Aug. 28, 2024
920: A TEENAGE entrepreneurial sensation building new tech w/ Zach Derhake
What if you could turn a high school passion project into a successful business venture? Join us as we talk to Zach Derhake, a young tech entrepreneur who has done just that. From his initial steps into the world of SEO to creating groundbreaking platforms like PostPitch and Rhythmatic.ai, Zach's story is one of innovation and relentless ambition. He shares how his age has been both an advantage and a hurdle, offering a unique perspective on the entrepreneurial journey.
In this episode, we explore the pivotal role of backlinks in SEO and how Zach's creation, PostPitch, is revolutionizing the link-building process with AI-powered personalized outreach. Hear firsthand how this tool has made a significant impact on conversion rates and the importance of balancing technology with market needs. Zach also offers a peek into his philosophy of customer-first development and the strategies that have propelled his ventures forward.
We also tackle the early stages of building a business, from forming vital partnerships to conducting small-scale experiments for validating ideas. Zach highlights the importance of technical co-founders and the art of collaboration, drawing from his own experiences. Additionally, we delve into the unique challenges and opportunities that come with teenage entrepreneurship in the social media age, and the promising future of AI across various industries. This episode is brimming with actionable insights and inspiration for anyone looking to make their mark in the world of technology and business.
ABOUT ZACH
Zach Derhake is a high school technology entrepreneur who began his career in SEO, helping software companies drive more traffic to their sites. After a year in the SEO industry, he noticed that outreach to other websites was tedious and could be improved with technology. This realization led him to build Post Pitch, an AI platform that automates the process of reaching out to other websites for links.
Before starting Post Pitch, Zach founded Rhythmatic.ai, an AI song recommender he later sold to the major music label Empire Distributions. More recently, Zach has been working on building a competitive online marketplace for finding real estate agents.
Zach has a lot of ideas and loves working on projects. He hopes to eventually start a disruptive technology company that changes the world.
LINKS & RESOURCES
EDITORIAL NOTE: It was misstated that Zach sold Rythmatic.ai to Empire Distributions. While he started and grew this company, it was not sold to Empire Distributions.
Chapters
00:00 - Young Entrepreneur's Journey and Ideas
08:21 - Mastering SEO and Link Building
13:30 - Navigating Partnerships and Business Startups
20:36 - Teen Entrepreneurship and AI Technology
33:00 - Supporting Guests and Audience Engagement
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and I believe that we are making podcast history here today 900 plus episodes in with our youngest entrepreneur that we are so excited to feature, because, if this is the first time you're hearing about him, it will certainly not be the last.
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This is a young entrepreneur that has started multiple businesses already, is an idea factory, but even more so than having ideas, this is someone who's hustling and taking action and launching really cool things into the world.
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I'm so excited to dive into his journey and, as someone who started my first business as a teenager, I am a firm believer that we can learn from young entrepreneurs and their fearlessness and their tenacity.
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So let me tell you all about today's guest.
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His name is Zach Durhockey.
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Zach is a high school technology entrepreneur who began his career in SEO, helping software companies drive more traffic to their websites.
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After a year in the SEO industry, he noticed that outreach to other websites was tedious and could be improved with technology.
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To other websites was tedious and could be improved with technology.
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This realization led him to building PostPitch, which is an AI platform that automates the process of reaching out to other websites for backlinks.
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Before starting PostPitch, zach founded Rhythmaticai, an AI song recommender.
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He later sold to the major music label Empire Distributions.
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More recently, zach has been working on building a competitive online marketplace for finding real estate agents.
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As I said, zach has a lot of ideas, he loves working on projects and one day he hopes to eventually start a disruptive technology company that changes the world.
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We're all in for a real treat to hear from Zach at this stage in his entrepreneurial journey, so I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Zach Derhockey.
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All right, Zach, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first, welcome to the show.
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Yeah, thank you for the interview.
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Thanks for the intro.
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Really excited to be here.
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Heck yeah.
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Likewise, we are excited to have you.
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Obviously, I sung your praises just a little bit in the intro to this episode.
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But take us beyond the bio, because Zach not every teenager out there, high school teenager especially is making moves, hustling, building things, launching things into the world.
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So how did all this stuff come about?
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Who's Zach and how did you start doing all this stuff?
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Yeah, so I'm going into my senior year of high school.
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I like soccer and I've been working on lots of projects since my freshman year.
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So I kind of started just like trying to make money online.
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My friends and I just we sold some slushy cups and we instantly made it big.
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After three months got one sale for my grandma, um, but yeah, we, we didn't get any traffic to our website.
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So that's when I got into seo, just like trying to figure out how can I drive traffic to websites, and I took a couple courses, I got a job doing it and eventually I started doing consulting work for a couple companies companies and yeah, that really just got me into the industry and it unlocked a lot of opportunities for me.
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And yeah, you mentioned, I built the AI song recommender.
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That was pretty cool.
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Basically, you can go on it and say my girlfriend just broke up with me and I'm driving home in the rain, give me some songs to listen to, um.
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But the main problem with that was there was no problem.
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Uh, it didn't really solve the problem.
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And then, yeah, post pitch, that was probably my biggest venture.
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Uh, and now I'm working on um, start starting this real estate thing.
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So I I'm just really passionate about just starting projects.
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I find it really fun and, yeah, I know some people here in the audience have probably been in the game for a lot longer but I'm passionate about AI technology, new things, and I hope we can have a good conversation today.
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Yeah, I love that overview.
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Zach, obviously you and I were talking off air before we hit record here today that I relate to so many parts of your journey, not only geographically we both lived in Los Angeles and you obviously still live there and you're growing up there but also our beginnings in the SEO industry and how we both have that passion for soccer.
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So so much it's a word that you've already said a few times is passion.
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That that's what really drove us at young ages and you right now being young and taking action and all these things.
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I'm super intrigued because I remember when I started my first business, my soccer blog, when I was 19,.
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Part of it you mentioned some people have been in the game longer than you have, but you have that fearlessness as someone that's young.
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When I was 19, I wasn't worried about all the things that quote unquote adults are worried about, about failing and am I going to go?
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Have to get a real job?
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But the downside of that is will people take me seriously because I am a teenager?
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Talk to us about some of those thoughts, because I love the fact that you've not let any of those hold you back.
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You've just gone for it you've just gone for it, yeah.
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So definitely like my first um, my first like two years doing things.
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I was like kind of embarrassed about being so young in business and in business, um, like I would pretend like I was an adult, like on my website and stuff like that um.
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But over time I've I've kind of realized that it can be used as an asset, um, for example, like if I'm ever sending a cold email, I could always just say startup by high school kid and people are instantly going to click on that because it's just like you don't really see that much.
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So, yeah, just like kind of embracing your current situation and trying to use it to your advantage has really helped me a lot.
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Yes, I love that perspective and that advice and I totally.
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I remember when I launched my first website, I always, even when I was on video, I tried to make it sound like I was older.
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So we're all definitely guilty of that, zach, and I love how you embrace it as one of your advantages.
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And I want to ask you because part of those advantages of you being young is obviously technology you just casually drop on here that you built an AI song recommender.
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A lot of people are intimidated by the tech side of things.
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Where's all this stuff coming?
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What's the state of your entrepreneurial wisdom and knowledge that you're gaining?
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Is it happening in the classroom?
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Are you taking it upon yourself?
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How are you sharpening your skills?
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Yeah, so I have a club at school, the entrepreneurship club, and the majority of people there are STEM guys, so we just talk about it a lot there.
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I remember when ChatGDP came out, just being so excited by it and kind of blown away by it, and I think, as a young person, going into technology is probably one of the most advantageous industries to go into, because if you go into I don't know real estate or any like developed industry, there's been people there for 10, 20 years that just have so much more knowledge than you.
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But technology is new, so everyone's at the same level.
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Um, so, yeah, yeah.
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Yeah Well, I want to pick on that.
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Then, because you use real estate as one of the of the example industries, which is obviously an industry that you are jumping into with a tech advantage, with your online marketplace that you're working on.
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Talk to us about that, because, just already sensing your energy here before the interview today and, obviously, our conversation here on the air you have a million ideas, and ideas are not the problem for you.
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How have you picked up to this point in your journey so far?
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Which ideas to actually pursue?
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Yeah.
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So when you ask that question, I think about my song recommender idea as one of my biggest mistakes.
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It just sounded kind of cool, it's kind of interesting, it's cool to talk about, but no one really needed it.
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So I think the biggest thing is finding ideas that people need, that no one's done before.
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So just kind of looking at the market through a different lens I'm not saying that I'm like the best person in the world at this, but just yeah, finding real problems that people are willing to pay for.
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Yeah, which I think post-pitch is the perfect example, and I'm really excited to jump into this part of the conversation because, to me, as someone who worked in SEO for a long time, it's still one of the core strategies that I use across all of my businesses.
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Backlinks that's the name of the game in terms of SEO.
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Everyone wants to focus on on-page SEO, but, zach, I'm actually going to I'm going to leverage your expertise here to explain to listeners around the world that probably have never given a strong focus to backlinks, to off-page SEO, in their businesses.
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Let's back up, cause you and I are two SEO geeks.
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Let's talk about what is SEO, what is off-page SEO and what's the value of links.
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Why is it that post pitch focuses on backlinks?
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Yeah, yeah.
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So for anyone that doesn't know, the acronym SEO stands for search engine optimization, and then so just the practice of trying to get your page to the highest point in Google.
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If, if you ever search something up best T-shirts the first thing is probably the thing that you're going to click on, maybe the second thing, but if something's on the 20th page, you're never going to see it.
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So the question is how can you get your website up to the very top of the page and backlinks?
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That's Google's key differentiator, google's key differentiator.
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They developed this system where they can measure how accurate and how relevant a page is based on how many other sites are linking to it.
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If I linked on my website to Brian's website and a bunch of you guys did that too then Google would realize maybe Brian's website has some, some authority, um, and it would push it up, push it up the rankings.
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So, um, it was.
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It was a genius system, but from it birthed this like mini market of link building where different people are going on and um, outreaching other people, trying to like, organize link swaps and things like that.
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Uh, yeah.
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Yeah, I love that overview.
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I feel like you're about to expose so many of the tactics and strategies that helped me build my first business, because for my strategy, just full transparency for all the listeners tuning in.
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And, Zach, I know you and I already talked about this is when I started my soccer blog.
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To your point, I didn't have any other websites on the internet linking to my soccer blog.
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It was a brand new soccer blog.
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So what I was doing was reaching out to other soccer websites saying, hey, can I write an article for your blog and link back to my website.
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And so I love the fact that we've gotten here in the conversation from you talking about real pain points and this is a pain point for everyone who's focusing on SEO is well, how do we pitch those other websites?
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How do we find those websites?
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What do we pitch them with?
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So talk to us about post pitch.
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I want to know about from ideation to.
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Obviously you've built it now and I love the website.
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I love how everything's laid out.
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But talk to listeners who haven't seen it just yet what is post pitch and how does it actually solve these problems?
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Okay.
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So I was sending a bunch of these cold outreach emails every single day and a strategy that I realized worked really well was personalization.
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So, brian, if I were to email you, I could just ask you for a link or I could say hey, brian, I loved the podcast about Depeche's entrepreneurial journey.
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It's very interesting how he emphasized living in the present moment.
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So having that personalization upfront makes it seem like we know each other and it just like, if you look at the numbers, it massively increases conversions.
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So the AI that we made, basically you can put in the websites that you want to contact and it goes through.
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Each website scrapes their website and it generates a personalization like that automatically.
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So you can send 500 of those emails with that level of personalization just with two minutes.
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Yeah, I love that and, again, much needed, saving so many human man hours.
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I'm curious about your thought process, zach, knowing where you are in your entrepreneurial journey when thinking about this.
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Obviously the tech side of it excites you, but from a business perspective, where are you at in terms of fleshing all of this out and bringing it to the marketplace, because I know you're working on a few things at once?
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Are you thinking about the ideal customers behind each of these technologies?
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Is it product first, focusing on the tech first and then finding that product market match, or where are you in your own internal journey as far as the business development side of things?
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I think it's all about the customer.
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So interviewing the customer, trying to talk to the customer every single day, and understanding, saying what they want.
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But I'm just trying to understand your question.
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Are you asking like, like, what?
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What's my current situation with the business side of things?
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Yeah, no, I'd love to tap into the mind of a young entrepreneur.
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Is that cause I know for me, being 16 years into my own entrepreneurial journey is I always think about customer first, whereas again granted, though I'm going to call myself out here on the air I don't have the same tech skills that you do, so it's not as easy for me to build an AI wrapper that actually does something really cool and useful like you do, and so, with that in mind, I'm curious if you approach these ideas tech first, product first or customer first by assessing the market and saying, hey, this is what they need, and then figuring out the solution, assessing the market and saying hey, this is what they need, and then figuring out the solution.
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I think I've approached things tech first, actually Like typically, just like brainstorming think of this great idea like we should build a song recommender or we should automate this with AI and I think I've ran into a couple problems doing that.
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There's this acronym that Y Cominair uses.
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It's called CISP Solution in Search of a Problem.
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So you think of this idea and then you're like oh wait, a business is supposed to solve the problem, so let me go look through the market and see if I can find someone that actually needs this.
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But I think it's better to start with a problem and then solve it, because oftentimes you can find some problem that matches your solution, but if you're looking for a problem, you might find something that's not an actual problem, it's only kind of a problem.
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So I think it's better to start with a definitive pain point.
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But I actually need to clarify I don't code.
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I'm taking computer science classes, but I've partnered with tech guys that build the ai stuff.
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Um, and yeah, the reason that I stopped doing post pitch was my tech guy quit because he had to go back to school and I was just left with no coder to to work the software yeah, I love that clarification, but I'm actually to call that out.
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Is that that is?
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It still speaks to one of your advantages, where you are, is that you have this built-in network.
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Obviously, being a high school student, obviously you talked about your entrepreneurial club you have different people at your fingertips and within your network and within your community that you all can partner up together.
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And so, with that in mind, hearing that product focus and I love that Y Combinator example that you've just given to us that's the way that, looking at your business portfolio, I think it's so exciting at this step of your entrepreneurial journey is that you can be a builder.
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You can put your construction hat on and just say, hey, let's bring these cool things into the world.
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So talk to us about that partnership and tapping into that network, because it is complementary skill sets.
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You talk about, unfortunately, a programmer leaving you and that limits you in that regard.
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But with that in mind, how are you at your age and where you are in your entrepreneurial journey?
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How are you partnering up with others?
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Is it something that you both are just getting excited about it and saying let's build this and bring it to the market?
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Is it more intentional than that Is it a close coordinate of friends where you guys are listing out all of your ideas and deciding what to attack.
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Give us some insights there.
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Yeah, I think business partnerships is a whole trade that, like everyone listening, should try to master.
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I certainly don't have it mastered, but I've definitely learned a couple of lessons in that regard.
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There's been a couple of times where I've gone to compute.
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Getting computer guys to work with you is a great skill.
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To learn how to convince computer guys to work on your projects.
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I've made the mistake that a lot of people make, which is going to these computer guys and saying, hey, I have this great idea, we're going to do it.
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Here's what you need to do.
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Do you want to get started?
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Which seems like a normal pitch?
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But what I learned I also learned this from Y Combinator is you really want to pitch like let's build a company together, let's go on an adventure, rather than saying like I have this idea, can you work on it and be like be my worker?
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That's not a good pitch.
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And then, yeah, just trying to.
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I think trying to surround yourself with if you're looking for coders, I'm sure that some people here are trying to do software, and if you're trying to do software without technical skills, it can be really hard.
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It's almost impossible.
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So I think just like surrounding yourself with technical people and whether you can like start a club or go to different groups, maybe join a computer class or something like that, and and you'll meet lots of technical people.
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Yeah, I think that's a really.
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I think that's a topic we don't talk about often enough.
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Is that there?
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Is you alluded to it, zach is that we could probably do an entire masterclass on finding technical co-founders.
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You and I are certainly not the experts here, but that is an entire industry and something that is a skill that we can hone and that we can perfect, and you're doing it right now in real time, in all of your business ventures as you're navigating those waters and figuring out the better ways to do that, and I love the fact that you bring some of those transparent ideas and lessons here on the air with us.
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So I want to ask you about it's actually a question.
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I didn't ask you off the air before we hit record, but, zach, I know that you are a fellow soccer player and I was a striker in my playing days, so I love finishing, but I'm going to call out that right now in your entrepreneurial careers that you have a lot of starts in your entrepreneurial journey, and so the beginning stages of a business present so many different opportunities and ideas and workflows and processes and focus areas.
00:18:28.712 --> 00:18:37.731
I'd love to hear some of your opinions and thoughts on the early stages of companies, because I know that it's something that you're actively navigating and you have navigated before.
00:18:41.103 --> 00:18:50.268
Yeah, I don't think it's a great thing that I've like I have so much experience in the early stage of companies, because it means that I've just like started over so many times.
00:18:50.268 --> 00:18:53.948
I definitely think it's better to just pick one thing and really stick with it.
00:18:53.948 --> 00:19:04.532
I feel like I've had a little bit of impulsiveness and just switching ideas a lot, but what I've learned is it's all about incrementalism.
00:19:04.532 --> 00:19:21.382
So you have your business idea, you think it solves a problem, you have these hypotheses, but rather than going on and front-loading all the work and building this product that takes a super long time, how can you test it and break it into little experiments that you can do?
00:19:21.382 --> 00:19:25.087
I can give an example with past companies.
00:19:27.151 --> 00:19:43.910
Take DoorDash they needed people to want to order food online, they needed restaurants to want to deliver the food and to do delivery, and then they needed drivers that wanted extra work.
00:19:43.910 --> 00:19:56.515
So, rather than going on and building this big software, how can you like do like little tests, just to like confirm each one, like maybe try to like sign them up without actually building the product before you go on and build everything?
00:19:56.515 --> 00:19:57.218
And then what?
00:19:57.218 --> 00:20:11.555
By taking just like little baby steps, you can like get to the point where when you front load all the work, it's, it's pretty likely that it's going to work Um and and you, you learn the big problems in your business early, rather than when you're already set in stone.
00:20:12.740 --> 00:20:13.923
Yeah, zach, I'm just gonna.
00:20:13.923 --> 00:20:28.661
I'm going to push back a little bit on one of the things that you said, because I don't think it's bad that you've been starting different ventures, because you're not starting over, you're starting from experience each and every time, and that actually, here I am, 16 years on from starting my first business.
00:20:28.661 --> 00:20:31.548
I've realized that's part of the process.
00:20:31.548 --> 00:20:33.452
So I love the fact that you're so embracing that.
00:20:33.452 --> 00:20:35.845
But I do want to ask you actually, because I can't.
00:20:35.845 --> 00:20:44.961
I don't remember what it's like to be a teenager in the social media era, because for me, facebook was a thing, but we used it very differently back then.
00:20:44.961 --> 00:20:48.009
Obviously, social media has changed over the past few decades.
00:20:48.009 --> 00:20:51.676
So what's the noise like as a young entrepreneur?
00:20:51.676 --> 00:21:04.250
What sort of external noise do you hear, whether it's from friends or family or teachers or administrators or just mentors that you look up to, noise in both good and challenging ways.
00:21:04.250 --> 00:21:05.413
I'm curious there.
00:21:05.413 --> 00:21:12.953
And then, what are some of your peers' reactions to the fact that you are a young hustler making moves in the entrepreneurial space?
00:21:15.544 --> 00:21:18.608
um, first, just about like external things.
00:21:18.608 --> 00:21:22.240
I think, like everyone watching this podcast is doing a good thing.
00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:41.542
I think it's really important to like really carefully curate your, your influences, your online influences, your life, and you can really just get like really good, curate your, your influences, your online influences in your life and you can really just get like really good advice coming into your ear, um, when I listen to podcasts, when I'm driving to school, um, so I think I think it's really good to utilize all the information in this digital age.
00:21:41.542 --> 00:21:44.126
Uh, you can learn so much.
00:21:44.126 --> 00:21:45.067
Um.
00:21:45.067 --> 00:22:02.460
But then my peers reaction to doing entrepreneurship uh, yeah, I actually really didn't talk about it very much Um my first few years, but I guess the last year I've I've um kind of talked a little bit more about publicly, about, like what I've been doing.
00:22:02.460 --> 00:22:07.407
Um, I don't know, I don't know if I really have a great answer to that question.
00:22:08.209 --> 00:22:08.950
Yeah, fair enough.
00:22:08.950 --> 00:22:19.088
No, I totally hear you, because I mean the fact that you are focused on which I'm going to chalk this up to you being a soccer player is that eyes on the prize?
00:22:19.088 --> 00:22:26.287
We are really focused on the things that we're working towards, and huge kudos to you that that's not necessarily a thing that you've had to focus on or that you've chosen to focus on, so I love that.
00:22:26.287 --> 00:22:36.652
I want to ask you about those longer term visions, because you have it right there in your bio and, zach, huge kudos to you that you talk about your desire in the future to start a disruptive technology company.
00:22:36.652 --> 00:22:39.005
How far out is your timeline looking?
00:22:39.005 --> 00:22:45.491
I don't know what it's like to be a teenager in today's environment, where obviously there's so many questions about are you going to go to college?
00:22:45.491 --> 00:22:52.563
Where are you going to go to school?
00:22:52.563 --> 00:22:53.626
What is your career path from here?
00:22:53.626 --> 00:22:55.132
I'm curious to tap into your mind as a young entrepreneur.
00:22:55.132 --> 00:22:57.299
What is your time horizon look like and what are those future focus things that you're looking at?
00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:01.730
Yeah, I mean, I would love it to be now.
00:23:01.730 --> 00:23:05.099
I think everyone wants to start a really big company.
00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:09.749
Well, I don't want to say everyone, but probably most people listening here would like to start a really big company.
00:23:09.749 --> 00:23:13.256
Well, I don't want to say everyone, but probably most of the people listening here would like to have a big company.
00:23:13.256 --> 00:23:15.142
But, yeah, I think a lot about the AI revolution.
00:23:15.142 --> 00:23:25.945
You look at the early 2000s there was Uber oh no, sorry, that was 2010s but there was Amazon, google, microsoft, apple.
00:23:25.945 --> 00:23:27.970
What am I missing?
00:23:27.970 --> 00:23:29.814
The other big companies.
00:23:30.681 --> 00:23:31.704
Facebook's probably in there.
00:23:32.821 --> 00:23:38.585
Facebook and then a couple others, all those $100 billion plus companies that were started in the early 2000s.
00:23:38.585 --> 00:23:46.943
I think a lot about what are the next round of companies going to be, like um that come from the ai revolution.
00:23:46.943 --> 00:23:49.268
So I think that's happening now.
00:23:49.268 --> 00:23:51.118
It's moving fast, um.
00:23:51.118 --> 00:24:05.858
So I think if if I were to start, or anyone else were to start, a company that changes the world and it is one of these, like, like major companies of of the decade or or generation, um, it's, it's happening soon.
00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:12.035
So, yeah, I hope our college sooner than I think we can all imagine.
00:24:12.035 --> 00:24:28.666
The speed at which AI is evolving is incredible, so I want to ask you actually, as a teenager in today's environment, both academically but also entrepreneurially how's AI been affecting the way that you are doing things in school and the way that you're doing things in business?
00:24:28.666 --> 00:24:35.346
Do you have some favorite tools that you're using and I guess it can go beyond AI as well as how are you tapping into the tech landscape today?
00:24:36.914 --> 00:24:48.741
Well, I don't want to go too deep on what I'm doing in school, just in case any of my teachers are listening to this, but yeah, there's so many great tools.
00:24:48.741 --> 00:24:53.415
Openai is just amazing and it's getting so much better.
00:24:53.415 --> 00:25:01.616
I think it's a great skill to learn how or just getting comfortable with using it in your everyday workflows.
00:25:01.616 --> 00:25:10.944
Ai is not at the point where it can think for you, so I still think you need critical thinking until AGI rolls out, which might be soon.
00:25:10.944 --> 00:25:18.631
But yeah, just organizing things.
00:25:18.631 --> 00:25:28.096
There's just so many uses for it 100% Both.
00:25:28.116 --> 00:25:30.064
I know you won't go there with us on the air, but academically, I know that it's shaking it up.
00:25:30.064 --> 00:25:43.776
We've had some amazing entrepreneurs within the educational area where they're helping to be part of that revolution, because, whether teachers want to admit it or not, it's here and it has to reshape the way that our curriculum is operating, with young students who are hungry for this technology.
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