Ad Dollars Follow Attention: Agentio Founder Arthur Leopold | The Further, Faster Podcast

that I guess ethos comes from this like obsession of um wanting to go above and beyond and wanting to be the best and wanting to make sure that every single one of our customers like they're always

heard and we're always going to go >> do more for them than they than they expect.

>> And if you build the best teams then, you know, you can unlock that and you know it's paid dividends. Like we're

growing like crazy. We're building what I think can be one of the most important companies in the world. Um, and you know, hopefully building the best team in New York City.

[music] >> Welcome back to the Further Faster podcast. I'm Jeff Becker, general

podcast. I'm Jeff Becker, general partner at Antler here in New York. This

is the show where we talk about founding companies from inception to scale. We

talk to founders who have built great companies and those that are building them right now. Today in the studio, we have someone who's done both. He is the former president of Cameo and now the

founder of Aentio. Recently they've

raised $40 million series B from 4Erunner along with Benchmark Craft Alicor and of course Antler. Uh I

couldn't be more excited today to have Arthur Leupold in the studio. Actually,

I want to start at the beginning if that's cool.

>> Let's do it.

>> I think people that meet you um you're like the nicest, kindest, warmest person, but there's a competitive guy under there. And uh growing up, you were

under there. And uh growing up, you were actually a highly competitive skier among other things.

>> Yeah, I was. Um I grew up ski racing. I

have a twin brother, so that certainly helped uh with this like competitive just animalistic mentality that we had.

Um we were always on the hill. My dad

would just drop us off on the weekends and say like, "See you guys later. We'll

see you in uh six hours from now." Yeah.

even when we were like three or four years old and fell in love with ski racing. Um, and just had a very

racing. Um, and just had a very competitive edge [clears throat] from when I was a kid. Um, and I got into politics and found that there was something so fascinating about the

political world and how important it was. And um, after high school, I

was. And um, after high school, I actually ended up taking two years off before going to college to work for uh, the Obama '08 campaign. And uh through

my time there, you know, Obama in 2008 was uh I mean he was very much seen as like the outsider and I was here in New York City and I just entered for a congresswoman on the upper east side and

uh started to meet like a lot of donors and people in the political landscape and all of a sudden this then senator Barack Obama hit the scene

>> and like my competitiveness just got fired up again. And this was 2006 when uh MySpace and Facebook had just come out with groups.

>> Okay?

>> And my belief was that I could get people interested in Barack Obama by creating all these groups. So I was like the first admin of for like young

professionals for Obama and New Yorkers for Obama and all this cool stuff. And

then the campaign reached out. They're

like, "Hey, he's actually going to throw his first fundraising event in New York."

York." >> Yeah.

>> And I was like, "You know what? I want

to be the person that sells the most tickets. Let's go.

tickets. Let's go.

>> So, they gave me a they gave me a bundler link and I put that uh across MySpace and Facebook and lo and behold, I became like one of the largest fundraisers for Obama at as a seven or

as an 18 and 19 year old. Wow.

>> And I became the youngest elected delegate. So, I'd always had this like

delegate. So, I'd always had this like fury passion and and um belief that the the norm can just be like broken

through. And um if you you know if you

through. And um if you you know if you follow the crowd, you're going to get the same ex you're you're going to get the same output as everybody else in the crowd. But you if you're you're

crowd. But you if you're you're sprinting alone, you're going to see an entirely new world. Um or certainly if you're trying to sprint ahead of everyone and just always had that mentality.

>> Yeah. There's this idea that like to be better than average by definition, you have to be different. I remember when we were working at LinkedIn, there was this interaction we had and I asked you a question around like what does it take to be on the top of the leaderboard and

it was your answer was almost like so simple it was kind of silly like I used to be on a desk at 4 or 5 in the morning and I would work until you know 7 night if I did that at a tech company I would

have two three more hours a day.

>> Yeah, that's uh at LinkedIn people call me like the five quarter guy. Um, and

that was rooted from first, yeah, I went to Duke and then worked in finance for a couple years where, uh, got to work with my now founder and co-founder and CTO,

Jonathan, and, uh, my roommate at the time, GMO, who we both know, um, had worked at a hedge fund and then he went to LinkedIn and he started showing up

the apartment every single day with coconut water and snacks and like he was so [ __ ] happy. Yeah.

>> I was like, "Dude, what's going on? what

are you doing? It's like, dude, I just I just joined this unbelievable company called LinkedIn and I was working on a trading desk. Um, and I felt like a

trading desk. Um, and I felt like a caged bird the entire time. Like, yes, I was learning a decent amount. Uh, I

certainly was working my ass off and went to LinkedIn. He got me helped me get a job there on their financial services team. I remember the first day

services team. I remember the first day I showed up at 6:30 in the morning and I just like waited there for two and a half hours and nobody showed up. Uh, and

then, you know, of course, I stayed until 7 every day. So, but I made that a routine and a ritual that every day I would get in, you know, by 7 and I would

stay until 7:00. And what that enabled me to do is get an additional 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening.

And when you add that up, that means that you're getting an additional four hours a day.

>> Mhm.

>> That's 20 hours a week, right? So,

everybody else is working one week, you're working a week and a half.

Everybody else is working a month, you're working six weeks.

>> And that continues to compound. And even

if you do just two hours more per day than everyone else, you have five quarters while everyone has four.

>> So you don't have to be the smartest guy. You don't have to be uh you know

guy. You don't have to be uh you know the the greatest seller. But if you're able to work just a few hours more per day than everyone else, you're going to learn [clears throat] more. You're going

to make stronger relationships. You're

going to be more thoughtful. And your

output's going to be that much greater than everyone else. So, I've always had this mentality of like always be working five quarters, let alone six quarters.

That's certainly translated to um you know, my the other companies I've been a part of and uh everybody at Aentio like certainly embodies that today.

>> Yeah. I mean, you blew right through the top of the leaderboard and into building Cameo as one of the co-founders. Took

that over a billion dollars during co I mean it just seems like that kind of work ethic is taking you to amazing places. But knowing you as well as I do,

places. But knowing you as well as I do, it's more than work ethic. there's some

there's some magic to it. Maybe you can just help people understand like some of your principles and the way that you think about operating beyond hard work.

>> Yeah. Um so I I left LinkedIn and uh two of my best friends from college uh started Cameo Devon and Steve and I joined as you know first investor, first

employee uh started as COO and ended up as president and saw you know the ups and the downs and everything in between.

And at the time like again we were building something that had never been built before. We were building a

built before. We were building a celebrity marketplace where uh you know every agent in Hollywood said there's never going to be a time in a million

years where a celebrity will have a $65 price tag next to their face on a website. And we knew that they were were

website. And we knew that they were were wrong. And we knew the, you know,

wrong. And we knew the, you know, establishment was wrong because we started to get these magical moments happening on a on a daily basis where people would get a cameo and they would start crying and they would start, you

know, laughing hysterically and they would share with all their friends. And

um it made us realize that you know if you become customer obsessed um then you can build product for people that is so unique and so special and make everybody

whether it's on you know the receiving end or or the sending end feel this like true magic and as we build a Gentto now one of the things I'm most proud of is you know you talk to our customers

either on the on the brand or the creator side and they [ __ ] love Aentio. They love our team. They love

Aentio. They love our team. They love

our product. Um, during our last fund raise, we had a a VC do uh like an NPS survey and across the board it was like 9 10 9 10 9 10. Um, they were like, "We

just don't see this with B2B companies."

And you know that that I guess ethos comes from this like obsession of um wanting to go above and beyond and wanting to be the best and wanting to make sure that every single one of our

customers like they're always heard and we're always going to go >> do more for them than they than they expect.

>> And if you build the best teams then you know you can unlock that. And you know it's paid dividends. Like we're growing like crazy. We're building what I think

like crazy. We're building what I think can be one of the most important companies in the world. Um, and you know, hopefully building the best team in New York City.

>> Yeah, I there's so much goodness to unpack there. Let's uh let's just ground

unpack there. Let's uh let's just ground the audience in what Aentio is while we're at this moment, shifting from from who you are to what you're building.

>> Yeah. So, I during my time at Cameo, yeah, I saw that technology could eliminate the friction between first fans and their favorite people. And the

belief was that uh there was this like thousandx opportunity on the B2B side.

Everyone knows that influencer marketing is powerful. Uh it's even more so

is powerful. Uh it's even more so apparent today than than it was, you know, three years ago. And the the challenge though for every marketer is that you know if they want to uh partner

with creators today, they have to sort of work through this like sea of um friction and opacity and uh manual

workflows and spreadsheets and 200 email long chains and like this whole process that frankly is very archaic. And the

belief was that if you could eliminate those those challenges and all the friction, um, not only could [clears throat] you enable marketers to work on stuff that's that they actually want to work on, which is strategy and

and creative, uh, but you could also shift paid media dollars to the creator space. And what that means is that, you

space. And what that means is that, you know, today there's about $800 billion that runs through Meta and Google and the Trade Desk. Um, but only about 10 billion dollars runs directly to

creators with another, you know, 20-ish billion dollars running through creator media. So, you've got $800 billion of

media. So, you've got $800 billion of digital ad spend, you've got, you know, 10 to30 billion of creator spend, it's about 2 to 5%. But then you look at

where the attention is today, and about 50% of attention >> runs uh is is on creator content. So 50%

of attention, 2% of ad spend. Uh that's

a huge opportunity and you know we um you know David Thcker obviously from uh LinkedIn he was VP of product at LinkedIn. He was one of the first uh PMs

LinkedIn. He was one of the first uh PMs on like Google ads and uh he's now VP of product at Google Deepmind um running Gemini arguably one of the most important product minds in the world and

you know I remember um when he he first invested in Aentio and uh you know he recently came out of the office for fireside um you know he shared that when he was building Google ads and he led

the doubleclick acquisition 23 years ago >> um the attention was shifting from TV and print and radio to the internet.

>> But there wasn't an easy way to buy the attention.

>> And you know, through the doubleclick acquisition, they were able to build the rails, the the piping to enable now, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars to shift from every everywhere else and to

enable growth for for every company. Um,

and they essentially built ads on the internet right?

>> Um, people didn't have to call up a random website and try to buy the upper right hand corner, you know, banner anymore. like you could just have the

anymore. like you could just have the machine do it for you.

>> Uh >> and he and us of course are very excited that we're building the same infrastructure for creator content and creator media and that's where the attention is. So as you think about you

attention is. So as you think about you know 50% of the attention and ad dollars always following attention. Um

eventually 50% of ad spend should be running through creators.

>> Yeah.

>> And if you think of you know where ad spend goes today the majority of it is meta in Google. But if 50% of it can go to creators, then that means Aentio has the opportunity to be one of the most

important companies in the world. Yeah.

And we believe that, you know, given the network effects we're experiencing, given the team we're building, given um the product that we have and and the love from both creators and customers,

we can be the company that enables all the capital to flow to creators. And

it's very much going to be a winner take all market. That's what we're building

all market. That's what we're building for every single day. Um, that means that we shift hundreds of billions of dollars of ad spend to creators. These

are the most creative people in the world. At the end of the day, these are

world. At the end of the day, these are like these are they are modern-day storytellers. They understand the

storytellers. They understand the algorithms better than anybody. Um, and

>> in a future state, like we're already seeing this on Aentio, but in a future state for every company, they're going to have an army of creators as their content machine. Yeah. And the creators

content machine. Yeah. And the creators are just constantly going to be um making amazing content and storytelling to their audience because their audience is so engaged and believes in that

creator so much. Yeah. Um and that's a really exciting future and uh you know that's what we build for every single day. Um and you know we believe Aentio

day. Um and you know we believe Aentio can be the most important growth engine for every brand and every creator in the world. Um it's a hard problem to solve

world. Um it's a hard problem to solve but we're solving it and we're having a lot of fun doing it.

>> That's amazing. I mean that you talk about attention and one of the seminal papers in AI is this paper attention is all you need >> and you're talking about the shift um that you know the trade desk saw and

that Google saw and now we're seeing another shift and maybe there's even the mobile shift in between right where attention went to mobile but we're seeing another shift now with LLMs people moving away from traditional search

>> and you're looking at this gap on the creator side how are you kind of seeing that future and this major platform shift that's happening in the market right Yeah.

>> Yeah. There's there's been like three major shifts in the last call it 25 years. One was internet, right? And um

years. One was internet, right? And um

the ability for people to access information, take action uh had never been possible until the internet at least at the speed of which they were able to do. Uh and then mobile and you

look at the um you look at the businesses that were built on top of mobile >> and the most important companies in the world today, right? Facebook, Google,

>> Uber, Door Dash, right? like our lives now revolve around our phones and the businesses that were able be able to be built on top of this infrastructure. um

we now have the opportunity to build on top of the most important infrastructure in history uh which is which is AI. And

since day one, since Jonathan and I started the company, uh, you know, we started it because we realized that not only, you know, did I have the experience from my time at Cameo Building, the largest celebrity

marketplace, but Jonathan had worked at Spotify and had automated all their internal content marketing, leading, you know, their their growth and innovation engineering org and had built for

marketers for the last many years and LM had just become publicly available. So

it was like the holy [ __ ] moment for us where all of a sudden you have uh like the marketplace experience, you have the adtech experience, you have LLMs that

can finally for the first time solve all the complexity and enable you know advertisers and creators to work together in a frictionless way in a way that previously wasn't possible. So you

think about the entire buying loop and the whole process of like the manual contracting and trying to find the right creators and you know doing brand safety and and all this stuff and uh LMS enable

us to do all of that and have the deepest richest understanding of creators through all the content through all the ad performance we have um and that's how we can enable you know the best brands in the world who are on

Gentio from you know Uber and Door Dash and Skims and Ollipop and Mint Mobile Cash App Chime like you know Farmer's Dog, uh, Bombas Socks, like literally you name it.

>> These brands can go from spending 50K a month to seven figures >> without additional bandwidth needs on our end or their end.

>> Um, >> we just had one of those brands clear a 500k budget in about three and a half hours. Wow.

hours. Wow.

>> You know, this is something that historically would take 6 months >> with through through through people. And

um that is the paradigm shift that is only possible because of AI and being an AI native company enables us to deeply understand where there's opportunity for

more leverage and how we can automate away like anything that today just takes a lot of manual work and manual effort and we embody that internally through um

the way that we work and our engineering team is truly like certainly the best I've ever worked with and and our uh our

bar to hire is insanely high uh to the point where it's been challenging at times, but holy [ __ ] these are the smartest, most uh curious uh hungry,

ambitious winners across the entire company. And it's it's so exciting to

company. And it's it's so exciting to see cuz you bring together, you know, 30 of of the greatest minds and all of a sudden like you can build an unbelievable company really efficiently.

um which has been so special.

>> That's awesome. There's so many threads to pull from what it means to be AI native to the product obsession that you mentioned and loving your customers. I

can even you're just rattling them off like they're friends of yours which they probably are. Um let's talk about that

probably are. Um let's talk about that first one um on the product obsession because you have all these elements coming together.

>> The customer obsession pieces. It's so

interesting because you and Jonathan knew the market and the customer extraordinarily well. Did you still

extraordinarily well. Did you still spend time obsessing before you built or did you jump right into building and and how do you maintain that customer obsession as you grow?

>> Yeah. Um yeah, we we went out and uh raised our seed round which you invested in as two guys in a deck. Like we saw the opportunity um and

I just started blasting people on LinkedIn. Okay.

LinkedIn. Okay.

>> Hey, I want to learn how you're doing this today. Hey, I want to learn how

this today. Hey, I want to learn how you're doing this today. And then um this woman Jacqueline who ran uh who runs Squarespace's entire creative marketing program uh responded to my DM

and was like hey would love to chat. So

then we spent a lot of time with her and just got to learn about like how they do things today and they they were one of the largest spenders on on YouTube um for YouTube integrations which is

amazingly performant ad unit where you know creator is talking for 90 seconds about why they love a product. And the

belief was that you know if we could build for Squarespace who is one of the largest spenders in the space um then we could enable any new entrant to come in

and have their capabilities. Uh so we just got as embedded as we could with uh people who were already spending in the space and then with people who really wanted to break into influencer

marketing and who understood the power of it and saw that all the attention is shifting these creators but like they didn't have the internal resources or they didn't want to build a huge team

around it. And it became so evident that

around it. And it became so evident that um we could also then if if we automated away the pain, we could tap into those paid media dollars rather than the influencer budgets.

>> Uh so then we started spending a lot of time with like the paid media teams in addition to the the larger spenders in the space and you we're on Slack with all of our customers. Um we're

constantly shipping product like multiple times a week. uh like

transformative changes to the product and uh we're just always getting feedback.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and that's been that's been purposeful. Uh it's been critical to our

purposeful. Uh it's been critical to our growth. Uh our customers appreciate it

growth. Uh our customers appreciate it and it's also helped us really narrow our ICP, our ideal customer pro profile as we've been building. So, you know,

rather than building for like the Uber enterprises of the world, uh, you know, the Coca-Cas or, you know, the Fortune50s of the world, we decided to build for the most sophisticated, nimble

in-house marketing teams where we could just get these quick feedback loops and iterate as quickly as possible. Um, and

that's worked. Uh and now that gives us the opportunity, you know, now that we've partnered with, you know, hundreds of of the most important challenger brands and and certainly the largest creators in the world to then go and

expand and and continue to build for largest enterprises.

>> I can feel in your answers the intensity that's like flowing through you and your team and the bar you have. You have this idea of like raising the bar every day with your team. You've mentioned the talent density and the bar you have for

who you hire. Just talk about that piece and building a team that can actually execute on such a big opportunity.

>> Yeah. Um, I'm a big believer in like it's easy to say like hire the best [ __ ] people in the world and like I am obsessed with hiring the best people.

Um, and you know my belief is that if you find people that are like insatiably curious that have a history of winning

um that are are collaborative like beyond means and um have this like internal fire and ambition then you sort of just like

point to the mountain >> and you just let them run. Yeah. Right.

And um >> you do so in a way where the vision is crystal clear to them. They the

opportunity is even clearer and they understand the goals they have to hit and then it's like let's just figure this out, right? Um I have this like

internal belief that it's almost like >> if you starve your team then they will build a farm, right? And um

that will only happen if you find the most resourceful, ambitious, hungry people.

>> Yeah.

>> A lot of people would say like, "Oh, we don't have the resources. I'm out of here." Right.

here." Right.

>> But the the team we've built, the people we hire, like, >> you know, let's not just build the farm, but like let's build like, you know, the culinary ecosystem of the world, the greatest culinary ecosystem of the

world. Um and that's super special.

world. Um and that's super special.

Yeah, >> it means that we're constantly learning.

Uh, everybody feels like they have a true say in in our decisions and they do. And it means that it attracts people

do. And it means that it attracts people who, you know, don't want to come in and just be given a deck and told to go sell, but like >> it's like come in, you're going to work 12 hours a day. You're going to work

harder than you ever have in your life, but you're going to have the most unbelievable access to um you know, the best customers in the world, the best creators in the world, this brilliant team, and you're going to have the

opportunity to build what can be one of the most important companies in the world. Um that's not for everyone,

world. Um that's not for everyone, right? Uh you know, we were both at

right? Uh you know, we were both at LinkedIn and we both kicked ass there, but LinkedIn's a cushy place. Um and

they LinkedIn, you know, built built an incredible culture. Um and there's a lot

incredible culture. Um and there's a lot of people who like absolutely thrive in those environments. This is an entirely

those environments. This is an entirely different environment. It is such a

different environment. It is such a unique uh period in time where over the next call it one to four years the entire world is going to transform

because of AI. And if you're not just willing to run through walls every single day and build something great and be the best teammate possible like >> you know go work at a 9 to5 somewhere.

Gentio is definitely not going to be the place. Um but uh yeah, the the team

place. Um but uh yeah, the the team certainly embodies that and it's special and and then of course they go out and find the best people and they they understand what what exceptional looks like.

>> You've alluded to this a few times.

Actually, you've said it directly. We

want to build one of the most important companies ever and the level of ambition in your voice, the way you've just described the team and the generational outcomes that are going to be created by virtue of this. Like it it just seems

like you're manifesting one of the world's greatest ad platforms. Is that intentional or it's just it's a core belief? Where's

belief? Where's >> uh >> where's it coming from?

>> I don't know if it's intentional, but it's like it just happens, right? I I I feel it in my in my blood. I breathe it.

I uh I'm just like >> constant, right? And uh

>> it's easy to feel this way when you're surrounded by the best people. Yeah. And

when uh you know even when [ __ ] gets hard like everybody just moves forward and and moves forward together um and you just you feel the wins like we have this agentio love channel and it's just

screenshots of >> client conversations and feedback and it's just like firing all the time you know and that's so special. Um and the impact that we're making is just

incredible. Like on the creator side we

incredible. Like on the creator side we had uh we had this like uh Agentio Summer Suare I think you right. Yeah you

came to it. Um, uh, Sarah Taffle, yeah.

From from Benchmark spoke and one of, uh, a big creator, um, spoke as well.

And then at the end of the event, this creator came up to me and was like, hey, I just want to introduce myself. My, my

name's Comic Drake. I'm a um, I'm a creator in the comic space. And like,

cool. Thanks. Thanks so much for coming.

He's like, well, I want you to understand like why it's really important that I'm here. I'm like, cool, tell me. Uh, he's like, well, right now

tell me. Uh, he's like, well, right now is Comic-Con in San Diego. And for the first time in like 12 years, I haven't gone to Comic- Con. I was like, "Oh, how come?" He said, "Well, I can afford, you

come?" He said, "Well, I can afford, you know, one trip a year, one business trip a year." And I wanted to come here to

a year." And I wanted to come here to thank you guys because you've changed my life.

>> Wow. And so I had him come to our our morning standup uh the the next day and he shared with the team that you know on YouTube today he makes x amount of money

which is enough to support him and and support what he does and you know he's gotten a condo and everything. Um but

sometimes there isn't consistent revenue >> and you know sometimes he has to drive Uber >> and he shared with the team he said you know I was about to like turn on my Uber

and then I received two bids from Uber on Aentio like two offers.

>> Yeah.

>> And he was like I realized I didn't have to drive Uber this month.

>> And it was such a a powerful moment for the team. Um and we hear this all the

the team. Um and we hear this all the time. Uh we just had a creator tell us

time. Uh we just had a creator tell us that they were able to entirely pay their kids' medical bills through um you know the deal flow that that they're getting from the platform. So that's

really special and that >> you know certainly motivates us and fires us up every single day.

>> Chills just listening to it.

>> Yeah, it's fun.

>> It's awesome. I mean easier to do to build a great team and afford all these things when you have the world's best investors on the cap table. You have uh Benchmark craft alleycore. You've got

4Erunner with your most recent series B, >> Antler.

>> Antler, don't forget, don't forget us.

Um, but you're an amazing fundraiser and you've surrounded the team with amazing resources and people not just to finance you, but to learn from. Can you just talk through, you know, maybe from day

one to now, like how you have methodically gone about building out that network and indoctrinating those kinds of people to to start this flywheel that you've built?

>> Yeah. Um, I've learned a lot from from fundraising and obviously through through my time at Cameo, we we raised a ton of money. We burned way too much money, a lot of incredible learnings

from from the time there. Um, but at Aentio was the first time where I was doing it alone. And um, Jonathan and I went out to market two weeks after SVB

>> blew up. You know, not not the best time to be raising a seed round as two guys in a deck, but we got it done. But uh

you know the I sort of have these um like some core principles around around fundraising that I think are um applicable to to any like founder at any

stage. But um you number one you have to

stage. But um you number one you have to remember that VCs are are trying to sell you to like take take your equity away

from you right and it's so important to find the the right investor. And I think more often than not, um, you know, especially as companies doing well, like you're getting consistently blown up by

by people reaching out and and investors reaching out and so important to enter the process um with clear objectives and a clear understanding of like who are

the firms or who are the individuals of the firms that you really want to work with. And I think that comes from

with. And I think that comes from knowing like who deeply understands your space and who can who would do you want essentially like you know almost as a

co-founder when times get tough especially for the early investors. Um,

I think more often than not, people just look at the firm name and they're like, "Cool, it's Sequoa or Benchmark or Andre, whatever. They're like, I want to

Andre, whatever. They're like, I want to go work with that that firm." But but they have or I I hope that that company, the firm invests in me. But

>> they might get a partner who doesn't know the business well or doesn't know the vertical well. And there are a lot of incredible generalist investors, but there's also certain investors that deeply understand, let's say,

marketplaces or, you know, marketing tech or advertising and um or or they deeply understand company building, right? And

right? And >> uh when you make that list of 20 30 investors, like that's where you focus >> and the rest is ends up just being noise.

If you start listening to the noise, then you get really distracted and you're consistently just taking meetings and here and there and you're not really running a process. So, my belief is like find the people that you truly want to

work with and you want >> to like go to war with every single day.

Um, hone in on that list. Don't get

distracted from the rest of the noise.

And then when you're ready to actually run a process, um, start having like those warm-up conversations. So, one one of the things that we didn't do well in

our series A, uh, I was just the entire team, we were just so heads down leading into it and it's like, I'm not going to take a single VC meeting. Um, and we

ended up getting preempted and then we ran this quick process and there were a lot of great firms that we were speaking with, but you know, we hadn't actually done the work

>> leading into that and honed in on, you know, the folks we'd really love to to meet with or gotten to know them just here and there through through a coffee or um, you know, having them by the

office. Uh but then we met we met uh

office. Uh but then we met we met uh Sarah Tavl from Benchmark and it was like the holy [ __ ] moment for us, you know, like we just

at that moment we realized that we could learn more from her than we could ever imagine. And

imagine. And everything just started to click on the marketplace side and uh I think it was supposed to be an hour meeting. It ended

up being like a four hour meeting that she's like come out to partner meeting on Monday. Um and

on Monday. Um and sitting in that benchmark partner meeting, you know, Bill Gurley was was there uh which was super cool and the

thoughtfulness of their questions >> was on another level and we had met with a you know a lot of great firms but >> the the deep understanding of

marketplaces and um you know the flywheel and you know not asking questions like oh what if other platforms do this but like how quickly can you spin the flywheel? how deep can you go on YouTube, right? Uh it's how

Jonathan and I were thinking about the business and we realized like they're benchmark for a reason, right? And

>> uh then we left the meeting and get text from Sarah and she's like um I'm going to book a flight so I can meet you guys at the airport, but I just want to get drinks at the airport, you know? Uh

>> that's amazing >> because we we were taking a red eye back to >> She bought a ticket to go through security to drink.

>> We met her at the airport. Um and yeah, that that was a really special moment.

They've been just unbelievable and we've learned so much from them and >> from from Bill and and um Peter and Eric and Cha and Sarah's just been incredible. And

then um we knew of course we were going to be raising a series B and uh 2025 was the year where we wanted to really lay the foundation

>> and have very clear product market fit um ahead of us expanding into other platforms. So we were laser focused on that like let's get to a place where we know we can build the best team

possible. We know that we have a product

possible. We know that we have a product that customers are ripping out of our hands and when we have that then let's go out and fundra. Um so what I did a

little differently uh leading into the series B was identify the the the firms or the investors that we believe could add

uh be you know incrementally valuable as we were building the business and >> started being open to taking a few meetings here and there. Yeah.

>> And then once we were launching uh meta expansion it became so clear that this is working and now is the time for us to really pour gas on the fire. We've set

the foundation. We've been incredibly capital efficient. like we still haven't

capital efficient. like we still haven't touched our series A. Yeah,

>> we ended up burning like a few hundred grand uh you know in 2025. Like sure if we really want to we could have been profitable but um we were in a position where okay now it makes sense for us to

go dominate the market and you know let's put an additional 40 million bucks on on the balance sheet. Uh and we were super fortunate in that uh Forerunner

came to came to us and said, "Hey, we keep hearing about Aentio in our board meetings and a bunch of our portfolio companies are using Aentio and they they

love it. uh you know, Away and Farmer's

love it. uh you know, Away and Farmer's Dog and Morbby Parker and Chime and uh we got to know them and you know they

and and couple other uh VC firms have just this rare unbelievable understanding of like consumer >> um and we were just so thrilled to to

get to partner with them. Um

but yeah similarly it was like know when you're going to launch a process build as much heat as possible >> during that time period um and you know make it very clear to the market that like

>> you understand what what you want to do with the capital. You want to make this quick um so you can get back to building and you know be laser focused on the the the partners that that you want to work

with. Um, the last thing I'll I'll say

with. Um, the last thing I'll I'll say about fundraising and some advice I got ahead of our seed is like everything's about heat, right? And and building

heat. So, uh, I remember uh somebody

heat. So, uh, I remember uh somebody told me have book 40 VC meetings in one week in your first week.

>> Yeah.

>> I was like, 40? That's crazy. Okay. So,

we booked 44 in the first week. Um, and

getting all those reps in and, you know, having all those conversations and honing everything, >> uh, made it so that by the time we were really ready to have, uh, larger

conversations or meet with with firms we were most excited about, like we were pretty dialed in >> and you I meet with founders a lot today or run into them places and they're like, "Yeah, I'm going to be kicking off a fund raise like next week or pretty

soon." And it's like, you know, going to

soon." And it's like, you know, going to be pretty soon. It's like, dude, you got to [ __ ] know when you're kicking it off and you got to have everything ready so that you can just concentrate period of time >> and then and then you can get back to

building, >> right? Like

>> right? Like >> get the capital, get the greatest investor you can and then go build, right? But if you just drag it on and

right? But if you just drag it on and drag it on and you're not building heat, um >> your your mind is not, you know, with your customers, with your team, and it can be really distracting.

>> It's interesting you use the word heat.

Some people ask like, "How do we create FOMO? How do we get this thing done? But

FOMO? How do we get this thing done? But

heat sort of implies that it comes from you and it's genuine and it's all the work has been put into starting that fire and keeping it going.

>> Yeah. Well, you you have to go raise when you have a great idea or a great product, you know, or you're about like it's very clear that things are working really well and the unit economics are good and now it's time to pour gas on

the fire, but you can concentrate the heat around certain moments, right? So,

you know, maybe it's ahead of a new product launch or right after new product launch. Uh, and then, you know,

product launch. Uh, and then, you know, get get those investors who you've been speaking with, having coffee with, like help them understand what's coming.

Yeah.

>> And then run the run the process like as that's happening.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and that's a really exciting moment.

So, I I think that's a that's a good way to to build heat and, you know, you're still going to get blown up by ton of investors. Uh, but just just stay

investors. Uh, but just just stay focused or else it it becomes allconuming. Yeah, you've done an

allconuming. Yeah, you've done an amazing job at it and always in awe of what you're doing and building and the kind of people you're surrounding yourself with. Given that you're around

yourself with. Given that you're around so many amazing people, I'm curious like who are you learning from right now and what are some of like the most recent lessons that sort of picked up that are going to focus your time going forward?

>> Yeah. Um,

I got connected to uh to Brian Halagan who's the founder of HubSpot through through Sequoia and uh the way that he thinks about culture building and company building I think is

super unique.

>> He's like a a no [ __ ] founder that has seen it all. uh you know IPOed his company um during a time where there was so much competition and you know nobody

was betting on HubSpot and you know he created like inbound lead genen essentially um and built built a really great product HubSpot today. Uh I've

I've gotten to learn a ton from him and you know consistently and we're super fortunate in that as we're looking to hire great people. Um

we're meeting folks that just blow my mind every day and uh I'm I'm really invigorated by that. Um you know there's a number of amazing adviserss that we

have. Uh you know Rory Patterson who

have. Uh you know Rory Patterson who runs global media for Expedia. Uh Venet

Mera the CMO of Chime. Jill, the CMO of Uber, like we have David Thacker, uh we have so many great people in our ecosystem, in our universe that we get

to learn from every day. Yeah. And um

you know, Mike Romoth, the former CRO from Reddit was in the office yesterday.

um they deeply believe in Aentia. Like

they understand that we have this generational opportunity and that we can build something that's so special that shifts hundreds of billions of dollars to creators that like really fundamentally transforms marketing and

advertising and and um like the [clears throat] when you do that you transform like an economic landscape, right?

>> Uh think back to the economic graph at at LinkedIn. And then lastly, especially

at LinkedIn. And then lastly, especially as we were building early, like Mike Gamson from LinkedIn was just Uh he's extraordinary. Um actually just called

extraordinary. Um actually just called him up recently. Had a question about team building and and uh A's and and CS and yeah when we should think about the

handoff and Mike just he'll never not answer the phone. He's just on it.

Unbelievable. He's so so great. Um

>> he's such a special person.

>> Yeah. It's tough to like pinpoint one person but just we we've been really fortunate that we've had amazing people surrounding us.

>> Yeah. Mike is one of those guys that I can remember four or five conversations where he just nailed exactly what was going on with me and what I needed to hear and gave me a sound bite that I've like carried with me.

>> Yeah.

>> For years. Just has that special power.

>> Yeah. He's the the LinkedIn mafia is real. It's amazing.

real. It's amazing.

>> Yeah. That's amazing. One I don't know if you mind sharing this, but I feel fortunate to even be in this group, but as one of your investors, you have this WhatsApp group where some of these people you just mentioned are all in there and you're sharing good news. Um,

I've I've worked with a lot of founders and very few do that and I'm curious where that came from or how you leverage that and why that is a practice. But

I've seen it from the sidelines just seemingly be very impactful for you.

>> You frankly uh need to do a much better job at, you know, engaging engaging the group. But I like to send like

group. But I like to send like quarterlyish updates, uh, investor updates that are more formal. And I

think it's it's good just to like pulse our investors and like let them know what's going on. like we just got this new incredible office or we just launched like our our first major market report um big hires things like that

>> just to to help people understand like where we're at in the journey you know whether they gave us >> 5k or you know 5 mil like

>> they deserve to know and I think it's important for um people who like really believe in us to to have um an inside look and we're also like a fun comedy

like we're doing cool [ __ ] you know So like get involved. Um and you know one thing that I think has been powerful on you with my investor updates at least something I've heard from um investors

who have read them all. I'll always make investor asks and then always shout out the investors who you know did >> who who helped the company. So, you

know, whether they're customer asks um or hiring asks and then, you know, the next uh the next update will be like thanks to, you know, Sarah Tavo for all

this or thanks to Jeff Becker for making these intros. Thanks to um you know,

these intros. Thanks to um you know, whomever for introducing us to this great company. And I think people

great company. And I think people appreciate that. I think investors

appreciate that. I think investors really like that. Um it also, you know, creates a little competition.

>> Um which we like.

>> It's amazing. I mean, just watching it from a bit of the sidelines, I get founders ask me all the time, "What do I do with an investor update? How do I do this?" And 99 out of a hundred send me

this?" And 99 out of a hundred send me this like, I don't know, uninteresting email with like a few blocks of information. But you've got this like

information. But you've got this like soundbite WhatsApp group with it's incredibly active with people that love you and love the business. And then you have this more I would call like ritualistic long form email update that

you do that is like a a deep dive into the business and understanding how it works and how it's going to grow, how you're going to transform the industry and build a generational company. And

it's just I I haven't seen someone do it quite as well as you. So I wanted to >> appreciate that >> this investor update. It's like it's such an interesting look at the community building you've done with your cap table. But I'm curious how you do

cap table. But I'm curious how you do that with >> your team, with your customers, like how are you thinking about community building at large?

>> Yeah. Um, I want to build like a community and a cult around Agentio, right? And, um, we're super lucky that

right? And, um, we're super lucky that we have like the coolest, most creative people in the world, like content creators, like famous content creators and, uh, the people who enable them and

enable culture to activate, like the greatest marketers in the world, right, and help businesses grow. Um but for so long there's been you know this massive

barrier in between the two uh uh you know all the complexity and all the friction and everyone incentivized to drive more friction and you know as we think about building Agentio like we're

breaking down those walls right we're enabling um brands and creators to connect with each other and build together and uh community is so critical to building a business and building

trust especially in a two-sided marketplace Right? You have people who

marketplace Right? You have people who are just constantly hit up from sales people on the marketer side and you have, you know, the most famous people who are just constantly hit up by everyone, right? And if you can build

everyone, right? And if you can build trust on both sides, uh, you can build something magical. A lot of that

something magical. A lot of that obviously comes through community. So,

you know, we're constantly hosting like creator CMO type dinners. um we're going to be doing this this summer retreat uh with you know 25 of the best CMOs and

and 25 of the the the biggest creators and those types of interactions I think are are really special um because everybody learns from each other and creators are at the forefront of

creating culture and marketers want to activate on that culture. Um, and when you build great community, you build more trust. And you know, Sarah Tavl,

more trust. And you know, Sarah Tavl, um, talks about the importance of trust.

Like she was the first ever PM at Pinterest and she says, you know, every decision that they made, um, they had this like trust bucket and they're like, does that put a quarter into the trust

bucket, right? And some decisions like

bucket, right? And some decisions like it would pull a quarter out of the trust bucket.

>> And especially in a two-sided marketplace, you just constantly have to be building trust. And you do that through >> great customer support. You do it through great product, through, you

know, differentiated product. Um, but

trust is everything. And it's so important for us just to be like maniacally focused on building this strong community so that when we launch new products, uh, you know, when we introduce new things to to the

community, like it's not a question of like should we do this? it's just like of course we're going to do this, you know, because they're building the best product in the world and it's solving our needs and it's helping us grow uh

both on the brand and the creator side.

So that's what we're laser focused on doing on the community side and um there's a lot more for us to do there.

But you know, it's really exciting that we have the opportunity to build this type of community with within a marketplace.

>> It's really incredible. I mean, what you've done in such a short period of time, the impact you've had on the creators and on the marketers, I just I've seen it firsthand, and it's just I feel lucky to be on the ride with you, and I always learn amazing things when

I'm sitting down with you. So, thank you for being here and for for building what you're building. And

you're building. And >> thank thank you, Jeff. You backed us literally before day one, right?

Literally. Yeah. Like uh when when you and I got uh got pizza at Mel's um I was like, "Dude, I I'm going to leave Cameo and I want to I want to solve this problem."

problem." >> Yeah.

>> And you were like, "You better let me put the first jack in." So, uh thank you incorporated.

>> Thank you. You, Antler, the the whole team, which has been awesome. like you

guys are always reaching out with great intros and um it's amazing what you've built uh and the companies that you've gotten to fund here in New York. It's

special.

>> Well, it wouldn't be possible without founders like yourselves. Thank you.

Thank you for being here. This has been awesome.

>> Love you, bro. Thank you.

>> This has been the Further Faster Podcast, the show where we talk to founders from inception to scale, those that have built great companies and those that are building them right now.

If you've enjoyed this episode with Arthur from Magentto, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe so that we can keep bringing more great shows to you.

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