Meeting Title: Uttam-Kumaran <> Philip-Ruffini Date: 2024-10-21 Meeting participants: Philip Ruffini, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:03:26.030 ⇒ 00:03:26.490 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
2 00:03:26.950 ⇒ 00:03:29.140 Philip Ruffini: Hey, Utah! I pronounce your name utam.
3 00:03:29.140 ⇒ 00:03:29.909 Uttam Kumaran: Good town.
4 00:03:30.110 ⇒ 00:03:31.499 Philip Ruffini: You, Tom. Nice to meet you.
5 00:03:31.650 ⇒ 00:03:33.270 Uttam Kumaran: Nice to meet you. How’s it going.
6 00:03:33.270 ⇒ 00:03:34.099 Philip Ruffini: Give me one sec.
7 00:03:34.580 ⇒ 00:03:34.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
8 00:03:34.970 ⇒ 00:03:38.179 Philip Ruffini: Connect my airpods. Is this good? Wait you, Tom. Hello!
9 00:03:38.300 ⇒ 00:03:40.940 Philip Ruffini: Okay. For some reason the sound’s not working. Give me a sec.
10 00:03:41.456 ⇒ 00:03:42.490 Uttam Kumaran: No worries.
11 00:03:43.150 ⇒ 00:03:43.810 Philip Ruffini: Sorry.
12 00:03:47.460 ⇒ 00:03:48.840 Philip Ruffini: Why isn’t this working?
13 00:03:50.120 ⇒ 00:03:50.910 Philip Ruffini: But.
14 00:03:50.910 ⇒ 00:03:52.259 Uttam Kumaran: Now maybe not.
15 00:03:52.260 ⇒ 00:03:53.299 Philip Ruffini: Did you try? Now.
16 00:03:53.810 ⇒ 00:03:54.639 Uttam Kumaran: I can hear you.
17 00:03:54.640 ⇒ 00:03:57.250 Philip Ruffini: I can’t hear you. Let me just leave and come back. Sorry.
18 00:03:57.587 ⇒ 00:03:58.262 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
19 00:04:10.030 ⇒ 00:04:11.839 Philip Ruffini: Okay, is that working.
20 00:04:12.280 ⇒ 00:04:13.103 Uttam Kumaran: I can hear you.
21 00:04:13.310 ⇒ 00:04:20.310 Philip Ruffini: Okay, great, great, great. You were in such a good mood when you hopped on the call, too, and I’m like, Damn, he’s so high energy, and I’m blowing this.
22 00:04:20.608 ⇒ 00:04:31.670 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, you’re totally fine. I’m in a good mood because my weeks, these days, Monday and Tuesday. It’s like I hear all the bad news. And then Thursday, Friday. It’s like good news. And so
23 00:04:31.780 ⇒ 00:04:38.590 Uttam Kumaran: we’re past Monday almost, and I’m I was excited, for this is the meeting. I was most excited about today. So.
24 00:04:38.590 ⇒ 00:04:43.520 Philip Ruffini: Oh, awesome thanks. I’m glad. Yeah. No one’s told me that on all my calls, so I appreciate you.
25 00:04:43.520 ⇒ 00:04:52.159 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I mean, I’m in the middle of basically doing a little bit of what you’re talking about. And so just really curious about like
26 00:04:52.665 ⇒ 00:04:59.080 Uttam Kumaran: like, what? Like, yeah. Just curious about how how everything went. I’m happy to tell you a little bit about
27 00:04:59.180 ⇒ 00:05:14.660 Uttam Kumaran: Brainforge. So I started brain forge about a year ago. It’s a start as like a consultancy like an agency around data. So we do data analytics, data, engineering, analytics, engineering and like data modeling, and then also started to actually do like AI services as well like
28 00:05:14.950 ⇒ 00:05:21.790 Uttam Kumaran: automation as a service, a couple of different things. And I just kind of like I. My background is in engineering. So I’m
29 00:05:21.840 ⇒ 00:05:43.350 Uttam Kumaran: was really good at hiring, like great engineers. I pretty good at operations, and the sales is the last kind of foray for me to be like, get the last infinity stone, basically like figuring out like how to do it. And sales for me. I love marketing and content, and everything into there. So what did I do? I just called, like all my friends in sales and growth marketing, and was like.
30 00:05:43.390 ⇒ 00:05:51.780 Uttam Kumaran: tell me how you do this now and then. Tell me how you would do this. You got another shot at it, and so I’ve been learning all about SEO, about content. We actually have.
31 00:05:51.880 ⇒ 00:06:06.169 Uttam Kumaran: you know, content going out emails going out and stuff like that. But just saw your happened to stumble across your tweet especially because the company was like a kind of it’s like a technical or like a scientific company. And so I was interested like how you were able to kind of grow that, because.
32 00:06:06.340 ⇒ 00:06:12.979 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I think about our company. We’re not like. It’s not a consumer app but it’s I was just curious about the process, and everything.
33 00:06:12.980 ⇒ 00:06:13.970 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, yeah.
34 00:06:13.970 ⇒ 00:06:14.770 Uttam Kumaran: Where we’re at.
35 00:06:15.170 ⇒ 00:06:28.159 Philip Ruffini: Happy to share as much so you tell him a little bit of context. So my name is Philip was a product manager at Microsoft ran my own content marketing agency. Then I took over growth and well, I took over Content and media for Rupa, and then became head of growth after
36 00:06:28.400 ⇒ 00:06:46.759 Philip Ruffini: So I I built all of our content media and then outsourced everything for our company. So we had ended up over having over 20 of offshore contractors that helped us do everything cause. My belief is, the future structure of companies is like a 1 to 5 ratio of full time employees to offshore contractors plus AI,
37 00:06:46.760 ⇒ 00:07:07.770 Philip Ruffini: and it’s really about no one should do work. No American should do work. They don’t like doing like. If you hire someone you should hire. The person who’s the best at the one thing you need them to do, and anything that’s replicable like give it to someone offshore is my belief the people offshore way. Cheaper way, more fun to work with, way more grateful, and will never leave you if you’re nice to them.
38 00:07:07.770 ⇒ 00:07:10.360 Uttam Kumaran: I’m I basically have built the company
39 00:07:10.380 ⇒ 00:07:27.619 Uttam Kumaran: on that mentality. But I built it where I was like, I think this is what’s gonna happen. And most of the people in the company are offshore. I found great technical people even outside of marketing, like engineers. And they’re amazing. And yeah, they’re way more grateful than my friends, who are like sitting at spotify like.
40 00:07:27.620 ⇒ 00:07:28.130 Philip Ruffini: Yup!
41 00:07:28.130 ⇒ 00:07:35.800 Uttam Kumaran: Like 300 grand and like irritated like, you know, so much more happier and easier to work with. So
42 00:07:36.150 ⇒ 00:07:37.100 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
43 00:07:37.370 ⇒ 00:07:50.340 Philip Ruffini: Yeah. So and then the business I’m starting now is helping companies to do this. So like Happy to tell you everything we did at Rupa. If you want to hire growth contractors for me, it’s 2,500 to 4,000 per month depending on the role.
44 00:07:50.640 ⇒ 00:07:53.709 Philip Ruffini: and yeah, so essentially like what we did was.
45 00:07:53.780 ⇒ 00:08:12.320 Philip Ruffini: I mean, cause. So my suggestion for people who want to do like content for marketing and growth is you either do the bare minimum, or you go all in so bare minimum. Looks like I give you a contractor to run your SEO, and I give you a social media marketer to take your the SEO content turn into social content. We post on every channel that way if someone googles you
46 00:08:12.320 ⇒ 00:08:29.309 Philip Ruffini: like, they’re like, oh, this is a real company. You know what I mean, because people now verify like how legitimate you look through like Linkedin Instagram. And it’s just based on vibes, man like we once theorized the company where we’re like, we spoof your whole social media presence to look awesome.
47 00:08:29.310 ⇒ 00:08:55.529 Philip Ruffini: which is like we just buy engagement on everything, and you never make any content. But if someone looks it up, they’re like, well, wow! You have a hundred 1,000 Instagram followers. Yeah, anyway. So you, Rupa, was the other end of that spectrum where we went. Like all in, we did podcasts, Youtube linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. And like my goal was a million views on every single channel per month, and then we were doing 500 k. Page visits on our blog with like 10 million plus impressions. So
48 00:08:56.050 ⇒ 00:09:20.169 Philip Ruffini: we we went all in. We spent a obscene amount, and we were medical, so we were paying doctors to make a lot of the content. And so we spent anywhere from, like, you know, 100 to 200 KA month on content. Very, so. Very different kind of strategies. But I believe I can outsource anything, any role, because, essentially like what I have found without, with all these roles we did
49 00:09:20.170 ⇒ 00:09:45.109 Philip Ruffini: was like, I basically would come and figure out the playbook for whatever it was, and then we would just hand it off to them like, instead of sailing or scaling our sales team. We just hired overseas Sdrs to do the work and start building the list for our sales teams right? Like, I figured out how to grow our Youtube channel. And then I just hired took one of our video editors. And I was like, your new job is running the Youtube channel like, here’s how you do it.
50 00:09:46.330 ⇒ 00:10:13.330 Philip Ruffini: so essentially, that’s what I got really good at. So we had people doing like we had an SEO specialist who did all of our technical SEO and wrote the outlines for all of our blog posts. We had 2 Nigerian doctors. I taught how to use Chat Gpt, that would write kind of low hanging fruit articles where they wouldn’t write like how to treat X chronic disease. We’d pay like a ton of money for that piece, but they’d write. What is Tumeric? 101, you know, stuff like that. And then they would add the medical citations that Chat Gpt doesn’t do
51 00:10:14.130 ⇒ 00:10:23.519 Philip Ruffini: so we had Nigerian doctors, SEO specialists. We had 2 full time web flow developers and designers who treated our blog like a product and built features for our blog
52 00:10:23.600 ⇒ 00:10:35.030 Philip Ruffini: that we called a magazine because people want to read a magazine they don’t really want to read. No one wants to read a blog like if I was you. And you really wanted to like, get the ball rolling on all this, because I know I’m assuming you, Bootstrap, this, and you didn’t raise money.
53 00:10:35.030 ⇒ 00:10:54.294 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but we’re, I would say, we’re at the we’re at like the level one that you mentioned, which is like we have blogs. We, I have a I have a designer, a web flow person like, I’m in the same ball. So in my industry and in data and data practices, everybody’s website. It’s like super shit and nobody
54 00:10:54.840 ⇒ 00:11:18.769 Uttam Kumaran: like nobody’s website. Looks good. None of their content looks good. And you just get a basic boilerplate like consulting website for me, I was like, we have to have some sort of content arm. It just took me a while to basically have enough money to basically figure it out. And then, now, basically, we have someone that’s just basically in charge of writing the blog. I’m the only person with the brains for the ideas. Which is one thing that I’m I was interested. You were like hiring.
55 00:11:19.810 ⇒ 00:11:26.739 Uttam Kumaran: you know, doctors. I’m for me. The idea was like, Okay, I gotta go find data engineers who are down to just pair with my
56 00:11:26.880 ⇒ 00:11:30.170 Uttam Kumaran: blog person and write content, you know. Wait.
57 00:11:30.170 ⇒ 00:11:31.369 Philip Ruffini: Your blog person.
58 00:11:31.989 ⇒ 00:11:44.120 Uttam Kumaran: His name is. I just have a guy who’s basically does all the content for us. But what I do is I record transcripts with Chat Gpt. And then I passed him to basically write a blog. Where is he based? He’s based in Philippines.
59 00:11:44.340 ⇒ 00:11:44.990 Philip Ruffini: Got it.
60 00:11:45.550 ⇒ 00:11:45.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
61 00:11:48.310 ⇒ 00:11:51.019 Philip Ruffini: yeah. I mean, I would try and find someone better.
62 00:11:51.360 ⇒ 00:11:51.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
63 00:11:51.680 ⇒ 00:11:52.689 Philip Ruffini: In your content. I think.
64 00:11:52.690 ⇒ 00:11:53.870 Uttam Kumaran: Could be better, but.
65 00:11:55.120 ⇒ 00:12:02.759 Philip Ruffini: yeah. You kind of want to do the bare minimum. Then you just build on it like, it took us 2 years before we started spending, you know, like 50 KA month on our blog.
66 00:12:02.760 ⇒ 00:12:07.916 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just know that in my industry, like the content, is so shit and
67 00:12:08.510 ⇒ 00:12:27.869 Uttam Kumaran: like the people that are writing are like people who they’re like. There’s influencers in data. But there’s kind of no companies in the middle that are like owning stuff. So that’s basically what I said. And I also, for in my industry it’s a lot of boomers. So nobody’s advertising on like modern social like nobody’s doing Tiktok or Instagram, it’s people just doing email.
68 00:12:28.010 ⇒ 00:12:33.693 Uttam Kumaran: So once we’ve once we basically nailed that we’re we’re now growing past that
69 00:12:34.130 ⇒ 00:12:36.710 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, I mean, I would be interested. I don’t know.
70 00:12:37.440 ⇒ 00:12:53.519 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have the budget right now, but would love to kind of like, try to work with you in the future, and, you know, go hire someone through, you guys, at least once we have these repeatable processes. But yeah, interested, if you have any thoughts seeing our website or anything that you’d suggest, let’s do like the lowest hanging fruit thing to do.
71 00:12:53.910 ⇒ 00:13:02.720 Philip Ruffini: So, yeah, yeah, yeah, growth stuff. I’ll teach you a concept. So there is something called the bullseye method. And it’s essentially what you should do if I was you.
72 00:13:02.900 ⇒ 00:13:03.230 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
73 00:13:03.230 ⇒ 00:13:14.060 Philip Ruffini: Go write down all 20 channels that you write down 20 different channels. You can market to influencer partnerships. Founder Linkedin, posting Instagram reels. Go try all of them at like
74 00:13:14.170 ⇒ 00:13:20.169 Philip Ruffini: 5% capacity charge try tended to want 20 at 5 to 10% capacity, and just see how they all do
75 00:13:20.649 ⇒ 00:13:33.099 Philip Ruffini: then cut 50% and try another 50%. You just keep cutting and trying until you get down to one or 2, and you only need one or 2 channels to scale to a million arr, and then 2 channels, if that to scale to 10 million.
76 00:13:34.140 ⇒ 00:13:35.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’re currently.
77 00:13:35.550 ⇒ 00:13:43.750 Philip Ruffini: The way I’m going to get like my goal is to grow this outsourcing agency to 10 million in revenue in 2 years, and I think I can do it all through twitter.
78 00:13:44.240 ⇒ 00:13:44.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
79 00:13:45.070 ⇒ 00:14:03.350 Philip Ruffini: Twitter plus linkedin, and then referrals, I I think, is all we need, because, like we got, we helped one Long Island Janitorial supply company, and the founders like this is fucking amazing. I’m gonna tell all my friends, and now he is the Filipino dealer for all of his friends, and just.
80 00:14:05.080 ⇒ 00:14:11.569 Uttam Kumaran: No. And that’s that’s basically like, I build the whole business on word of mouth, which is the 1st time we’re starting to do actual like
81 00:14:11.870 ⇒ 00:14:13.969 Uttam Kumaran: growth, marketing like sincerely
82 00:14:15.020 ⇒ 00:14:16.120 Philip Ruffini: What’s your budget.
83 00:14:17.320 ⇒ 00:14:19.370 Uttam Kumaran: The right. Now, we’re probably spending.
84 00:14:19.900 ⇒ 00:14:26.669 Uttam Kumaran: We’re probably spending 10 k. On the whole thing, or maybe like 8 k. On the whole thing, which is, like all of email.
85 00:14:26.880 ⇒ 00:14:31.309 Uttam Kumaran: all the website stuff and all of outbound, all of like con, all content.
86 00:14:32.587 ⇒ 00:14:37.140 Philip Ruffini: What does that actually look like like? Run through that with me? This is me trying to just like help.
87 00:14:37.140 ⇒ 00:14:44.310 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I don’t mind. I don’t mind. We have one person his like agencies in the Philippines. He basically
88 00:14:44.616 ⇒ 00:14:52.030 Uttam Kumaran: builds all of our email outbound campaigns. We have like 10 to 15 email campaigns hitting roughly, like 6 to 10,000 emails a month.
89 00:14:52.040 ⇒ 00:15:03.799 Uttam Kumaran: Again, that the reply rate, the reply rate on that is shit so. But that’s I feel like just a volume thing. The second thing is, we have content. And basically what I tasked our guy to do is like.
90 00:15:03.800 ⇒ 00:15:06.200 Philip Ruffini: Is he using different domains, or one domain for all those.
91 00:15:06.200 ⇒ 00:15:07.560 Uttam Kumaran: Different domain. We have different domain.
92 00:15:07.560 ⇒ 00:15:08.739 Philip Ruffini: Okay. Okay. Alright. I got.
93 00:15:08.740 ⇒ 00:15:17.109 Uttam Kumaran: None of the actual, none of the brain forge dot i AI domains. So that’s also thing I called everybody that’s fucked this up. And basically, they’re like, don’t run anything on your own domains.
94 00:15:17.110 ⇒ 00:15:17.840 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
95 00:15:17.840 ⇒ 00:15:23.719 Uttam Kumaran: Use clay. And so that’s all automated as well. And then, we’re doing.
96 00:15:23.850 ⇒ 00:15:28.179 Uttam Kumaran: We’re not doing any dialing. I’m hiring one person to start doing actual dialing.
97 00:15:28.659 ⇒ 00:15:33.779 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna track that to try to make like 40 to 50 calls a day, basically and just do.
98 00:15:34.050 ⇒ 00:15:35.719 Philip Ruffini: Where are you hiring that person.
99 00:15:35.720 ⇒ 00:15:40.489 Uttam Kumaran: That person’s also outsourced Sdr. In in the Philippines. But.
100 00:15:40.490 ⇒ 00:15:40.959 Philip Ruffini: Got it. You.
101 00:15:40.960 ⇒ 00:15:42.770 Uttam Kumaran: You totally, man.
102 00:15:42.770 ⇒ 00:15:46.969 Philip Ruffini: You can do it through me. But my suggestion is, do South Africa, not the Philippines for cold calling.
103 00:15:47.340 ⇒ 00:15:52.179 Uttam Kumaran: Really? Yeah. But what? So is there like, have you, is there an online jobs for like.
104 00:15:52.180 ⇒ 00:15:54.549 Philip Ruffini: No, you just use like, indeed, or Linkedin.
105 00:15:54.550 ⇒ 00:15:59.820 Uttam Kumaran: Just go straight on Linkedin, and just put up a job. Okay, okay.
106 00:16:00.925 ⇒ 00:16:05.639 Uttam Kumaran: we have that. And then on the on the blog. Yeah, we have like 2 pieces going out a week.
107 00:16:05.720 ⇒ 00:16:07.040 Uttam Kumaran: Basically.
108 00:16:07.631 ⇒ 00:16:09.200 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to ramp that up
109 00:16:09.310 ⇒ 00:16:19.099 Uttam Kumaran: that gets split into them getting posted on Instagram that gets split into post on Twitter. We have pretty good like carousels and stuff like that that we’re going after
110 00:16:19.370 ⇒ 00:16:24.820 Uttam Kumaran: for me. It’s just like hit. The volume numbers 1st and then try to optimize the conversions.
111 00:16:26.920 ⇒ 00:16:28.870 Philip Ruffini: Kind of want to do both at the same time. But yeah.
112 00:16:30.000 ⇒ 00:16:43.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, the the SEO stuff we’re getting better at. But I don’t have a dead. I’m basically putting all the content stuff on one person. So I’m thinking about, like, how do we can get? We’re the one thing we’re doing on SEO is we’re gonna build a glossary and try to like, basically Max.
113 00:16:43.460 ⇒ 00:16:44.529 Uttam Kumaran: a ton of like.
114 00:16:45.110 ⇒ 00:16:45.680 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
115 00:16:45.680 ⇒ 00:16:47.410 Philip Ruffini: Programmatic. SEO yep, got it.
116 00:16:47.410 ⇒ 00:16:48.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
117 00:16:49.176 ⇒ 00:16:55.330 Uttam Kumaran: but again, all this stuff is basically stuff I just taught myself in like 3 months. So it’s like, kind of a lot like.
118 00:16:55.340 ⇒ 00:17:03.229 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, it’s it takes a while for it to produce like, you’re right. It’s like, before you can ramp up the cost. I need to see, like revenue coming in. But
119 00:17:03.250 ⇒ 00:17:09.280 Uttam Kumaran: we’re doing okay, I think, compared to where we were in August like this should actually exists for us. But
120 00:17:09.460 ⇒ 00:17:10.170 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
121 00:17:10.170 ⇒ 00:17:11.590 Philip Ruffini: Where are you? Where do you live? By the way.
122 00:17:11.599 ⇒ 00:17:12.789 Uttam Kumaran: I live in Austin.
123 00:17:12.950 ⇒ 00:17:13.710 Philip Ruffini: Oh, nice! Nice!
124 00:17:13.710 ⇒ 00:17:18.140 Uttam Kumaran: I used to live in New York for a bit. I worked for a bunch of startups and then moved here. A few years ago.
125 00:17:18.319 ⇒ 00:17:19.389 Philip Ruffini: Why’d you leave.
126 00:17:20.520 ⇒ 00:17:31.220 Uttam Kumaran: I just kind of felt like it. I don’t think it was a good. It’s not a good career move but like lifestyle. I love living in Austin, and I travel a lot. So I end up in New York
127 00:17:31.350 ⇒ 00:17:32.230 Uttam Kumaran: every phone.
128 00:17:32.230 ⇒ 00:17:32.770 Philip Ruffini: Gotcha.
129 00:17:32.770 ⇒ 00:17:33.980 Uttam Kumaran: So anyways. And
130 00:17:34.030 ⇒ 00:17:39.749 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I moved there right after college. So it was just like insane living there, and quality of life was tough.
131 00:17:39.770 ⇒ 00:17:44.870 Uttam Kumaran: And then during Covid, I was like this sucks. And then, right after Covid I stayed for another year, and then I left.
132 00:17:45.458 ⇒ 00:17:47.749 Uttam Kumaran: I love Austin, I think
133 00:17:47.920 ⇒ 00:17:50.220 Uttam Kumaran: professionally tough, but
134 00:17:50.480 ⇒ 00:17:54.589 Uttam Kumaran: all my connection stuff are still in New York, and I sat so I travel a bunch and.
135 00:17:54.840 ⇒ 00:17:55.160 Philip Ruffini: Gotcha
136 00:17:56.483 ⇒ 00:17:58.669 Philip Ruffini: right now outside Philly, but usually New York.
137 00:17:58.670 ⇒ 00:18:03.190 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, nice. Okay. Okay. Okay, yeah. How is the how’s the growth business going so far?
138 00:18:04.081 ⇒ 00:18:08.179 Philip Ruffini: I just have to close calls. I have 30 calls this week.
139 00:18:08.220 ⇒ 00:18:30.550 Philip Ruffini: I had like 20 last week. Last week’s weren’t great, though, because I had 2 tweets that did really well, one was more like, let me know if you want to hear about talk about SEO. So I had a lot of people that just like weren’t really interested or ready to hire anyone. So last week wasn’t as good this week we’ll be more interested. I’ve sent out like 12 proposals. So it’s like 50% of people probably are like target customer. And then I don’t know what the end conversion is on that yet.
140 00:18:31.930 ⇒ 00:18:47.477 Philip Ruffini: so that’s what I’m interested to figure out, because when I did my content marketing agency that was so easy, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. We guarantee you a million views a month, or you don’t pay like that. That was the pitch. You know what I mean like super easy for anyone to say. Yes. Price Point was $10,000 a month.
141 00:18:47.950 ⇒ 00:18:58.370 Philip Ruffini: and I knew I was a hundred percent. Sure, I’d get a million views for everyone, because I like knew how to do it. This is a bit harder, because it’s more open, ended so, and price points lower.
142 00:18:58.490 ⇒ 00:19:00.193 Philip Ruffini: But that doesn’t matter
143 00:19:00.620 ⇒ 00:19:02.739 Uttam Kumaran: Based on placement or like what’s your what like? What.
144 00:19:02.740 ⇒ 00:19:23.989 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, so per head. So it’s kind of also different. Like dude. Someone offered me $10,000 to write their content strategy. I jokingly told someone I was 25 KA month, and they’re like, Can we do that? And I was like, Yeah, man, I just I was. That was a joke. I don’t want to do work for anyone. I’d rather not make money than do the shit that.
145 00:19:23.990 ⇒ 00:19:24.470 Uttam Kumaran: I didn’t quite.
146 00:19:24.620 ⇒ 00:19:26.120 Philip Ruffini: Like, cause, like.
147 00:19:27.122 ⇒ 00:19:28.510 Philip Ruffini: yeah, because I.
148 00:19:28.510 ⇒ 00:19:40.569 Uttam Kumaran: Then you could only do one of those at a time. That’s that’s exactly why I got this business. It’s not people out for me like a lot of my clients will be like, can I hire you? I’m like, unless you say a number that’s like 10 times
149 00:19:40.680 ⇒ 00:19:42.150 Uttam Kumaran: what I’m thinking.
150 00:19:42.150 ⇒ 00:19:42.490 Philip Ruffini: Yeah.
151 00:19:42.490 ⇒ 00:19:48.620 Uttam Kumaran: Because why the fuck would I do that? I didn’t want to get work on one person, you know, and so.
152 00:19:49.020 ⇒ 00:20:00.905 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, with the my content marketing agency. I couldn’t do more than 5 customers, because I realized I built it around myself. This one I’m trying to make it more hands off like dude Athena does a hundred 50 million in revenue a year.
153 00:20:01.240 ⇒ 00:20:10.969 Philip Ruffini: and like, that’s like a 60% margin on that. And I’m like, Gosh, so I’m basically trying to do that focus on growth and marketing. But the issue is is you create too much optionality.
154 00:20:11.060 ⇒ 00:20:15.985 Philip Ruffini: And in terms of like, Oh, do you want this type person? Do you want this? Where do you start?
155 00:20:16.320 ⇒ 00:20:26.755 Philip Ruffini: So that that’s what I’m currently trying to figure out but our goal is, we’re gonna just partner with one of the big Twitter influencers and just give him a like 5% to just show everything.
156 00:20:27.260 ⇒ 00:20:28.650 Philip Ruffini: but yeah.
157 00:20:28.840 ⇒ 00:20:37.919 Philip Ruffini: that’s the I mean, I do not only have a website made for this, like literally, this business was started with 2 tweets. And then, yeah. So.
158 00:20:37.920 ⇒ 00:20:47.301 Uttam Kumaran: But also you’re doing this all with an audience who’s on Twitter like the growth marketing folks on Twitter and data. The problem is, it’s only linkedin. And in many industries it’s like, only email.
159 00:20:47.910 ⇒ 00:20:49.450 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s like, there’s some.
160 00:20:49.450 ⇒ 00:20:50.360 Philip Ruffini: Did I go to Conference.
161 00:20:50.360 ⇒ 00:21:02.529 Uttam Kumaran: Shipping, shipping. Yeah. So what that’s what we’ll start doing is going to conferences. The other thing I’ll tell you is, although some of the people you’re talking to won’t convert now when they think about content, and when they find the budget they’ll come back.
162 00:21:02.550 ⇒ 00:21:05.000 Uttam Kumaran: So it is a. It is a like.
163 00:21:05.040 ⇒ 00:21:15.829 Uttam Kumaran: You may not track that, but I’m telling you some people they’ll keep seeing you, and then one day they’ll they’ll get the budget, and then they’ll call you back. And so that’s it. It’s just being the 1st person that. Yeah.
164 00:21:15.830 ⇒ 00:21:20.700 Philip Ruffini: Thanks. Yeah, no. The the content agency ruined me because it was literally.
165 00:21:20.700 ⇒ 00:21:21.540 Uttam Kumaran: Shooting.
166 00:21:21.540 ⇒ 00:21:29.829 Philip Ruffini: Fish in a barrel like I got to $57,000 a month in revenue in 4 months. And I like.
167 00:21:30.140 ⇒ 00:21:42.010 Philip Ruffini: yeah, it was. So I basically made like a really nice video for a Twitter influencer tweeted at them. They’d retweet the video. And then everyone would. DM, me, being like, where’d you get this video? And I was like, Oh, I make them. And I’ll give you a million views a month on Tiktok and Instagram. And it was like.
168 00:21:42.060 ⇒ 00:21:45.859 Philip Ruffini: yeah, we can throw 30 k at this to see if this works. Yeah.
169 00:21:46.044 ⇒ 00:21:49.189 Uttam Kumaran: To the ad budget which they could be like. They’ll just spend that on like one influencer.
170 00:21:49.190 ⇒ 00:21:55.239 Philip Ruffini: Yup, but the the churn on that was way, too, like 50% after 3 months. Just because.
171 00:21:56.140 ⇒ 00:21:59.920 Philip Ruffini: like I can get you views, conversions are a different, completely different story.
172 00:22:00.393 ⇒ 00:22:00.866 Uttam Kumaran: Like.
173 00:22:01.340 ⇒ 00:22:06.620 Philip Ruffini: Views are easy. The amount of videos I made about David Goggins because I knew it would get him
174 00:22:07.700 ⇒ 00:22:14.739 Philip Ruffini: fucking like dude. If you could make a video about David Goggins related to the company like like.
175 00:22:14.740 ⇒ 00:22:20.100 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, maybe I should be like something about climbing the data mountain and like being like, yeah, something like that.
176 00:22:20.100 ⇒ 00:22:31.400 Philip Ruffini: No, I mean dude, though, if you want to go viral on social media, what you do is you use data on pop culture shit. So like this is the little hack. I’ll teach you dude. Don’t go make data content. It’s gonna be it’s gonna suck. No one’s gonna care.
177 00:22:31.400 ⇒ 00:22:52.520 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t really. Yeah. Because all this I read is really is really bad. Also, it’s like a lot of the stuff we do, because our Acvs are like anywhere from 10 to 20 KA customer a month. And so sometimes it’s just like getting people in front of people right? It’s less about like. Do they come to the Channel and convert? It’s like, are they? Just seeing that we’re like Legit company and kind of like what you said, but I don’t know. It’s
178 00:22:52.590 ⇒ 00:22:54.430 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. Go ahead, but go ahead like.
179 00:22:54.430 ⇒ 00:23:19.229 Philip Ruffini: Like, say, you’re gonna make a data model, you want to make a tiktok about some like data model or something. Yeah, you can make that data model. Or you can make the same video. That’s just like, you know, we analyze, like all of Elon Musk’s pictures with his ex-wives, you know, you know what I mean, like, just insert pop, like, basically, my one of my friends is a famous Chinese influencer, and he like came to visit me when I was trying to figure out how to learn how to go viral. And he’s like Philip. Just start every video about Kanye West. And I was like what the.
180 00:23:19.230 ⇒ 00:23:20.350 Uttam Kumaran: Are you on? I was like.
181 00:23:20.350 ⇒ 00:23:30.649 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, he’s like dude. Literally. Take that same video you made about like marketing, and just make the 1st 3 seconds about eat Kanye. And then just do the same video you’re going to. And I was like.
182 00:23:31.370 ⇒ 00:23:35.919 Philip Ruffini: Okay, and then after that, I averaged 500,000 views. A video, you know, like.
183 00:23:35.920 ⇒ 00:23:39.576 Uttam Kumaran: Next week, and I’ll send it to you for review, and you can be like.
184 00:23:39.820 ⇒ 00:23:42.707 Philip Ruffini: No, no, please do. Yeah, like
185 00:23:43.180 ⇒ 00:23:51.356 Philip Ruffini: no. But seriously, like I had the same David Goggins video that I made for like 5 different customers. So I was like, look, we hit a million views this month.
186 00:23:51.930 ⇒ 00:24:02.489 Uttam Kumaran: That’s so funny cool. Well, dude, I mean. The one thing I’ll tell you is, there’s there’s a couple there’s company called Hire with near. Have you heard of hire with near.
187 00:24:02.730 ⇒ 00:24:03.270 Philip Ruffini: No.
188 00:24:03.618 ⇒ 00:24:09.199 Uttam Kumaran: Near. I don’t. I think it’s higher with near.com. They’re basically Latin version of.
189 00:24:09.200 ⇒ 00:24:09.979 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, I got it.
190 00:24:09.980 ⇒ 00:24:16.810 Uttam Kumaran: You’re doing. I’ve hired someone through them. I’m gonna hire some more people in Argentina through them. They’re they’re dope
191 00:24:17.780 ⇒ 00:24:20.999 Uttam Kumaran: the other like you’ve probably heard of. Get shepherd. I haven’t used them.
192 00:24:21.000 ⇒ 00:24:21.870 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, yeah.
193 00:24:21.870 ⇒ 00:24:29.799 Uttam Kumaran: I haven’t used them yet. Honestly, I don’t know why you would use them and not just use online jobs, because everybody in the Philippines is just on online jobs, and it’s like 70 bucks.
194 00:24:30.690 ⇒ 00:24:31.460 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t.
195 00:24:31.460 ⇒ 00:24:41.259 Philip Ruffini: Dude. Oh, because people are really bad at hiring, and really bad at doing themselves like the target market that I’ve seen, because I’m assuming hire with near what they charges you, an upfront fee.
196 00:24:41.260 ⇒ 00:24:44.220 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, there’s a fee after placement. There’s like a recruiting fee.
197 00:24:44.540 ⇒ 00:24:45.380 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, how much.
198 00:24:45.380 ⇒ 00:24:47.500 Philip Ruffini: That, like 15, or 10, grand.
199 00:24:47.996 ⇒ 00:24:49.880 Uttam Kumaran: It’s yeah, I think it’s
200 00:24:50.240 ⇒ 00:24:52.730 Uttam Kumaran: 7% of their annual.
201 00:24:53.080 ⇒ 00:24:58.240 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, it’ll end up being something like, yeah, 6 to 10 grand or something depending on who you are.
202 00:24:58.720 ⇒ 00:24:59.440 Philip Ruffini: Got it.
203 00:24:59.620 ⇒ 00:25:10.630 Philip Ruffini: Yeah. I wanted to do monthly similar to growth assistant, just because, like pros and cons different, like, people want different things like.
204 00:25:10.980 ⇒ 00:25:12.150 Philip Ruffini: you know.
205 00:25:12.180 ⇒ 00:25:21.746 Philip Ruffini: Yeah, I I don’t think there’s a right answer, because some people want you to like help every month, like, I tell everyone like. Look, if you sign up for monthly, you can call me about growth whenever you want, which
206 00:25:22.480 ⇒ 00:25:31.186 Philip Ruffini: also, just some people do different roi calculations in their head where it’s like, I’d rather just pay the higher fee upfront to try this. And then they’re like, kind of locked in.
207 00:25:31.720 ⇒ 00:25:37.552 Philip Ruffini: yeah, I I couldn’t figure out, I think, as a business I’d much rather charge monthly than the one time fee
208 00:25:37.830 ⇒ 00:25:40.939 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I I think that’s pretty good, too. But yeah, it’s
209 00:25:42.620 ⇒ 00:25:46.619 Uttam Kumaran: it’s tough. Cause some people only want one person. Then maybe they just kinda like.
210 00:25:46.970 ⇒ 00:25:50.199 Uttam Kumaran: But in that meantime, if you’re able to sell them on like some other stuff.
211 00:25:50.660 ⇒ 00:25:57.729 Uttam Kumaran: then that’s the thing like for me. We sell data stuff. But then I’m also building like AI services. So I come in and sell AI services
212 00:25:57.740 ⇒ 00:26:03.100 Uttam Kumaran: while we work on data stuff. And then we kind of extend that. And the AI is a much hard. It’s like
213 00:26:03.300 ⇒ 00:26:06.119 Uttam Kumaran: somewhat of a harder sell, because it’s not well defined.
214 00:26:06.920 ⇒ 00:26:07.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
215 00:26:08.540 ⇒ 00:26:11.519 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I don’t know that I don’t see anyone doing this in
216 00:26:11.540 ⇒ 00:26:14.064 Uttam Kumaran: Africa. I haven’t come across them. I know
217 00:26:14.380 ⇒ 00:26:15.430 Philip Ruffini: In Africa.
218 00:26:15.430 ⇒ 00:26:16.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like.
219 00:26:16.440 ⇒ 00:26:17.690 Philip Ruffini: Oh, I mean
220 00:26:17.730 ⇒ 00:26:20.930 Philip Ruffini: dude. I don’t think the geography so like
221 00:26:21.770 ⇒ 00:26:34.950 Philip Ruffini: I don’t know. I think geography is dumb like the way me and my I. So I have a co-founder who’s doing this with me? Who I taught how to outsource 3 years ago, and then so now we do it together. But dude we like, we have job postings in every country when someone wants to work with us, and we just find
222 00:26:35.020 ⇒ 00:26:41.600 Philip Ruffini: the best person like at the best rate. I think country matters less. Also it depends how much you care about time zones.
223 00:26:42.370 ⇒ 00:26:47.010 Uttam Kumaran: Are you doing everything on Linkedin like for jobs or Linkedin? And indeed.
224 00:26:47.010 ⇒ 00:26:48.459 Philip Ruffini: Literally every job board.
225 00:26:48.560 ⇒ 00:26:56.909 Philip Ruffini: I do every job board to just find the best person. And then I’m just building an entire roster of people. If I find good people like right now, I have like 10 vas waiting for jobs.
226 00:26:56.910 ⇒ 00:27:01.329 Uttam Kumaran: Do you? Vet, do you? Do you like vet automatically, or you talk to every single person.
227 00:27:02.012 ⇒ 00:27:09.070 Philip Ruffini: Me or my co-founder. My co-founder is way nicer to me. My like interviews are like 5 to 10 min, and you either got it or you don’t.
228 00:27:10.130 ⇒ 00:27:11.480 Philip Ruffini: I’ve been doing this for like 10 years.
229 00:27:11.480 ⇒ 00:27:12.100 Uttam Kumaran: No, I know.
230 00:27:12.100 ⇒ 00:27:14.749 Philip Ruffini: Easy for like takes 30 seconds.
231 00:27:14.750 ⇒ 00:27:15.340 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
232 00:27:15.820 ⇒ 00:27:25.610 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool? Well, yeah, let me. Well, I’m gonna I’m gonna keep working on stuff. I think this is like super helpful. If I have anybody in mind that I can refer to you, I totally will, and then.
233 00:27:25.610 ⇒ 00:27:27.470 Philip Ruffini: Please do. Yeah. Anyone.
234 00:27:27.600 ⇒ 00:27:30.600 Philip Ruffini: Yeah. Anyone that wants a Va send them to me. Not not magic.
235 00:27:30.600 ⇒ 00:27:32.219 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I will. I will. I will.
236 00:27:32.220 ⇒ 00:27:32.950 Philip Ruffini: But yeah.
237 00:27:33.270 ⇒ 00:27:36.569 Philip Ruffini: awesome. Oh, I’ll pay you a thousand dollars per referral, too.
238 00:27:36.820 ⇒ 00:27:44.500 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Alright. Well, anybody I talked to that is looking off higher offshore instead of online jobs. I’ll send them to you. So.
239 00:27:44.500 ⇒ 00:27:47.090 Philip Ruffini: Please do. Yeah, and I’ll give you a thousand dollars.
240 00:27:47.680 ⇒ 00:27:50.889 Philip Ruffini: Awesome. You, Tom. It was super nice meeting. You have a great rest of your day.
241 00:27:50.890 ⇒ 00:27:52.348 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you so much. Bye.