Hyperbound Beat the Adam Bot Contest // LIVE BEEF Me & Mark Kosoglow Sep 3

Hey RB2Bers -

Santosh and I had a SUPER rejuvenating week in the woods, but we’re both very excited to be back in action.

It’s been another fun week.

Starting off with the build-in-public stuff:

• We launched our ICP tagging, made some tweaks to it, and ended up deciding to call it “Hot Leads” instead (change coming next week)

• We are going down the road of figuring out what Traffic Insights people want … I was really wrong with my first attempt a couple weeks ago

• We extended our full-featured trial period to when the user lays down the script instead of when they sign up for the account

Here’s our real-time SaaS metrics board, which are always the crowd favorite.

Now for the fun stuff!!!

Hyperbound “Beat the Adam Bot” Contest

Hyperbound created a version of me that is a total dick and you had to try to sell me 6Sense.

I couldn’t book a demo, which shows you what kind of salesperson I am, but MANY people could! (Ilija included - who is our Head of Sales).

They haven’t announced a winner yet, but Sriharsha (their CEO) put out a post with the leaderboard yesterday.

Did anybody participate?

Let me know how you did!

My BEEF with Mark - GRUDGE MATCH THIS TUESDAY

Mark and I have had a sparring match over the past few months on LinkedIn.

It all started when he called me out on a webinar for two things:

1/ Inbound-Led Outbound isn’t anything new

2/ Everybody will start doing founder brand like I am and it will stop working

As for #1, I disagree, but the same could be said for the Drift guys in 2017 with Conversational Marketing.

As for #2, I wrote a post about this last week (see below).

I invited Mark on my show, we’re going to settle the debate once and for all.

Tuesday, Sep 3
3pm EDT/12pm PDT

Sign up here.

By the way - if you didn’t see the RAP that Ding Zheng and I collaborated with last week, check it out.

And I have to say - Mark’s rebuttal was OUTSTANDING.

Why will Founder Brand ALWAYS work?

Last week Eli Rubel asked if Founder Brand will go the way of Outbound Sales (and podcasts). In short, will it lose effectiveness as more do it? Here’s why I think the best content will become MORE effective as more do it:

1. Bad content will push the best content to the top.

Social media algorithms disproportionately reward the best content. More eyeballs come first, then more founder brand success stories, then more people trying. Platforms will serve MORE eyeballs the best stuff, everything else won’t get organic reach. We’re seeing this to some extent with LLM’s and AI. The best art is still created by people.

2. It’s really hard to create great content.

Eli's comment came on a post where I pointed out why people are afraid to post on LinkedIn. It’s hard to be authentic, play the long game, have people hate you, and commit long enough to find your voice. 0.1% of people will actually do what it takes.

3. Millions of podcasts didn’t stop the good ones from growing.

Joe Rogan has more followers than ever… Eli talks about a distaste for the format, which I don't think happened. Yes, you probably can’t use a podcast to facilitate sales in the same way you might have been able to in the past, but for those doing it well, it is a highly strategic and valuable asset.

4. Unlike Outbound Sales, the delta between the top 1% and the bottom 50% is MASSIVE.

In Outbound Sales, there’s a playbook that performed for many years for mostly every company. The difference between an average organization and a great organization is maybe 2x. A great Founder Brand can get 20,000,000 impressions, while a good one might get 20,000. That’s 1000x.

TAKEAWAY:

The idea that people would get sick of the best Founder Brand content is flawed.

The best (think: Chris Walker, Sam Jacobs, Dave Gerhardt) are the best because:

1. They know how to consistently cut through the noise
2. They are in tune with the changing tastes of their audience
3. They are truly gifted storytellers

The Founder Brand explosion we are about to see is not unlike the explosion of creativity and culture we have seen in every other art form.

To stand out you have to keep putting out new, better, and different stuff.

Snoop Dogg describes the job better than anybody else:

“But I … somehow, some way
Keep comin’ up with funky-a$$ $hit like every single day …”

And that - in any art form - is what makes the best the best.

P.S.

Eli knows this. That's what makes him and his design agency NoBoringDesign so good. They are giving us a WILD brand identity. More to come. Definitely check them out.

And that is IT for the week!

Thanks for reading.

As always, if you made it to the end, and you want to make my day, shoot me a line back.

I’ll read it, and respond.

Have a great weekend, and as always …

Keep building!

Adam