Cult Products

Summary  

In this episode, Phill Keaney-Bolland and Adam Yaya-Durrant discuss their new podcast and the product they are creating for start-up founders. They talk about the importance of being revolutionary and creating a radical brand when deciding whether you're up for the challenge of giving years of your life to make your dream of running a successful B2B start-up a reality. They also emphasise the need for founders to have a clear vision and to make decisions that align with that vision. They discuss the challenges of scaling a start-up and the importance of maintaining the founder's energy and passion throughout the process.

Links  

Articles and books  

Chapters  

00:00 Introduction and Theme Tune
05:03 About "Cult Products" - the new thing we're working on
13:04 How do you know your idea is worth dedicating your life to?
20:51 Attracting early-adopter vs mainstream markets
28:40 What makes a good B2B start-up founder?
34:40 Wrapping up

Creators & Guests

Host
Adam Yaya-Durrant
Co-founder of Yaya
Host
Phill Keaney-Bolland
Co-founder of Yaya
Producer
Alexandra Pointet
Producer of the Cult Products podcast

What is Cult Products?

Dive into the essentials of start-up success with Cult Products, hosted by Yaya's co-founders, Adam Yaya-Durrant and Phill Keaney-Bolland. This podcast delivers sharp insights on creating revolutionary products, radical branding, and attracting a loyal following of early adopters. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, each episode is packed with actionable advice and stories from those who've built successful businesses. Join Adam and Phill as they help you transform bold ideas into start-up success.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Okay. Do you

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

hear the thing too?

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yes. Definitely. Wow. What do you think? I've met I've not heard that before, obviously.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

First time hearing it. It reminds me of being, like, a little character in, in early nineties, just jumping around on the cloud. I like it. What was it? Alec Alex the kid?

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

It reminds me of Alex the kid in Miracle World. Oh, yeah. That he organized. He's like, okay. Recently pray a reference.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yeah. Well, our Alex had sounded a little bit like Larry David and, and Kirby enthusiasm. But I kind of wanted something that didn't sound totally, you know, too kind of slick and generic podcasting music. So so that's what we like. And I didn't and I didn't I didn't ask for any feedback on it.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Did you know? No. Just played it straight, straight, straight away. Straight straight in there. I was like, okay.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. Yes. I was afraid it was.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So we're doing a podcast. We are. How are you feeling about doing a podcast?

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Pretty nervous. Well, no, not actually nervous. I might have to be actually quite excited about it to test to see. Yeah. This, we like talking, we like talking to each other.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

And so we like talking about design and about intros and music and also, so I think, yeah, hopefully should be, interesting to someone. Interesting to people that's that's safe.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

That's safe. I felt a little bit down on the idea. To be honest.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Because,

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

I mean, we've been running a business for 5 years and but basically just stayed in the shadows the entire time. And, as you know, I'm not a big social media person. So, the idea of kind of, you know, putting ourselves out there and and actually creating some content and and all this kind of stuff, I think because all the people I see doing that are incredibly annoying. For the most part, kind of kind of put me off. But then I realized that, firstly, not everybody who does a podcast is annoying, which given that everybody in the world does a podcast, it's kind of unsurprising,

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

I guess.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

But also people in that kind of like, let's let's be experts in it thing and talk about it space are not all annoying. I found some people that I really liked. And then I also kinda just got over myself because I thought about, actually, we're trying to do something that's valuable to people, and it's not about kind of shamelessly self promoting ourselves. So, I'm okay with the idea now. As long as we can do things like have that as our theme tune because

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Definitely.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

I think we shouldn't shouldn't try and, big ourselves up too much.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

No. I mean, we've done 5 years of doing that through successfully instead of not being ourselves hard to say it. Yeah. I guess this jury will be up, whether we are annoying or playful, but let's say, but she's not staying.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

This is true. Yeah. And there's a well, it's also, like, I think a very not British thing about putting yourself out there like that and doing doing you know, I'm an expert, and I'm gonna just talk for talk for a bit about all this kind of stuff. But we'll get used to it. I was also thinking that the kind of people who'd be listening to this podcast will be either people that we know and are mates with, or like LinkedIn mates with.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And, potentially, people in the future who, like, when when obviously this podcast is is massive, are then coming back to this episode to see Gosh. Where it started. And, I can only apologize.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

That's made me quite nervous now to think.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

They're used to a much better podcast in the future.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Polished. Do you think the theme tune will still be that in the future in 5 years? I I'd like to think it it will be

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

I don't know. I was actually quite indecisive about the theme tune because, part of me wanted to have some French accordion and mandolin music. So I'm not ruling out going back to that. Well, do you

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

know what? Well, I'd like it if you just didn't tell me, just put it in just as a little bit of Easter egg, and then, and then we can see how it goes.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Every every week, a different theme tune. Should we talk less about the podcast and more about the thing that we're actually here to Yeah. Yes. Probably good. So we are in the process of creating a new product.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And it's aimed at startup founders, specifically b to b startup founders. People who are in the space where they have had a idea that just won't leave them alone, that they probably pre actually kinda doing anything. And I think at the phase where they, probably don't have funding and are needing to, figure out if their idea is the thing that they want to go ahead with. And it's a bit of a different thing for us. So, for people who don't know us, Adam and I run a agency called Yaya.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And over the past 5 years, we've helped a lot of different businesses, to take new ideas and bring them to market through branding, product design, and helping them out with their with their marketing. Predominantly as a services business where we've done kind of consulting things, This product is gonna be a bit more self serve and you know it's it's it's a new thing for us, but it's effectively distilling all of the things that we've learned over the past 5 years into a product that we hope will become the thing that if you're founding a b to b tech business, you need to be a part

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

of. Yeah. And we've learned a lot over this 5 years. So, it goes hand to that. So kind of distilling that into what we're gonna try and do.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

I think it's gonna be interesting. And then there are a lot of stuff that people learn from, some of our mistakes, but a lot of stuff that we've learned along the way that I think can be really valuable to people starting off, on their journey. And, yeah, we love the start of projects and the start of ideas. It's kind of like where we get our kind of, motivation and energy from, and talking Astro Towners, bringing, really great ideas to life is, is something that I think we've really loved over the last 5 years and wanna have people do more of really.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yeah. And and, you know, I think that's that's the thing is, we both really like the start of that journey. And I think it probably fair to say that as kind of time goes on, we'd like it a bit less. And it starts to become a bit more kind of like progress just by inches as opposed to, you know, you're really, like, figuring out the the actual, like, core of, a product. And and, you know, I think one of the one of the challenges is the kind of people that we would really like to work with who are right at the start of that journey, often don't have the funds to be able to just outsource everything to an agency.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And so we like to play that sort of cofounder role as a as a partner in those early stages. But one of the things that I think we're trying to do with this product is open that up much wider to a group of people who, you know, as they don't necessarily have tens of 1,000 of pounds to spend on their brand or, you know, their their kind of MVV product and that kind of stuff. So it's a bit more self serve, and it's at a it's at a cost which will help us to kinda target a different bit of the market, and, you know, a bit of the market that we're really passionate about about helping.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. Yes. Good. Great. I think we definitely get a lot of the high energy from that kind of start of the start of the journey and working their craft team with founders.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

But I think I'm really excited about kind of giving people these tools and, tips to settle the debt themselves. I think it's something really unique and a bit different. And it's kind of weird because they I guess what we've been doing this whole like 5 years. Essentially, giving people the tools in the same place and, and, and the ways that they can kind of overcome the challenges and stuff that meet up to other visitors. I become, what I say for generating brands, the websites and and philosophers.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. It's gonna be all interesting, and I'm sure there is a quite cool content that we're gonna be tracing on this journey. Yeah. So yeah.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And I think I think there's a bit of that kind of Steve Jobs thing of, like, cannibalizing yourself before someone else does. You know, there's obviously a lot of there's a lot people can do now with AI and with tools that make things really simple that years ago you would actually have needed somebody with, you know, a degree and a load of experience to be able to do. I think we now kinda see it as part of our role to make it easier for those people to get a really good result using those tools. Because because the tools are great, but a lot of the time it's kind of understanding what good looks like and, you know, knowing how to how to get a good result when you when you're using them. You know, I think I think with our background as well, so, you know, both of us have worked in product, brand, and in in marketing.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

When we've thought about this product, we've tried to bring all of those things together and and really kinda learn, you know, as as we said, some of the lessons that we've we've come up against in the in the past couple of years. I think we can go into that a bit. You know, we're we're we're doing this podcast, I suppose, because we're building this at the minute. And, one of the things that we believe is that, you know, it's good to do this sort of stuff in public because I think fear of looking like an idiot is a good motivator and, you know, I think Paul Graham said, you know, that's a better motivator than, you know, being optimistic about securing a really good result. So, you know, there's a there's a bit of kind of putting ourselves out there.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

But also the things that we're thinking about and talking about as we build this product are the exact same things inherently that startup founders need to think about and, I think buyers kind of talking about it and articulating it ourselves, it helps us to figure some of that stuff out and I think also will help the startup founders who are listening to this podcast to to figure out some of their challenges as well.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. So they hopefully, I mean, you know, every project we've filled with, it changes and you tend to tend to attacks as as it goes through it. And likewise, our idea here, well, this is kind of like a space for us to we want to juggle, like, how we're how we're kind of building this and shaping it. And who probably aware that kind of things will change as we actually develop out. And, we're quite interested to see where it goes and actually documenting that because I think in the past, the terrible double documenting kind of anything in efforts that Adam does a business.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

So, we're quite excited about actually lobbying this, and and then be able to kind of reference back to it and say say how it collected bugs and changes. And the first thing I think, maybe the code that can help people out leisurely. I would also love to be too bit frustrated when things do go, not as straightforward as, as, as the first part, but I'm sure, what happened to us at certain points, but yeah, let's see. Put yourselves out there, and, it won't be interesting to see how it goes. Yeah.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Should we talk a little bit then about this model that we're creating?

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yes. Let's.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So we are calling this model and is, like, kind of taking everything, that we've learned over the past few years.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

That's it.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

We're calling it cult Products, which, Alex, who's actually on the call producing, this podcast today, has said sounds a lot like a makeup brand. But the essence of this, and I'm keen to sort of hear what, you know, how how you you think about this. But I don't think there's any point in starting a startup unless you're doing something that is genuinely revolutionary. And go into why I think that's true and why there's a lot of evidence for that being the case. But I think the I think that kind of breaks down into 3 distinct areas and we've talked about, you know, creating a revolutionary product, creating a radical brand, and building fanatical followers as the key three things that you really need to think about when you're starting a startup.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So for the people that we want to try and, and try and help with this, they're at a stage of their lives where they are potentially about to go and dedicate, who knows, decades to an idea. And I think it's worth spending a bit of time validating whether that idea is actually worth pursuing because, you know, and we we know this, you know, we're not just we're not as kind of influencers as we've actually been running a business. You know, we we've we've done a whole bunch of this stuff, and we've worked with about a 100 start ups. I really I, you know, I really like video games. And one of the types of video games that I play that, like, a lot of people can't really understand is that really, like, horror video games, like Resident Evil, those kinds of things.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And when I I think I think actually the same reason that I like playing those video games is kind of the reason why I like running a business because I get this feeling of, like, I've got to do this really horrible thing, and I have to get to the end of it, and I have to push through it. And then a certain sense of satisfaction getting through it. Like, that's

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Hey. That's kind of How many decades was the star business? Not not they'll put them off.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

No. Well, fair. But, like, running a business is really hard. And it is it is where I think, you know, people say persistence is the number one thing that you need to have as a start up founder more than, you know, intellect or any of those, you know, those other those other traits because it is a lot like just getting punched in the face over and over again. And so, you know, one of the things that we're trying to do with this call products framework and with the with, you know, what we're what we're trying to, create as a product is a way of startup founders saying, this is actually an idea that is worth me getting punched in the face over and over again for because they have to have that resistance if it's gonna be successful.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And if it's gonna be successful and the way to tell if it is an idea worth doing, you know, does it is is it genuinely revolutionary? Because if it isn't, I don't think it's worth doing at all. I think just stick stick to your day job.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. We got these holiday that back up the kind of mass but after you've been crushed, had self help kind of, I mean, this is the right method of things that the founders need. Way about Shelley Brady. I think also in the kind of b to b space, it kind of makes it even more is there even more of a need for it? I think, you know, like, that we could kind of re stance, like stands out, like from my perspective, you know, being customer centric is key, like knowing what you could have, you know, the Giza 1 and the, like, gateways.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Having a bold brand that stands out from everything is this suitcase that I've just thrown, like, the storytelling, but also from the visual design and how it could look, feels, how you're in track of it. Okay. Can I know I was always thinking about it? I know it's just like, did people talk about it? Well, that's I was looking at a, US startup about 10 years ago.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

And, in a London place. And it was called one of the because, I guess, the dyes of the startup world. And then we were using, obviously, a lot of CRM software and stuff like that. Just and so so it's and we had various different ways of, like, messaging each other, like, throughout the the office, and from all the different departments, editorial sales, cross different, like cross clubs and things. And they would like myriad of things ranging from like Google Hangouts.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

I like to release a message on Google, which is like awful or just like reams of email threads. We're just sort of like, here's the message because I'll actually, what we were using was was like, like, I think it's a message. And then, like, Slack came, you know, they just completely, like, revolutionized everything. And I think from when I was working now, it's like, put all the intelligence tools, which is really boring and splitting out like blue and white CRM systems all day and stuff that still connect to any of them. And then seeing Slack and, and really solving your problem and the need that might be we're happy within that business.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

And also it just, the brand itself just felt really different. It felt like something about you would just kind of connect with them, get started with them and watch what I guess, like in your own time, not just at work. So it's kind of like after the call, cool. You can actually have tools at work that are actually enjoyable. And the brands did pretty cool and it speaks to me.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Just like little, little things that just made the whole experience way more enjoyable. And then that's the name is just kind of like, okay, there is, there is a space there for like a brand that can be different and that can connect to, to to to users, then it doesn't have to be, like, Super Bowl, right? Fink. And, and they have to be the Wolf Up. I think that would be, just, like, who would just kind of be extra also, don't they?

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yeah. I think, you know, that's something you and I have definitely tried to do and and talked about a lot over the course of our careers is how do you take things that maybe other people think are a bit boring and try and make them more exciting and like elevate them in unexpected ways. Because you know, I think you spend a lot of your life at work, don't you? And I always got excited about like new pieces of cool technology that kind of made life easier to and and not just easier, but kinda more fun as well. I remember, you know, the early days of my career where, you know, I came into the office and somebody said to me, you're, you're young.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

You like new technology and all this kind of stuff. We've just got a new fax machine. And then just sort of said, go and go and do that. And I then spent ages figuring out how to use, you know, OCR scanning stuff so that we I could just never go near the fax machine, but the faxes could come in, they could be sent to an email address, they could scanned, and then they could be turned into, Excel spreadsheets and all of that kind of stuff. And, you know, found found all that that stuff really interesting.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Partly because you got to explore all these kind of cool tools and things. But I think the Slack thing is really interesting because I think and this kinda gets to the art of why I think you have to be so revolutionary is what you've described there, because that must have been, what, 2015?

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. 2015.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yeah. So so, you know, real early days of Slack, really Yeah. Compared to where they are now. And and, you know, I think you're describing an organization that realized that there was a way that they could do work much better by using new technology. You know, it wasn't something that you could do by just getting a new email client.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

It was how do you take kind of instant messaging which I guess also kind of kicking off with what's happened or all that kind of stuff at the time, and then use that, to disrupt in a good sense the way that that people were were doing work. So you and and the company that you worked for were early adopters of Slack. And interestingly, if you look at what happened during COVID, yes, you know, a few more people start to use Slack. It made remote work much easier, but at the same time, Microsoft Teams just exploded. And, you know, they they have the advantage of being a Microsoft product, and it's already preinstalled on most people's machines and organizations have all the security in place is basically Slack repackaged in, like, Microsoft branding.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

It is basically Slack repackaged in Microsoft branding, and and executed badly

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

as well. Oh, punchy. Hello.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Well, I don't I mean, I'm not sure it's controversial to say that Microsoft Teams is is crap. Yeah. So but they were they were able to capture more of the majority and

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

and much more of

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

the market than, than Stackware, which, you know, is is is kind of unfair. And if you're Microsoft, you can you can do that because you already have the majority. You already have that that bit of the adoption curve. But Slack wouldn't have been able to do that. So for Slack to be a viable business, they had to capture an early market.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

The only way that you capture an early market is by getting, you know, genuine innovators who are tech enthusiasts who will, you know, take something pretty janky and will, you know, admire the, intent behind it and the and, you know, the the technical aspects of that and find a way to make it work. And then early adopters, like, you know, you and that company who say, I can see the potential in the ideas and the thinking of this for how it can radically change my life because it because it is a new thing. And you need those people to start using it and for it to start become established and for people to start building case studies and references to cross over into a world where the majority of people buy it, and the majority of people just buy stuff because that everyone else has and and because they know that it's good and they're not prepared to start up with janky stuff. No. You as a starter, you just you just you just can't drop into that.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Or or if you can, you are, you know, a genius and, you know, you're working miracles. So it's super super important that your product is revolutionary or those tech innovators and those early adopters are just not gonna pay attention to it. And they're the foundation of everything. If you don't get those people, you just will not get the majority and your product product will fail. So that's one of the reasons why I think it's so important that, you know, from day 1, you have you have that intent to really change things up.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yeah.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Definitely. Definitely. And like in like give references of organizations that kind of do the interesting thing is that with teams, because I, I feel like from a brand perspective, you know, the reason obviously Microsoft is a, is a huge brand. And I guess that is like why, they have to throw on a share of the market because I guess it's trusting, right? Like most, most businesses choose teams because it's trusting and they see Slack as being a bit of a kind of younger, more rebellious little cousin, but they wouldn't be in teams if there wasn't a Slack.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

So it's kind of like it's a it's a funny, funny funny thing.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yeah. That that's true of a lot of Microsoft stuff. They wouldn't be able to catch

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. That's it.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Unless somebody genuinely innovative, did something revolutionary that they they could just, you know

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

So are we saying that Microsoft just steal ideas of going to good OOC? Obviously, that was it?

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yes. But Probably

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

get a job for that.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

I think what we're saying is you've kind of got 2 options.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

You can The big boys.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Yeah. Well, yes, you can genuinely innovate and do something revolutionary, or you can be Microsoft, Apple, or Google. But Right. It's it's really hard for me to find a business and be Google. Like, you know, if you just wanna take on, a project of building a better search engine, good luck.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

I wish you the best, but I'm not really sure how, how you could make a success of that.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

And we do have to remember that Microsoft, Apple, and Google or were Slacks at one stage of their kind of lives and vain. Glad to see the bigger beast that they are today. So

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Interestingly, crossing the chasm, which is definitely worth reading if you are founding a tech startup, I think must have fallen out of favor a little bit. You know, I I use that tech adoption curve, and I've just gonna talk through it a lot. I got a Kindle last year, and I don't know why I've been putting off getting a Kindle for my entire life. You can't get it on Kindle. You have to get a paperback, which suggests that either they just don't want it on Kindle for some reason or the demand isn't there.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And it is it is an old book, but I think everything in it is still, you know, you you really need to kind of know that stuff if if that's the journey that you're going on. Like, it's all it's all still kind of fundamentally true, albeit technology's moved on a bit since it was written.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Out of interest, is it not on Kindle because it's got, flydorms and stuff? And I think, actually, I think it was I'm not sure if you can can do that kind of stuff with a Kindle.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Oh, you let's see.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Oh, please. It's not there. You say you can.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

You can get diagrams on Kindle, not always terrible.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Right. I don't know. Maybe Just can't get that adoption curve right.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Can't get the adoption curve right. I think it might be because I read everything in dark mode as well. So, it kind of it just doesn't isn't very clear. So yeah. So that's that's anyway, that that as a sort of premise, you have to think about at a product level and a marketing level and a and a brand level because, you know, you have to be able to communicate to that early market what your ideas and vision are if people are ever gonna kind of buy into it and and and follow you.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So then, you know, back to kind of what we're trying to do, I think quite often you have different silos of people thinking about different stuff as you're trying to launch a new product. You have to really think about this stuff really holistically. And I think it's super important at the start of a startup's journey. The founders can do all that stuff because the founders are probably working on the brand and are probably working on the product and it's their idea and, you know, they're, you know, trying probably very aware. Okay.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So I I think with a lot of the b two b founders we've worked with, what's been really great about them is they're not just founding a startup because they want to start a startup. They're people who've worked in an industry for a long time, and they're subject matter experts. And that means they really know the things that they need to change in their industry in order to be really revolutionary, but really revolutionary in a way that changes the game for everybody, and delivers a huge amount of value in a in a totally new way. I really like those people. As more and more people start to come into the business, I think that can get diluted.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And and I think, you know, designers can potentially be guilty of just designing the thing that they're working on in isolation from that kind of broader holistic thinking. So if you're designing screens of a product, are you thinking about, okay, I need to make this function well, or are you thinking about, I need to make this a thing that, you know, is totally different from everything else that's on the market and is moving things forward in a really, really innovative way? I would argue not necessarily all the time, all the people, same with same with brand and same with, you know, how you go out and communicate those things. So I think this is why this product is really needed is because you wanna stop that dilution from happening as much as possible and make sure you set off on the right foot. Because anytime you make a decision early in the startup, because it happens so far upstream of loads of other things, the consequences of it are massive.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So getting it right early on is really, really important. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

I think having become super lucky really only to have life so closely with fathers over the years. And that's definitely like where, we've had so much more enjoyment. It's about, you know, it's like quick decisions, say things for you quickly. And yeah, you're right. Yeah.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

I mean, it's this sick up, the bigger, longer kind of roll out of the pro products and you become less kind of then next day, first case, they're not working really fast, then it it could've does kinda change a bit, which changes a lot, really. And, that could idea on concept. It does get diluted. I guess, kind of lost on time. So it gets turned into different direction.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

I see it going. Yeah. But I think really helped kind of just capture that and let white fellows who are the experts and show experts. And I thought they say passionate. I I think all the experts we've had are telematics storytelling.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

So for all of them, because it's coming from the founder, it's coming through them, and they're the expert in the field. They know their stuff and their audience can they do? They can sort about it in a way that, like, no one else can analyze. It's really hard to let all that. We've I mean, people at least, companies we work for and and work with that to bottle up that curve essence of energy and the, you know, and and and and protected throughout the team.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

And in in the market is a difficult challenge and really fairly be done by the the the the founder, to a certain degree. And I asked Steve Jobs, like, yeah, Accol had like, he was involved in everything. So the name says every bit of trophy and every bit of imagery that went out. He was just

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Okay. So Which

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

is another level.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So many sent me a thing a while ago. And if your, like, premise of your company is that you're going to try and run it as if you were Steve Jobs or, you know, any of those other legendary figures, that is a terrible strategy because you are definitely not Steve Jobs. That is, you know, that that is that is like a football team saying we're gonna set up as if we've got Messi playing for us, and then, you know, there's only there's only one of Messi. Like, they're they are exceptional for a reason because they are the exception to everybody else. And, you know, Steve Jobs, a maniac that he was, was able to kind of avoid that dilution a lot of the time, but there are there are very few people like him in the world ever, and it's unrealistic to say, like, I'm going to copy what what that man did, because you're you're not that man, I don't think.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

And and and the other thing, you know, it is it is natural. A lot of this is not you know, it's obviously not intentional. But when you're very small and you just have the founders sat in a room together, I think, you know, there's there's a that's like condensed culture and, you know, everybody really, really cares about everything that's going on and, you know, really, really knows what problem they're trying to solve and how it's differentiated and all of those kinds of things. But it also is quite speculative. When you move into delivery, you have to answer questions like, well, we actually need to build an MVP of this product.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So what what are we compromising on? And and actually, like, you have to draw that line somewhere. And it's great to kind of have a vision and an idea, but, you know, you have to get investments and to do that, you have to make certain commitments and you have to build a thing and technology can be limiting and budgets can be limiting and time can be limiting and all of those kinds of things. So the question becomes like, how do you keep as much of that, you know, that kind of energy and, revolutionary spirit as possible? And and that becomes harder the more distance you get from the founder and the more the more scale you have.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

So, again, you know, part part of this product is just making sure you set off on the right foot. You have all that stuff really, crystal clear, and it and it becomes harder to, dilute

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

it,

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

and easier to make compromises in the right way.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. It's safe. Yeah, no, I think that's, that's, that's exactly what the intention is. We just sort of go down to it and provide, put Pico with the tools and the, and and and the, the based on the Gladstone, do this thing. So that's like, if I would challenge me to do this rather

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

than. Yes. So I think, you know, just to sort of summarize is that we don't, you know, we probably don't have to get our entire life story into episode 1 of of this podcast. And, you know, this is gonna be something that, we're we're gonna turn into a regular thing. You know, I think the first thing is if you found it in any way interesting listening to us rambling on, I'm, you know, reliably informed by every, like, startup and YouTube video that I've ever ever watched is like like and subscribe, is an important thing to say.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

The other things, I think, we are looking for a group of people who we can use as kind of beta testers, and we wanna give them a free version of the product that we are gonna be building in flight. So, if you're thinking about starting a b to b tech business and you'd like some coaching from some people who've done this a whole bunch of times on a regular basis, plus tools like training, toolkits on how to get the best out of the AI products that are out there, and access to a, you know, a community of your peers and people trying to do similar stuff, please do get in touch, and we'll put details of how to do that into the show notes. And then the final thing for people to look at is we're gonna launch the first, one of those AI, toolkits. And you'll be able to download that if you go to cultproducts.yaya.co. And when you do that, you'll also be able to to join our community and think those are all the things that we're giving away at the minute.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Did

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

I miss anything, Adam?

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

No. That's that that that is that alone, our first new giveaway, which I'm excited about. And, that's really cool tool that we can have a device and, you know, be up equal in creating wireframes and, like the tell all variations to the to that way, is your product. So, yeah, I'm excited to see, like, people use it and, and and get involved and hopefully start with any more things to come. But, like, and, you know, we're looking strong at our community.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Take a break. We can get like a load of, like minded people, to go to join and, you pass something. And so, yeah, you got a great idea, and, we wanna hear about it. We're sector sector agnostic, so, yeah, he works in a web front, Biasat to Fintech, Fintech, everything. So, yeah, don't there's no kind of we like we're we're we're both very curious.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

We love new ideas and new things. So so, yeah, we're looking forward to to seeing who subscribes, and the gets involved and, and then we could take it from there.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Very good. That went, that went much faster than I thought it was going to.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yes. What do we what do we have? Like, play it to 9 minutes.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

We've been chatting for 40 minutes. If if if you're listening to this and you liked this podcast, this is the worst possible version of it because it's the first time we've done it. So if you liked it when it's when it's like this, it will only get better. And, and we're gonna do one of these every week now going forwards.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

If we yeah. Well, we were supposed to have a break in this area, so we didn't. Which I think is a good sign. But I said, oh, it was useful, but he says that.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Okay. Well, yes. There's a lot of things to do. Theme tune one more time before we go.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Definite. Definitely. Yes.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Okay. Get out of your way.

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

Yeah. Thanks again.

Adam Yaya-Durrant:

Thanks for listening. See you

Phill Keaney-Bolland:

next time. See you.