Marketer turned serial tech founder shares his secret tips

Summary

Chris Frantz, co-founder of YC-backed Loops, discusses the startup's vision to revolutionize email handling for software companies by seamlessly blending marketing and transactional emails. With a background in marketing and a history of entrepreneurship, Frantz shares insights on transitioning from founder to marketer and back to founder, emphasizing the value of understanding all aspects of a business to effectively hire and grow. Loops aims to solve personal pain points with email platforms, and Frantz highlights the importance of product-market fit, creative marketing strategies, and building for the long term.

Takeaways

• 🌐 Loops is a YC-backed startup aiming to revolutionize how software companies manage and send emails, blending marketing and transactional emails seamlessly.
• 👋 Chris Frantz, a co-founder of Loops, has a strong marketing background with over 10 years of experience and is also a serial entrepreneur.
• 🚀 Chris' journey involved starting a marketing agency, Century Light Media, which provided him with valuable sales experience and confidence as a founder.
• 🛠️ Despite not having a technical background, Chris has learned to code and contributes to the technical aspects of Loops, overcoming the challenge of being a non-technical founder.
• 🎯 Chris believes that founders should learn every role within their company to better understand and hire for those positions effectively.
• 💡 Loops' vision is to create a tool that solves the founders' own problems with existing email platforms like MailChimp and SendGrid, aiming to eliminate the need for multiple tools.
• 📈 Product-market fit for Loops is approached by addressing pain points in email sending platforms and offering a free trial to attract users.
• 🌟 Loops has engaged in creative marketing campaigns, such as launching a limited edition Loop Cereal box and acquiring the WorkSpaces newsletter to expand their reach.
• 🔍 Chris emphasizes the importance of building free tools that solve specific problems as a strategy to drive engagement and interest in the core product.
• 🤖 Snazzy AI, previously founded by Chris, was acquired by Unbounce, providing insights into the potential for AI companies to grow rapidly and the importance of persistence in entrepreneurship.
• 📊 Chris suggests that new entrepreneurs should validate their ideas quickly through social media and be prepared to pivot or move on based on initial traction.

Q & A

What is Loops and how does it aim to redefine the way software companies handle emails?

Loops is a YC-backed startup that intends to redefine the email experience for software companies by seamlessly blending marketing and transactional emails within the same environment, aiming to streamline and improve email communication processes.

Can you describe Chris Frantz's background and his transition from a marketer to a founder and back to a marketer again?

Chris Frantz has a degree in marketing and over 10 years of experience in content and digital marketing. He transitioned from a seasoned marketer to a serial founder, starting with an agency called Century Light Media, which provided him with hands-on sales experience and helped build his confidence as a founder.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a non-technical founder with a marketing background according to Chris Frantz?

The advantages include the ability to sell and communicate effectively with customers, which is crucial for landing high-value clients. The main disadvantage is the challenge of becoming a technical founder, which Chris overcame by learning to code and gaining a deeper understanding of the technical aspects of building a product.

How did Chris Frantz's experience with Century Light Media influence his approach to building Loops?

Chris's experience with Century Light Media taught him the importance of understanding customer pain points and the value of starting with a service background. This understanding has been instrumental in building Loops, as it has informed the company's focus on solving real-world problems for its users.

What is Loops' strategy for finding product-market fit in a crowded email space?

Loops focuses on offering a free plan to start, requiring no credit card information, and encouraging users to try their platform if they have pain points related to email sending platforms. This approach allows potential users to experience the product without commitment, potentially leading to a good fit and long-term use.

What was the concept behind Loops' limited edition cereal box campaign and how did it impact the company's growth?

The limited edition cereal box campaign was a creative marketing stunt where Loops sold cereal boxes with a custom decoder ring inside, leading to a secret landing page and more swag. While the campaign did not have a broad customer base impact, it created memorable experiences for those who participated and generated some revenue through the unique selling method.

How did Loops acquire WorkSpaces and what was the strategic rationale behind this acquisition?

Loops acquired WorkSpaces, a newsletter showcasing inspiring workspaces, to leverage its user base for testing email campaigns and to reach an audience that likely overlaps with Loops' target market. The acquisition also provided Loops with a platform to distribute their newsletter, enhancing their marketing efforts.

What was the idea behind Loops' recent Product Hunt launch, Bounce Doctor, and how did it help with email deliverability?

Bounce Doctor is a tool that helps users improve their email deliverability by scanning emails against Google's guidelines and providing feedback on how up-to-date the emails are. This free tool was launched in response to changes in Gmail's bulk sender guidelines and has helped many users fix their email setups, improving their email deliverability.

What lessons did Chris Frantz take from his successful exit with Snazzy AI to his current venture, Loops?

From the Snazzy AI exit, Chris learned the importance of building a product that resonates with a large user base and the potential volume that AI companies can achieve. He applies this knowledge to Loops by focusing on building a long-term, durable business and ensuring that the product meets the needs of AI companies and other users.

What advice does Chris Frantz have for marketers or non-technical founders looking to transition into entrepreneurship?

Chris suggests that marketers or non-technical founders should start by posting a demo of a product on social media platforms where their target users are. If initial traction is not achieved, they should restructure the product and message and try again. If it still doesn't work, they should consider moving on to a different idea.

What marketing strategies or hacks does Chris Frantz believe every startup founder should know?

Chris believes that startup founders should integrate growth mechanisms into their products, such as including a logo in emails that leads back to the product. He also emphasizes the importance of capitalizing on users sharing what they've created within the platform, as this can significantly reduce the time spent on traditional marketing efforts.

What can we expect from Loops in the upcoming months?

Loops plans to continue releasing new features and product updates regularly, as well as highlighting new customers through a 'customer launch week' strategy. They aim to keep improving their platform for SaaS companies, focusing on email deliverability and user experience.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 Introduction to Loops and Founder's Background

The paragraph introduces Loops, a YC-backed startup aiming to revolutionize the way software companies handle emails by seamlessly blending marketing and transactional emails. The interview features Chris Frantz, one of Loops' co-founders, who discusses his transition from a seasoned marketer with over 10 years of experience to a serial entrepreneur. Despite not having a traditional engineering background, Chris emphasizes the importance of self-teaching and hands-on experience in sales and marketing for founders, sharing insights on overcoming confidence barriers and the challenges of being a non-technical founder.

05:02

🚀 Personal Journey and Product-Market Fit

Chris shares his personal journey from founding a marketing agency to pivoting into tech with Loops. He discusses the advantages of having a service background for founders, the importance of understanding customer pain points, and the challenges of transitioning from a non-technical background to becoming a technical founder. The conversation also touches on Loops' approach to finding product-market fit in a crowded email space, emphasizing the value of addressing pain points and offering a freemium plan to attract users.

10:02

🎩 Creative Marketing Strategies and Acquisitions

The discussion highlights Loops' creative marketing strategies, such as launching a limited edition Loop Cereal box and acquiring WorkSpaces, a newsletter showcasing inspiring workspaces. Chris explains the rationale behind these strategies, their impact on customer engagement, and how they align with Loops' target audience. The conversation also delves into the concept of 'building as marketing,' where free tools are created to drive interest and engagement towards the core product.

15:03

📈 Learnings from Snazzy AI and Future Plans for Loops

Reflecting on the successful exit of Snazzy AI, Chris shares the learnings he's applying to Loops and his approach to building a long-term, durable business. He discusses the importance of focus and perseverance in entrepreneurship, the challenges of prioritizing user-demanded features over the founders' original vision, and the potential of leveraging AI companies as customers. Chris also hints at Loops' future plans, including the development of a product that was initially pitched to YC but has yet to be built.

20:06

💡 Advice for Marketers and Entrepreneurs

Chris offers advice to marketers and entrepreneurs looking to transition into entrepreneurship. He suggests creating a quick demo of a product and posting it on social media to gauge initial traction. If the initial response is not promising, he advises restructuring the product and message and trying again. For those with high conviction in their product and market, he encourages persistence and resilience, even in the face of competition from more hyped companies. Chris also emphasizes the importance of incorporating growth mechanisms into the product itself as a strategy for long-term success.

Keywords

💡Marketing Emails

Marketing emails are a form of direct communication used to promote products or services to potential customers. In the context of the video, they are discussed as a key component of the Loops platform, which aims to blend marketing and transactional emails seamlessly.

💡Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are messages sent to customers as a result of a specific action they took, such as a purchase or password reset. The video emphasizes Loops' ability to integrate these emails with marketing communications, creating a unified customer experience.

💡Onboarding Emails

Onboarding emails are a series of messages sent to new users to guide them through the initial stages of using a product or service. In the video, onboarding emails are mentioned as part of the email types that Loops aims to handle in a unified environment.

💡YC Backed Startup

A YC backed startup refers to a company that has been supported and accelerated by Y Combinator, a prestigious startup accelerator. In the video, this term signifies that Loops has received backing and validation from a renowned institution in the tech industry.

💡Serial Founder

A serial founder is an individual who repeatedly starts multiple businesses, often moving from one venture to the next. In the context of the video, Chris Frantz is described as a serial founder, indicating his experience and propensity for entrepreneurship.

💡Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating, distributing, and promoting content to attract, engage, and retain a clearly defined audience. In the video, Chris Frantz's experience in content marketing is emphasized as a key part of his marketing background.

💡Product Market Fit

Product-market fit refers to the match between a product's features and benefits and the needs or wants of a target market. In the video, finding product-market fit is discussed as a critical challenge for Loops in the crowded email tool space.

💡Freemium Model

The freemium model is a business model where a basic version of a product or service is provided for free, with the option for users to pay for premium features. In the video, Loops uses this model to attract users and demonstrate the value of their platform.

💡Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern where individuals doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent fear of being exposed as a 'fraud'. In the video, the co-founder of Loops admits to experiencing imposter syndrome, reflecting on the personal challenges faced by entrepreneurs.

💡Build in Public

Building in public refers to the practice of openly sharing the process of creating a product or company with the public, often through social media or blogs. In the video, the concept is discussed as a strategy for gaining feedback, building an audience, and promoting transparency.

💡Marketing Strategies

Marketing strategies are planned approaches to achieve specific marketing objectives. In the video, various marketing strategies are discussed, including limited edition cereal boxes and the acquisition of WorkSpaces, to differentiate Loops and engage their target audience.

Highlights

Loops is a YC backed startup aiming to redefine how software companies handle emails.

Chris Frantz, co-founder of Loops, has a strong marketing background with over 10 years of experience.

Loops envisions a seamless blend of marketing and transactional emails within the same environment.

Chris Frantz's journey from founder to marketer and back to founder is marked by a desire to build and create.

Frantz's initial venture, Century Light Media, was a freelance marketing agency that taught him sales and customer relations.

Non-technical founders can still succeed by understanding and learning the roles they aim to hire for.

Loops offers a freemium plan, which many competitors lack, making it easier for users to try their product.

The acquisition of WorkSpaces by Loops was a strategic move to gain a user base and test email effectiveness.

Loops' 'Bounce Doctor' tool on Product Hunt was a free utility that helped users with email deliverability, garnering significant engagement.

Frantz believes in the power of building free tools to drive engagement and interest towards the core product.

Snazzy AI, previously founded by Frantz, was acquired by Unbounce, providing valuable insights into AI and marketing.

Loops' long-term vision includes building a product that doesn't yet exist, which they believe the market will want.

Frantz advocates for a 'don't die' approach to entrepreneurship, focusing on building a durable business over time.

Loops' strategy includes a 'customer launch week' to highlight new customers and generate interest.

Frantz suggests that创业者 should create a demo and test it on social media to find product-market fit.

Every startup founder should integrate a growth mechanism into their product to save time on marketing.

Loops is focused on building a long-term, sustainable business rather than chasing hype or quick exits.

Transcripts

Imagine a world where your marketing emails and your transactional emails

blend seamlessly, where your onboarding emails and your password reset emails

all live in the same environment.

That's what Loops does.

Loops is a YC backed startup that wants to redefine the way software

companies send and handle emails.

Today, I'm joined by Chris Frantz, one of the co-founders

of Loops, to talk about it.

Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today.

Hey there, thanks for having me, appreciate it.

So Chris, the first thing that I noticed when I prepared for this interview is

your impressive marketing background.

You're a seasoned marketer, you have a degree in marketing, 10

years plus of experience in content marketing, digital marketing.

But you're also a serial founder and Loops is actually not your first company, right?

So tell me more about your journey from founder to marketer back to founder.

I've always liked to build things to make things.

And I don't have a traditional background in engineering.

For the most part, I've been self taught, you know, what you learn in school around

marketing is much different from the reality of the real marketing world.

And I literally can't sleep at night sometimes unless I get up and like make

a thing or take another step forward in the direction of building something cool.

And if I'm not wrong, you started your career by founding an agency, a marketing

agency called Century Light Media, right?

How did you pivot from this to building something in tech?

That was just a freelance agency that I started for myself.

It was great because it gave me the first hand experience of sales.

It got me over the confidence hump that exists with a lot of founders,

especially a lot of technical founders around reaching out to people and having

enough self confidence to say, yes, I.

Can do what you need to do.

I could do it well, and I could do it in X period of time and then actually be able

to follow through, have repeat customers building all that stuff up is, is great.

I think more founders should probably start from a service background.

It helps you to communicate with customers, teaches you how

to land high value customers.

It teaches you how to ask for 10, 000 a month from multiple people simultaneously.

Like that kind of stuff is hard.

You see indie hackers and early stage startup founders, you know, afraid

to charge more than 9, 19, 49 a month for their software, when in reality,

you could usually charge more.

You just need to write, find the right person with the right pain point.

Yeah.

It's interesting you mentioned this because one of my questions actually was.

What do you find were the biggest advantages and disadvantages of

being a non technical founder with a marketing background?

You mentioned your ability to sell, that was really impactful and useful.

What are other ones?

useful for you?

And also what were the roadblocks?

Yeah.

So I'd say the biggest one is becoming a technical founder.

Um, at this point I'm pushing code every day and have been for

a couple of years now, whether or not my co founder likes it.

I think the biggest roadblock is just the artificial ones that people put in

front of themselves, like, especially now you can go and you can learn how

to create a business mostly by doing, and that's probably what you should do.

You should definitely talk to an accountant also.

There's one professional you should definitely speak to.

It's an accountant every year.

But beyond that, use something like Stripe Atlas, any of the million

tools to, to build a product.

I think the biggest roadblock for people right now is, um,

they have a confidence issue.

They think they need someone else to do things for you.

When in reality, the best way to hire for a role is to learn how

to do that role in its entirety.

That way you're in a good position to hire someone because you

understand the role really well.

You can't hire your first growth marketer unless you understand

how your company is growing.

And the way to understand how your company is growing is by growing your company.

So essentially, you need to do everything at first, get good at

it enough to hire, and to know when you're hiring someone better than you.

That's, that's so interesting.

And do you think that you think about product differently?

than a technical founder because of that marketing experience?

The marketing background helps a lot.

I think at this point I could probably get a job as like a pretty

junior to mid level engineer.

Bridging that gap is really helpful because marketing asks

for things for engineering.

And, um, they seem simple, right?

You're like, Hey, can I get a page?

It looks like this, that does this.

And engineering is like, yeah, that's three months.

And it's hard to comprehend that what you've asked for actually

takes three months until you actually start doing it yourself.

And you're like, Oh yeah, I can see that take three months.

So having experience with all of it really helps.

And it's the same for sales.

And it's the same for design.

You know, I do all the design and, uh, we don't do any outbound sales,

but I also do the inbound sales.

You, you have to do everything.

Um, because that's how you understand where the pain points

are and how they can be improved.

Looking at loops, looking at your website, everything you guys are

doing, it's very obvious that the vision is pretty locked in.

It feels very solid.

And I have this feeling that you know exactly how to position this product.

Do you feel like you have this clear vision and this clear position and like,

does it all flow naturally for you?

Or are you like actually really good at pretending?

I have to assume some other people are like that too, but that's

definitely an imposter syndrome, never been able to shake it.

We are solving our own problems.

We're building something that we hope people want and it's proven to be the

case, but more importantly for me, um, we're building something that I want.

I didn't want to use MailChimp.

I didn't want to use SendGrid and I didn't want to use.

Both of them simultaneously to do a similar job and maintain branding

inconsistency across all of those.

And like have to teach the marketing team how to use SendGrid and have to teach the

engineering team how to use MailChimp.

Like that sucks.

You know, I've been doing this for a decade.

As you mentioned in the beginning, like it's just, it's too much.

I'm done.

I had to make a tool that solved it for at least me.

And I've been fortunate enough that other people felt the same pain points.

Um, but ultimately I'm, we're building this tool so that we don't have to use.

MailChimp and SendGrid.

We're banking on a lot of other people feeling the same way.

Talking about the other email tools that you hate, uh, the email

space is pretty crowded, right?

Um, how are you approaching finding product market fit for Loops in there?

So crowded.

Something you'll see that every, uh, every startup founder goes through is

folks will come up to you and they'll be like, Hey, how does your product differ

from X leading product or Y new product?

What we've noticed in the email space is there's over 560 listed companies on

G2, just in the email marketing space.

So I've long since given up trying to keep up with all 500 competitors

lists of features and how ours differ.

It's just, there's, it's a losing battle.

So what I've started doing is being like, Hey, if you have a pain point,

Right now around your email sending platform, we could probably help,

or it's probably worth a look.

We're free to start.

I love a free plan for that.

We're free to start.

There's no credit card required.

Just take a look.

If it's a good fit, fantastic.

Like use it and we'll help you on board.

If it's not, then you lose nothing but a couple of minutes

and you go on with your day.

And a lot of our competitors don't have like a freemium plan or, um,

they're exceptionally annoying to use.

And, um, I say 90 percent of the time people do agree.

You know, as a fellow marketer, we're being told that, um, We need to be

remarkable, you know, the purple cow and you have led a few genius

marketing campaigns for loops already.

And I wanted to dive into that a little bit more, um, and go over

some of the, some of those strategies and campaigns that, um, I believe

was super impactful and remarkable.

So the first one, two years ago or so, you launched a limited edition loop cereal

box for swag instead of hats or mugs.

Um, I thought that was genius.

Can you share a little bit more about this campaign, this strategy?

What's the story behind this?

And also what were, what was the impact of that campaign on your growth?

Well, as you mentioned at the beginning, I am a serial founder.

That was a good joke.

That was a good joke.

I'm assuming there's just a lag here.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, unfortunately it's not the lag.

It did take me a second.

I'm very ashamed, but yeah, it was a good one.

Yeah.

This was.

Actually, very cool.

I felt like the reception outside of our customer base and some, some other small

handful of users wasn't the best, but let me tell you how cool this cereal box was.

We had it custom made with this excellent designer.

She did these custom illustrations of the whole thing.

We had it filled with actual cereal and sealed, but inside the box of

cereal was a 3D printed script.

custom made decoder ring, like a little ring inside of it.

If you craft the code on this ring, it took you to a secret landing

page on that secret landing page.

If you scrolled all the way down, you unlocked another box of swag.

I don't know.

I thought it was super cool.

I really liked it.

The people that got it and did it, they really loved it.

And the way that we sold it is, um, we actually started it.

Selling a cereal boxes at a dollar a piece.

And then every time someone purchased one, we doubled the price.

We only made like 50 boxes, but it was, you know, like a couple

hundred dollars or something by the end, which was crazy to see.

We were able to sell cereal for that price, but it was a lot of fun.

And it definitely created like some memories for customers.

We still get pictures of customers who are like, look, there's a

box of cereal in the background.

We want to do more things like that.

But then once you start getting customers, right, which is the whole goal of this,

once you start getting customers, you actually have to build the product,

pay attention to those customers.

And that's when, if you don't have a dedicated marketing team, it's harder to

keep up with this marketing stunts because the best thing you can actually do for

your product is once you have momentum is build your product and talk to users.

Not sell boxes of cereal.

Yeah, for sure.

Another interesting marketing strategy that I've seen from you guys was the

acquisition of WorkSpaces, of course.

For those who don't know, WorkSpaces is a newsletter that

showcases inspiring workspaces from creative people around the world.

They also have a really cool Twitter account and it was also

created by an ex product hunt.

And so you acquired it with Loops to essentially distribute that

newsletter with your product.

Tell me more about this strategy.

Yeah.

So this is something that a bunch of people told us not to do,

which is a surefire way of getting me to do the exact opposite.

Um, but no, really, uh, so Ryan, uh, runs workspaces, continues to do so.

The reason we purchased workspaces was twofold.

One we're an email sending platform, but we weren't sending a lot of email and we

just didn't have a user base to speak of.

We'd know what to email.

So that has now.

Changed thankfully, but in the meantime, we were able to use Ryan's user base to

to test out emails that we were sending.

It was really helpful to structure it in an email and to understand what it would

look like for a very popular platform.

So there was that.

Uh, there was also a little bit of the product like growth thing.

So we put our logo in there.

And then the third one is the audience.

Like I said, we're not really focused on demographics, but the audience of

people that build out really cool, like office setups seem to have a

high overlap with, with our user base.

And the re and the way we figured that out is because I ran a test.

I actually ran a test on five or six different newsletters, paid test.

And I just looked at what you have the most amount of high intent, engaged

users and workspaces did by like.

A significant number.

I figured I could a continue to buy workspaces, um, placements for a

year, um, or B offer them a year of workspaces placements as an acquisition.

And they took that, which is great.

And since then, we've gotten multiple years of that space out of them.

And Ryan's an awesome employee on top of it.

So, um, it's.

It's been a good fit.

Again, a lot of people say that you shouldn't do it, and whatever the group

consensus is that you shouldn't do something, you should very studiously

look in the other direction and wonder if maybe that's a better path.

Yeah, I love this logic of, like, as a software that handles emails, you acquired

a newsletter about workspaces and people who want to make their work life better.

It does make a ton of sense, and I think it's It's very creative and

outside of the box to go for that.

And I think that's where it's powerful.

That's where it creates impact.

Yeah, it's, it's effective.

People tell us all the time they sign up from workspaces.

I mean, honestly, we could probably buy like a suite of newsletters.

We're not really focused on that.

We're definitely focused on like the more entire company experience,

but it's an interesting strategy.

I think, I think it's probably a good one for maybe like a series B company.

You could probably start a good publishing arm of newsletters

and, and do pretty well.

The third thing I wanted to mention with great marketing campaigns

you guys have done was your latest launch on Product Hunt.

We're seeing this movement grow in the space.

I think the first time I heard this term was via Mark Liu, who actually won maker

of the year at the Golden Kitty Awards.

He called it building as a marketing strategy.

It's essentially the idea of you have your core product at the

center, the one that people pay for.

Around it you create and you build a bunch of free tools that

solve a very specific issue.

You make it free and that essentially brings a lot of users, eyeballs,

interest to what you're doing and by extension to your core product

and down the line more customers.

And I have a feeling your most recent launch on Product Hunt was

kind of that, kind of in that vein.

Can you also explain like what it was as a reminder for for people who have

missed it and what was the idea behind it?

The most recent launch on Product Hunt was a products we did called bounce doctor.

And, and this tool helps you with deliverability.

Google was announcing some bulk sender guidelines.

They announced that they would be running some changes that would impact the way

the emails are delivered to your inbox.

If you send over 5, 000 emails, Hotmail and Yahoo have announced similar plans.

It's something that the industry is at large paying attention to.

However, all of our competitors just were publishing blog posts.

Like it's not super helpful to publish a four page long blog post

with a bunch of technical terms.

So what we did instead is we built a tool where regardless of the email provider

you're on, whether you're on loops or somewhere else, you send us an email,

we scan the email, we look for all the correct headers and then we match them

up against Google's current guidelines.

And then we let you know how up to date you are.

We launched it and moved on.

We probably should do some more marketing around it, but it was great.

We got thousands of responses.

Um, we had thousands of people testing it.

We help fix a lot of people's email setups, which was really cool.

Like even one of our venture capitalists sent it in as a test and

they were like, Oh my God, like our emails messed up and they fixed it.

And now emails are getting to LPs.

So totally free tool, but it does make you wonder like if I had spent the

three weeks on product stuff, would that have a better net overall positive?

It's hard to say, but I do think building free tools is.

At the very least, a lot of fun and hopefully also a decent

way to drive some engagement.

Yeah, definitely.

Also, I love that you used momentum, that you used this

change in the Gmail settings.

Yeah, free tools, a lot of fun, really enjoy.

It's, it's hard not to spend all of my time wanting to build them

and just focus on the core product.

I think focus is probably one of the most understated superpowers that

a founder can have because all you have to do is kind of just not die.

If you stay around long enough building a product that people like, and you

don't die, then you, by default, you win over most of the companies

that are started in that time.

So we constantly refer to this as like our decade company.

This is a company we're doing for a minimum of 10 years and,

um, going to be successful.

We're going to do it.

We're not going to die.

Every day I tell myself don't die.

I love this because it allows me to transition to Snazzy AI.

So Snazzy AI was one of your many companies they founded.

Um, and it was an AI copywriting tool.

But it was actually acquired by Unbounce in May 2021.

Everyone in marketing knows about Unbounce.

It's like this massive tool to create landing pages.

I've used it a thousand times.

Now that you're building loops, what are the learnings that you're taking

with you from that successful exit?

And then I was wondering If you are hoping for the same outcome with

loops, AKA an exit, I can answer in reverse, uh, regardless of whether

or not we're offered an acquisition, uh, we probably won't take it.

We've had publicly traded companies reach out to us already, and it's

a very quick conversation, which, which starts and end with thank you.

And.

So snazzy AI, um, was the previous company, my co founder and I same

co founder, uh, started, we built it and we sold it to Unbounce.

When you talk about copywriting AI companies, probably a couple come to

mind, the ones that have continued to stick around and not die, right.

It's the keys don't die.

Um, But it also feels like kind of a trope.

It feels like maybe it's been overdone and that's because it has been

definitely, but it wasn't when we did it.

We were very early.

We were in the first batch of companies that got access, um, to GPT 3.

So the very first batch along with Copy AI and Jasper, it was a great experience.

Uh, it let me realize.

Just how insane the volume is behind some of these AI companies.

If you build an AI company, you don't have a million users sign up in the

first three months, then you're probably building something that people don't want.

Because I think most B2C or prosumer AI companies right now

hit like 10 million users in.

Six months.

That's just like a, almost like a de facto number at this point.

It's, it's crazy.

We're not focused on that at loops.

We're trying to build a long term and durable business.

Um, and we power AI companies.

So we just announced yesterday, uh, that perplexity AI, uh,

now sends email with loops.

So one of the fastest growing, uh, largest and most hyped companies

in AI is using our platform, our boring old email sending platform.

So it's nice to be able to still support some of the best out there and some

of the most interesting companies.

Yeah, it's so true.

Like, I think we forget so easily how different the world

was in 2021 in the AI space.

It really was.

Do you know that we were actually restricted from

building a chat back in the day?

You were not allowed to build a chat bot.

Um, like, uh, chat GPT is, it was not, it was against the terms of service.

Um, so people would always ask like, why didn't you guys come up with chat GPT?

Why didn't you just do that?

And.

The answer was, you were not allowed to.

Of course, yeah, they wouldn't allow that.

Yeah, yeah.

So I mentioned Loops is a YC backed company, went to 2022.

You shared a little while ago that you felt like you're finally

building what YC backed you to build.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

What did you mean?

When we applied for YC, we applied with a bunch of ideas.

The one that I think the interviewers and, and us were the most excited about

was loops and the one we had the best chance at building and succeeding that

was definitely loops, but the product that we pitched, the initial Figma designs,

that's all we had, we just had designs of Figma and even those were pretty

awful, but the initial premise that we pitched, we still haven't built yet.

Um, I really, I really want to build it, but it turns out that the building

things that people want tends to take precedence over building things

that people haven't asked for.

The thing that we want to build is something that I don't think

any of our competitors have.

As a result, people don't know to ask for it.

As a result, you know, there's no users asking us for this thing, so

it's very hard to prioritize it over, um, some of the other features that

users are asking us for every day.

So I'm hoping this year.

That will have enough product maturity and hopefully enough employees to actually

be able to spend a little bit of time building the thing that we pitched to YC.

I'm not going to share what it is because I don't succinctly

even know how to pitch it yet.

But anyways, if I could go back in time, I would probably not have pitched

that I probably would have done.

Something easier.

Sorry.

It's very mysterious.

It doesn't mean to be.

No, I just haven't built it yet.

No, it's so good.

Like it gives us a reason to, to keep watching you guys.

Um, what's your build in public strategy?

I want to get better at it.

But I, you know, if you only build stuff and share stuff about your product,

then people do get a little burnt out.

You kind of need to mix it up with, with just general industry things,

um, learnings, uh, funny quips.

I don't know.

I guess I'm like half memes, half company building at this point.

I think that's like a pretty good fit.

I try to like write things that resonate with folks.

And then I also tried to build a product that resonates with folks.

I'm hoping.

There's very few people that have achieved this, but I'm hoping that my

shit posting strategy eventually takes a backseat to my product strategy.

So I'm hoping that at some point the amount of likes that I get on

any given post, um, are outpaced by my product versus, um, the random

startup you mean that I post.

Based on your journey, everything we've talked about your background, what advice

would you give to another fellow marketer or any non technical founder really?

Looking to transition, um, and take a leap into entrepreneurship.

If you are a marketer or a founder or an entrepreneur, and you want to take

your first leap, you should post on some social media platform where your users

are, uh, with a demo of a product that you put together in less than a week.

And then if you don't get initial traction, you should probably

restructure the product, restructure the message and try again.

And if that doesn't work, then you should probably move on.

That would be my recommendation at this point.

Um, or if you're absolutely sure about the product and the market and you have

high conviction, like that's what we did.

Um, if you have high conviction, then you just build and grind and raise and

you keep going and going and going.

And you don't let the fact that, um, you're not the hype is company or the

most interesting company stop you.

And that takes a very certain type of founder, a certain type of tenacity,

because you're going to get outstripped by your peers that are working on.

Like hypey companies like AI and previously crypto and previously fintech.

So I would definitely recommend to try and find an initial product market

fit through a social post, um, with a product that you put together quickly.

I love that.

And finally, makers, listen up.

What is the marketing strategies or hacks that you believe every

startup founder should know about?

You should be building some way of growing your product.

Into your product that will save you the most amount of time that you could

possibly imagine, and we'll pay dividends for pretty much forever with loops.

We include a logo at the bottom of our email.

Users click logo when they get sent it, and then they come in.

They both email loops.

We see a lot of that.

If you can find a way.

To capitalize on users sharing what they created in your platform.

Um, that's just the absolute best, uh, strategy that you can have.

And it's going to save you a lot of time, especially if you're a technical

founder, that is absolutely the move.

If you don't want to talk to people, if you don't want to do traditional

marketing, well, you should probably do both of those things anyways, but this is

a really nice, easy way of growing your products while also building your company.

And that is gold.

Thank you so much for this super insightful interview.

Um, what can we expect from Loops in the next few months?

I know you've been a bit mysterious.

But anything you want to share and that would get us excited.

Yeah, definitely.

So, um, we try to release things every couple of weeks.

We do product updates, a big batch every month.

And we constantly put out new content and new things across

all the different channels.

So this week, we're doing a customer launch week.

So we're highlighting certain customers that have recently

joined loops and started sending.

That's worked pretty well.

It's like a little marketing stunt.

I think more companies should probably try customer launch weeks.

You should just type that into like X or threads or LinkedIn.

If you want to see what that looks like really low touch.

And so far it's been pretty high impact.

Actually, we have some really cool new features coming.

Uh, you should definitely check them out.

If you're a SAS company, you should be sending email with loops.