hello everyone digital domination summit
2013 marco montemagno here and with me
i’m really happy to have the founder of
mixergy and rewarder alejandria how you
going doing great thanks for me on here
so i just want to start you know by
giving a little bit of of context about
why Andrew for people who may be simply
don’t know Andrew or maybe they know
entrepreneurs and they not inside our
tech board I just want to give a little
bit of context of why I think you Andrew
should be a great and you are a great
guy a great guest for these dimensional
summit and I just want to tell you this
story that I think it was iron a few
years ago I was hosting this television
show on Sky News in Italy Sky tg24 is
the Navy dtella for the Sky News Network
and I remember once I was just surfing
around and I found this mixer GECOM his
website and I thought well let’s have a
look you know I saw this interview this
guy was you with the guests ah just
doing an interview in a split screen
interview and in beginning I thought
come on you can’t do interest like that
you know I was coming from television so
amateurish to just have this split
screen like you know when you do
television you start to become very
arrogant that’s my experience and also
you know you have six cameras and people
taking care of everything you just there
you talk and a good Reggie’s can make
that you have great hair you know if you
can do miracles and so but anyway the I
i started i am very curious so I started
to check the videos and I thought gosh
this guy’s amazing you know and I
started to follow videos I don’t know
one hour long videos that in television
is impossible I mean you have to speak
10 seconds and then cut and everything
and and so I was really surprised I was
really impressed and from that moment I
started to follow you and you really
inspire me I mean today I wouldn’t be
here if I didn’t meet you online and
this is the first I we bit by the way in
person so
that that’s really from from that moment
I thought gosh Andrew Warner sooner or
later I would love to do an interview
with me too just to share your tips and
and your knowledge so here we are that’s
the reason I’m honored to be on here
right so by the way isn’t it amazing
that there’s gonna be someone who’s
listening to us right now whose life is
going to be equally maybe even more
impacted than yours was when you were
listening to my old interviews and I
believe five years from now that person
will come to us and say I saw you and
drew and Marco and as a result of this
interview my life change in and they’ll
tell us how and that’s in my mind when
I’m about to do this interview that’s
what I want to shoot for I want not just
one person but multiple people to come
and say my life has been impacted send
us letters and tell us how much how much
change happen because of this interview
so let’s knock this out of the park
what’s your first question for me yeah
by the way I hope to change it in the
better way oh my life is destroyed yeah
so now they’re not going to say that go
straight to the point I mean yeah mixed
which is a great story also great
community you found also business model
you do you’ve been doing I think you
close two thousand interviews with
entrepreneurs which is probably a
Guinness World Record so super cool and
also I we didn’t say that but I mean you
did interviews with seth godin with tim
ferriss Gary vine Archer I mean a lot of
great people and a lot of great
entrepreneurs so on one side this is
your your skill on the other side you
you are an entrepreneur by yourself so
you know a lot of things and often you
know more than the guests that you do
the interview with so the first thing is
positioning how did you find your niche
why did you choose to launch this you
know split screen interview business and
what kind of tips could you give to our
viewers today so here’s the thing a in
2008 I remember looking at my wife’s
face and at the time thinking as she was
dating yet I was thinking she couldn’t
possibly want to be with me I’m such a
loser what happened and I didn’t say
this out loud but in my head every time
we talked that’s what was going on and
the thing that happened while
I went from being a guy who had this
really successful business Bradford read
was my first company we did online
greeting cards i did over 30 million
dollars and with each one of those 30
million dollars my chest puffed out even
more and I thought I know everything I
actually in conversations I would push
because I felt like I knew everything
and then I took some time off after that
and i went to start this online
invitation site for events i said i was
in greeting cards now do invitations
here comes more millions here comes more
success and I couldn’t get people to use
it my best friends wouldn’t even use it
my my wife who’s my girlfriend at the
time used evite instead of my own site
that’s how badly i was doing and because
i had some money I kept throwing money
at the problem I kept spending more on
developers more on design and meanwhile
it was a complete failure and so in 2008
I said I’m not gonna keep being this
idiot anymore i’m gonna stop but i have
to figure out what i did wrong and i
actually a few people look on my site
they’ll see i did this post called i
failed some time in 2008 where I
basically explained what i just told you
but I said this isn’t the end of me I’m
going to talk to the most successful
people I know in an open way on myth
that I don’t know everything and instead
come to them and say what can I learn
from you and if I could have learned
from them in five minutes I would have
done it in five minutes but I felt you
know what I’m not that quick I need an
hour of in-depth conversation and so
that’s how I found my niche I found my
niche by saying I have a problem here
who out there can solve it and I knew
that guys like Seth Godin who I admired
whose book I read for a long time people
like the founder of Sun Microsystems
Wikipedia they weren’t just going to
talk to me but I thought if I start
doing these interviews they would talk
to other people through me I’d get to
ask my own issues I know that there are
other people online will have these same
problems they don’t know where to come
up with the business they don’t know how
to solve their their other issues in
life I’ll ask these questions and other
people will learn with me and that’s how
the whole thing started and sure enough
I wasn’t the only person who needed to
know how to start a business properly
who wanted to know how to avoid making
these stupid mistakes other
want to learn we all learn together and
we all built these businesses along the
way but how did you start contacting all
these people I mean you started from
scratch or you just you have your
previous network of contact then you
started from there and then you say okay
this is my my base and then I build up
from it you mean how do I start asking
the gas how do i get that up yeah so I
remember actually being at William
Quigley’s office in in Southern
California he’s one of the heads of a
top venture capital firm we were all
there at this party a startup event at
his office and everyone wanted to talk
to him but he was too busy to talk to
all the entrepreneurs in the room except
for one guy one guy who happen to have a
camera with him who was doing an
interview for this little website and I
said wait everyone wants to talk to
William Quigley William Quigley wants to
talk to that guy not only that but he is
assuring him into a private room where
they could talk without noise why cuz
the guy’s a camera I learned a lesson
there if you’re going to do an interview
people want to do it people actually
want to set up a good environment for
you and so William Quigley is one of the
first people who I asked to do an
interview he brought me into his office
had that quiet conversation with me i
took a tape recorder with me and that’s
how that’s how we got started that’s the
thing if you want two people will do
interviews with you and they’ll have
deep conversations right so tip number
one is why you finding your niche one
good interesting format could be
interviews I mean then you can find
video text whatever but interviews is
always and I would think you know when
you get a degree and you often you you
try to do interviews with people for
your final research in University and I
would say most of the time if I think
about my university that I’m old now but
if I University at a time well a lot of
people say yes come you know come in you
just have to do this university research
so interview open a lot of doors it does
open a ton of doors and I think anyone
should do it why did you choose video I
mean why some people choose audio some
people decide to do i do not just write
a post and the interview the email why
did you choose video
it was very easy I initially started
with audio because that’s the way I
prefer to learn i’m a long distance
runner in fact i just did 22 miles on
sunday i’m really proud that I did it
here in the streets and I was listening
to a podcast and audio books the whole
way through on my run so I love audio
but what I discovered was that if you
just put a piece of audio online people
don’t even notice that it’s there it’s
too small they don’t feel connected to
it so when Seth Godin came on I told him
that we could probably get a bigger
audience if we do video he said let’s do
video let’s try and video skype
basically has a plug-in that makes it
super easy to record I actually didn’t
even have to hit the record button as
soon as you called my interview a skype
account it started recording this
conversation for us all i did is a
little bit of editing posted online and
we’re done I want the simplest solution
right and I recommend that to anyone
who’s trying this I don’t think you want
to do writing because writing means that
you have to listen and then explain what
you learned in like translate other
people’s were explained other people’s
ideas on paper and you’re never going to
get their ideas perfectly right and it’s
always going to create a little bit of
friction I prefer to just have the
person say it and post it online for me
I want to learn in the conversation any
tips and use about tools that you
actually using or tools that you would
recommend if a company say okay I want
to do splitscreen interview oh where do
I start from we were talking about
before about I so recently this zoom dot
us I have no idea I have no connection
with them but I don’t know some I say
whatever the simplest tool is kind of
say what do you use what do you
recommend simplest simplest tool that
the thing is that unless you’re gonna go
high-end polished people don’t care
about the look but and you shouldn’t
care about the look it should be about
the ideas it should be about the
conversation it should be about you
getting to know your guests you learning
from your guests and the audience
learning along with you I don’t think it
needs to be all that fancy so for what I
use because i’m on a mac i use skype
everyone seems to have skype and i use
call recorder which is a program by ECAM
which costs like 20 bucks it plugs into
skype but I
seeing the huffington post use um what
is it google hangouts it comes with the
recording built right in you don’t need
to download anything you just go to
google hangouts you create the group and
you have a conversation keep it really
simple to about the ideas and the more
basic the software the more people feel
like they could relate to it like
they’re just listening in on a
conversation instead of watching a
production right and also i would say
Mike like the one that you have so a USB
microphone is always good for together
the right voice also USB microphones now
they cost I don’t know fifty bucks
hundred bucks maximum so you can get
great algae promotion so this is the
third power okay you find your niche you
decide the right format you say okay I
go for videos oh no let ask you one more
question about video why don’t you go
straight on YouTube for instance
everyone say our YouTube is the second
search engine in the war you have to be
there so but you doesn’t look like you
going to march on youtube or maybe you
will go I don’t know what why did you
decide and what are you designing about
it I’m not against youtube I just feel
like I want the I want the conversation
to happen on my site I want to get to
know the audience in a way that I don’t
feel I get to know people on YouTube
YouTube is great for for big reach but I
don’t really need that reach I want to
have a good conversation with a smaller
group of people also
the number one search engine is google I
show up with my wit videos from Wistia
on google and my image shows up I get to
control the environment that people come
to me on I also don’t just want someone
to watch my video and disappear I want
to build a relationship with them I use
a tool called Wistia which allows me to
ask for email addresses before people
watch the video allows me to get a sense
of how much people watch to see what
they rewind so that I know how what to
emphasize and what goes over well it’s
it does all kinds of cool things like
that it lets people if if it’s an hour
long video and you watch it on YouTube
and then you don’t finish it you come
back the next day you have to find your
spot Wisty and now I just saw they have
a tool that will allow you to
automatically pick up where you left off
I don’t wanna make it into a commercial
for them but that’s what I like about
your whiskey the great guys great
company crystal wash is one of the
speaker digital emissions I me tight I
totally agree with you very interesting
also for SEO reason could be a great
choice promotion how do you promote them
okay you did a lot of videos but then
how do you really start it now it’s easy
for you because I mean mixergy is a
well-known brand everyone knows Brit
mixergy in our industry but in the
beginning how did you really do it and
in 2013 is something that is still
possible to do oh yeah even more I’ll
give you 2 2 tips for promotion because
I know the problem that many people who
are listening to us have I had it where
I used to have a blog with my my the
site that didn’t do so well I couldn’t
get people to even read the blog I
couldn’t get them to read the blog I
couldn’t get them to use a site where
would I put my attention I said well I
have to let go of the blog i’m not going
to now promote two different products
neither one of them well and the problem
was i would write a blog post and then
have to wait for people to discover it
or go and tell everyone to go watch it
similar with any product you have to
create and then you have to go out there
and hunt for an audience interviews are
a little bit different if i do an
interview with Guy Kawasaki or Tim
Ferriss tim ferriss has these tremendous
fans online or all in the startup space
I do an interview with him his fans will
find me they will retweet me there is a
site that’s dedicated
order account that’s dedicated just
promoting things that the tim ferriss is
in so that that kind of promotion
doesn’t happen if you’re just a guy on
your own if I interview an entrepreneur
the techstars invested in David Cohen
the guy who founded TechStars is very
likely to pro to tweet it out the other
people who are invested who got
investment money from techstars tweet it
out to so the idea is if you do an
interview with someone that person’s
audience will find them we’ll find the
interview and and and then discover your
product that person will often help you
promote it the people who are super fans
are super connected to them will help
you promote it it’s it’s much easier
with interviews and it is with other
kinds of content yeah this is also great
too because if you get the right people
then I mean and if you create a great
interview this is another important
point that you always create you study
you do really well your homework in my
opinion you try to really go deeper with
all the guests so the interview is not
only about talking but you really go
deep and a lot of interesting things are
coming out from the interview then
obviously the there is value over there
so I think the guest is happy to share
and retweet everything and also his
community so Andrew I’m sorry I promised
two things for you to audience I’ll
quickly give the second one the second
one was I was active on a community
called hacker news which is a side first
for startup entrepreneurs lafond it it’s
a great site and they sent me a lot of
traffic because I just kept talking to
people who were on that poor big users
of that site and so when they saw that
my my articles appeared there they voted
it up I interviewed the guy who created
hacker news of course that audience was
going to vote up that interview I
interviewed other people who we invested
in of course that community was going to
vote it up and it really helped me get a
base and a base of solid people who I
care about and when I hear others say
that there that they’re building a site
like mine I ask them what’s your
community where are you talking if they
don’t have 1i can see a problem
immediately because that community will
help get you traffic but also give you
an understanding of what they want which
will help shape your product so I
promise two things there they are one
interview people have follower
more and more people have followers
today much more than they did last year
certainly more than years ago and find a
community to be a part of perfect Andrew
with all the digital domination summit
guests I always start to say before the
interview a we have to stay 10 minutes
50 minutes and then after so many years
in television where either you have 20
minutes and that’s it you know and then
if someone starts to say cut cut cut
that you have a microphone in your ear
and people say oh yes stop stop stop is
overs or and you always have this
pressure in this format I feel so
relaxed and I said no let’s eat
something is interesting just let’s talk
about it and so I want to just go a
little bit further with you to to cover
the last step okay or of your process
which is partnership so did you develop
during these years any kind of
partnership that supported mixergy some
web TV show a television show they they
work with affiliation or they try to
find media partners or some kind of
partnership with op zoom or you to me
for courses which was your way and what
do you recommend in 2013 on this doll uh
those two partnerships helped a lot I
helped you to me back when they were
just getting started needed people to
put courses on their new course platform
just this morning I looked on Twitter
and someone bought that course that I
put on there just to experiment with
them same thing with AB sumo an okay
games an old friend who i got to know
through interviews and and offline too
and when he started app sumo he needed a
course to put on the side and you needed
someone to lead it I did it he emailed
it out to his audience of I don’t know
what three-quarters of a million people
they got to know me that’s that’s huge I
also sometimes will do partnerships with
people who who have contacts with
entrepreneurs that I want to get a hold
of and they introduced me to them and
that that helps a lot we do a series
together Andrew superlux question i
promise i asked to all the guests what
are their best 3s
or what are their best three websites or
three platform on line platform for
doing business that they really would
recommend in this moment because I
always see that the kind of website or
app that you use on your phone every day
you know shape a little bit the way you
work and the way you you are rather
right now I’m going to give you a couple
of I’ll give you a couple of tools that
work for me the first is I use downcast
for listening to podcasts and actually
listening to any kind of audio it has
really good controls let me quickly
fast-forward 30 seconds or rewind 20
seconds if I need to and I could do it
just from the my iPhone’s clicker so if
I’m running and I have my iphone in
place I hit that button that’s near the
mic and I can fast forward by 30 seconds
or quickly remind say what did you say
and listen to that part over again
that’s incredibly helpful you also were
asking about websites I use a tool
called pipe drive what I like about pipe
drive is it forces me to think about
steps that I take in order so if there’s
a process that’s really difficult here’s
one how do you find a stranger get him
to find the right stranger who we want
to interview him get his contact
information get him to do a
pre-interview on our site get him then
to do an interview on the site and
publish it like all those steps if I do
it on my own I could remember it but if
there’s a team of people who are now
helping me we lose track of who’s doing
what with them and where each person is
pipe drive calm is a program that allows
me to lay out my steps in order and then
say okay this is my job to get him from
step 02 step one to put them on the
board which is find a guest someone else
takes that guest and invites him someone
else takes that guest and does a
pre-interview with them it makes it
really easy to collaborate and let’s see
if I give you one other one here’s one
that I just installed today I’m not sure
how much I like it but I think it’s
worthy of recommend recommendation it’s
an app called triage for the iphone and
it shows you one email at a time and if
you can respond to it right away you can
hit the reply and give a quick response
or you can flick it up and mark it as
read so that you never see it or you can
flick it down and say I’ll handle it on
my computer so very quickly you get to
go through your email
repeat the name triage triage all rides
okay I heard it on daring fireball this
morning I read it so I thought I gotta
get it and it was worth trying let’s try
excellent and reward our founder of
mixergy Andrew thank you so much and
good luck for everything thanks for having me on here
2013 marco montemagno here and with me
i’m really happy to have the founder of
mixergy and rewarder alejandria how you
going doing great thanks for me on here
so i just want to start you know by
giving a little bit of of context about
why Andrew for people who may be simply
don’t know Andrew or maybe they know
entrepreneurs and they not inside our
tech board I just want to give a little
bit of context of why I think you Andrew
should be a great and you are a great
guy a great guest for these dimensional
summit and I just want to tell you this
story that I think it was iron a few
years ago I was hosting this television
show on Sky News in Italy Sky tg24 is
the Navy dtella for the Sky News Network
and I remember once I was just surfing
around and I found this mixer GECOM his
website and I thought well let’s have a
look you know I saw this interview this
guy was you with the guests ah just
doing an interview in a split screen
interview and in beginning I thought
come on you can’t do interest like that
you know I was coming from television so
amateurish to just have this split
screen like you know when you do
television you start to become very
arrogant that’s my experience and also
you know you have six cameras and people
taking care of everything you just there
you talk and a good Reggie’s can make
that you have great hair you know if you
can do miracles and so but anyway the I
i started i am very curious so I started
to check the videos and I thought gosh
this guy’s amazing you know and I
started to follow videos I don’t know
one hour long videos that in television
is impossible I mean you have to speak
10 seconds and then cut and everything
and and so I was really surprised I was
really impressed and from that moment I
started to follow you and you really
inspire me I mean today I wouldn’t be
here if I didn’t meet you online and
this is the first I we bit by the way in
person so
that that’s really from from that moment
I thought gosh Andrew Warner sooner or
later I would love to do an interview
with me too just to share your tips and
and your knowledge so here we are that’s
the reason I’m honored to be on here
right so by the way isn’t it amazing
that there’s gonna be someone who’s
listening to us right now whose life is
going to be equally maybe even more
impacted than yours was when you were
listening to my old interviews and I
believe five years from now that person
will come to us and say I saw you and
drew and Marco and as a result of this
interview my life change in and they’ll
tell us how and that’s in my mind when
I’m about to do this interview that’s
what I want to shoot for I want not just
one person but multiple people to come
and say my life has been impacted send
us letters and tell us how much how much
change happen because of this interview
so let’s knock this out of the park
what’s your first question for me yeah
by the way I hope to change it in the
better way oh my life is destroyed yeah
so now they’re not going to say that go
straight to the point I mean yeah mixed
which is a great story also great
community you found also business model
you do you’ve been doing I think you
close two thousand interviews with
entrepreneurs which is probably a
Guinness World Record so super cool and
also I we didn’t say that but I mean you
did interviews with seth godin with tim
ferriss Gary vine Archer I mean a lot of
great people and a lot of great
entrepreneurs so on one side this is
your your skill on the other side you
you are an entrepreneur by yourself so
you know a lot of things and often you
know more than the guests that you do
the interview with so the first thing is
positioning how did you find your niche
why did you choose to launch this you
know split screen interview business and
what kind of tips could you give to our
viewers today so here’s the thing a in
2008 I remember looking at my wife’s
face and at the time thinking as she was
dating yet I was thinking she couldn’t
possibly want to be with me I’m such a
loser what happened and I didn’t say
this out loud but in my head every time
we talked that’s what was going on and
the thing that happened while
I went from being a guy who had this
really successful business Bradford read
was my first company we did online
greeting cards i did over 30 million
dollars and with each one of those 30
million dollars my chest puffed out even
more and I thought I know everything I
actually in conversations I would push
because I felt like I knew everything
and then I took some time off after that
and i went to start this online
invitation site for events i said i was
in greeting cards now do invitations
here comes more millions here comes more
success and I couldn’t get people to use
it my best friends wouldn’t even use it
my my wife who’s my girlfriend at the
time used evite instead of my own site
that’s how badly i was doing and because
i had some money I kept throwing money
at the problem I kept spending more on
developers more on design and meanwhile
it was a complete failure and so in 2008
I said I’m not gonna keep being this
idiot anymore i’m gonna stop but i have
to figure out what i did wrong and i
actually a few people look on my site
they’ll see i did this post called i
failed some time in 2008 where I
basically explained what i just told you
but I said this isn’t the end of me I’m
going to talk to the most successful
people I know in an open way on myth
that I don’t know everything and instead
come to them and say what can I learn
from you and if I could have learned
from them in five minutes I would have
done it in five minutes but I felt you
know what I’m not that quick I need an
hour of in-depth conversation and so
that’s how I found my niche I found my
niche by saying I have a problem here
who out there can solve it and I knew
that guys like Seth Godin who I admired
whose book I read for a long time people
like the founder of Sun Microsystems
Wikipedia they weren’t just going to
talk to me but I thought if I start
doing these interviews they would talk
to other people through me I’d get to
ask my own issues I know that there are
other people online will have these same
problems they don’t know where to come
up with the business they don’t know how
to solve their their other issues in
life I’ll ask these questions and other
people will learn with me and that’s how
the whole thing started and sure enough
I wasn’t the only person who needed to
know how to start a business properly
who wanted to know how to avoid making
these stupid mistakes other
want to learn we all learn together and
we all built these businesses along the
way but how did you start contacting all
these people I mean you started from
scratch or you just you have your
previous network of contact then you
started from there and then you say okay
this is my my base and then I build up
from it you mean how do I start asking
the gas how do i get that up yeah so I
remember actually being at William
Quigley’s office in in Southern
California he’s one of the heads of a
top venture capital firm we were all
there at this party a startup event at
his office and everyone wanted to talk
to him but he was too busy to talk to
all the entrepreneurs in the room except
for one guy one guy who happen to have a
camera with him who was doing an
interview for this little website and I
said wait everyone wants to talk to
William Quigley William Quigley wants to
talk to that guy not only that but he is
assuring him into a private room where
they could talk without noise why cuz
the guy’s a camera I learned a lesson
there if you’re going to do an interview
people want to do it people actually
want to set up a good environment for
you and so William Quigley is one of the
first people who I asked to do an
interview he brought me into his office
had that quiet conversation with me i
took a tape recorder with me and that’s
how that’s how we got started that’s the
thing if you want two people will do
interviews with you and they’ll have
deep conversations right so tip number
one is why you finding your niche one
good interesting format could be
interviews I mean then you can find
video text whatever but interviews is
always and I would think you know when
you get a degree and you often you you
try to do interviews with people for
your final research in University and I
would say most of the time if I think
about my university that I’m old now but
if I University at a time well a lot of
people say yes come you know come in you
just have to do this university research
so interview open a lot of doors it does
open a ton of doors and I think anyone
should do it why did you choose video I
mean why some people choose audio some
people decide to do i do not just write
a post and the interview the email why
did you choose video
it was very easy I initially started
with audio because that’s the way I
prefer to learn i’m a long distance
runner in fact i just did 22 miles on
sunday i’m really proud that I did it
here in the streets and I was listening
to a podcast and audio books the whole
way through on my run so I love audio
but what I discovered was that if you
just put a piece of audio online people
don’t even notice that it’s there it’s
too small they don’t feel connected to
it so when Seth Godin came on I told him
that we could probably get a bigger
audience if we do video he said let’s do
video let’s try and video skype
basically has a plug-in that makes it
super easy to record I actually didn’t
even have to hit the record button as
soon as you called my interview a skype
account it started recording this
conversation for us all i did is a
little bit of editing posted online and
we’re done I want the simplest solution
right and I recommend that to anyone
who’s trying this I don’t think you want
to do writing because writing means that
you have to listen and then explain what
you learned in like translate other
people’s were explained other people’s
ideas on paper and you’re never going to
get their ideas perfectly right and it’s
always going to create a little bit of
friction I prefer to just have the
person say it and post it online for me
I want to learn in the conversation any
tips and use about tools that you
actually using or tools that you would
recommend if a company say okay I want
to do splitscreen interview oh where do
I start from we were talking about
before about I so recently this zoom dot
us I have no idea I have no connection
with them but I don’t know some I say
whatever the simplest tool is kind of
say what do you use what do you
recommend simplest simplest tool that
the thing is that unless you’re gonna go
high-end polished people don’t care
about the look but and you shouldn’t
care about the look it should be about
the ideas it should be about the
conversation it should be about you
getting to know your guests you learning
from your guests and the audience
learning along with you I don’t think it
needs to be all that fancy so for what I
use because i’m on a mac i use skype
everyone seems to have skype and i use
call recorder which is a program by ECAM
which costs like 20 bucks it plugs into
skype but I
seeing the huffington post use um what
is it google hangouts it comes with the
recording built right in you don’t need
to download anything you just go to
google hangouts you create the group and
you have a conversation keep it really
simple to about the ideas and the more
basic the software the more people feel
like they could relate to it like
they’re just listening in on a
conversation instead of watching a
production right and also i would say
Mike like the one that you have so a USB
microphone is always good for together
the right voice also USB microphones now
they cost I don’t know fifty bucks
hundred bucks maximum so you can get
great algae promotion so this is the
third power okay you find your niche you
decide the right format you say okay I
go for videos oh no let ask you one more
question about video why don’t you go
straight on YouTube for instance
everyone say our YouTube is the second
search engine in the war you have to be
there so but you doesn’t look like you
going to march on youtube or maybe you
will go I don’t know what why did you
decide and what are you designing about
it I’m not against youtube I just feel
like I want the I want the conversation
to happen on my site I want to get to
know the audience in a way that I don’t
feel I get to know people on YouTube
YouTube is great for for big reach but I
don’t really need that reach I want to
have a good conversation with a smaller
group of people also
the number one search engine is google I
show up with my wit videos from Wistia
on google and my image shows up I get to
control the environment that people come
to me on I also don’t just want someone
to watch my video and disappear I want
to build a relationship with them I use
a tool called Wistia which allows me to
ask for email addresses before people
watch the video allows me to get a sense
of how much people watch to see what
they rewind so that I know how what to
emphasize and what goes over well it’s
it does all kinds of cool things like
that it lets people if if it’s an hour
long video and you watch it on YouTube
and then you don’t finish it you come
back the next day you have to find your
spot Wisty and now I just saw they have
a tool that will allow you to
automatically pick up where you left off
I don’t wanna make it into a commercial
for them but that’s what I like about
your whiskey the great guys great
company crystal wash is one of the
speaker digital emissions I me tight I
totally agree with you very interesting
also for SEO reason could be a great
choice promotion how do you promote them
okay you did a lot of videos but then
how do you really start it now it’s easy
for you because I mean mixergy is a
well-known brand everyone knows Brit
mixergy in our industry but in the
beginning how did you really do it and
in 2013 is something that is still
possible to do oh yeah even more I’ll
give you 2 2 tips for promotion because
I know the problem that many people who
are listening to us have I had it where
I used to have a blog with my my the
site that didn’t do so well I couldn’t
get people to even read the blog I
couldn’t get them to read the blog I
couldn’t get them to use a site where
would I put my attention I said well I
have to let go of the blog i’m not going
to now promote two different products
neither one of them well and the problem
was i would write a blog post and then
have to wait for people to discover it
or go and tell everyone to go watch it
similar with any product you have to
create and then you have to go out there
and hunt for an audience interviews are
a little bit different if i do an
interview with Guy Kawasaki or Tim
Ferriss tim ferriss has these tremendous
fans online or all in the startup space
I do an interview with him his fans will
find me they will retweet me there is a
site that’s dedicated
order account that’s dedicated just
promoting things that the tim ferriss is
in so that that kind of promotion
doesn’t happen if you’re just a guy on
your own if I interview an entrepreneur
the techstars invested in David Cohen
the guy who founded TechStars is very
likely to pro to tweet it out the other
people who are invested who got
investment money from techstars tweet it
out to so the idea is if you do an
interview with someone that person’s
audience will find them we’ll find the
interview and and and then discover your
product that person will often help you
promote it the people who are super fans
are super connected to them will help
you promote it it’s it’s much easier
with interviews and it is with other
kinds of content yeah this is also great
too because if you get the right people
then I mean and if you create a great
interview this is another important
point that you always create you study
you do really well your homework in my
opinion you try to really go deeper with
all the guests so the interview is not
only about talking but you really go
deep and a lot of interesting things are
coming out from the interview then
obviously the there is value over there
so I think the guest is happy to share
and retweet everything and also his
community so Andrew I’m sorry I promised
two things for you to audience I’ll
quickly give the second one the second
one was I was active on a community
called hacker news which is a side first
for startup entrepreneurs lafond it it’s
a great site and they sent me a lot of
traffic because I just kept talking to
people who were on that poor big users
of that site and so when they saw that
my my articles appeared there they voted
it up I interviewed the guy who created
hacker news of course that audience was
going to vote up that interview I
interviewed other people who we invested
in of course that community was going to
vote it up and it really helped me get a
base and a base of solid people who I
care about and when I hear others say
that there that they’re building a site
like mine I ask them what’s your
community where are you talking if they
don’t have 1i can see a problem
immediately because that community will
help get you traffic but also give you
an understanding of what they want which
will help shape your product so I
promise two things there they are one
interview people have follower
more and more people have followers
today much more than they did last year
certainly more than years ago and find a
community to be a part of perfect Andrew
with all the digital domination summit
guests I always start to say before the
interview a we have to stay 10 minutes
50 minutes and then after so many years
in television where either you have 20
minutes and that’s it you know and then
if someone starts to say cut cut cut
that you have a microphone in your ear
and people say oh yes stop stop stop is
overs or and you always have this
pressure in this format I feel so
relaxed and I said no let’s eat
something is interesting just let’s talk
about it and so I want to just go a
little bit further with you to to cover
the last step okay or of your process
which is partnership so did you develop
during these years any kind of
partnership that supported mixergy some
web TV show a television show they they
work with affiliation or they try to
find media partners or some kind of
partnership with op zoom or you to me
for courses which was your way and what
do you recommend in 2013 on this doll uh
those two partnerships helped a lot I
helped you to me back when they were
just getting started needed people to
put courses on their new course platform
just this morning I looked on Twitter
and someone bought that course that I
put on there just to experiment with
them same thing with AB sumo an okay
games an old friend who i got to know
through interviews and and offline too
and when he started app sumo he needed a
course to put on the side and you needed
someone to lead it I did it he emailed
it out to his audience of I don’t know
what three-quarters of a million people
they got to know me that’s that’s huge I
also sometimes will do partnerships with
people who who have contacts with
entrepreneurs that I want to get a hold
of and they introduced me to them and
that that helps a lot we do a series
together Andrew superlux question i
promise i asked to all the guests what
are their best 3s
or what are their best three websites or
three platform on line platform for
doing business that they really would
recommend in this moment because I
always see that the kind of website or
app that you use on your phone every day
you know shape a little bit the way you
work and the way you you are rather
right now I’m going to give you a couple
of I’ll give you a couple of tools that
work for me the first is I use downcast
for listening to podcasts and actually
listening to any kind of audio it has
really good controls let me quickly
fast-forward 30 seconds or rewind 20
seconds if I need to and I could do it
just from the my iPhone’s clicker so if
I’m running and I have my iphone in
place I hit that button that’s near the
mic and I can fast forward by 30 seconds
or quickly remind say what did you say
and listen to that part over again
that’s incredibly helpful you also were
asking about websites I use a tool
called pipe drive what I like about pipe
drive is it forces me to think about
steps that I take in order so if there’s
a process that’s really difficult here’s
one how do you find a stranger get him
to find the right stranger who we want
to interview him get his contact
information get him to do a
pre-interview on our site get him then
to do an interview on the site and
publish it like all those steps if I do
it on my own I could remember it but if
there’s a team of people who are now
helping me we lose track of who’s doing
what with them and where each person is
pipe drive calm is a program that allows
me to lay out my steps in order and then
say okay this is my job to get him from
step 02 step one to put them on the
board which is find a guest someone else
takes that guest and invites him someone
else takes that guest and does a
pre-interview with them it makes it
really easy to collaborate and let’s see
if I give you one other one here’s one
that I just installed today I’m not sure
how much I like it but I think it’s
worthy of recommend recommendation it’s
an app called triage for the iphone and
it shows you one email at a time and if
you can respond to it right away you can
hit the reply and give a quick response
or you can flick it up and mark it as
read so that you never see it or you can
flick it down and say I’ll handle it on
my computer so very quickly you get to
go through your email
repeat the name triage triage all rides
okay I heard it on daring fireball this
morning I read it so I thought I gotta
get it and it was worth trying let’s try
excellent and reward our founder of
mixergy Andrew thank you so much and
good luck for everything thanks for having me on here
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