806: The power of STORYTELLING in business w/ Ellis Hamburger

Speaker 1:
0:00

Hey, what is up? Welcome to this episode of the Wontropner to entrepreneur podcast. As always, I'm your host, brian Lofremento, and today's guest is one that I've been so excited to have on for quite some time now, because this is someone who has seen all different sides of tech companies, of business, of copyrighting, of messaging, of so much that goes on behind brands and the affinity that they build with their customers in the marketplace and how much good I think we can all do in the world. So let me tell you about today's guest. His name is Ellis Hamburger.

Speaker 1:
0:31

Ellis has worked with some of the world's best product founders for over 10 years, first as a reporter at the Verge, then as Snapchat's first writer, moving on years later to lead marketing strategy, and later as a founding member of the storytelling team at the browser company. Now he helps establish or when he was at the browser company, he helped establish the startup as one of the most inspiring and transparent in recent memory. Now Ellis works directly with find founders to find their truth and share it with the world under his own company, his own umbrella, called Meaning, which is a product storytelling studio based in Los Angeles, california, one of my favorite cities in the world. This guy is going to open our minds to so many things about why we exist as entrepreneurs and business owners the mark that we can leave on the world. His work is incredibly impactful. I'm not going to say anything else. Let's dive straight into my interview with Ellis Hamburger. All right, ellis, I'm so excited that you're here with us today. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:
1:35

Thanks so much for having me and appreciate the intro.

Speaker 1:
1:38

Heck, yeah. Well the intro. I could say a lot of good things about you. We were forced into hitting record because we already started talking about business stuff. But before we get back to business, take us beyond the bio. You've had such an incredible story at so many companies that we've all heard of today. Walk us through the story of Ellis. How the heck did you get here?

Speaker 2:
1:58

Yeah, thank you for asking. I think you know, honestly, it starts with me as a kid. I was always obsessed with technology and this is something that was a daily, weekly obsession for me. And, of course, like so many others, I never knew that it could become a job. And so I found myself at the University of Michigan, not too far from home, studying English, and I was actually going to be a financial advisor initially.

Speaker 2:
2:23

I love helping people and making them happy and helping them find the right way to think about their goals, and maybe there's a little thread there we can pull on later. But I went on this English program for six weeks in the woods with no electricity in Maine and really discovered that I actually did want to be a writer. And why not write about tech, the thing I'm most passionate about and I think I've always had a passing interest in psychology and why people make the decisions that they do and just how people feel and how tech can actually influence their lives. I was always a big reader of Walt Mossberg's personal technology column at the Wall Street Journal. I just love the idea of translating complex new technology to the lives of everyday people. Anything from you know the very first smartphones that we all use to your stupid links this router to your Xbox or any other technology that you might find yourself using and how it affects us. And so, yeah, after I got back from that program started a tech blog, kind of parlayed that into a job at Business Insider and then at the Verge about two months after the Verge was founded. And during that time, you know, I interviewed and wrote about probably hundreds of founders and I always felt like I was always right at the finish line, right being able to tell their story three days before they were actually coming out. And yet it was still such a fun challenge for me with every headline to position that product exactly how I wanted. And it was always an interesting tension because the companies would tell me what they thought their story was and then I would write a headline based on what I thought my readers would be most interested in.

Speaker 2:
4:02

And as it turned out, I think that practice is still something that I think of today. No bullshit it's all about. Why would anybody care about you? It doesn't matter what you say about yourself. You have to think about it through the lens of your consumer what their actual needs are, not what your product does, but what their needs are, and then how your product maps to it, and so this is a discipline that I've been thinking about for a long time.

Speaker 2:
4:24

But once again, I didn't really know that this could become a career, and so I just kept working closer and closer toward trying to find that better alignment between what I loved and the job that could fit to it. And so during my time at Snap, you know, all I ever wanted or sorry, at the Verge, all I ever wanted was just to feel closer to some of these founders that I'd worked with and Evan was one of the youngest and also one of the most inspiring at Snap and so I worked on a couple exclusives with Snap and eventually found my way there. I was the first copywriter, pretty much working on everything B2B, b2c, even pitched some reporters who were my old friends. I did the copy in the app. I did our first sales narrative, worked on the S1 for the IPO and really saw every single side of writing from both the marketing, the COMs, the UX writing. That really helped me see that there's this really big problem within corporations and certainly within tech, even as the most innovative corporations we have today which is that stories are always siloed. Coms is telling one story, marketing is telling one story. The product is telling a whole other story. Or, in the case of Snap, the product wasn't really telling much of a story at all because it was just trying to be this utility that just dropped you right into the app and so, before you know it, you may have a lot of users, but they may not really advocate for you, they may not know why they're there, they may not be likely to stay, and that's really all I ever wanted to do share Snap's richer philosophy with the world. But that was something that was always tough to do as a brand that really just kept the focus on very lighthearted fun.

Speaker 2:
5:57

And so, after about seven and a half years at Snap, I ended up moving over to the browser company, joined a very, very early, I guess, concept for what storytelling could mean at a young startup that usually doesn't hire marketers, doesn't hire COMs. People don't hire writers, certainly, and I kind of found myself as Jack of all trades working with a small team to try and create a highly impactful new startup, and we can talk more about it. But just to kind of put a cap on that experience, for me, it was all about creating transparency and you may have seen from the browser company, we put everybody on camera. But it's not just enough to put the team on camera. You're competing with all of today's top creators on YouTube and elsewhere. It has to be engaging, it has to be framed up as a story, there has to be a hook and a strong opinion at the center of it.

Speaker 2:
6:49

So, last but not least, about I guess six months ago, I started in Meeting I like that neon sign you have in the back of your little office there about the daydreams. My daydream was always just to be able to work with founders on their high level storytelling, and that's really what I'm spending most of my day doing now finding your opinion, your core, your soul. That is a reason to love you. It's not just about your product. These days, people demand that emotional story and in fact, I think that that often is the part that they want to share the very most. So I think that's what I've been focusing on and meaning so far.

Speaker 1:
7:27

Gosh, ellis, I'll tell you what I expected nothing less from you here today, but I love that intro and that overview and I'm sure that listeners are gonna see why I've been so excited to have you on the show. Essentially, if we've used Snapchat, we've seen your work in action, which I think is so cool. So, listeners, you already have that little connection. So you've already had that connection with Ellis. But, ellis, I'm gonna call even one more thing out, because it's where you ultimately went with that overview, which is emotion and stories.

Speaker 1:
7:56

And as I hear you talk about your overview of your career arch, what I'm really hearing is so much of it is romantic. The way that you tell stories is romantic, which, as a romantic myself, I'm just like well, we should love our businesses, we should love our journeys that got us to where we are here today, and I would argue that, from your career background, you not only have seen the romantic side of business, but you've also seen the less romantic side, because when you're at hyper growth companies like Snapchat you and I were talking about it off air there are deviations from kind of the plan. There are deviations from the mission, the original mission of why these companies started. Talk to us about that balance, of that romanticism versus I mean kind of within the world of tech, some of the harsh realities of shareholders, of stock prices, of all these other considerations from external forces.

Speaker 2:
8:49

Oh man, that's a great question and a very big one. You definitely hit the nail on the head, definitely romantic, and I think there's this idea in tech for a very long time that if you build it, they will come. And I'm still early enough with meaning and fortunately busy enough that I haven't had a chance to finish my actual pitch deck yet but the very first slide says if you build it, they will come. But it's crossed out, and I think the reason for that is that in this day and age, as you often hear, it's as much about distribution of your product as it is about the product itself. And in order to be distributed, you either have to pay a whole lot of money, and then you're in the mode of pitching someone or trying to create content that might get them to convert, or, ideally, if you're telling a story yourself, it's actually something that they would like to share and they would enjoy to share. But what that means is that you're gonna have to make content that isn't just about your product, because people see through that. It has to be about how you wanna lead in the world, and that's where you get into a lot of the romantic ideas that, frankly, I think society desperately needs, and this is something that I often encourage Josh Miller, the founder at the browser company, to do is not just to talk about the product, but to share his vision for a better internet, a more responsible browser that isn't just funded by ads.

Speaker 2:
10:09

We even co-wrote an essay together, called Optimizing for Feelings, about bringing a different ethos into your company, about looking at how people feel and what they're telling you, not just incremental performance gains, which dominate tech companies these days, with product managers, especially ones who buy PO'd. All Wall Street wants is predictable quarterly growth. What are you gonna do If you're Facebook? You're gonna take your new little AI bot and just put it in the top right-hand corner of every screen, and what that means is that, even if one in a thousand people clicks it, you're like well, better than nothing, and before you know it, you end up with a product that's incredibly crowded, that has no coherent story and that, before you know it, that retention is gonna drop off a cliff as soon as people get too frustrated.

Speaker 2:
10:55

This is why you need a romantic story, not just to provide a reason for people to share, but to actually have a North Star for your internal team, and that's something that I've heard from some of the founders that I've worked with so far which, to me, is the ultimate compliment is that the manifestos we write together are just as useful to onboard engineers as they are to pitch investors, or they are to talk to press or anything else. I'm a big believer that people follow people, not brands, and then also that ideas are more viral than features or products, and so, to me, it's all about finding those romantic ideas at the core of what you believe, teasing those out and knowing that they're not just gonna provide a North Star for your business, but actually help people make decisions long term that keep you, keep you uh, keep you focused on that mission, cause without it, all you've got is those incremental gains and no one to stop you.

Speaker 1:
11:52

Yeah, Ellis, I'll tell you what. Even hearing the way you talk about these things, obviously you're a very talented storyteller and I'm going to remind listeners I do this all the time in episodes. You are not a natural storyteller. This has come through reps and I want to acknowledge that because a lot of people will feel discouraged saying, well, Ellis, you're just good at this stuff. Ellis, you weren't born a storyteller, you practiced it and along those lines, there's a verb in there that you said that I really want to pick on right now and talk to listeners about it, which you talked about finding the story. Ellis, I'm sure you deal with this, with a lot of clients who say, well, we don't have a story. Our story is we started this business we had no idea if it was going to work. We pivoted it a million times when we found something that worked. How the heck do we go about finding our story?

Speaker 2:
12:38

Yeah, that's the whole business and I'm still working on the perfect methodology for it, but it's going to sound cheesy. But at the core, it really is about listening to your heart and finding whatever it is in the world you feel most strongly about, and not to give up too much proprietary data on my process, but one of the kind of tests I like to use with founders who, just like many of you out there, may not even know what it is that they feel most strongly about, because they've just been spending every single day building their business. They're like man, I don't even know. You say, if you were to give a keynote for 30 minutes and the last line is and that's why I built my product or my company. I think that often leads you to the story that you want to tell.

Speaker 2:
13:29

The thing that you most uniquely are qualified to talk about and most passionate about. That's what people want to hear from you. That's what they want to share, whatever you are most passionately an expert on, and a lot of times that's going to be bigger than just your product. No one wants to be pitched all day. No one wants to share your features every day, all day long. They want to share the ideas that really move you, and whether you call those the way that you want to change the world or this or that, I think it has to be bigger than yourself, and so I'd ask yourself about your personal philosophy and how you find that personal philosophy in whatever you're building, because no doubt it's there. In order to be an entrepreneur, you have to be a bit of an obsessive and there is some animating idea or belief or need in your heart. That is certainly not building B2B SaaS software. It led you to the B2B SaaS software, but that's, I think, what you have to find.

Speaker 1:
14:27

Yeah, ellis, I'll tell you what. Tech geek to tech geek. One thing that our conversation is really bringing up for me is it's all the rage right now Apple Vision Pro versus Quest 3. And I just saw an interview with Mark Zuckerberg yesterday where he was sitting down and he was like I don't know. Everyone's talking about Apple Vision Pro. Quest 3 does the exact same thing, and what I'm thinking is I've seen I mean, just open up social media, you'll see the way that people are using Apple Vision Pro, and for me, what really strikes me is, on an airplane, it's something that I'm on planes a lot, I travel a lot and I'm just like gosh.

Speaker 1:
15:00

That is the lifestyle compliment. I complain so frequently about how long flights are. It's why I moved back to the East Coast from LA, because I got sick of seven hour cross country flights, and so it's just that story that Apple has told with the Apple Vision Pro, whereas, yeah, I didn't even realize that Quest 3 did all this stuff. Talk to us about a real life case study of something that we all might know, or even pick on this product. Through your lens, I'm sure you see things that the average consumer doesn't. That will really shine a light on why do we behave this way?

Speaker 2:
15:33

Sure, and just to dig into the Vision Pro for a minute, I think you know, even though Apple has some of that story, I think there are still experts at telling a very polished, aspirational story, but I think the world is moving farther and farther away from that type of content as being something that is most convincing and shareable. I saw on YouTube the other day just some random guy did a screen recording of inside his Apple Vision Pro of creating his personal workspace. It wasn't that polished but it was hyper personal to him. It was actually realistic. You trust him because he's, you know, a third party source and all the comments were like wow, this is a better ad than anything Apple ever made. And I think, looking to today's creators and what they latch onto, which is so often the ideas, is really where we all need to be with the communication of our company and our storytelling. So, to give you an example, I was recently working with a company called Amy out of Berlin that is making a productivity app that combines a calendar, to-dos and email, and it's a very crowded space in calendars, in email apps, in to-do apps, incredibly crowded even, and people feel so strongly about this stuff, and so if you're zuck.

Speaker 2:
16:45

You might be thinking, okay, how do we beat all these guys on the feature front? But that gets you into the speeds and feeds battle, as Steve Jobs always talked about it. That means that you're only ever differentiating on things that are very micro. You know not the things that people really feel passionately about. It's like what are the hyper rationalists out there which I think is a lot of Silicon Valley folks look at when they're deciding whether to buy this car or that car? You know, those people are the best researchers in the world. They look at every single thing, but, as we know, looking at politics every single day, and maybe, as you've heard from brand marketing theory, people make decisions very, very emotionally and that's why, you know, typically the politicians that win are the ones that have a story, not that have a platform filled with all these pillars of things that they want to do. It's just a simple message of hope or taking it back, or bringing it back, or doing this or going there, and that is, I think, where we need to be as a company.

Speaker 2:
17:41

And so, when I looked at Amy, I looked at a lot of the productivity videos that were out there on YouTube, and productivity at its core, to me, is not about getting more done. It is about trying to design your life, reboot your life, reset your life. You see this with the Marie Kondo method and with so many other things that make you want to organize, more than telling you about how great this cubby of shelves is. The Marie Kondo method makes you want to buy 100 of those shelves and that's, I think, the philosophical component that you need to have at the core of your pitch.

Speaker 2:
18:16

So long story short, with Amy in the keynote video. The very first line is your calendar, is your personal philosophy, a picture of you and everything you believe in, and, as the founder says, if it's not on your calendar, it's not going to get done. That has nothing to do with the features of the app, but that makes me want to use it more than any other and that, I think, is the philosophical motivator, the emotional core of really why people make decisions, especially when there's so many choices out there, which is in most categories in tech these days.

Speaker 1:
18:48

Yeah, ellis, I'm so glad that you called that out and spelled it out for listeners about let's pick on Apple Vision Pro again, is you're right? We all saw the hype video from Apple when they first announced the product, but you and I are recording this here at the beginning of February, right when the product has actually hit the shelves. In all the videos that are going viral, all the videos that are actually building a hype machine, are those user generated content. It's probably the same video that we both saw, because I remember seeing that comment of just like you've outdone Apple and it's these real life use cases how we use it in our lives. I saw one person it was probably the same video where he walked over to his kitchen and the step by step of how to make his meal was waiting for him.

Speaker 1:
19:31

It was incredible, and so, seeing that, I absolutely love picturing myself in it, and I think that's such a core part of successful storytelling. Which leads me to a question that I'm sure you also get a lot of people who say okay, finding a great story, that's really great. Developing that story, being able to tell that story, is really awesome. What do I do with that story? You've all given us some examples about we can better raise money with that. We can incorporate it into our marketing. Where the heck do we put these Ellis?

Speaker 2:
20:02

Yeah, I think, at the end of the day, what communication is about is about meeting people where they are, and so, for example, at Snap, it was definitely a company that idolized the Apple School of Marketing.

Speaker 2:
20:17

We had some Apple folks there. We made it very polished, you know you could say aspirational at times video spots that I think, in hindsight, not only feel a bit detached from the scrappy fun, everyday silly of Snap, but actually like aren't really the kinds of things that people post or share anymore online right? It's like, while you may share the Spike Jonze directed HomePod commercial, are you going to share the made up, completely sterile, fake, unrealistic, unrelatable, as polished as it looks, Apple video that you were talking about for Apple Vision Pro, or are you going to share the Casey and I stat video? I think you're going to share the Casey and I stat video every time. And so I think, coming back around to where your story lives, it's where everybody is telling their story. It's where your audience is looking for their stories, finding a way to not just kind of pick their interest in a product value, but in a story value as well. You, as a leader, can be an expert on the entire space that your product is in, and so, whether it's observations on Daily News, whether it is an essay, you choose to write about the sector or the industry or category you're in, or even what competitors are doing. This is something that I think the company Nothing has been doing well. They have their CEO actually reacting to both criticisms and reviews about other products. You get to be inside his head as he looks at the world, and that is really a unique his value as anything else your product can offer.

Speaker 2:
21:57

And what's funny too is, I think, having worked in B2B. I think there's this idea that folks in B2B are making very highly rational, very like here's exactly what the CPM is, here's exactly what the widget does. But, at the end of the day, people want to buy things they're excited about, they want to partner with companies they're excited about, they want to work with companies that include people who have ideas and opinions that they want to align themselves with, and so, at the end of the day, it's all about just finding whatever opinions you feel most strongly about in your world and just starting to share them. And here's the thing I know not everybody wants to be an influencer, not everybody is comfortable with their voice, but there are just as many people out there, just like you, who may not be as comfortable with the stage, and you're starting to see a lot of folks who traditionally wouldn't have been in the limelight, like engineering co-founders, starting to do videos and other content in their own unique way, and, while they might not have the charisma of some founders that we've traditionally come to know, they do bring something else that's very different, in their own cerebral way that is just as relatable to millions and millions of people around the world, just the same way that anything else is, and so I wouldn't be afraid to start sharing your voice, but you still have to keep in mind it has to be good content, right?

Speaker 2:
23:20

That's just the bar in the world we're all living in these days. What is the bar for good content? Try to pull yourself out of your own shoes and put yourself in the feed of one of your customers and think, if they saw me hucking my product every day and their feed, would they like it or share it? If they saw me talking about how things in our industry need to change, okay, now they're interested. And then, once they're interested, they see where I work, and then they click right and I think a lot is starting to move in that direction, as it gets harder and harder to cold email people, harder and harder to just get into people's feeds, given how competitive the media landscape is. So it's no easy task, but I think it's the challenge that we all now have in communicating our businesses and then includes my own.

Speaker 1:
24:05

No, honestly, ellis, you're striking close to home here in this conversation, because I'm taking it to heart as well and listeners, I think this is something that every single one of us can and should embrace. What Ellis just shared with us Content for your business doesn't mean flogging your product every day. We all scroll past that. Ellis is challenging all of us and I'm going to piggyback off that point. You brought up Casey Neistat.

Speaker 1:
24:28

The first ever Casey Neistat video that I saw. I'll never forget it. It was Nike had paid him to make a commercial for their new like Nike Fuel band. The only reason I remember this product it never really got mainstream traction is because Casey Neistat said, screw that. He made a video called Make it Count and the entire premise of the video he wrote on the screen. Nike paid me 20 grand to make this commercial. Instead, I'm going to travel the world with my best friend for 10 days and we're going to see what happens, and that sent shockwaves because it was actually him using it. To me, that was fun and adventurous. That was as opposed to you keep throwing shade, ellis, and I'm here for it and I want to hear your thoughts on this.

Speaker 1:
25:08

You keep throwing shade on the aspirational brand videos that we see from the Apple and so Nike, rather than having a video that said this is constructed from all steel. Aluminum I just made that up doesn't exist. But rather than that, casey Neistat made it an adventure. So let's talk about you throwing shade, ellis. Let's talk about that aspirational video and really the contrast to it, because a lot of listeners that's the barometer they're comparing themselves to the Apple S stories, where we don't all need stories like that. What are some other types of stories that we can lean on?

Speaker 2:
25:43

Yeah, it's. That, I think, is just a testament to the Ivory Tower inevitable, undeniable strength of brands like Nike and Apple in our world to create the bar that for so many years has been what marketing is all about. But once again, going back to where those ads actually appear, apple has the money to do a 30 or 60 second ad all day long on TV, where you are a captive audience, the audio is blasting, you know they can play whatever music they want, they can beat you in the head with the message as many times as they want, and they also have the best products in the world. Right, that's where it also starts, and so only then are you afforded, I think, the ability to do that. But even then, I think that type of content is indeed, unless it's really on another level, like I was saying, some of the Apple ads from Spike Jonze or otherwise, or people reference the 1984 ad that's content, right? Is that really about the Mac? It's content. It's just a political statement about striking back against what IBM and Microsoft, and so really it's an opinion at the center, and so, as opposed to aspirational, I think you almost want to put yourself in a complete other category of not making ads at all. You're just making content.

Speaker 2:
27:12

And who's making the best content in the world every day that's relatable and that makes people want to do things? Open your TikTok, open your YouTube. These are people who have found a formula and a very relatable, lo-fi way to pitch their products in a way that connects with people and that makes them want to be shared. And yeah, of course, you'll have your foundational videos about what your product does and how it works. But, as we've seen with the influencer revolution, by default, if it's not from you, people tend to trust it more. And now that the influencer revolution is in full swing, people are already starting to skip past influencers who are clearly hucking a product in their Instagram stories ads. Okay, so how do we move on to something that's even better? Then it's just pure content itself that just happens to include the product, and I know it feels indirect and obtuse, but that is the bar for what can appear in someone's feed these days and what's likely to be shared.

Speaker 2:
28:10

And so, going back again to trying to find your own brand of great content, it's finding whatever is most unique or funny or interesting about you and then just having your product be a part of it. Is that really making anybody want to buy Apple products more when the product placements are so shameless inside of Apple TV? Plus content? It's just as much as I love Apple, it's this incredibly outdated approach that I think is, probably, on the contrary, turning off a lot of young people who are just like man this is clearly a bunch of old white guys in a room making these ads and so, even with companies like Nike, I think their political statements are the ones that connect with young people a lot more than any of the spots about the beauty of running or whatever it is, and so, once again, it's all about finding those opinions that you can make a piece of content out of, and then finding a way for your product to either be in it or it's just by you.

Speaker 2:
29:10

If you're interested in any of these creators, you're going to want to learn more about them, you're going to want to buy their merch. It's the same thing, and really it's just the principle of word of mouth. Come all the way back around now that the era of performance marketing is no longer such a fresh thing anymore. So, yeah, I know I've been going out a lot of tangents, but you're definitely asking me some questions that are close to my heart and things I think about every day.

Speaker 1:
29:35

Now I'll tell you what, ellis. I actually love the tangents. I had no idea where we were going to go today, but what I didn't expect. What I did expect was that we would be using big brands. Because you and I are both tech geeks, you've also worked deep inside of the world of tech I knew that we'd be using those as examples in some ways. What I didn't anticipate is as much shade as we're both throwing, but I think that's important, because I think that's actually super encouraging for startup founders. I think it's super encouraging for entrepreneurs, because the message here today is one, you don't have to be like Apple In fact, you can't be like Apple and two, that's actually not even the goal. So, knowing that, ellis, where I always go on behalf of listeners, I think I have the coolest job. I just get to think as a listener all day long and have great conversations with people like you. But where I always go so frequently is obviously.

Speaker 1:
30:24

Mindset is what holds us back and, ellis, so many people imposter syndrome is a real part of the entrepreneurial journey, and I remember I used to do this in my early 20s Heck, I'll even go back to 2016 when I launched this podcast is in my head I was like, yeah, we're going to have a really cool story. When we hit episode 500. And here we are, 800 plus episodes in and what I realized was there was a story all along behind this show. But I didn't own it because we usually only hear these stories in public after their huge successes. We all know about Jeff Bezos in his garage selling books. Talk to us about the beginnings of that storytelling, about when. What is the milestone in which we can have a story and we can share that story with the whole wide world? And obviously I know you're going to say we already have it, but along those lines, how do we own that story, getting past those mindset barriers?

Speaker 2:
31:22

Yeah, it's.

Speaker 2:
31:23

it's an interesting one Because, as we were talking about it, you know, what so many people's biggest fear is public speaking, like I feel like I've heard that a few times before which makes it very difficult for a lot of folks to really put themselves on a stage, and certainly not just on a stage, but competing in the same feed as Casey Neistat, kim Kardashian, anything going on in sports and politics, anything going on in entertainment. It is a very hard world to place yourself in, and so that's why it's important, I think, to think about from a very early stage who your audience is and how you can provide the best products and the best content for them as you can. And then you start to feel like an expert, and that's something that I think is really the motivator and that helps you move past that imposter syndrome. My editor at the Verge, neely Patel, a very long time ago a wise man with a lot of wise words he told me when I was going on TV and I was shitting my pants about to go on TV I don't know, it probably wasn't even the first time and he's like Ellis remember, you're the expert, you're the one who spends your whole day in this stuff. That's the reason they brought you on, and so reminding yourself that you're putting your what do they say? Head to the grindstone every day to build your business. Hopefully, you know more about your customers and their needs, the industry that you're in, the competitive products. Just be a leader within your space in any way that you can. It's not like you even have to be the biggest fan in the whole world of your own product. If you're a leader in your space, you're trying to stand for what's good, what's right, what's positive. You're complimenting others.

Speaker 2:
33:22

I think for some reason, there's this idea, especially in tech, that you're not supposed to talk about your competitors. Does any friend you know do things like that? Oh, I don't really know if it's cool to talk about my competitors. I just keep focused on what I'm doing. It's human nature to look around at the world around you, owning that and trying to find what people have told you they love about your point of view, your perspective, your product, what went into it and just starting.

Speaker 2:
33:52

I think building an organic audience is a lot harder than it used to and it certainly can't just be booted up on day one.

Speaker 2:
33:59

I think that's part of the commitment that it now takes is trying to find not just your product value that you want to be building long term, but your story value that you want to be building long term and just starting, and then, once you start actually producing content, whether it's in a year or two years I mean this is a classic YouTube thing where someone's videos all get 55 views until the moment that they break through and then everybody watches their old videos and, before you know it, you've actually been building this huge brand the entire time and it's so authentic and even more compelling that you've been doing it the whole time instead of only just since it started working and you found the right formula and so just being realistic with yourself that people want to see real people out there, just like them.

Speaker 2:
34:46

Trying to make it happen and doing your best is really all you can do and listen. If it doesn't feel super comfortable for you to be doing it, I think you can work with creators in your field, influencers in your field. You can do partnerships. There are a lot of ways to put your voice out there and really provide more value than just your product alone.

Speaker 1:
35:09

Yeah, gosh, ellis, that right there, you just dropped so many knowledge bombs on us and one answer listeners, go back and re-listen to that, because there's so much actionable insight, insider info right there from Ellis about how we can turn this stuff into a reality.

Speaker 1:
35:25

And, ellis, I'm going to applaud you publicly for a second, for one thing I knew you would do in today's episode is just cut past all the BS, the normal stuff that we see from these big brands, especially in the tech space.

Speaker 1:
35:38

I think that your tech background is one thing that really gives you that unfair advantage to say those things, because, gosh, the tech industry has so much of this stuff at play. It's part of the hyper growth playbook and you see it and you call it out for what it is and you're able to help other brands, whether they're big, small, solo entrepreneurs, really help us to take action in that world that we're all competing against. Because, you're right, we are all sharing the same timelines and news feeds and I think it's really important to call this stuff out the way that you do, which, with that answer in mind, I have no idea how you're going to answer my last question and how you're going to top that, but my last question is always, with all of these amazing things that you talked about today, we touched on so many topics what's that one takeaway? What do you want every listener, whether they're a entrepreneur or an entrepreneur, wherever they are in the world what's that one thing you want them to take away from today's episode?

Speaker 2:
36:30

Yeah, thank you for all the questions. They've been so thought provoking and I just love talking about this stuff. There's one little thing I wanted to add on the last one. A lot of people, the reason they don't want to put their voice out there, is because they're afraid of making a mistake. But is anything more human than making a mistake and trying to apologize for it? And I think this is the reason that corporate comms and storytelling at most of these companies never gets done. It's because they're afraid to make a mistake.

Speaker 2:
36:57

And listen. I'm definitely contrarian in the way that I'm definitely in the school of thought of for the most part, all PR is good PR If you have an opinion. Some people aren't going to like it, and it's okay. What's important is that you have an opinion, and I think what that means is that it means so much to people for you to be putting your voice out there and knowing the risks and I think that's part of what makes that content inspiring and entertaining knowing that you're a real person, you change, you make mistakes, and that's something that is perfectly okay, and you're just one person in the feed, so whatever you said, it'll probably blow over as well. So the one thing I want people to take away, I think in this day and age, what I typically try and help founders understand is the truth that moves them at the most foundational level. What else do they have in their life to do, but try to work on the truth? That means the most to them, and that's the reason people liked Steve Jobs as much as they did is that he felt almost like a parental figure in that he had truths about music, about technology, about art, about culture that he decided to lead with and share with the world, and so I think the advice I want to give everybody today is to take a hard look at yourself and ask about what it is that you truly believe, and if you're not sure, then try and develop that. Ask yourself some questions, do some reflection. What do I think about my product? Is my product good? Why would anybody care? Why would press care? What can I do to try and connect more closely with someone?

Speaker 2:
38:52

Having the ability to self-reflect, I think, is one of the most important and hardest skills as a founder, given that that obsessive persistence is so often how you got to where you got to, if you were successful, but that's also what makes you human at the end of the day, and if you lose it, I think that means that you're going off to a place that no one can relate to, and that, I think, is the blessing and the curse of being a successful entrepreneur is that if you're one of the 1% certainly in tech that make it, you think you got there because you were right and everybody else was wrong, and in fact, that's just kind of what the reality is for products and whatever thesis you have for your product in this business.

Speaker 2:
39:36

The reason you got here is by trying to come up with the best possible opinion you can on the world by listening to everything you can, and if you listen less and just trust your instincts more and more and more, that just heads you into a very small box where people aren't rooting for you anymore over time. And so finding those beliefs that are bigger than your company, whether it's in life or in work, and just trying to stay as truthful as you can to those, I think, is the path to fulfillment and hopefully, hopefully, success in being shared down the road.

Speaker 1:
40:08

Yeah, ellis, really meaningful advice that you're leaving us with here in this episode and I so appreciate it. And I'm going to say this before I give you the stage to open up for links. I'm going to admit that I always say I'm excited to follow along in your journey, which is why I'm excited for you to drop those links on us. But what I'm also very excited about, ellis, is to follow along in your clients journey, because I think the work that you're doing is so deeply meaningful and impactful across all of these industries and your work is felt really behind the scenes and then comes to life in the brands that you work with. So that two-fronted before I give you that stage is really I'm excited to follow your journey.

Speaker 1:
40:45

But, gosh, I'm so appreciative of the work that you're doing and how you've gone out on your own limb with your own company. You're one of us as an entrepreneur. I'm excited to follow the journeys of your clients as well. So, with all of that said, drop those links on us. Where should listeners go from here to go deeper into the world of your work?

Speaker 2:
41:03

Man, I don't know how many times I've ever dropped links before. This is such an honor. I don't think I have very many. It's meaningcompany. That's the company website. It's still pretty simplistic, but you'll get a taste of some of the folks I've been working with and, I guess, really based on the internet. As much as I hate to say it, it's still. I'm not going to call it X, I'm going to call it Twitter, twittercom. Slash hamburger. How I got hamburger as my handle is the story for the next podcast.

Speaker 2:
41:33

But that's usually where I'm sharing what I'm up to and thinking about every day, and you know it's interesting. I mean, I haven't always wanted to share my story, especially after spending four years as a reporter endlessly building my personal brand right, the last thing I wanted to do. And so I spent seven years at Snap going pretty much under a rock and not communicating much with the world. But I think what I realized over time is that sharing my thoughts and opinions meant something to people, and it meant something for our relationship and our friendship. And people told me that something I said at a random time inspired them. And so, on the one hand, you know, sharing your story might feel self-serving, but on the other, once you do and you start getting feedback from people about how meaningful it was or how it helped them, you know that that, I think, makes it all worth it. And we all have to find that line between self-promotion and and uh, you know, um not sharing it all. So that's the trick.

Speaker 1:
42:31

Amen to that. I love that perspective, ellis, on that note. Listeners, you already know the drill. We are dropping those links down below. Wherever it is that you're tuning in to today's episode. It's in the show notes. Ellis's business website is at meaningcompany. Don't be dropping thatcom on us, it is just meaningcom. You can also find him on Twitter at hamburger. What a cool handle. I'm going to hit you up afterwards because I personally want that story as well. So, listeners, check out those links down in the show notes, and Ellis, on behalf of myself and all the listeners around the world, thank you so much for coming on and being so generous with your stories, experiences, knowledge and insights here on the Wontrepner entrepreneur podcast.

Speaker 2:
43:10

It was my pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:
43:12

Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wontrepner to entrepreneur podcast. If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there. Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewontrepnershowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests. There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

Speaker 1:
43:40

These are not sponsored episodes. These are not infomercials. Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions. They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome Wontrepners and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible. So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there. We also have live chat. If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewontrepnershowcom. Initiate a live chat. It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wontrepner to entrepreneur podcast.