is that

**[54:40]** we have, he built his own local inference model. Like, I'm not sure if you're familiar with,

**[54:45]** when Google released the Gemma model, it was a, it's a local open source model that they released.

**[54:52]** And I can't tell the story like he can, but I'll just keep it short and he can maybe explain it

**[54:56]** better, but he was able to quantize that model so that he can reduce the, you know, the math in it

**[55:02]** and put it into a GPU that can run clear box for us. And it's funny cause I can look at the engine

**[55:09]** every day and see the cost for, you know, if you have a thousand users and even if half of them

**[55:15]** are on a paid trial and a lot of companies have that, if you're running on a chat UBT wrapper,

**[55:21]** you can, you can lose your runway and go out really quick. And one of the, like it's, it's,

**[55:27]** it's everything. It's not one of, but just, you know, the props to him, I'd love for him to explain

**[55:32]** it a little better than I can, but I always joke back to the WhatsApp message. I can even just

**[55:37]** read it real quick. I got from him in, I remember that one. Yeah. He's like, by the way, I'm with my

**[55:45]** grandma. I didn't have much time to work, but I quantized Gemma for 31 B and optimized it for

**[55:52]** our use case. I managed to have her running for 10 X cheaper than via API. This is back in March.

**[55:58]** Super casual. Just a very average sizing a Gemma model over the weekend. He drops it on hugging

**[56:06]** face. And I think now it's at almost a million downloads, but I'd love for him to just give you

**[56:11]** like the TLDR on the story. Cause I think it's honestly one of the coolest things. Of course.

**[56:16]** Yeah. I think this is a great insight also for this audience. Like,

**[56:20]** and that also intersects with the value that SAS can provide with models, like

**[56:28]** time and human labor can be automated. And that's the thing. And that's also very

**[56:32]** counterintuitive with the fact that we were saying SAS are evolving towards service because service,

**[56:38]** something that can be automated now, but it's not about automation like in SAS. It's about like

**[56:43]** relationship and empathy as we were, as we were discussing, but there's a lot of, a lot of things

**[56:48]** in a company that can be automated. And right now, if you use state of the art models, like

**[56:57]** open AI and anthropic models, it's just going to be so expensive that it's almost discouraging

**[57:03]** for you to invest the time of optimizing these processes. There is a huge potential at creating

**[57:10]** small models that are very good at something like a thousand times cheaper than the models from the

**[57:15]** big labs and like retain 95% of the intelligence on that specific task. And that's what we did.

**[57:23]** Basically I took a model from Google. I made it much smaller so I can fit in a single consumer

**[57:28]** GPU of 50, 90. That's why I went viral because people were hyped by the model and then they

**[57:33]** realized they can run it on the GPU they have at home. And so just last month, I think he got like

**[57:38]** 600k than loads. Yeah, it went crazy. We got reposted by the hugging face and Google researcher.

**[57:47]** And we got like a million views on Twitter just for that model. But that's a very great insight

**[57:54]** for people like how can you help your users, your company do the same thing, the exact same thing

**[58:00]** they're already doing, but for like much cheaper. And that's the cost aspect, you know, with Clearbox,

**[58:07]** it will be very hard to leverage Reddit. If you had to do it yourself with like the big labs model,

**[58:14]** it would just be too expensive. It would probably be fine for an enterprise. You don't mind paying

**[58:18]** 20k a month if it's going to bring you like 200k a year contracts here and there. But if you're a

**[58:26]** startup, if you're anything lower than a big enterprise, you do mind. You don't want to spend

**[58:30]** 20k a month on something you don't know is going to work. And yeah, I think that's, that's definitely

**[58:38]** something I'm even thinking of, like how there's this I see so many processes that can be automated

**[58:45]** in companies. Yeah, there's things I cannot share, but I'm talking with big companies also. And

**[58:54]** they're like, they're talking about this right now. And they're probably going to build that

**[59:00]** internally. But I think there's a big potential for a startup assess also to come and optimize

**[59:06]** the cost for them. I've seen something recently, what was that? Oh, was it post hog?

**[59:14]** Yeah, I think post hog, you know, post hog, they're like pivoting right now. For a long time,

**[59:19]** they were just this big analytics company plus things you can like tools to help running your

**[59:28]** products, like feature flags, A/B testing and stuff like that. Now they're pivoting towards

**[59:34]** this being this hub, where you can automate your entire business and keep track of all the agents.

**[59:39]** And so your business will be auto improving. So your engineers, they don't spend time on like the

**[59:45]** small issues that customers are bringing every day, for example, they spend time, like being

**[59:50]** innovative, being even better at what you're really doing. And that makes a lot of sense. I think

**[59:57]** post hog is a very big company. And that's not for no reason that they're

**[1:00:00]** pivoting towards this new messaging of being the hub where you cannot make your business basically.

**[1:00:08]** Yeah, I think it just speaks to the fact that there's going to be a lot of opportunities. And

**[1:00:14]** you can solve problems for people in a more efficient way in a more effective way, too.

## 01:00:21 — Efficiency has a limit. Effectiveness doesn't.

**[1:00:21]** I think I talk a lot about this, like I, it's fine that AI can provide some efficiency.

**[1:00:27]** The things that always get me excited are how do I get more effective? How do I do this better?

**[1:00:32]** Because there's a limiting rate to how efficient you can be, but how effective you can be is almost

**[1:00:41]** unlimited. So I think anything that we can do to say, let's just do this thing better. And I think

**[1:00:47]** that's where SaaS companies, service companies, anyone can start, yes, leveraging AI, building

**[1:00:53]** local models that can do the job better and more efficiently. I think there's going to be so much

**[1:01:00]** opportunity for that. So there's a lot of doomers out there right now. I'm not one of them. I know

**[1:01:08]** there's going to be some pain, like you don't go through a major transition without some societal

**[1:01:13]** pain. But when we get through to the other side, I think it's just better. So I'm excited for it and

**[1:01:19]** having a ton of fun with it right now. And I really appreciate what you guys are doing. I think

**[1:01:25]** Reddit is a unique universe full of authenticity that is lacking in so many other platforms and so

**[1:01:35]** many other venues and forums that people are going into to where it's like the last

**[1:01:41]** bit of humanity out in the social network right now. So I think what you're doing to help people

**[1:01:48]** and brands connect with the right people and connect in the right way is massively valuable.

**[1:01:56]** So I really appreciate everything you're doing. And I really appreciate everything you shared

## 01:02:00 — Where to find Clearbox

**[1:02:00]** on the podcast today. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Maybe as a closing note,

**[1:02:06]** if there's anyone in the audience interested in Reddit, our teams are likely going to work

**[1:02:12]** together. We're exploring right now the service aspects because we know Reddit can be overwhelming

**[1:02:16]** for people and that also intersects with what you were saying like SaaS are evolving towards service.

**[1:02:22]** And your your co-founder also looked very interested in like spending more time

**[1:02:29]** on Reddit and leveraging that as a distribution channel. Just go on LinScale website and or

**[1:02:37]** Clearbox website and we'll be cool. It's free. We're cool guys. Worst case scenario will give

**[1:02:42]** you a lot of value and best case scenario Reddit might become one of your best channel ever.

**[1:02:49]** And I always like to say just one more thing. Right now I chase down every user that signs up

**[1:02:56]** because I have access to the keys. So if you do sign up, you will likely get a message for me

**[1:03:02]** saying, hey, thanks for signing up. And I'm here to help jump on a call with you share. And

**[1:03:07]** my whole thing is I want you to win with the tool. So yeah, I'll close off there.

**[1:03:15]** That's fantastic. I love it. Well, it's hyper relevant for us at LinScale for our own

**[1:03:20]** business and growth. I know it's going to be unbelievably relevant for the companies that we

**[1:03:24]** work with. And I appreciate everything you're doing, everything you shared and can't wait

**[1:03:29]** to see what you guys do next. Thank you. Thank you, Anthony, so much for for setting this up

**[1:03:36]** and being on it. We're excited to work with you guys together and help you guys win just as much.