SaaS Stories
SaaS Stories is my not-so-secret quest to learn what it truly takes to succeed in the world of SaaS—and I’m inviting you along for the ride! I have the pleasure of sitting down with brilliant minds and industry trailblazers to explore their journeys, uncovering the secrets behind their growth, the gaps they spotted in the market, and what really drives them.
It’s not all smooth sailing—there are challenges, unexpected turns, and moments of reflection where they share what they’d love to change about their journey. Think of it as a candid, insider’s look into the world of SaaS, with just the right amount of curiosity, empathy, and wit.
Join me as I dive deep, selfishly soak up all the insights, and hopefully share a little inspiration with you along the way—one SaaS story at a time.
SaaS Stories
Weaponized Intelligence: How one marketer stays ahead of AI
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
When everyone can generate AI content instantly, how do B2B SaaS teams cut through the noise and build real market authority? In this episode of SaaS Stories, Tyler Lubben shares his concept of “weaponised intelligence,” using insights from data sources AI cannot easily replicate.
We explore how scraping communities, analysing authentic language patterns, and grounding content in real buyer signals creates stronger engagement than polished AI output. Tyler also unpacks the rise of digital clones, the shift toward private communities, and why trust and relevance are becoming the most valuable GTM assets.
A forward-looking conversation on AI-driven execution, authentic demand generation, and finding durable differentiation in an increasingly automated market.
When you're trying to do marketing for one , you don't really know marketing . I knew the technical kind of components of marketing , of how to do it , but I didn't know marketing . I went out and scraped like 80 YouTube videos of podcasters that he did . I'm kind of like weaponizing their own thoughts and their own pain . Nobody's liking my comments Like no one's liking . No one's commenting Like these are awesome . Like nobody cared . I think everyone's going to go private , like private communities . I think the goal is how do I get data that AI can't get ? And if you don't have that ? And then I was like , all right , cool , I got the information . Now I need to write the content . But I didn't know Amazon . You almost like you're so scared of AI taking over that I feel like what's going to happen is with content and everything . I was like there's going to be one graphic designer that's going to do the same content as 50 of them and that one that embraces AI .
Welcome to SaaS Stories
Speaker 2Welcome everybody to another episode of SaaS Stories . Today I'm joined by Tyler Lubben , co-founder of multiple SaaS platforms . I didn't know which one to introduce . Welcome Tyler .
Speaker 1Thank you , Thank you . Yeah , I wanted to kind of be introduced as just myself , so I don't have to name out . You know five different things .
Speaker 2But you've done a lot in the SaaS space . I mean , one thing you've done is you have an approach that's called weaponized intelligence . Please tell us about that . What does it mean ? What does it mean in practice as well , and how does it come to life in you know , in that mindset
Weaponized Intelligence Explained
Speaker 2?
Speaker 1I like telling the story of how it actually happened . So I partnered up with my co-founder for EcomPulse , which is the CEO of Marknology and he does Amazon marketing . Now , coming from data analytics , marketing is marketing to me and I did a lot of consulting . So I did like YouTube and I got really big on YouTube and I was like like , oh yeah , just do some YouTube videos and , you know , do some ads and some retargeting . There you go . And so I assumed you know in Amazon marketing , he did marketing or they did marketing . But I learned that Amazon its own little kind of black box , and so when I joined over there he wanted some help with his marketing . And so I was like , oh yeah , I got it , but when you're trying to do marketing for one , you , but when you're trying to do marketing for one , you don't really know marketing . I knew the technical kind of components of marketing , of how to do it , but I didn't know marketing . And then two is I didn't know Amazon . And so what it started was like , all right , I know how to do ads , I know how to do email campaigns , but I don't know Amazon's target audience , which was brands . And in my head I'm thinking like brands can , can be , and I even still get confused when people say brands like oh , is brands like an e-commerce brand or is it just a like personal brand or is it a company , right ? And so I was like , all right , let me figure out what the pain points of brands are .
Speaker 1And so me , kind of being data analytics kind of person , I was like , all right , let me , let me go scrape Reddit and let me go figure out in the Amazon seller forms what people are complaining about . And so I went and scraped Reddit and start figuring out you know what , what were the topics they were talking about , what were their pains ? And then I was like , all right , cool , I got the information . Now I need to write the content . But I didn't know Amazon . So I was like how I was going to do it was , you know , normally I'm watching 10 hours of YouTube videos to figure out you know a topic and then I can write the content or do the . But I like being like an expert , expert at it first and it's . I was like , all right , I can't scale at that and I can't watch 10 hours of YouTube video per blog or per YouTube video , especially if it's an entirely new market and , like I know , I will probably even sound dumb trying to explain it .
Speaker 1So I was like , all right , let me go ahead and get all the thought leaders information . So I went and go , scraped all the blogs , scraped the YouTube videos and then transcribed them , and then I would then have all of the content for that topic . And then I was like , oh well , now I have the pain points , I have the thought leadership . Let me , you know , merge those two together . And then kind of a little part that made it like really hit was I would then figure out how people were talking on the forums and like their word choice , their language , their jargon , and then I would create a writing style in Cloud to mimic it . And so then I was writing back to them with their pain points and all the experts' opinions . And so that's where I was like I'm kind of like weaponizing their own thoughts and their own pain , and then I call it harvesting , you know , the thought leadership's content . And that's kind of where the whole idea came from .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , I'm really excited to be speaking to a fellow marketer today because we can go
Social Media's Broken Landscape
Speaker 2really into the weeds on some things . I mean niche forums . They're not your typical marketing channel I'd love to just get your thoughts on and Reddit I mean again , reddit is something . What I hear from my specifically male friends is like what Amazon Reddit is true . It's like this person said that . Therefore , it must be true . They don't question it . So I actually think there's some really good value in Reddit from a marketing point of view . What's been your experience with things like Reddit , youtube forums ?
Speaker 1So I wouldn't call myself a marketer . I would say I'm very knowledgeable , but I can't . I talk so techie that I just I can't resonate Like people . Just be like what did you say ? Like that makes sense . And so I don't classify myself a marketer . I have more of the marketing intelligence but like I just can't , my brain just doesn't think that way .
Speaker 1And I was never big on social media and all that Like I knew how to do everything . I just didn't like it . And so recently I've been trying to get on social media and , of course , being AI , I was like , all right , I'm going to do these automated social media posts . And I did this whole process where I call it like a digital brain of myself . I would get all the information that I've ever done , I'll get my writing style , I'll get all the topics and using kind of this tech , and then I'll create these thought leadership posts . And I was like nobody's liking , no one's commenting , like these are awesome , like nobody cared and it's because everyone is doing it . It all sounded the same and you lost that authentic feel that made it different , right . And so I was kind of like , all right , well , that's not working . And then I started just doing kind of just like screenshots and just like super raw voice to text , and hence people started commenting .
Speaker 1I was like this is like totally backwards of what I thought , and so then I kind of started experimenting with that and then I'm kind of getting to a point where I feel like there is no good social media channel anymore . Everything's broken . And there's like this void happening where everyone's trying to be a thought leader and everyone can be a thought leader because they have AI and everyone's saying the same thing , and it's just all of this confusion , noise , content overload where people just glaze over . And so with Reddit , it's kind of the cool part about Reddit was you're governed by the community and so if you try to sell or try to like , you get downvoted and then you're not even able to post on there , no more . Then they don't play Like .
Speaker 1I remember one day I was just in a bad mood and I said something and I got like five or 10 downvotes and I was just like what the heck ? Because , like , they're just so strict , and so it's almost like you said like do you have to be real and raw there or else you will get downvoted and you can't do anything compared to social media . You can just throw out thought leadership content all day and nothing happens . And so there's this governing kind of thing that happens on Reddit , where you're policed by your peers and to me , like he said , like it's almost more real , you know , because your peers are not going to agree or you won't have a high kind of karma , it's called unless your peers agree , where everyone on social media can seem like an expert .
Speaker 2It makes sense though , doesn't it ? And I think this is going to happen across multiple channels as AI becomes so prominent in everyone's lives . I mean , I can see it all over LinkedIn , Meta , Instagram . It's like so obvious that they've used AI to write the copy that the second . You know that you do glaze over it . You're like I don't want to read this , Like AI wrote it . This is not authentic it you do glaze over it . You're like I don't want to read this , Like AI wrote it . This is not authentic . It's not human . I think people know this now . I think they're aware of it , but what are some ways someone can be more raw and authentic ? I know it probably comes naturally to someone like you , but for a lot of the people , I don't think they know how to do it . What are some tips ?
Speaker 1For me it was I can do it , but it doesn't I don't know how to do it where it provides value right , like I'm really good at making people think second level and like making people like damn , I never thought of that , but it doesn't always provide value to them other than changing their thinking sometimes . But they really have to listen and , like LinkedIn , you only get comments and stuff if you're giving people value right , and so kind of how I've been trying to pivot is , of course , I want to still use AI because I don't have time . I used to get like really mad when I would spend 30 minutes on a post and then nobody did it . I was just like what the hell , what am I doing ?
Speaker 1this for , and so I was like , all right , I got to figure out how to use the intelligence , how to then still write it in a way that gives value , and it's still raw , and what I'm experimenting with I haven't figured it out yet , but how to like use intelligence as far as like , for example , one I did was everyone's trying to figure out , like what's going on with GEO , which is generative engine optimization , or like optimizing chat GPT , right , and so what I did was I scraped all of the discussions on Reddit , all the blogs , all the YouTube videos , and then I created kind of like this intelligence report of saying like , all right , here's what everyone's saying on Reddit of like what the best tips , tricks , whatever is , here's what all the thought leaderships are saying .
Speaker 1Here's like what percentage everyone's agreeing on , what percentage is not what people are saying in discussions versus what thought and like made it almost kind of scientifical , like showing the intelligence of the content and trying to give it to them . Like that of like 72% agreed on this . To me , like that provides value because you're giving them information they can't get from chat GPT , which is always like my number one thing is how can I be chat GPT and you're doing it in a way that's still scalable , which is important , and you're able to pick the topic and write in your style . I haven't figured it out , to be honest with you , but I feel like there's something there , because I just don't have time to write post all day , especially when nobody even engages it .
Speaker 2Have you figured out how to do it , yet Well , I was thinking more just do video , just be like you know on screen short snippets , because you know people tune out after 30 seconds . They either want to listen to something really long , like a one hour podcast , or they want something really really short , like a 30 second video . And I figured , yeah , ai can do video , but it's not that great at it just yet . I think it's still got far to come . But I wouldn't write like really long form copy or essays on something like linkedin . I think that's where people just go tldr . Ai wrote it , so I think video is the way . But I mean , you tell me what ? What is the data ?
Speaker 1right , like like I might , I mean I agree with you . Like , even like last year , I was like our video is going to be the last thing that AI is going to take over and it's getting close , right , it's pretty close now .
Speaker 1But you can still tell . You keep like is that real ? Like it's like , but you're still questioning it , but it's probably a year off , right , but it's going to be the last . And so for me , it's like what I'm always trying to figure out , based off of either just resource constraint or it doesn't have the data to do it , and like it just ends like not possible because it's against policies to get that data for them right , like it has to be something that AI just can't do .
Speaker 1Other than that you're competing with something that you're probably gonna lose against because it's gonna be smarter than you , faster than you , cheaper than you . And so for me , it's like video is the last , but that's coming up like that's going to be passed very soon and no one really has time to watch video that long anymore . I mean , I love YouTube , I still watch some , but I about seven minutes through . I never finish like anything that I watch , like I have to watch it like five times to finish through . Sometimes I forget and then I never come back , and so video is losing too , and it's because you're not even like how . That's how I used to learn was video , but now I can learn just talking to AI 10 times faster , so there's not even really a benefit to it , and so it's a weird time where you're just competing against AI and then you're losing 90% of design yeah , I mean .
Speaker 2With that in mind , where do you think SEO sits in the future and where do you think content in general sits in the future ?
Speaker 1everyone's going to go private , like
The Future of Private Communities
Speaker 1private communities . I think the goal is how do I get data that AI can't get ? And if you don't have that , then there's nothing you could really do .
Speaker 1And so it's how can I get that data and then not share it ? Because I think I saw there was a blog post with how many clicks or how many views Google is giving you now , compared to like five years ago , and it was just like ridiculously like that relationship between content person you know making content and you're getting views compared to you know letting Google have your content and then kind of throw ads on it Right , and now it's like you're not even getting seen anymore because of all the reviews and all that . Now chat GPT is doing it . They're going to have ads soon . I even they have the partnership with Shopify where they're going to be able to buy stuff directly through chat GPT , and so there it's just like there's not even benefits , so you have to almost like take yourself out of the game and kind of go behind a wall so that they can't touch you . Other than that , I'm not really seeing a play for most people .
Speaker 2What do these private communities look like ?
Speaker 1Yeah , so I built one on a free , like an open source platform called Discourse , which is not Discord . It's Discourse but it looks like , kind of looks like your own private Discord , I guess , but it's like your own form community . And now have an AI , you can have cloud code or whatever . Launch it up on a VPS for 20 bucks and you have your own private community that you can manage and do different things with and you can decide to pay or have people pay or not For me . I'm just doing like invite only to like just the top of the top as far as like who's in my niche and just small group . And even on the thing I was like if you don't contribute , I'm kicking you out , and so , because it's like it's just , I think it's almost like I said , I get mad when I like spend time to give someone value and they don't use it or they don't see it or like . I just feel like I wasted my time .
Speaker 1And when people are like oh like , just post for a year on social media , I would jump off a bridge before I post on a year and no one even likes none of my you know , like edit for 30 minutes Cause you spend so much time , especially if you're really you're not using AI , you're trying to think through it and you're trying to like , put your feelings out there and your pain , and then you're almost like being vulnerable and then , when no one even likes it or caught , like you feel you feel some type of way about it , right , yeah , but in the private communities it's a lot more relationship . Ish , right , like you , hey , you have these relationship with people . On anything else , it's just kind of like , oh , like , here you guys go and they're just like , oh cool , like I'm gonna go back to my life , right , and and so you almost don't want to . I got a question for you when you're doing marketing now , as far as social media goes , like I feel like everything's dead . Like , like they're like LinkedIn got lost somewhere .
Speaker 1Facebook I don't even know anyone that really is on Facebook anymore . Instagram is just kind of swiping through . It's not business really , right . Like TikTok , everyone's scared because of the China thing , and they're like are they going to do something ? Like I'm not . And then there's video and then their ad platforms like I feel like everyone's lost right now when it comes to content . Is that kind of something that you've been seeing also , or am I just looking in the wrong places ?
Speaker 2Well , I agree with some of that . I mean , I don't really do much on meta anymore Facebook , Instagram but I should say I work in the world of B2B , so LinkedIn is my main platform . I do see value in YouTube . Still , I do see value in what you just said , which was like private groups , private communities , but doing a bit of a face-to-face element around that , so it's not just online . So being able to kind of connect at an event or a round table or a very like invite only type webinar , even if it doesn't have to be face to face , I do think people do feel a bit more special when they are invited to something like that , rather than , hey , everyone's invited , come along . I think that's where people just kind of go oh , this is not for me and you know I'm not interested .
Speaker 2So that's the kind of marketing I'm seeing work a lot better now . It's , you know , it has to be deeply personal , deeply customized , and you know , if you're going to scale with something like that as a business , you do need the help of AI . But this is where I think you can kind of use AI to your advantage rather than be beaten by . It is all right . Well , I'm going to build my , you know , highly personalized events and communities and , you know , try and target these specific group of people . So it could be like the CEOs , or the size , those or whoever your target audience is , but I'm going to use AI to personalize this at a bit more scale . Does that make sense ?
Speaker 1It all conceptually makes sense . For example , I do cold email also and to me it does work , but it matters how you do it right .
Speaker 1And like how I was trying to do . It was being a data scientist . So for Marknology , I would grab all of the Amazon sellers like data , like their Amazon products , their pay-per-click , and then I created a custom dashboard comparing their data with their competitors , embedded it in the cold email and I did segmentation of like , like and I kind of do for our podcast . I would go through the data filter like who doesn't do Amazon like video ads and who has a negative year over year and who has an average budget of XYZ , and then I would make a podcast episode , kind of like talking around like that subject , of those people and then I would send the dashboard and the podcast to the people , to the brand . That kind of matched that , that segmentation . I thought it was going to be like home run , but still like I don't even think people just see so much that they're not even impressed anymore . Right , I like to me that like and for me like the how I did that on the back end of like at scale , thousands of customized dashboards of your data , like with your competitor , like that was brilliant .
Speaker 1But I feel like just people are just so numb that it's just like , oh , cool , and it's because , like everything , you get amazed every day . Now , right , even like being an AI , you're just like everything , is just like nothing . And I feel the same thing on social media and I feel like you have to wake them's , literally just talking to people , like you could do some brilliant things with personalization and do it . Thousands of thousands of personalized dashboards and you can just talk to 10 people and you would probably get a better return just talking to those 10 people , but you can't scale . That , which is , for me , the hard part , is like I can't talk to all these people , Like this is not working , like , and trying to find that balance to me is is where I'm not really sure , because I can use it in all these advanced ways , but I can't clone myself to a point where it makes sense for relationship building have you used a platform called clay ?
Speaker 1yeah , I have , but I kind of built my own , I would say , on my back , because it's expensive . If you ever try to like do it at scale especially , you know , sending 5 , sending 5000 emails a day and doing segmentation like it gets really pricey . So , like I did all my custom scraping of like I'll go and scrape , like their LinkedIn , their website , and then I'll use the AI to like read their website , figure out if they B2B or B2C , what like specialized niche they're in . Even like on LinkedIn , I would like scrape their post and be like all right , is this person like egocentric ? And then I would like scrape their post and be like all right , is this person like egocentric ? And then I would like change how I would speak in my cold email to reflect that . And even like in my , my head , my , my subject lines are all personalized . And then one that got a lot of attention that didn't like it was pissing people off Cause it was like how can I say AI is going to take over their job ?
Speaker 1And I called it like the AI takeover campaign and I would like pretty much say like oh , is AI going to take over your job because of this , this and this , depending on what they're , and like people were just getting mad at what . I was getting responses and so I was kind of like , oh , it's better than nothing . But yeah
Cloning a CEO with AI
Speaker 1, it's like I'm just kind of like , you know , throwing arrows and seeing what hits , and it changes every month almost too yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , you have to stay on top of it . I think for us , for me personally , I think Clay has been a bit of a game changer in , you know , in the world of platforms and marketing tech out there , I mean , and I've used a lot of them . I mainly work in account-based marketing , you know . So we've used , like your Zoom Infos , your Demandbase , your , you know all the ones that kind of measure , intent , data . But clay seems to be on another level with measuring like signals and intent . It's pretty cool at the moment and I think you do have to experiment quite a bit with the messaging and , you know , get it as personalized as possible , but even you know the ability to connect it to something like webflow and then have all these .
Speaker 2Everyone gets like their own customized landing page that they can go to . I have seen really good results from that , so it's been really cool and I've even I've stopped calling it cold email , I now call it just direct email because it's so personalized . Yeah , we do get some good responses , but you're right , you do have to play with the messaging quite a bit A-B test and just figure out what's landing with this target audience . There's a lot of research involved in that .
Speaker 1I'll be honest , I haven't been doing . I mean , everyone's saying signals right , and for me I've been more focusing on which I'm not saying it's good , on how to use the data to segment the people and segment the companies , and then try to get my messaging correct for that , compared to like something happened . And then now I'm emailing you , which I probably should . I just I haven't dived into that part of it yet , but I'm finding that even if you segment the data correctly , like you said , if it's not the right time , it really doesn't matter . And so I'm kind of kind of going to kind of like what you think is like well , how do I ?
Speaker 1But the signals are also really hard because those are not always accurate . I mean , they're guessing a lot of it , right , and then even if you , depending on the signal , oh , you change your job Like everybody's , like man , I don't , I'm like they're tired of hearing that . So now the signals are kind of overused too , and so I'm trying to figure out a way where you can kind of merge the two and do like unique angles , like , for example , like that podcast angle that I had right , where it was like all right , I'm gonna segment my list and then make a podcast for them and then send it to them . And so , like I'm trying to figure out , like using a signal in the data , like oh , you guys , is like growth has dropped month over month , x , y , z , let me make a podcast about you know , that signal of negative growth and then let me send it to them , because I segment them out .
Speaker 1Now , that's harder to do and it's a lot more . You can't do that at scale as much I would say . But if you can figure out the perfect balance of how to do that and then not sell them in the initial pitch of like oh , here goes a podcast , that's what I was trying to do is like here goes a podcast , right . Or like a kind of like a partnership approach , or like for my , my software company was like we're giving away , like free competitive analysis which takes me probably 15 minutes to do personally , but since I segment my list so well , if that person responds , it's worth that 15 minutes .
Speaker 1And I'm not selling them . I'm just kind of giving it to them like , oh , like , I just want feedback , uh , and here goes a competitive and so like it's that weird where you're trying to sell them but you're not . To me it's just , it's really confusing . Yeah , oh , I think at the beginning it's you just trying to sell them but you're not To me , it's just , it's really confusing .
Speaker 2Yeah , oh , I think at the beginning it's . You just have to keep adding value .
Speaker 2The selling part almost doesn't happen , like it's , until they're ready and they say all right , by the way , can you help me with this ? You know I've learned enough from you . Now I trust you . You've given me all this knowledge and value . It's , it's kind of , you know , in market versus out of market . That's why you just got to keep educating , keep adding value until they've gone from out of market to in market . They have a need , they need it right now . They reach out to you because that's who they know and that's who they trust .
Speaker 1But building that relationship is almost like , especially starting building that relationship is almost impossible right now . Right , because you're just competing with so much , and I mean you can be amazing , you will never get seen and you never , because there's just just competing with so much and I mean you can be amazing . You will never get seen and you never cause . There's just so much information , so much like literally everyone's an expert .
Speaker 1I remember my girlfriend was saying like , oh , she was hiring for her bank and it was like , oh , this person entrepreneur , like everybody's right , and it's like it could be a title that anyone says and like you could be a founder , anyone can be a founder , anyone can be a thought leader , anyone can be an expert .
Speaker 1And now that you have AI , you can sound like an expert and no one knows any different .
Speaker 1And so like I feel like building that now , if you don't have it , it's super hard , almost to the point where you just got to like talk to people . So I feel like there's going to be this weird change of marketing becoming almost sales , like not in sales like you're trying to sell them , but more of like relationship selling . Where before I feel like it was like how can I scale my marketing to hit the masses , where now it's going to be like how can I kind of like what I said , like it was worth that 1015 minutes of manual time to kind of make that relationship , and I feel like it's going to go backwards and because , even like just my natural progression of all , right , I'm going to use marketing and scale it , I'm now reverting of like now I'm going to write my own post because it's not working and because everyone's doing it , and now you got to do the opposite , which I feel like marketing is is just doing the opposite of everyone else .
Speaker 2And so now I feel like everyone's putting out AI content as this , and I feel like that person just sitting in his living room just doing voice to text will probably get more engagement than the thought leaders putting out five amazing articles every day . I think this is where niching probably really helps , because I think that the struggle a lot of thought leaders have , you know , they're putting out constant content , content , content . But they are trying to appeal to the masses , which is what the problem is , because it's a saturated marketplace . Like there's so much content . You know everyone's using AI now , so it's really easy to keep pumping it out . I think if you were to like really niche , like as far as you can go with the niching , the better . That's when you start getting traction and you start getting conversations happening , because you're not an expert in , say , just marketing .
Speaker 2You're an expert in I'll just tell you my one as an example is like b2b sass marketing , and I'm looking at ways to niche that even further because I feel like that's now getting a bit more saturated .
Speaker 1So , um , I think niching might help with that for me it's like but you're now competing against deep research on chat gbt or like , and you're like no one's smarter than them , right , and so you have to do something outside of knowledge , right , like a knowledge is not enough anymore and if you don't have a very like vibrant personality where just people just like you because they like you and your knowledge isn't good enough , like for me , that literally everything I'm do , I'm like , all right , what can't chat gpt do ? Because it's like it just doesn't make sense anymore . Like I'm like I I do . I'm like , all right , what can't chat GPT do ? Because it's like it just doesn't make sense anymore . Like I'm like I have kids and I'm kind of like I have a 13 year old . I'm like you , probably college , you're probably not gonna go to college because chat GPT is gonna be better than college . Like because it's just not going to be . Like it just doesn't make sense anymore and it's just so much that just doesn't make sense .
Speaker 1Where it's like , yeah , you're an expert at this , but you really just do what chat gpt tells you . I could do that myself . And so , like trying to figure out that that unique angle and literally like everything I'm doing is like , what can't chat gpt do . I feel like it's the only route . And then , kind of , you did it without really realizing I'm gonna make video and probably you probably might have realized like chat gpt can't make video yet , but it's going there Right and and so you're , you're trying to figure out like what can't chat GPT do or what can AI do , and those were my two . I'm curious to think what would you think chat GPT like ? How would you process that Cause ?
Speaker 1like I said my two was just a resource constraint , because it's optimized to not do a lot because AI like open AI gets charged for it . So what can I do that will hit ChatGPT's resources ? For example , like deep research , they only give you I don't know , maybe five a month or something , and it would only go out and research . You know 20 to 40 articles and it takes 30 minutes and then it stops right . So , like for my tech , it was like all right , how can I beat that , where I can do something that ChatGPT can't do based off of resources ?
Speaker 1And then the second was ChatGPT has to follow rules because they might get sued because they're a huge company , but for a smaller company , it's like I can bend these corners a little bit and no one's going to say nothing . And so , like I can get data that you know maybe I'm breaking policy , but I'm not going to get sued over it , right , and ChatGPT can't do that . So , like ChatGPT can't go to TikTok , chatgpt can't get most of YouTube videos . I don't think they're supposed to spray reviews on Amazon . So I'm like , all right , where can't ChatGPT go ? Where I can get data that I can do something more valuable than ChatGPT , because it's not possible . And then I have that upper edge . But other than that , I have a real hard time trying to articulate why something's better than AI , the ultimate knowledge machine , without sounding like fake .
Speaker 2I think you're quite unique because I've never met anyone that has tried to beat AI . I think most people are like , oh , it's smarter than me , I'll just listen to it . But you're like looking at , okay , what are our unique advantages
Human Skills in an AI World
Speaker 2as a human and what can we do better ? And you've built AI agents as well . That , can you know , really help maybe . What do you use them for , the AI agents ? Is it to scrape that content from YouTube and other places that ChatGPT can't go , or is it something completely different ?
Speaker 1Yeah . So another one that I did was cloning someone , right . And so , like the CEO of the Marknology that I work with , he's on meetings 24 seven and he's never can do . And so , like I was helping him with it , like his LinkedIn I was helping with like emails and normally like he would be scared to allow someone to do that , cause , like man , you say something wrong , right . But what I did was I went out and he's big on podcasts and I went out and scraped like 80 YouTube videos of podcasts that he did .
Speaker 1And then I cut out just using I didn't do it personally , but like using just like a voice kind of thing only took out his audio and then transcribed his audio and then passed it through an AI to summarize everything all of his tips , all his strategies , all of like everything in like a document . And then I stacked them all on top of each other and I had this like knowledge of all of the stuff he's said on podcasts for years . And then I connected to Gmail through like the API and then got all his emails and all his sent emails and then , like I would pass it through and I use open source models so that I can like do things at scale on my desktop and so I would have it read every single email and then like pull out , like extract the his language pattern , like the knowledge that he got for every single email , and then kind of create it like this framework and then also use that to figure out like how he speaks or how he writes . He writes in very like one sentence per line type of thing and like very kind of a flowy , I would say . He used certain words I would like very scientifically like what is like a framework of how he writes , what is his tone , and then I would put it all together into like a cloud project and then I would then be able to sound almost just like him and like even like he would like he would say things where he would reference something he said in a podcast a year ago . He's like how do you even know that ? And it would like literally just sound just like them .
Speaker 1And so then I was like all right , I can write like some of his emails for him . I could do LinkedIn , and so it was like this digital clone of him . But I had to do all of this kind of back end stuff to build this digital brain . I would call it in a kind of scientific way to make AI useful . Otherwise , anyone ever try to use AI to write their emails ? They're editing every single one and they might as well wrote the email themselves , right . And so I feel like there is this like AI can get you 90% , but it's not worth anything at 90% , almost Right . It's like that extra 10% , which is a lot of like custom stuff to get it kind of like what I did is where the personality yeah .
Speaker 1And and and cause like now 90% is not good enough because everyone's at 90% . How do I get that extra 10 ? And without doing some like off the wall stuff like I did ? You really can't . And then you're now reverting back to I'll just do it myself .
Speaker 2I feel like you've put EAs out of business with that one , like if every CEO had that clone and you applied the AI agents you know like book my flights , write this email , do that .
Speaker 1Yeah , we've tried to do VAs , so I used to like I would hire a lot on Upwork . And when you're working with people on Upwork I mean I started my career on Upwork it's a very like you do a task , you do your job type of thing right , but there's not a lot of thinking out the box or strategy . It's kind of like you do one thing well and that's it , and now , like that , that skill is almost worthless , Like like being niche is not when it comes to a skill level , it's becoming less valuable because , oh , I can have the AI do exactly what you do , Right . And so it's kind of like how do I connect the dots ? How do I make AI work with this ? How do I fuse ? Like , how do I do these different things ? Together is more of the value than like I'm a really good video editor because I can almost do everything better than you . And it's almost like you're always trying to explain to the person like , yeah , but I can do it , and like I can do it better , but then I don't feel like paying you when I can do it almost as good . And it's a hard discussion , right . And you're constantly like how can I like prove my value to somebody . When there's always like this tool that can do 80% of the job and they're kind of like I might try this tool even though you know that the tool is not going to be better , the consumer is kind of like I'll take that risk most of the time , Right , and so it's . It's .
Speaker 1It's very hard when trying to to hire VAs . You're almost getting and that's , and that's really why I switched into this . Recently . I was doing Tableau consulting for eight years and I saw I was like , even though with Tableau it's like Power BI , it's this data visualization Like it's very artsy and it's hard to replicate that for even just an AI or an engineer because it's very creative . But I was like it's gonna get close , like like I was starting to see , before chat gpt came out , they were doing like art . It was doing AI was making art , was kind of the big thing , and I was like it's making art , probably gonna be able to make this dashboard pretty soon , right , and and so like , like it's making art , it's making film . It's kind of hard . Everything is becoming impossible .
Speaker 2yeah let's go deep on that for a minute . Like the skill sets , I mean you've got . Did you say you have a 13 year old son ?
Speaker 1the daughter , daughter daughter .
Speaker 2So , um , what are you telling her about ? What skills do you need to learn ? Are you encouraging her to go to college ? What are the skill sets we're going to need ?
Speaker 1For me it's the intangibles . We don't even talk about jobs per se , it's more of a like on my email signature I say professional dot connector and pattern hunter because I can connect things that other people can't , and it's because I have a variety of skills that I'm able to make those connections . And before I was really like getting angry at people because I'd be like how don't you see that Like this is not even my job and I can see how that connects . And it's because they were so stuck in their little box that they didn't see how that could connect or how that can break something Right , and because they just play it in their box . And so now I feel like if you play in your box , you're not going to see the big picture and I can have AIs be those boxes now where I don't even need you , and so now you're almost more work than it's worth .
Speaker 1I'm almost having to tell you what to do and you're building stuff or doing things that I got to redo anyway and break , and so it became almost where I just stopped hiring people for a while . I was like I'll just do it myself . And it wasn't because we didn't have the funds , it was literally because I was spending more time trying to tell them what to do or how to do things than it took for me to do it myself , and because now I had AI and I can launch five agents to do different things and it was just way more efficient . And so it wasn't even about the money . It was like my time of me with my five AI agents running around is worth more than whatever I'm paying you for giving you like attention , and because it was almost like , yeah , it was just not worth it . And so with my kids , I'm more of a we .
Speaker 1I lived in Mexico for five years and we like we backpack and so like those type of like experiences of like you know , like being able to adapt to different cultures like going to another country and not be able to speak their language but still be able to maneuver right , like being able to understand , like people have different thoughts and cultures and different things and everyone could agree to disagree and you can keep going Right and like I feel like those kinds of intangible skills are going to be so much more powerful than a skill like a technical skill , because , looking at everything now , no skill is going to be worth anything other than what just makes humans humans that an AI can't do . And so I think , doubling down on just the human skill , once again , I'm trying to . How can I beat AI ?
Speaker 1right and so like doubling down on , like empathy , or like being able to like problem solve , like the different , like and I'm very , I would say , like raw and authentic is like dealing with humans . I always call people humans because like you're dealing with humans and AI and like AI was like , oh , like you can't . You can't always think of how people are not going to always do logical things or think logically and being able to like , like pivot and kind of like , oh , like yeah , but this person said this and like , hey , I can't do that , and so like like being able to be really good at reading people and like those are going to be super valuable skills .
Speaker 2Tech is not People skills .
Speaker 1Yeah , going back to people .
Speaker 2I really agree with that . I think you've said a few things that made me think of the word like just agile , just be able to adapt as well , and I love reading about evolution and what's happened and it turns out that humans have survived for so long because we're really good at adapting and I think we just need to keep adapting . I mean , because AI is going to be changing things . We don't even know yet how much the world's going to change , but if we can just learn how to adapt and adapt quickly , I think we'll be fine .
Speaker 1How do you feel about the people that haven't even used ChatGPT yet , Like for me ?
Speaker 1I remember somebody was like they were like worried about or it was something about
The Coming Knowledge Gap
Speaker 1like a job kind of , and they were like , oh , like these people like , and I was like they should lose their job . Like I have no empathy to people that haven't even tried and I don't think people , really the people that don't know how , they don't understand how powerful it is , like there's never like , oh , like the internet , there's never been something that can teach you how to use it and like hold your hand on how to use their own tech . Like it's like it's so crazy .
Speaker 1It's like well , how do you use AI ? Go ask it , It'll tell you how to use it .
Speaker 1Like no other technology has been able to do that . So it's just kind of a to me . I just think they're lazy , like it's just like you were just stuck in your ways , and lazy and you don't just want to retire , but like you're not going to have that much time , like it's going too fast where you and very quickly . And my dad is a dean of a college in California and I literally just taught him how to use GPTs and chat GPT right , where you can create like your own custom ones , and literally all you're given is documented , some instructions , and like they're sending him off to Spain to speak and stuff . And it's just like because , one , teachers are like the education is just like they're scared because , like man , like we didn't they better kick us out right , which it is . And two , they're scared Cause , like man , like we didn't they better kick us out Right , which it is .
Speaker 1And two is they're usually older and they're stuck in their ways because they've been in education so long , so they're always trying to like veto AI and my dad is just like man this is I saved so much time doing it but then , like he can't really like get a higher position because everyone above him is like , yeah , but he wants AI and AI is going to take us over , and so it's this kind of weird fight , right , and because you almost , like you're so scared of AI taking over that I feel like what's going to happen is we had this discussion the other day , was like with content and everything .
Speaker 1I was like there's going to be one graphic designer that's going to do the same content as 50 of them , and that one that embraces AI is going to be amazing . Those other 49 are going to die off somewhere . And it's because now you can scale your skill level so much higher where there's average people , if they're not adapting , they're going to be worthless . I mean , it sounds messed up saying it , but it's true , because the one person that is just a genius in their own way can now do everything 10 times faster , 10 times better . And why would anyone just talk to Joe Smoe ? That just doesn't even embrace anything , right ? And so there's going to be this kind of gap of really good people that can scale and do amazing things , and then everyone that's just kind of the middle coasting . They better fall .
Speaker 2There's definitely going to be a massive knowledge gap . I mean , when you asked me that question , what do you think is going to happen to those people ? My parents came to mind because they didn't use AI . Mind you , they are retired now , but their background is in civil and structural engineering , so they can build houses from scratch , and they have . They've built probably about 10 houses in their lifetime . I'm like , well , ai can't do that yet . So as long as you have a set of skills , that's still valuable . So trades come to mind . You know plumbing , electricians , builders we still need those guys . We can't use AI for that . Until the robots get released , I don't think .
Speaker 1But , which is not an argument for that one , right , and so you're right , I do that the trades are going to be harder to replace . But for the civil engineer , if he was spending two months to build specs for a house and he can now do it for a week , he's going and he's really good at it , Right , like he's going to sell way more than he did before and you will probably go out of business if you don't adapt . Right , and that's where I was like the efficiency of the people that embrace it . If you're embracing it and you're brilliant and you're really good at what you do , like that gap is going to be huge , where you're just going to lose because the comp , like he's going to be able to scale so much more than you and probably lower his rates and and you're still doing things old school and just being stubborn , right and . And so I think you're going to automatically , just based off of the competition , like kind of die out if you don't . And and I think it's just going , especially like you notice , in marketing , if you're not using AI , everyone's dropping prices , everyone's like how do I like ? And it's just like a race to the bottom , right , and it's because you're now competing not only with agencies that are doing better and more efficient , but also of the DIYers that are like I could just get this tool and I could do it myself .
Speaker 1And it's not always true , but they believe it , and so that's all that really matters is they believe they can do it themselves and they can just buy this tool and they may fail in six months or so , but they still you still didn't get that . Check that six months , right ? And so it's one of those things where it's like yeah , like for Marknology . He's like yeah , like I hate trying to explain , like trying to prove my value or trying to explain my value .
Speaker 1I'm like yeah , but like you know , the ads are over here saying that you don't need it , and they like I could save this money and it sounds good . 90% of the people are going to do it , and that's why I was like it's hard , trying to beat it . It's like , yeah , you know it does sound good , because it sounds good until you actually do it . And then you're like , yeah , but it's not that good . But when you're in the meetings trying to explain that , you kind of just like you don't want to be like all right , well , go try it out and six months later , you know , call me back because that's what's going to happen . But that's not what people believe .
Speaker 2Well , it at scale where it's still work where I don't feel like most people figure that out . No , no , and I think we have a lot to figure out and a lot more change to come that we just can't predict .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2But , tyler , my last question for you it's a bit of a tradition on our podcast is if you could go back in time and it can be any point in your life and give yourself one bit of advice . What would that be ?
Understanding Your Weaknesses
Speaker 1I would say , understand your faults quicker , meaning I think a lot of people try to try to like cover up their faults or like try to compensate Right and instead of like kind of doubling down on what they're good at and just accepting like oh , like I suck at this , let me , you know , put things in place to kind of help shield that and kind of protect that . And , and for me it was like one of the things where , like you got to accept , like , oh , like sometimes , like I'm weak People are so scared to say that but like , oh , I am weak because I don't have self-discipline . Or like I don't have self-control , like I'm really good at talking myself into things logically , where I can word it to where it makes sense , but I'm like like man , you shouldn't be doing that . But I can logically talk myself into it , and that's just because I got this bad self-discipline Right and it doesn't matter how hard I try , it's just I just have bad self-discipline and but I have to like put things in place to make sure that doesn't happen .
Speaker 1Or like I , I kind of stay away from it . For example , like I have a boat and I was like all right , I just had to grind this year and I was like I didn't even go look at it for a whole year . I was like I don't care if it's torn up , like I ain't , cause if I go look at it I'm gonna pull it out . And so I wouldn't even tempt myself and like for some people like , that's just so dumb , it's like like .
Speaker 1But I feel like just accepting your weakness and accepting like man , I suck at this or this , you're able to grow from it a lot quicker in the beginning than fight yourself for 10 years and being like damn , I lost on all these opportunities when I should have just said I suck , and then I could adapt Right . And then I tell my kids all the time I'm like it's OK to suck , it's OK to be bad , it's okay to be bad , it's okay to be dumb . But the real dumb people are the ones that don't know they're dumb . That's fair . No , you're dumb , yeah , I'm really dumb , but I'm really creative , or I'm really like , like . But the person that thinks they're not dumb and then tries to prove they're not dumb , like those are the dumb people , and so like , like accepting it , I think , is so powerful but it's hurtful and I think people try to stop that .
Speaker 2But you're really just hurting yourself . Yeah , no , I love that . I love that Because I think I've recently had that thought , this year as well . It's like all right , I just need to play to my strengths . Like I need to stop trying to do this stuff that A I hate doing , B I suck at . I just need to go here and just play in what I love doing and what I'm good at it , kind of . Yeah , I think knowing that is a bit of an enlightening have you noticed like your energy level changes too ?
Speaker 1Oh God , yeah . It's like I almost like got depressed , where I was like doing stuff that I hated and I was just like I can do it . I was just like man , I'm tired .
Speaker 2You're slower at it , you're hating it , and then you feel crap afterwards .
Speaker 1You're like oh , this is my day . Like your , your thing , like your energy and like your momentum also shifts , like it feels like like I just had more bad , more bad luck , like it was just , like everything was just different and and I feel like just that really makes a difference of being like man I get , I might be good at this , but I just hate it , I don't want to do it anymore . And and you might get you know , like you might get consequences from it , but sometimes it's worth it because it compounds and it just kind of just puts you in a downward spiral if you're not doing things that give you energy yeah , no , absolutely love that .
Speaker 2Tyler , thank you so much for being on the show . I love our conversation . If anyone could take one thing away from this podcast , it would be go out and think of just one way you can beat AI today .
Speaker 1Yeah , one , one restriction chat . Gbt can't do .
Speaker 2That is a winning formula .
Speaker 1Thank you All right , thank you See ya .
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
