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Tune in to discover B2B trends while you can still capitalise on them and to hear the stories behind the people who are at the forefront of this space.
Ryane (00:00.834)
Hello, hello. So this is very exciting. It is our very first podcast guest and we've got Liam Dunn with us here today. So it's gonna be myself and Patrick asking some questions, going deep into Liam's knowledge. And just as a quick introduction, Liam is a expert in the space of growth, not only for SaaS companies where he specializes in.
but in the whole B2B space. Liam is one of the best people I know at helping companies to differentiate in crowded markets. Nowadays with AI and all the tools we have, there's such a crowded online market, but Liam is constantly coming up with new ways to allow his clients to cut through that noise. And I'll let Liam speak a little bit more about the results he's had, but really the proof's in the pudding with.
Some of the companies he's worked with have gone to be making, have gone to millions and millions in annual revenue. And that's a lot in part due to his behind the scenes work. So Liam, I'll let you introduce yourself. How you doing?
Liam (01:14.881)
All good. Thanks. Um, yeah, I don't think I can top that intro to one. It's pretty good. Thanks. Um, but yeah, as you said, uh, founder of Digi seed. Um, so we're, we're essentially a marketing agency, uh, that exclusively works with B2B SaaS companies. Um, we primarily focus on paid media programs and outbound outbound. And yeah, like you said, we do, I guess we kind of specialize in, um,
messaging and creative development, which then leads to these companies standing out. So yeah, looking forward to chatting today.
Ryane (01:52.498)
Nice, nice. Patrick, do you want to take on? Take over?
Patrick (01:57.468)
Yeah, so Liam, obviously you've worked with a lot of companies, a lot of brands that some of our listeners will probably recognize. And I'm sure we can name drop instantly and that will be instantly recognized. So maybe do you want to tell us a little bit about what it was like to work with instantly the kind of results that you got for them and what you did in that space?
Liam (02:20.829)
Yeah. Um, so I mean, I've been, I'm still working with instantly today. Um, you know, secretly one of my favorite clients, um, at this point, it probably been working with them for, uh, 18 months or so at this point. Um, so when I first started working with instantly, um, I was really fresh into my journey at DigiSeed, uh, so really at the early stages and honestly, uh, it was pretty chaotic back then. I was kind of like, um, a consultant.
that did multiple things. I was executing, you know, I was providing services to them, but I was really like, there was no structure to it. I was just helping them. And at the beginning that was with getting visibility. It was with retention. I built out their entire onboarding strategy. I've helped with customer support, all these kinds of things that I did when I worked in SaaS. And then sort of transitioned over to exclusively working on.
Ryane (03:00.152)
Mm.
Liam (03:18.809)
Custom Acquisition. So we were like the first dollar spent in their ad accounts. And we've scaled their paid demand programs from spending zero dollars a month to six figures per month, really profitably. And I kind of get involved with all sorts of other bits and bobs, but yeah, primarily focusing on custom acquisition for them.
Patrick (03:43.648)
Nice, nice, very good.
Ryane (03:43.686)
Nice, nice. And how are how are we instantly doing at the moment?
Oh, sorry, go on, Patrick.
Liam (03:49.661)
They're doing good. There's a bit of a delay, but they're doing good. I can't actually, they've got to the point where they, we can't publicly, I can't really publicly talk about their numbers anymore, but, you know, it was public that they bootstrapped from zero to, $15 million in ARR in around 18 months or so, and you know, they've, they've gone quite well past that now.
completely bootstrapped, they haven't raised any external investment, and they're still growing really, really fast.
Patrick (04:27.852)
Yeah, that's so impressive, isn't it? And obviously you've been at the center of that journey and I'm sure we'll dive into how you've managed to achieve that with them. Ryan, I think you have mentioned to me that Liam's coined the phrase, the death of outbound. Do you wanna maybe explore that a little bit?
Ryane (04:45.079)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So there's definitely, you know, the talk of death of outbound death of traditional outbound, the, the rise of outbound 3.0. And I would say instantly is probably one of the key drivers within that space. It'd be good to hear a little bit more from you, Liam around, you know, what are the big changes that are happening in outbound sales, what, what people been doing over the last five to 10 years and why is that being disrupted?
Liam (05:16.501)
Yeah. So yeah, the, the death of outbound. So I, yeah, I typically say like the old way of outbound is dead. Um, and you know, there's a marketing spin to that, right? Um, polarization, um, works really well in marketing. It, it captures people's attention, but, um, it's, you know, there's, there's definitely no lie in there. Um, basically the, the reason why I talk about this is, um, I actually used to be an SDR myself at a SaaS company. Um, and so I've, I've lived and
Liam (05:45.673)
The current way, and it's slowly changing, the current way that companies run outbound is they follow the predictable revenue playbook, right? This was a book that was published almost 15 years ago, which kind of describes the outbound function that they built at Salesforce. And so this is the playbook that most companies follow today, right? And it's heavily reliant on outbound teams, you know, on SDRs.
And like I said, I used to be an SDR myself, so I used to do this. And I just think they, that the sort of tactics and tools that these companies use haven't really kept up with the times. And if you combine this with the fact that every single company is using this playbook, you know, results have just fallen through the floor. So, you know, open rates, reply rates, meet and booked rates, ultimately pipeline and revenue has just diminished over time because everyone's doing the same thing.
And, you know, there's just been a, a fail of a failure to innovate. Now where kind of instantly fits into this is you look at the kind of, um, there's this sort of a graph, it's like the innovation adoption graph or something like that or model. Um, and at the beginning you have these like tech innovators. Um, and I think instantly was one of them, right? They, they introduced.
Ryane (07:02.846)
Yeah, the fusion of innovation.
Liam (07:06.673)
Yes. Yeah. So they introduced this tool that in my opinion, completely changed how companies do cold outbound. And then you have like the early adopters, right? Which I think is like people like yourselves, like me, like people that, you know, are keeping an eye out with this, keeping an eye out on these new ways of doing things. And then I think we're slowly getting to the point where people are starting to question the wider market, the mainstream are starting to question weight.
Why are we doing it this way? Why are we, why have we been doing this for so long? And you know, the results just, just aren't really there. Why are we paying so much for these expensive teams and softwares when, you know, there's a completely better way to get better results. Um, but yeah, I think instantly has really been that like one of the innovators there, like introducing this tool to the market. And I think it's just completely disrupted, um, the way that companies are doing cold outbound today.
Ryane (08:02.702)
Yeah, 100%. The innovation that instantly brought to the market has completely changed how we approach things. The necessity to have a sales team of 10 to 20 SDRs is just no longer the case. We're now able to do outreach in a much more thoughtful but way that yields the same results, but with a fraction of the cost.
And I think off the back of that, we've also seen other technology add to this so that, you know, other parts of the role of an SDR can be replaced. So I was interested to think, are there any kind of other tools that come to mind that you think are shaping this new outbound era?
Liam (08:52.941)
Absolutely. But first of all, I think tools, I always think technology is like the icing on the cake. Of course, like this new way of doing outbound, I don't know if you can do it without tools like Insta. I don't know if you can sort of build a custom solution that does inbox rotation, but I think the first step is tactics. And I'll come onto the tools that you can deploy these tactics with. If you look at what companies can do, like...
from a company standpoint and tactics, then I think that number one is they just need to do whatever it takes to get in the primary inbox. And this is one of the main value propositions we push for instantly, using secondary domains, inbox rotation, spin tax, all these things that seem really, really basic to people like myself and you who, and you Patrick have been doing cold email for a while now. And then I think that the tools are just like taking that step further.
Ryane (09:35.837)
Yeah.
Liam (09:49.361)
Um, I think this is another important part is if you look at like the sales engagement software category, um, these are the tools that the, that was sort of created on the back of this, um, this, this predictable revenue book. Um, and they're just really expensive, right? They're tens of thousands of dollars per year. And there's just tools nowadays that you can get the same outcomes, if not better for far less. And some of those tools are like, uh, instantly for sending and warm up. So warming up your domains, preparing them to be able to send.
Smart lead is another tool that cropped up. For data, you have tools like Find Email is one of my favorites. Whizzer instantly also has a lead data list kit. All of these tools that are really cost effective and give you good data. And then you have tools like Clay, which has like kind of appeared on the scene recently. And I think Clay is like the next evolution of cold email where you can automate like.
Ryane (10:45.889)
Mm.
Liam (10:46.229)
research, scraping, personalization, like really as good as an SDR could. And then of course you've got tools like you guys introduced, you know, pitch lane that enable you to do like video outreach at scale. There's just a whole suite of tools out at the moment that like, that just completely challenge how companies are currently doing cold outbound.
Ryane (11:05.26)
Yeah.
Ryane (11:12.466)
Yeah, I agree. I think it's really interesting to consider that I've also done SDR type work, um, especially, you know, at the start of, um, working with a lot of companies, early stage startups. And the key difference I've noticed is that previously a, a head of sales would get a sales team, give them the strategy and then the sales team would go execute it on a one-to-one basis. So you'd.
check an account, see if it was a good fit, think about the different ways in which you'd outreach to them. But now with so many tools, with clay, with AI combined with scraping, so much of the SDR role can be front loaded into that strategy can actually be put into code and executed literally overnight. We've had times where we've had lists of 10,000 companies.
We've scraped all of them, evaluated them across different characteristics, which impact whether we want to reach out to them or how we reach out to them. And overnight, we now have a completely segmented list of companies into ways that are really valuable for our value proposition. And that's literally what someone's entire job used to be. So...
My question to you and something that I think about a lot is, what is the SDR position going to look like in five years? Will it even still exist? Is it even going to be the same person? Yeah, tell me, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, like the same type of person, like profile, characteristics.
Liam (12:52.157)
Hmm.
Liam (12:55.796)
Hmm
Yeah. I have some, some thoughts to share on this. So, uh, and about it, it's just, I find like, I think I'm like you guys, I like, I like to know that about this stuff. Cause I'm like someone who used to be an SDR cold outbound is like a key channel for like growing my company. And so I think it's important to like keep an eye on how it's all changing. Um, so I think I could kind of summarize this into a couple of points. So I think where SDR spend most of their time today will be automated.
So finding leads, doing research, sending personalized emails, I think all of this can be automated, especially with tools like clay, right? Like the common objection to automation is like, oh, you'll never reach the same standard as like a, an SDR can, and I guarantee you can, and you'll be able to send more volume, like ultimately, you know, the way SDR is out, re personalized is they look at LinkedIn profiles, they look at websites, they look at blogs, they look at.
Ryane (13:29.954)
Mmm.
Ryane (13:57.195)
Mm.
Liam (13:57.909)
Um, investment rounds, all of this can be done, um, automatically nowadays. So that's the first point. I think like the first, uh, sort of research lead part of, um, outbound will be fully automated. Um, and I think a result of this, a by-product of this, we'll see team sizes shrink because, you know, there'll be less sort of man hours, um, to, to do this sort of stuff. And I think potentially, and some companies already operate this way. I think.
Ryane (14:19.506)
Mm.
Liam (14:27.805)
Outbound might become more of a marketing responsibility, that part of Outbound. And I think we'll see more of an emergence and I've already seen this at some companies of like a growth engineer role, which is essentially a marketer who's tech savvy, you know, who knows SQL and knows how to automate things and hook up APIs together. And I think we'll see a lot more companies putting Outbound under, like the automated part of Outbound under that roof.
Now, like a caveat here is I do think there's still be a need for SDRs, but their efforts are going to be mostly focused on like the account based marketing side of things, the ABM side of things where, you know, those manual touch points, those, those enterprise accounts that are worth a lot of money and they just need that human touch, um, you know, on LinkedIn or whether it be physical mail, that kind of stuff, um, and then also
Ryane (15:04.381)
Mmm.
Ryane (15:22.943)
Yeah.
Liam (15:23.733)
dealing with inbound as well. So I think the SDR role, in my opinion, is still gonna very much exist, but most of where they spend their time today is gonna be automated potentially by put under marketing's responsibility.
Ryane (15:39.738)
Interesting, interesting. So Patrick, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in this group, in this conversation, you know, you're, you actually have that software engineering background. You actually have the capacity to write these things because. You know, me and Liam will be using the latest SAS products, but, you know, I could definitely say I've benefited from having a co-founder that will just create their own solutions. Um,
Patrick (15:43.156)
Yeah. Mmm.
Patrick (15:58.936)
Mm-hmm.
Ryane (16:04.854)
I'd love to hear, like, what do you think around the fact that we're gonna automate a lot of what an SDR does? What do you think are gonna be the benefits? Where do you think potentially we're overestimating? Like, give us some thoughts on that, please.
Patrick (16:16.716)
Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, we at one point wanted to build something very similar to clay and have since just gone, you know what, clay is good enough. Let's go with that. I do think it's revolutionary in that it just combines all the things that you want to do. It's extensible in that if it doesn't have something out of the box, you can make an API connection into something else. And you can pull together all your different data sources into the
I do think that the role of like where outbound sits, I think previously has sat a lot more with SDRs, doing cold calls and then sending emails at the same time. It's gonna move probably to be more of a strategic thing rather than an operational. So I think it will either be like heads of sales, as you see falling under marketing. That's definitely a trend. Like a lot of our, some of our customers in the US especially kind of put it under marketing already. So that's definitely a trend that will continue, I think.
And I do think it's the best option out there, but it's not a silver bullet either. We do have to spend a lot of time going through and making sure, especially when AI is involved, that it's not just being stupid in what it's saying and it's not just producing personalizations that make no sense. So there's always this friction of like, we wanna get the prompt as perfect as possible. There's always some things we wanna be able to clean up. But if...
Ryane (17:23.807)
Yeah.
Patrick (17:43.628)
in 99% of cases, what you're personalizing is a lot more targeted and a lot more relevant to who you're reaching out to, of course your campaign's gonna perform better. So it's one of these things you've gotta be aware of, but at the end of the day, this is how things push forward. And it is more about at scale, do you get the same result as if you were individualizing on a smaller list? So that would be my two cents on it. Liam, in terms of your experience with things like clay,
Have you had any of these like AI problems of prompts going wrong or personalizations that don't quite cut it all the way?
Liam (18:26.237)
Absolutely. Um, I mean, I was moaning to Ryan over WhatsApp the other day about it. Um, and he helped me solve a problem. Yeah. It's, and, and Ryan summarized it quite well. When AI gets it wrong, it gets it very wrong. And it's kind of like, um, a child that has done something wrong and won't admit it, you just can't get it to do the right thing. Um, and so you just have to kind of start again, I found. Um, but I'm, I, I use like chat GPT a lot.
Ryane (18:32.482)
Hehehehe
Ryane (18:42.243)
Yeah.
Ryane (18:49.134)
Hehehehehehe
Liam (18:54.365)
Right. Like hours, hours per week. Definitely. Um, I honestly like think you are crazy if you're not using it. Um, like it's, it's inputs and outputs. I do think, um, you know, it's, it's only as good as sort of the, the prompts you give it and how you engineer it. There are limitations to that. Like, like, um, you just said, but yeah, I encounter issues all the time. Um, you know, sometimes I think I'd be able to do it faster myself, like
Just sometimes asking it to go to a website and write a first line and it's too enthusiastic. It's using too many exclamation marks. It's saying really cringey things. These are all problems that I've experienced, but it's getting better. And I think what tools like Clay allow you to do is they allow you to go down an alternative path. So previously to personalize emails, I would use a website, but...
Ryane (19:38.836)
Yeah.
Liam (19:52.521)
With Clay, you can easily grab like the about section or description of a company's LinkedIn profile, which is really, really useful for personalizing. You can like look at the individual's job experience, their about section. You can like go to different pages on their website. Like it's a lot smarter than just using ChatGBT out of the box. But yeah, it's not perfect. Like it is, it's not perfect, but I think it is.
better than doing it manually. And I think what, what's speeding this entire, um, this entire change is the fact that, well, just what's going on around us, right? Like it seems like the market has just, um, you know, had a bit of a pinch. Um, you know, there's, uh, 250 ish K 250,000 tech layoffs, uh, just this year alone. Um, and so companies are questioning their overheads, their question, like
Every person at the company has to kind of, you know, justify why, well, the company has to justify their expense. And so companies are looking for more efficient ways to do things. Um, and what's, what's more efficient than, than people it's, it's automation. Right. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying automation is always better than people. Um, but you know, I'm sure you guys have run campaigns and I've certainly ran campaigns sort of like for like against SDR teams and typically we will outperform them with, with less.
Ryane (20:52.17)
Yeah, 100%.
Liam (21:18.881)
uh, less resource, you know, less people on our side, um, just through like automation and also not just automation, but knowing how to having the knowledge and the skills to leverage the automation. That's the important part. I think people are going to have to learn that.
Ryane (21:30.707)
Yeah, 100%.
Patrick (21:31.136)
Yeah. And I think, yeah, the, the automation being accessible, um, to, to non-coders, I think is the, is the huge revolution with it because, you know, previously, like you're saying, someone would have to make a growth engineer role and obviously companies do this, but they've got to then go hire that person. That's their full-time job. They've got to put the resource into that. Whereas now, you know, you've got an idea for a campaign. You can pull in from three different data sources. You don't need to write it custom. You can just do all these things and it lets marketers.
salespeople experiment a lot more just independently. And I think that's the real plus for Clay. That's gonna allow us to scale for sure. And it's probably open doors for companies that just wouldn't have been there before.
Ryane (22:16.746)
Yeah. And I think one thing that I think was really interesting is around that the point around expertise and using, um, the tools as best as possible. SDRs and sales reps often entry level roles. So you can't expect them to have, to not make any mistakes when it comes to deliverability to when it comes to setting out campaigns. And what I think is really interesting is traditionally the
Liam (22:17.36)
Mm-hmm.
Ryane (22:45.93)
transfer of knowledge within a company goes from the senior employees to the entry level staff who then grow, grow within the company. But eventually the SDR function, people grow out of it because they hate it. It's not an enjoyable job. It, you can get yourself riled up to do it, but you know, the SDR fatigue is a real thing, like it's really tough. But when you're instilling what you're doing into AI and automation,
Yes, it's very frustrating in terms of, you know, you have to change the prompts, you have to keep tweaking things just to fix where it goes wrong when it goes wrong in such crazy ways. But it does get incrementally better all the time. Whereas when you have new staff, every time you get a new promotion, you reset, you have to rehire, you have to put investment and you can never grow.
your kind of knowledge base and actually when you're improving your prompts and all that, that literally becomes an asset for the company because it's a revenue generator without it really costing anything. And what it does, it just leverages expertise in a way that SDRs can't. So it's quite interesting how the transfer of like knowledge and information is for me at least, one of the biggest things that changes when you use...
Liam (23:52.019)
Hmm
Ryane (24:13.998)
when you use AI over SDRs and stuff like that.
Liam (24:18.541)
Yeah, that's actually interesting. I never cause say, um, like I think things like chat, GBT inputs, outputs, right? And that's probably like a, gonna open up a whole market for like future roles that companies, people who can build that. I think people are referring to it as like a company brain. Um, I might be taking that out of context though, where, you know, this, um, this sort of, um,
database where, you know, it has all the company's knowledge. It's, you know, ICP, it's value proposition, it's messaging, uh, you know, common objections, that kind of stuff. Um, like being able to build that and, you know, it probably contributes to the enterprise value of that company as well, because it's a, it becomes an asset. Um, it becomes, you know, it's part of its IP. That's quite interesting. Um, I think also, uh, like last comment on that, um, I think this is what. Has been stopping people from.
taken from like capitalizing on all of this is the, the skill gap. Um, and that's why you have this sort of like innovation curve, right? You have those early adopters that are like just, um, scrappy people who, you know, enjoy chaos, enjoy, you know, all right, these products might not be really good, they might not have all these shiny features, but, you know, they help me get some kind of outcome and so I'm going to use them. Um, and so I think, yeah, I think there is still a, like, a bit to go to make.
Ryane (25:27.456)
Yeah.
Liam (25:46.569)
a lot of this tech more suitable to like the mainstream. Like even with tools like clay, let's be honest, right? Like, you know, your average founder probably isn't gonna have the expertise to use a tool like clay. I don't think they will. Like there is a learning curve to use a tool like that. I think you're gonna see an emergence of specialists that are really good at that. And so I think there's a few more steps to be taken to make it a bit more.
Ryane (26:05.838)
100%
Liam (26:14.709)
user friendly so that people can just hop in and, you know, do what they want to do.
Ryane (26:21.638)
Yeah, I've actually seen some people who are positioning themselves in that way, where it's kind of like a tech enabled creative role where you create these campaigns that you would have previously need SDR teams to, to do. And I guess like on that topic, there are other things that you can do. Um, that, you know, SDRs can do in terms of like personalized messages or like personalized videos. So I'd be interested to see what you think about.
you know, unique ways of reaching out, for example, using personalized videos and how that might be impacted in this kind of more automated sales function.
Liam (27:00.993)
Hmm. Yeah. So, well, of course you guys have a, have a software in this space, right? So you probably know a lot more than I do. But even when I was as an SDR, you know, I would send like personalized, like it's funny, cause it became a whole thing, like the personalized loom approach. And I used to do that when I, when I was an SDR, I'd, you know, I had a whiteboard that would say the person's name. I actually wrote their name on it. I'd be like,
Ryane (27:20.875)
Yeah.
Liam (27:29.033)
you know, shaking it because I think it shows the first couple of seconds of the video or something. Um, I like reaching out to people on LinkedIn. Um, I didn't really get much success. Yeah. Um, well, I would do it over LinkedIn and email, but I didn't get much success, but that's because I was just sending, like it took me like, you know, 20 minutes to write my script, you know, I would overthink about it. Um, and then I, I used a similar tactic at Digiseed and man, it absolutely ripped. Um, I'd say beginning of this year.
Ryane (27:34.814)
Yeah, the preview and the email.
Ryane (27:42.688)
Oh.
Liam (27:58.745)
Um, like it did really well. It did so well that I just couldn't keep up with the responses. Um, because, you know, um, cause most of the time I would like offer something. I'd offer like an incentive, like a, uh, an in-depth breakdown or something like that, and so it would take time from me. Um, and you know, I started having like a backlog of people to follow up with. Um, so it is really effective. I think that for me, the results diminished over time as like, you know, this is, it's the.
Um, I don't know if you've ever heard of the law of clicking, uh, the law of shitty click-throughs, um, and it basically says that when marketing tactics or sell, well, yeah, marketing tactics first come out, they perform really, really well because they're innovative and nobody's seen them before. And over time, as people adopt that tactic, the results diminish. It's like pop-ups on a website used to perform really, really good, but now everyone has a pop-up and so they don't. And so I think it's the same with cold email. It's always like, how do I get a step ahead? How do I get a step ahead? I think the.
automated sending of those videos is like the next step. Um, because, you know, then it's a numbers game. Um, but yeah, I don't, I don't do too much of that. Um, nowadays I think I should put some more time into it.
Ryane (29:09.782)
Nice, yeah, it's definitely the kind of thing where you need to keep innovating. We're always testing out different, you know, new features that we can add to increase conversions. But you are definitely right. With using personalized videos at the scale there is now, there is still just a benefit from just even sending one because sometimes also we forget just how
aware we are of all these different tactics that super often will get people coming back saying feedback that just adding a video and I'll look at the video, it's not the best video possible, but just that unique element gets people to click and you only really need one extra big sale to go through for it to be really noticeable and have a big change. So I think we've spoken a lot about cold email.
and sales outbound. Is there any other closing remarks or things you guys would want to add before we move on to just the broader kind of B2B growth space?
Liam (30:23.595)
No, nothing for me. I think we covered quite a lot.
Patrick (30:26.976)
Yeah, maybe just a touch on that saturation, like market saturation point about videos. You know, we do often get this feedback of like, when do you think the market for video is gonna be saturated, when are people gonna be completely used to it? Maybe tell us a little bit about like, how did you identify that in your campaigns? Cause that's one of the first times we've heard that actually happening.
Liam (30:50.121)
Yeah. Um, results, uh, the same as anything, but this, this is the tough part about, um, at least I find to be the tough part about cold email is it sometimes it's really hard to pinpoint what's going wrong. Um, you know, I have actions I can take if I have low reply rate and open rate and stuff like that, but sometimes it really is a stab in the dark.
And sometimes it works. You're like, okay, whatever I did appear to work. And sometimes it's really hard to identify. Um, yeah, my results just started to fall off a cliff. Um, now was that due to the tactic, um, you know, the, the impact of the tactic diminishing or was that due to another factor like my deliverability or, um, domains getting burned or a bad, you know, maybe the lead quality dropped.
Um, so it's, it's really tough to, to like pinpoint and say it was the videos, but yeah, just results started to drop. Um, and I think combined with the fact that, and this is very lazy of me, right? Um, and this is the problem with automation is it, it does make you a bit lazy. I was like, man, this has taken a, this has taken a lot of my time to like do, you know, follow up with these people and stuff like that. Um, you know, I've still got, um, some people that I just never got back to. Um, um,
But also, yeah, I did go through and I prioritized the leads and everything, but, um, yeah, it was just, it was just becoming a lot of work and like taken away from other parts of the business.
Patrick (32:24.3)
Yeah, makes sense. Makes complete sense. Um, actually I, uh, when we, Ryan and I did a rambling podcast where we were just talking about all sorts of things to each other. And one of the interesting questions that came up was you mentioned there, obviously there's deliverability, there's targeting, there's the video tactics. There's, you know, all these other factors of follow-ups. If you had to pick like one to see it's the most important, I know that's always a difficult question, but what would be, if you were giving advice to someone.
Ryane (32:25.794)
Yeah.
Patrick (32:52.268)
Of all those things, what would you recommend they focus on?
Liam (32:57.069)
That's tough. Like just any tactic related to cold email. Oh, okay. Sure. Number one, so it would be deliverability. And that's not really a tactic, it's more so an area, but you can write the greatest email in the world. You can record a 20 minute video that is just perfect. But if that email is landed in spam and nobody's seeing it, it's, you know,
Patrick (33:02.668)
Yeah, like deliverability or videos or copy or whatever.
Liam (33:27.197)
You're just playing an uphill battle there. And I think that is a number one problem that, um, like plagues, uh, outbound teams is, and this is, it's a silent killer because, you know, you don't necessarily get the feedback telling you that your emails are like landing in spam or, you know, people, it's not landing in the primary inbox. And so it has to be deliverability. You know, you can have all the bells and whistles, but if your emails landed in spam, then it's all for nothing.
Ryane (33:42.614)
Yeah.
Patrick (33:54.276)
That's a very well reasoned answer. I like that one. Nice. And so in terms of deliverability then, Liam, what's the secret?
Ryane (33:54.526)
Yeah, I would tend to agree as well.
Liam (34:05.813)
The secret, well, there's no secret to anything really. Everything already exists. But I'd say, I think to preserve your deliverability, you shouldn't be sending emails from your primary domain. That's like step one, because what happens is people don't like cold emails, right? That's just a fact of the matter. And people are gonna report your emails as spam.
And if so many people report your emails as spam, your domain gets blacklisted. And that's a bad day at the office. And so to prevent that, um, or to prevent, to prevent damage in your primary domain, you need secondary domains. So my primary domain is digi-c.co. A secondary domain would be like try digi-c.co. Um, and so you set up send an account on secondary domains. And so if anything bad happens to them, it's kind of isolated from your primary domain, that's like the step one. Um,
Ryane (34:38.222)
It's a seriously bad day.
Liam (35:00.477)
And then when you have those new domains, they're going to be fresh in the eyes of, you know, these, um, these email platforms. And so you need to build up your, uh, domain reputation. And that's where tools like instantly, uh, LEM warm and like smart lead come in where they mimic human behavior. So Google goes, oh, okay, this is a real person and not a spammer. Um, and then to like maintain good deliverability, I think it's, uh, a mixture of things, right? Um, inbox rotation. So not just.
burning through the same domains all the time, like rotating how the emails are being sent, like best practices, um, like using spin tax, don't use, um, and this is hard because Google doesn't say, Hey, if you do this, you're in trouble. Uh, cause otherwise it wouldn't work. Um, but thing, I think there are like trigger words that you can use. Like, for example, I removed any currency symbols from my emails. Cause I heard that, um, having currency symbols in your emails, like
Ryane (35:51.371)
Yeah.
Liam (36:00.233)
like removing them positively impacted my deliverability. I don't have any links in my emails. And I think just generally, I think the best advice I can give is don't be a spammer. Like, you know, actually have positive intent. Cold email gets a really bad rep. Like have positive intent, clean your lead lists, make sure, you know, the leads you're reaching out to are verified. They actually have a problem that you can solve.
You know, don't just spray and pray that that's not the, that is not the objective of automation, it's not spray and pray like you should have something that can solve a problem for people. Um, otherwise, you know, it's just not, not legitimate business. Um, but yeah, I think that's off the top of my head. That's what I have, but there's probably a few more things that, you know, can improve your delivery.
Ryane (36:47.71)
Yeah, I agree. I agree on that last point.
Patrick (36:48.14)
Nice. I'm sure our viewers are gonna love that.
Patrick (36:54.458)
Oh, sorry Ryan, go on.
Ryane (36:55.054)
Nice, nice. No, I was just going to say on that last point is now that there are just so many different ways of flooding someone's inbox, whether it's using instantly, just an outsourced sales team or whatever people's inboxes are so crowded. And that can really be linked back to a lot of issues related to automation. So there's a lot in the news around Google's
cracking down on cold email, it's the end of cold email, all this, what I think it's the end of is the spray and pray approaches and it's by and large a good thing. There's no point reaching out to someone who shows no interest in your product. The only reason people are doing it is because it's more effort to make, to cut down your lead list to just those who want what you're selling and...
If there's more stringent regulations and like more stringent rules on whether you land in spam or not, that's only a good thing because if that happens, people are just going to then see it being worthwhile to put the effort in to clean the list. Because we all know we can do it and there's using positive intent signals, but also just looking at your list and actually properly cleaning it, which most people don't take the time to do.
Liam (38:19.217)
Absolutely. Yeah. But the thing is this is just the basics, right? Um, but I think if everyone did the basics in this world, then we probably wouldn't have most of the issues we do. Um, but yeah, it's just like, this is the fundamental stuff, like, you know, define an ICP people who you actually solve a problem for, you know, clean your data, verify it, um, don't send spammy messages, um, and just like, you know, when people ask to unsubscribe.
Ryane (38:25.096)
Yeah.
Ryane (38:38.274)
Mm.
Liam (38:45.713)
unsubscribe them or give them an option to unsubscribe. Like this is just Billy basics. And if you, if you're not following that kind of stuff, then you know, karma is going to get you.
Ryane (39:03.79)
Can you guys hear me?
Patrick (39:04.16)
Oh, did we lose you for a second? Yep, I've got you.
Liam (39:09.545)
Yeah. What happened? Did you leave?
Ryane (39:10.914)
Cool, but, oh no, my internet just went. So, it was annoying because it was exactly when I wanted to hear more about what you were saying. What I wanted to hear about is what around creating an ICP and having messaging that resonates with that. Like one of the things you can do really well is help B2B companies stand out. And you've got quite a unique way of doing this that isn't just speaking to the company to what they think.
their ICP wants, who they think their ICP is, but you actually go, you get direct market feedback. So I'd love to hear how you're making B2B companies stand out. What's the unique ways of doing it? And where are a lot of people going wrong? You've spoken previously about like the curse of knowledge. I'd love for you to explain a little bit more about that for anyone who's listening.
Liam (40:04.457)
Wow. Yeah. Okay. Um, so there's a lot to talk about on this subject. Um, but I think this is really where I think this is really where we like stand out. Um, but I'll try to keep it structured. So I think it always comes back to first principles, right? Like just know what your audience cares about. It's like when it comes to building a SaaS product, uh, I think, uh, YC's motto is build something people want. Right. That's literally, if you solve that, you're going to get customers and you're going to build a successful business.
Ryane (40:08.418)
Here we go.
Liam (40:33.513)
Um, and I think it's the same for standing out, like know what your audience cares about and just talk about that stuff. Um, so something we do when we work with customers is we help them develop a narrative, um, and really a narrative is like a, an overarching framework for how you can tell a story again and again. And I've, I've got some content like on YouTube that like breaks this down into like a scientific formula. Um, but building like a narrative or just standing out.
can only be done from like doing the grunt work, right? And again, it just comes back to basics. It's just about doing the basics well, you know, conducting research, speaking to your customers, surveying the market, you know, looking at competitors. But I really think you should focus on your market before you focus on competitors and just really identify like, what do they care about? What are their fears, wants, dreams, desires, anxieties?
And then that's going to give you a lot of ammunition that you can use like to, for your messaging and to bring it to market. And so when it comes to us working with clients, we always do that as a step one. And then that's kind of like our inputs, you know, the, the research, um, getting like similar to AI, um, like really understanding the audience, their target audience, and then the outputs are just like the ads or the emails that we create that speak directly to their audience, resonate with them.
capture their attention and get conversions. And so like I said, with ChatGBT, bad inputs equals bad outputs. It's the exact same when it comes to marketing. Specifically, I focus on like performance marketing. If you don't know your audience, if you're just copying your competitors, you know, your campaigns are just gonna be trash. They're not gonna perform well because you just sound like everyone else. The curse of knowledge you mentioned there, so it's a cognitive bias where essentially, companies...
Ryane (42:10.452)
Yeah.
Liam (42:24.401)
understand their product so well, they're so passionate about it, they built it. And so they tend to assume that their target audience has that much knowledge about their product too. And so they overcomplicate their messaging. And so really the secret trick when it comes to like copyright and it's just speaking in a very plain, normal language, you know, I always tell team members. I'm like, you know, when I'm critiquing their copyright and I'm like, would you say this to a friend or colleague? If not, you're probably using words that shouldn't be there.
Um, you know, like, you know, these sort of buzzwords. Um, so that's like a really quick test. Um, I think. Yeah. Like if, if you were describing a product to a friend, would you ever say, yeah, man, that's going to supercharge. Like you would never say that. Um, and so it's just like a quick test of like, you know, are you just adding too much fluff into it? But I think like zooming out a bit, I think why or how companies, um,
Ryane (42:58.402)
Supercharge.
Patrick (43:01.932)
Supercharged.
Liam (43:24.001)
can stand out. And I think this really like kind of ties into the loop of why this sort of, why this change of like outbound is happening as well, is due to like efficiency. People are looking for like more cost-effective ways to get customers ultimately. That's, you know, you know, the average person doesn't nerd out about outbound. They just want to get more customers and, you know, live a life that they dream of. And so I think organic content is a massive part of that. Like this,
Ryane (43:47.595)
Yeah.
Liam (43:53.685)
you know, this podcast we're doing right now. Um, and it's an effective vehicle to distribute that narrative. You know, there's no point in, um, creating this great messaging, speaking to your customers, if you're not going to use those insights or capitalize on those insights through your marketing. Um, and like, in my opinion, content is one of the most effective ways to create demand. So creating demand is marketing to, uh, out of market buyers. So people who aren't actively looking for a solution, um, and like how
companies can do that is just create like entertaining, valuable, insightful content, um, that resonates with your target audience. So take those, take the insights from that research, um, that you did and speak about those things that those people care about, you know, what are their worries, what are their desires, their wants, their fears, um, you know, what, where are they right now? Uh, you know, stage a and where are they trying to get to stage B and how can you position your product as the one that gets them there? Um, and like why I think organic content is so good is because.
Um, you can test a bunch of different angles and formats and see what sticks. Um, so it's literally like, I view it as like, um, an army of digital sales reps, right? Like if you post on YouTube, that video is going to be there collecting views until the end of time, until they decide to get rid of YouTube. It's just there rinse and repeat, you know, distributing your narrative, um, you know, uh, building trust and authority and persuading people to, to work with you.
And so it's just like these digital sales reps constantly selling on your behalf. And then when you find like what sticks, whether it be like podcasts, whether it be talking about specific topics, whether it be specific angles or talking about like a specific pain point, then you can take that, those winning concepts and then scale them with paid ads. And that's where the real kind of success comes. And I think that the mistake companies make is they skip straight to paid ads.
Ryane (45:42.205)
Mmm.
Liam (45:47.249)
And they're like, Oh, well, you know, I just slap a few ads together, spend some money, um, and I'm going to get customers and it's like, no, that's, that's not how it works. Um, like if you look at a lot of companies, um, and this isn't the case for, you know, uh, this isn't absolute, but a lot of tech companies specifically, cause that's kind of who I work with. Um, the ones that are successful on paid channels have really killed it on organic channels. They have like, they have a really good narrative. Um, they have a really good content strategy.
And the paid ads is just like the cherry on top. The good thing about paid ads is it's guaranteed distribution to your target audience with organic content. I can post a YouTube video and nobody will watch it. Whereas like paid ads, you're guaranteeing to put it in front of people. And I think where paid ads becomes really successful is the foundational piece there is like having a good narrative that people care about and positions your company, your product as unique and something people want.
Ryane (46:43.458)
Hmm
Ryane (46:48.406)
Okay, that's really interesting. That's a really, I think that's really cool. I think one of the things that sometimes I think it's quite difficult, even in cold emails, so I'm interested to see whether it carries over into kind of like paid advertising, is sometimes we'll run campaigns and we're testing something. It's so difficult to keep so many variables controlled, so you're just testing the thing that you want to test. So we want to test
you know, a variant between two, um, email campaigns. Then we have to make the, we have to make the sending or we have to make the lead list exactly the same, then it's the time of year has to be exactly the same. You use the same inboxes and it feels like there's a constant lit ever growing list of things to control and cause you know, I post a fair bit while I used to post a lot more organic content and a lot of it was just, just post and post and post.
And then every now and then I'd review, okay, did this get the most views? But I wouldn't be sure if that was, okay, but is that what resonated the most? Does views equal conversions in an ad? How do you go about making those judgments?
Liam (48:07.309)
So a couple of thoughts on this. So like with myself, with DigiSeed, I'm happy to run things scrappy because, you know, I can, I can run it how I want to run it. And so I think like perfection is the enemy of progress, right? You can really like overthink about these things and create these really nice spreadsheets and like, I'm going to track this and track that. And all that's doing is taking your time away from just turning on your phone and recording a video or a piece of content.
Ryane (48:14.753)
Yeah.
Liam (48:33.737)
or writing a piece of content. And don't get me wrong. I do have these frameworks and stuff like that. Um, but like for myself, for DigiSeed, I run things really scrappy. I do track it. I have like a Notion dashboard where I track specific angles. So I do have it like down to a bit of a science. So like, I'll talk about a specific topic in a specific way, which is like an angle. Um, and I'll track the engagement on that. And I'll also track like what platform it performed better on, uh, and like the format, because, uh, a content idea might work.
really good as like a written post, but it might, you know, absolutely flop as a video. And so you need to track like what the best format is in terms of clients. We, of course want to be a bit more organized and professional because we're providing the service. But it really, it really depends what we're, what we're trying to test. Like in the context of, of content, it's always going to be a bit scrappy.
Ryane (49:06.731)
Mmm.
Ryane (49:18.261)
Yeah.
Liam (49:33.313)
pipeline and like revenue. Because to that, you need to do like self-reported attribution. So it just asks people where they came from and they'll say like LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, it's really hard to like pinpoint it to a specific piece of content. And I don't actually know that's like a good use of time. I think it's really like the channel as a whole. And, you know, if you have a sales team ask, making sure the sales team asked that as a question, like, oh, how did you hear about us?
Ryane (49:41.059)
Hmm.
Liam (50:00.857)
Um, and then when it comes to like ads, you know, you can be a bit more scientific because you have a lot of data. Um, and so you can run controlled, you know, split tests, um, and just do some analysis on, on the backend in a spreadsheet and, uh, you know, try and make it as controlled as possible, uh, and reach, you know, some kind of statistical significance, but that you can't always do that. Um, like, especially if you're an earlier stage company, it's really hard to reach statistical significance because you're just so new and you probably don't have that.
many conversions to reach statistical significance. And so you shouldn't just stand there and go, well, we're not going to test because we can't get a controlled experiment because you're just not going to innovate. You're not going to grow. So I think it's the same of any experiment. You just need to have some sort of hypothesis. What are you trying to experiment? Is it content A versus content B? Is it add A versus add B? Is it landing page A versus landing page B? Have an idea of what success looks like when we reach
this number of conversions or this type of engagement or somebody books a demo or something like that. Um, and, you know, just, just build upon it from there. I think you can easily, easy. I really think, um, like, especially like my ICP, like tech marketers love overcomplicating stuff, love building these elaborate systems and spreadsheets and stuff like that. But really a lot of the time, all that's doing is taking you away from doing the actual thing that gets results.
Ryane (51:24.906)
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I do think as well, what something that reminded me of it, when you're talking about statistical significance, sometimes I've found like one of the best approaches is to just go for a volume based approach and eventually you'll hit on something where the effect size is so big, you've landed on something that's so effective that you just know there's not a shadow of a doubt people are mentioning it in sales calls. There's spikes on just like signups. You can.
Liam (51:51.629)
Mm-hmm.
Ryane (51:55.018)
one of those ones where there's no doubt. And I think that's definitely something to consider. And on that topic of volume, I, as you said, I've spent a lot of time on your LinkedIn profile. You've posted previously about your AI infinite angle generation methodologies, where you can go from zero to loads of different ways, brainstorming with an AI to produce.
Lots of angles. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that process. I think Patrick also have some, some good input because he's definitely the one that can within our company that uses AI the best and yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that Liam.
Liam (52:37.696)
Mm.
Patrick (52:40.056)
Not sure that's true, but thank you, Ryan.
Liam (52:40.573)
Yeah. So it's just, again, it's just inputs and outputs. So like step one with chat GBT is like, Hey, here's what I do. Who should I target and what do they care about? And it does an okay job, but the issue is, is like, okay, well, where is it getting this information, is this information outdated because I know there was like a time cap, I'm not sure if there is anymore. And so.
Ryane (52:43.094)
Hehehehehehe
Liam (53:08.937)
It's kind of like, should I trust this? Should I not like, you know, where are the sources? Um, and so how you can take control of that is you become the source. And so, um, as part of like our research process, what we'll do is we'll. Of course do like voice a customer research. So I will physically interview, um, my client's customers. Um, and I will record that interview. And so what I can do is transcribe those interviews and feed that into chat GPT, uh, to categorize the transcription to say, okay, what does this person care about?
What value propositions do they want to see? What are they worried about? What objections do they have? That kind of stuff. That's one input. Another input is I love going to places like, um, well, communities, um, like whether it be Reddit, whether it be private Slack communities, uh, could be places like G2, Twitter, um, the more private the community, uh, the juicier, the, the insights you get because people are comfortable with, with like sharing things. Um, and so again, you can take.
you know, I could give chat GPT a Reddit URL and say, Hey, based on this criteria I give you, cause I have frameworks to make sure it's all organized. Like, you know, basically fill in the blanks, tell me what this person cares about, tell me what the anxieties are, what objections they have, that sort of stuff. Um, and so one, once you have the most important part of there is the inputs. Um, and then you feed that into chat GPT. And then from there, it's just a case of, you know, getting it to do what you want. Um, okay. Come up with.
angles based on this pain point or write this, do this. And then it's just come up with as many as you want. But the most important thing is the inputs. And it's powerful because the alternative to that is sifting through these things, going to Reddit, sifting through it for hours and hours, and then trying to make sense of it all. Whereas there's now AI that can do that for you.
Ryane (54:40.936)
Mmm.
Liam (55:05.345)
But I've always said to my team and just a general principle is don't ever use ChatGPT as a crutch for your own judgment and critical thinking. You always need to review it. You always need to have that human layer because the day we just kind of outsource everything to ChatGPT is the day we lose our secret sauce. And so yeah, it can save you a lot of time, but it's all about the inputs.
Ryane (55:15.982)
Mm.
Patrick (55:33.24)
Don't use chat GPT as a crutch. I think that's the sound bite from this podcast.
Ryane (55:34.035)
Nice, nice.
Liam (55:39.989)
That's true.
Patrick (55:40.068)
Nice. So Liam, I think we're going to want to move a little bit more. Obviously you've got all this great knowledge that everyone will be very excited to hear. And you've obviously acquired this over many years and it's been a journey. Every entrepreneur has a, as a journey. So I'd like to dive into a little bit more of that side with you now. And you maybe just tell us a little bit about like your background, where your entrepreneurial journey started and how you've kind of come to this point.
Liam (56:08.321)
Yeah. So I have an unconventional background. I joined the army, the British army straight out of school. So at like 17, I went into the careers office at 15 years old. So I didn't go to college. I didn't go to university, which when you work in tech, you're definitely the odd one out. I then, you know, I was in the army for several years. I then joined like a large American tech company as an SDR. And that's where I did my stint as an SDR. So they were like pre IPO.
know, hundreds of employees, you know, 100 million ARR or something, a really fast growth environment. And I think, and I still know that the day I decided I wanted to pursue entrepreneurship is when I went to an event at that company. And it was at a university in London, and it was like a startup event or something. And, you know, I was there as in a BDR trying to like close meetings and stuff.
And, but everyone there, all the, all the other people, all the stands, all the attendees were really young, you know, students. Um, and so, you know, Like early twenties. Um, and they were like talking about business. They were saying, yeah, I run this startup. I've raised this much money. And that absolutely blew my mind. Like genuinely blew my mind because I thought to build a business, to run a business, you had to be, you know, in your thirties, forties, you had to have your shit really figured out. You had to be this.
type of person. Um, and you know, I spent most of my young younger years in the army. And so this is very foreign to me, you know, it might sound stupid, but this is very foreign to me. And from that day forward, I've always been someone that like really loves the challenge and pushing myself. And from that day forward, I set my eyes on it. And it was really, it became this, this itch, I really, really wanted to scratch. And so then I was very strategic. I was like, okay, well being a BDR sucks. I really didn't like it.
Ryane (57:40.481)
Yeah.
Liam (58:05.557)
And I was like, I need to become a more, um, well-rounded, uh, you know, leader, I guess. And so I think I got my leadership skills from the army. That was really good for like building, uh, leadership skills, my communication skills, um, you know, just the ability to run into the unknown. The army was really good for that, but like my kind of hard skills, I think I needed to focus on. And so what I did.
Ryane (58:05.654)
Hahaha
Ryane (58:27.927)
Yeah.
Liam (58:31.349)
Then as I joined a much earlier stage start-ups, I went from a company with like hundreds of employees to like 10 employees. And I think I was like employee number 10. Um, and so I was like the first, uh, grow fire there. And the great thing is that I worked directly underneath the founder slash CEO. And so he just exposed me to so many different areas of the business, um, that, you know, I just.
hadn't had experience with, you know, as an SDR at a big company, honestly, you're, you're quite looked down upon. You really are just like, you know, the way you get treated is quite bad. You're, you're really seen as this like entry level person. Um, whereas in this company, I was given so much responsibility. I was like really trusted. Um, you know, it was a really good culture. I could challenge the founder or anyone, you know, we could challenge each other. Um, you know, professionally, if we disagreed with each other and it was all about working towards the best solution.
Ryane (59:07.604)
Agreed.
Liam (59:24.649)
And then that's when the penny really dropped where I was like, wow, okay. Um, cause I got good insight into seeing how a business is run and I was like, okay, I actually think I can do this because, um, and maybe this wasn't his intention, but the founder I was working with, you know, um, he, you know, he, he wouldn't act like he had all the answers. He wouldn't act like he was, you know, top of the mountain and he was the boss and he knew everything. Um, you know, he would come to me for, for answers and you know, that, that was the kind of culture there and I was like, wow, okay, maybe I don't need to be.
this sort of CEO figure that is, I guess, the narrative that's typically pushed. And so yeah, that company is when I finally made the jump to start DigiSeed. But like what was happening behind the scenes throughout this whole process is me starting and failing a lot of side projects. You know, I've probably spent tens of thousands of pounds. Like it's crazy. Like...
Ryane (01:00:07.586)
Mmm.
Ryane (01:00:16.507)
Hahaha.
Patrick (01:00:18.672)
interesting.
Liam (01:00:22.401)
probably more money than the average person has like in their savings. I've spent and lost on failed ventures. I mean, the lessons I learned from all of that is like invaluable and it's paid itself off, due to DGC being successful. But yeah, ever since that day at that fair, man, I was just so inspired. And I was like, I've always had this attitude of like, if they can do it, then why can't I? And I think, always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder from things that happened as a child.
And so I was just like, right, let's do it. So yeah, well journey.
Ryane (01:00:56.811)
Nice.
Patrick (01:00:58.092)
Interesting. Yeah, it's a, it sounds like a wild ride for sure. Um, it was interesting. You mentioned there, um, obviously you went straight out of school into the army and then you joined the tech company and not having a degree, whatever it felt, you kind of felt a place. It sounds like at different points in that career, there were times when you maybe felt like a challenge or some adversity from the people around. What would you say was like the biggest challenge all throughout that?
Liam (01:01:23.817)
Ooh, okay. Um, so honestly, the biggest challenge for me, um, and I'm a very open person, uh, right. Um, and so we might get a bit deep here, but I had, I think I was like, I had, I really suffered from mental health issues, like when I first joined that company. And the, the crazy thing is when I was in the army, um, that was not a thing. This was frowned upon. Like if somebody, you know, complained about their mental health.
or showed like vulnerability or weakness. This was really frowned upon. You would become, you would, you would kind of, um, uh, lose your place in the pack to explain it that way. Um, but then when I joined this tech company, I felt like an alien. Um, you know, in the army, you are taught to present yourself a certain way, act a certain way in civilian, what I call civilian street, you know, it's not the same. It's, it's a bit chaotic. And so I felt.
Ryane (01:02:01.771)
Yeah.
Liam (01:02:17.857)
very, very out of place and I really, really struggled to settle. And so it just impacted my mental health. You know, I started speaking with a therapist for the first time in my life, which was like transformative. Um, and so that, that was definitely the hardest part. Um, and of course me being me, you know, uh, also trying to embark on this, like journey of entrepreneurship while I'm going through all this, like this sort of crap behind the scenes. Um, that was definitely the hard part, but the light of the end of the tunnel was, um, when I joined that next company.
man, like absolute like breath of fresh air. Um, like the whole time I was there, it really opened my eyes into like how a company should be run, you know, um, just the culture, nobody ever was like. Bitchy or aggressive or raise their voice. Everyone was really supportive. Everyone was just like obsessed about making the customer successful and growing the company. Um, and so it was like, it was kind of like, you know, um, dark and light.
Patrick (01:02:50.5)
That's it.
Liam (01:03:13.909)
just comparing those two companies. But yeah, that period of my life was like really, really challenging, like really challenging.
Patrick (01:03:21.516)
Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like this is the thing. Obviously we do like to go deep on this because every entrepreneur has got a story and usually there's some in there. And it's usually contributed to them being such a good entrepreneur that they are today. Interesting as well, you mentioned before about lots of different side projects and businesses that you tried, you invested money into, and it didn't quite work out. Do you have, I mean, obviously that's like the unglamorous side of starting a business is that it's not always likely to.
to pick up? Do you have, like, what would you say is like the, any advice for someone who's kind of at that point, they're starting off, things might fail, their first business might not be going so well. Like, what's the, what would you say to someone in that position?
Liam (01:04:07.877)
It's really simple. Just keep pushing forward. Just put one foot in front of the other. Um, like I think, um, if you want to, um, like start a business or if you want to like enter that world, I think there's, I think, um, there's someone who refers to it as like the indoctrination period, this period where you're just researching everything. You're just trying to learn everything. You're reading all these business books. You're, um, just like, you know, glued to your laptop.
for 12 hours a day and everyone's like questioning, are you okay or not? Like, I think you have to go through that period. Um, and, and just make these mistakes. Like if you, if you come up with a good idea, you know, run with it and see what happens, um, just don't be stupid and, you know, make sure you've, you've got the financial means to like support yourself. Um, but honestly, I don't think there's, I don't think there's any other way, or at least this is how, you know, my preference is, is to just like brute force it. It's just like.
I, this is my North star. I know this is what, how I want, you know, to live my life. This is the goal I'm working towards. And just like, just, just brute force it, just research as much as possible. Speak to people. Um, you know, even if you need to change career so that you're getting more relevant experience in a field that you then eventually want to build a business in, um, you know, go online places like Twitter, uh, discord, LinkedIn, uh, I'd say probably Twitter is the best for like, you know, informal.
stuff and just connect with people. There's a really big community of entrepreneurs, wannabe entrepreneurs on social media that are like this big band of brothers and sisters all working towards this great mission and just bounce ideas with them. This is how I met you guys. This is why we're on this podcast right now. I think my best advice would just be like...
just keep pushing forward. Sorry, there's no sexy secret sauce. It's just, you've got to go through that period.
Patrick (01:06:08.204)
Yeah, 100%, 100%. There's no shortcuts. You've got to put the work in. But obviously, the good side of entrepreneurship are that if it goes well, you do get the upsides. So Rhyme is telling me that you're somewhere in the world right now that's not home. Is that right?
Ryane (01:06:27.734)
that's not cold.
Liam (01:06:29.037)
Yeah, yeah, yes. That's not cold. Uh, it is cold. It is cold actually. So yeah. Um, uh, earlier this year, um, my girlfriend and I decided to start, um, traveling around Europe. So because of, uh, you know, Britain's decision to leave the European Union, uh, every 90 days we, um, we bounce countries around Europe because I want to remain within, um, a similar time zone to the UK. So yeah, right now I'm in Montenegro. Uh, we.
Patrick (01:06:30.628)
It's not cold as well.
Ryane (01:06:34.742)
Yeah.
Liam (01:06:58.377)
arrived here on this weekend. Um, and then, yeah, we just kind of bounce around, uh, like every 90 days or so. I think it is, it is quite stressful at the beginning, like, you know, finding a gym, a coworking spot, like getting settled, it is quite stressful. Um, like if you saw my setup right now, it's pretty scrappy and, um, you know, I'd like to have something a bit more permanent. So I think we've, we've probably got like a couple more countries in us, and then we're going to find somewhere a bit more permanent, um, and.
Ryane (01:06:59.591)
on that
Ryane (01:07:18.544)
Hahaha.
Liam (01:07:27.265)
That might be the UK, it might not be like we're pretty open-minded. Um, but this is, this is one of the reasons, you know, as like, I'm quite a deep guy, you know, there's, uh, eventually, you know, once upon a time, you know, I was sitting there dreaming of, of this reality of being able to travel, you know, one, um, one of my first goals when I started doing this thing was, um, that having the ability to just book a flight and to go wherever I want without.
having to get permission from somebody. That was just my, like it wasn't drive a Ferrari and be a multi-billionaire. It was literally just hop on a flight and ask, not have to ask anyone permission. And everything else is just like, you know, a bonus after that. And so yeah, it's like, this is probably a, yeah, it's probably a lesson for us all though, is like, you know, today is what we used to dream of once upon a time. And so, you know, go enjoy it.
Patrick (01:08:11.948)
Yeah. Tighten the locate from freedom. Yep.
Ryane (01:08:26.334)
Yeah, I completely agree. For me, the biggest thing is like time location freedom. And you know, there are times when me and Patrick were traveling earlier this year where like, you know, we'd arrive at a new location and maybe the co-working place we work at hasn't got like perfect wifi. And I'd be like, oh, this is so annoying. And then you kind of have to take a step back and go, hang on. You need to be like.
Patrick (01:08:26.968)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Patrick (01:08:54.924)
Yeah, hang on. I'm halfway around the world. Yeah, I'm halfway around the world working on a laptop. Go anywhere. Just change it.
Ryane (01:08:55.362)
grateful of the kind of things that we have.
Liam (01:09:00.225)
Yeah, yeah.
Ryane (01:09:00.232)
Yeah, literally.
Liam (01:09:06.822)
Yeah, yeah. First world problems for sure.
Ryane (01:09:07.721)
So
Patrick (01:09:11.312)
Yeah, for sure. It puts it into perspective. Liam, a strange question perhaps, but do you have any odd or weird life hacks, like writing a journal, for example?
Liam (01:09:25.429)
I do, I do write, I do have a journal. So, um, and I think there's a lot of like negative stigma attached to all this stuff for men, cause like we're all expected to be like, you know, all alpha male and stuff like that. And it's like, you know, I've, I've been there, I've done that. Um, and it's a one way street. Um, and so when I was going through this phase of like really struggling with mental health, I was kind of like, look, this either goes down path A, which is not a good path, or I take it down path B.
And part of B was like self-development. And so yeah, like journaling was part of that. I tried to meditate often, just like, you know, being grateful for, you know, the life you're living, stuff like that. It's just, and maybe this stuff works, maybe it doesn't. I think the, the underlying theme of it all is positivity is just remain positive. Like,
Business can be really, really stressful. And especially like even outside of business, just what's going on in the world over the last few years, like, um, things have become really difficult. I think just like, um, pausing and being mindful, like, um, you know, go, goes a long way. So yeah, I journal, I try to exercise as much as possible. Sleep is my number one important thing. You know, I get eight hours sleep minimum per night. I drink a lot of water. You know, I try to do all the basics to, um, to maximize my.
Ryane (01:10:45.856)
I'm gonna go.
Liam (01:10:49.417)
my output as much as possible because look, I said this like three times now, inputs outputs, if you don't treat your body well and your mind well, then you're not going to be able to create, um, high value work. So I think, I think that's the key takeaway here. That's probably the title of this is inputs.
Ryane (01:11:05.77)
Hehehehe
Patrick (01:11:05.816)
Yeah. Garbage in, garbage out. Good stuff in, good stuff out. Absolutely. And obviously, you know, you're, you're pushing ahead with this. You've, you've got a certain quality of life. You've got your business to a certain point. What sort of motivates you to keep pushing forward? What motivates you and what are you kind of looking forward to in the future?
Liam (01:11:08.983)
Yeah, yeah.
Liam (01:11:26.261)
Yeah. So I think if you rely solely on motivation, you're going to be disappointed. Because it's very hard to wake up every day motivated. And so I have my old trusty chip on the shoulder. I think that's what keeps me like pushing forward is I just always, I don't know, I'm just like, I have an unhealthy obsession with like pushing myself. I kind of, for whatever reason, I always decide to choose like the hard path, the uncomfortable path.
Um, you know, in the, in the military, there was this term, it was like, get comfortable being uncomfortable. Um, and I think I've just like, maybe taken that a bit too serious. Um, but yeah, it's just, I have like a, you know, a, um, a North star that I want to hit. Uh, I w I want to live my life a certain way and it's not lavish. Um, but you know, I just want to, um, you know, achieve certain things. And that's what gets me out of bed every morning, you know, happy to work on Saturdays and Sundays without moaning is just that.
Ryane (01:12:05.506)
Ha ha ha.
Liam (01:12:26.504)
I don't know what to call it, because I don't think motivation is enough. It's just sort of in my DNA.
Patrick (01:12:35.568)
Wow, yeah, completely. It's a determination plus motivation. And yeah, it sounds like you've got it in your bones. That's for sure. Okay, I think we've covered all for this section. Ryan, do you have anything further you wanna ask Liam?
Ryane (01:12:56.714)
Um, I'm just trying to think. I think the stuff around like the journaling was quite interesting. I'd be quite interested to know in terms of like, when you're journaling, what, what types of things are you actually writing down? Because I've, I wouldn't say necessarily I've started journaling, but every now and then I'll take like a, an evening off working and I'll just start like, just write down my thoughts, think about, okay. What
what's going on in my life? What do I wanna fix? So for example, there was a period I wasn't doing much exercise and I was just kind of writing down, thinking, brainstorming. And it kind of came to the conclusion is that I just find the gym really boring. So I've found like another sport that I can do that's more class-based and with other people. So it's kind of like problem solving is journaling. But I don't know if that's like the typical thing that people mean when journaling. So it'd be cool to know like what...
You don't have to show exactly what you're writing down, but what topics are you discussing? Do you use it emotionally, practically? I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.
Liam (01:14:02.193)
Yeah, all of the above. So I think there's really no rules. Um, and there needs to be no rules because as soon as you start creating rules and systems, you're creating friction, right? Um, and so it's like, if you read atomic habits, you know, one of the principles to creating good habits or forming good habits is reducing friction, making it easy and accessible. Um, and so I just let it flow naturally, you know, um, I mean, I've, I've kept a journal for like the last.
Ryane (01:14:06.568)
Mm.
Liam (01:14:30.881)
four, three, four years or something. And man, there must be a crazy story going on in there, like ups and downs and all sorts. Um, but sometimes it's, you know, if I, if I feel like quite emotional, like angry or upset about something, I'll just put it onto paper. Um, and I often find that, you know, say if I was angry about something or frustrated about something, I often find, you know, the morning after I'm like, wait, that wasn't even a big deal. Um, and so I feel like I kind of just by putting it on paper, I've sort of got that weight off my shoulders. Um,
Ryane (01:14:38.018)
Hehehe
Liam (01:15:01.009)
Other times there's more like logical stuff where, you know, I'm thinking more big picture about where I want to take the business, what I want to achieve. And again, just putting that, those thoughts onto paper, it makes it more deliberate, um, and I think it, to, to write forces, um, to write, you, you are forced to think, right, because you have to put that word on paper. And so I think it just provides a lot of clarity. If, if I could say that the biggest take takeaway, uh, from journaling for me is clarity, I think, um,
Ryane (01:15:16.45)
Mm.
Ryane (01:15:29.912)
Mm.
Liam (01:15:30.385)
The inverse to clarity, I think is, and look, I'm, you know, I'm not a medical professional, but I think the opposite to clarity is like anxiety is like, I think that's what a lot of founders struggle with is when they don't know exactly what they're doing and when they're supposed to be doing it and what they should be working on right now, that's where anxiety starts to creep in and they start like doubting things. And so I think like journaling helps a lot with just being laser focused on what needs to be done and then also like, yeah, that sort of putting your emotions on paper.
Ryane (01:16:02.098)
Nice, nice. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess also, yeah, whenever you're doing, dealing with anything, just seeing it and articulating it. I completely agree. It definitely helps you to think. And I've definitely had times where, you know, when you're running a business, you constantly want to be pushing the ball forwards, like moving forwards. And if you're not sure exactly what strategy you're going for, that can cause like a bit of stress. I think also, you know, when you're remotely with a co-founder, sometimes when previously we haven't been...
Patrick (01:16:03.469)
Yeah, absolutely.
Ryane (01:16:31.186)
so like dead straight on what our targets are, what our strategy is, there'd be times where I was thinking, oh no, am I underworking? Am I not pulling my end of the, like, pulling my, I can't remember what I was saying, I'm trying to come up with, but I'm not doing the work I should be doing. And I think, yeah, having that clarity would definitely be something that helps a lot.
Liam (01:16:42.358)
Mm-hmm.
Patrick (01:16:55.96)
Yeah, I think it would be quite good for like being able to kind of pull out, be able to zoom out and say, okay, there's a zillion and one things on my to-do list. Realistically, most of them are not that important. They're just, they've found their way into it because they're urgent, because someone's just wanted them there and actually saying, okay, hang on, what's the one thing that's going to push things forward? And did I do it yesterday? Has it carried over to today? I think that would be quite useful. I wouldn't say I journal, but I definitely do like write down every now and again, just do like a reflection and
Ryane (01:16:56.524)
Um.
Ryane (01:17:03.863)
Mm.
Patrick (01:17:25.816)
just start writing wherever things are. And it's therapeutic, because you're just like, okay, this is everything. Everything I can think of. Just start crossing things off, you know?
Liam (01:17:29.395)
Mm.
Liam (01:17:37.357)
I think it's important to say, right. Once upon a time, I would laugh at this kind of stuff. Like, you know, in, you know, in the military, it's, it's very like toxic masculinity, you know, everything's very macho. Um, you know, I mean, I could go on and on with like all the types of examples it was. And so that kind of stuff was like considered a bit woo woo, you know? Um, and to think like how, you know, how things are switched. Um,
Ryane (01:18:00.398)
Yeah.
Liam (01:18:04.585)
You know, I think, I think a lot of men struggle with, um, and women, but, you know, I'm a man, so I can only speak for men. Um, I think a lot of us bottle up our emotions and, uh, eventually, uh, that bottle becomes very full and, uh, starts to explode. Um, and I think, you know, you need to look after yourself. And I, for me personally, journaling has been one of those things, but I know there's, there's loads of other outlets as well, like, you know, sports, even just working, some people, um.
like to do that. But yeah, I think it's so important.
Ryane (01:18:38.706)
Yeah, I definitely agree on that one.
Patrick (01:18:39.652)
Yeah, absolutely. And it's, and it's
good that it's sort of like removing the stigma and stuff around it because at the end of the day, that's what works. That's what helps us get results. You know, who's laughing now, sort of thing.
Ryane (01:18:53.588)
Yeah.
Ryane (01:18:57.902)
Great, well, I think that's probably a nice point to round it off on. Liam, I really appreciate you taking the time to come talk to us about not only all the interesting things that you're talking about, that you talk about online from a professional point of view, but also to kind of go a little bit more vulnerable and talk about the different things that have happened in your life and how that's impacted how you're moving forwards. That's definitely something that we really appreciate.
Patrick (01:18:59.458)
Nice.
Ryane (01:19:27.102)
If people want to learn more about you, maybe contact you about, you know, your services and how you could help them. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Liam (01:19:37.917)
Uh, just go to my company's website. So digiceed.co. I think my, my handle on like Twitter and Instagram is like Liam SAS. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn, Liam Dunne. Obviously I'll be an employee of Digiceed. Um, and yeah, reach out. We'd love to chat.
Ryane (01:19:55.851)
All right, speak soon.
Patrick (01:19:58.244)
Fantastic. Appreciate you coming on Liam. Thank you.
Liam (01:19:58.421)
All right. Cheers. Bye. No worries.
Patrick (01:20:04.608)
Nice.