#422: How To Broker Deals Between the Humans and the Computers and the Dogs and the Cats w/ Oshri Cohen
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
fractional, cto, company, build, canada, startups, code, business, website, house, podcast, florida, big, write, job, linkedin, israeli, clients, bad, shit
SPEAKERS
Speaker 3 (47%), Law (33%), Eric (12%), Speaker 1 (4%)
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
0:00
Go away. We blew it sweat equity podcast and streaming show the number one
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
0:13
volume master
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
0:14
and another one comedy comedy slash business podcasts in the world. Ooh, wait, you
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
0:21
already did that?
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
0:22
I'm gonna keep doing these do. Did we win a new award? What's the newer
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
0:29
business podcast of the year? What was it
0:32
corporate history magazine
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
0:33
revision, corporate vision.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
0:36
We already locked up 2023 And it's not even done yet. Listen to us on iTunes, Apple podcast, Spotify. If you're listening to this in your halls right now. Go on there, subscribe, rate review, and then take the extra leap. share this knowledge with someone who you like.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
0:55
Do you think anybody listens to their nose holes?
1
Speaker 1
0:57
I don't know. I don't know how sound works.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
1:01
On verify.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
1:02
What I do know is that we got a couple of sponsors I gotta rip through if you need a website. Use Squarespace. It's the all in one. Website Builder, e commerce to build your brand. Don't let anybody dictate your message. Build your website, get the hook up, holler if you hear me with a link in the episode description. Call rail. You want to track all the calls on your website you have a lot of volume you want to you want to record all the calls for quality assurance, but like booj quality assurance and you actually look at
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
1:32
creepy not being creepy.
1
Speaker 1
1:34
You're talking to our guy all wrong you call rail call tracking
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
1:37
your Rodney Dangerfield
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
1:39
link in the episode description, Bigley sales CRM with marketing outreach. And now a lot of AI happened and then that does get the hook up. Holler if you hear me episode description has the link and lastly LinkedIn premium you want to see who's looking at you on your profile. You want to Yeah, your career advanced get two months free with a link in our episode description for LinkedIn premium. Let's get this party started No sweat
2:40
listening to the sweat equity podcast. Hello. Hello. Let me just put my earplugs on. And I think I'm gonna like this podcast. Oh, man. All right. I think I'm gonna love this. Because I can swear on this one.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
3:00
You can say whatever you do. Please don't hear the worst you got.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
3:03
Were First Amendment all the way. Where are you in Canada?
3
Speaker 3
3:07
I'm in Canada. Can you guys hear me? Well? Yep. Good. Actually was
3:11
better before the air pods? Yeah.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
3:14
No shit. Really? A little bit? The air pods delayed to it.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
3:19
Yeah, okay. We we don't trust Bluetooth for when you
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
3:25
give me wires. Give me that cord life.
3
Speaker 3
3:29
I feel Yeah. I feel Yeah, let me let me plug in my actual microphone.
3:33
That's cool.
3:34
That's much better. How do I sound now? Better? Better? Yeah.
3:40
Yeah, you sound sexy. Without Yeah,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
3:42
your voice is full. Hello.
3:48
Are you you're out of Montreal, right?
3:50
I am out of Montreal. That's right.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
3:53
Yeah, and you can't. In Canada, you can't say everything you want. So you're in our domain. Technically, you can say whatever you
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
4:02
will be published on an American site. I think you're good.
3
Speaker 3
4:05
Oh, yeah. Well, that's why there's no plug into that. Except for like the government force.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
4:11
Well, I know some comics had gotten sued. Yeah, for they come up from the states and go up there do gigs. And they did they don't know that part of Canada. You can't just say whatever you want. They don't have the First Amendment and so some of them get to do is different. There's I didn't go back. I'll just never do gigs in Canada again. Never go there. Again.
3
Speaker 3
4:34
It's a small market. I deal with startups. Even every startup here immediately says Canada like this. What are we in Canada? No. Too small of a market way too small, insignificant almost compared to the United States. Right. They're right next to us. Yeah, that's where the money is. All my clients are in the US.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
4:53
But Montreal is a very special city like it's it pulls people in I've been once and it was it's good. versions. It's yeah, it's why so
3
Speaker 3
5:02
so materials redeeming factor is that it will it used to be cheap. Real estate was really cheap. You could get a very nice house for 600 700 A year 700k. But it that's no longer the case. You know, a simple house costs you a mil. And you got maybe a door with a roof. No walls.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
5:24
Yeah, I don't know if that's, I think that's a lot of urban places nowadays, like we're in. We're in Tampa, Florida. And this used to be kind of a little like secret small city and now, real estate went up three times in the last, like three years in the last 10 years or so. tastic Yeah.
3
Speaker 3
5:42
Yeah, that's it. So it's, I guess, maybe worldwide but Montreal thing is like number four at this point. Well, worldwide, it's not just it's actually stupid people are
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
5:51
baseball team away from your city. Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. Yeah. We don't. I don't want to share I don't want to share with no, no offense.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
6:02
The failure to do the taxes as a player like you gotta file in Canada and the United States and all that.
3
Speaker 3
6:09
No, no, yeah. Yeah. i There's a lot of ex Americans who live in Canada, and they have to do like the dual tax return. Yeah. And they just do it out.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
6:18
Yep. There's silly money that loonies. We just don't like because it's all different colors. Yeah. Like that's Monopoly money. Ladies on your
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
6:27
money. In Montreal.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
6:28
I did see a stripper put an ice cube down and then screwed out water. It was amazing.
3
Speaker 3
6:35
Her mouth. No, that is that is a serious scale. Yeah. That's a that's an interesting so that's something you don't put on a resume.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
6:43
Well, it was something that was a Montreal delicacy. And coming from Florida, where we got a lot of strippers and I'd never seen something like that. I was pretty amazed
3
Speaker 3
6:52
though, because I you know, I've I don't know. I have no idea. I've never been to a strip club personally. Yeah, me
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
6:59
neither. Me neither. No, we were in strip club City. I went to win at 14 with braces and a cast an umbrella. Right? I couldn't look more like a child. Honestly. I walked in with a Swisher sweet like one of those shitty cigarette cigar videos. Your ID. Why don't you give everybody your plugs. Where to find you. Website social. Any anything else?
7:28
Sounds good. Are you recording this?
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
7:31
Oh, yeah, we we chew the fat like this man. Big time.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
7:34
Big time record.
3
Speaker 3
7:35
Okay. So this one applies to me. Yeah, yeah. If you follow me on LinkedIn, or if you're connected with me on LinkedIn, I pity your timeline, because I don't shut up. So you can find me on LinkedIn. There aren't that many Oxford colons right. It's very, very specific name. You can also find me on my website, our shriek Cohen dot M E. Oh sh ri, CH en dot. M E. M, don't go on. the.com one that's, that's a that's an actor and a model. Not me. Although people did ask me if I used to do modeling and I was very confused. I should. Calm was I should have checked if the.com was taken. You're better looking than the actor
8:19
model. Go
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
8:19
see this guy. Let's have a handsome concert. For real. I'm seeing all right. Let's see the other guy.
8:26
Look at that schlub.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
8:27
Oh yeah, you're way more handsome than that guy. He's up that he's gonna go to head.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
8:33
Oh, yeah, he's forehead. He's got low hair.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
8:36
You get an each buddy.
8:39
Like we have to do this like on a monthly basis. Good for my mental.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
8:45
Okay, fantastic.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
8:47
You can you What is it called? When you're in Vegas?
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
8:51
I don't know. You know, you're always doing Chesley don't tell him even if you know,
1
Speaker 1
8:55
residency job. Fuck yeah. All right. It was worth it. It was one of the No, it wasn't just at all just to let me know that my memories not all dogshit it is all dogs can get back there. I don't feel well. Okay. And I might be giving you strep. That. That's beside the point.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
9:14
What we'd like to ask everybody the first time on the show. Well, we have a little pre question for that. Did you listen to the show before coming home?
3
Speaker 3
9:25
Yes, that's why I was excited. Oh, okay. Great. Look. Like Finally, one way I don't have to talk like this. You know, right. I've a natural voice. I get excited about things.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
9:37
That's good. We like enthusiasm, but also like there's not often a lot of authentic conversation around business. And yeah, I find
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
9:47
at least publicly in the ones in the honest the in the meeting rooms is oftentimes
1
Speaker 1
9:53
gross and the most crashes isn't from comedy clubs. I've heard over 15 years it's from like CEOs. For just knowing to not laugh Yeah.
3
Speaker 3
10:05
Everyone in corporate in who's worked in corporate has been has been in those in those meetings. Right? Right. That's why so many so many of them get in trouble. Well, I mean,
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
10:14
you know, shout out Papa John's what? Actually he was just referencing that word. But that's how it got kind of manipulated.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
10:26
They want to they don't want to I'm gonna jump into their fast food restaurants sympathize horrible people that you want to defend. Nobody he was quoting from Subway, you know, I watched
1
Speaker 1
10:39
it's like the Louie CK joke about it. It's like, the news reporter goes. And then he said the N word and ran away. And it's like, now you've got it in my head. Right? They may not say it, right. It's it's he was like quoting it. And then someone was lying.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
10:55
The bit was about the word, the term of the N word.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
10:58
Right. Anyway. Good dovetail right into our question for you. What advice would you give your 13 year old self?
3
Speaker 3
11:09
Oh, one advice quit school
1
Speaker 1
11:12
this. That shouldn't have, like uppercut. Yeah, that question that shouldn't have caught you from? You're like, Oh, I didn't listen four minutes. Within that hard. School. quit
11:26
school. For me. For me, school was very difficult.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
11:29
We're where are you? Where you grew up in Canada.
3
Speaker 3
11:32
I grew up in Canada. I was born in Israel, but I grew up in Canada. So language and whatnot. And, and we found out now that I have dyslexia, right. I didn't know until, like, a couple of years ago when my son was diagnosed with it. And I'm like, that was me. That's why I hated school. But I loved learning. Right? And school is not learning. It's, I don't know what that is. They teach you some key things, and they try to fit you in a box daycare. Because at 16 while working while while, in high school, I started a business and I've been working ever since I only worked for employers maybe 10 years of my life. You know,
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
12:09
I gotta go to Tel Aviv. I love Israeli people they get
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
12:12
I think I think I do. Yeah, I think about it. The Israelis
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
12:18
on the podcast, rarely women are the, like hottest by far, because you have to get the military right to their
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
12:25
right. So they're a little scary.
12:27
Now they're in shape. They just got that.
3
Speaker 3
12:31
Just like getting kicked out. And they can kill you in like three different ways. Right? So you know, you can respect that.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
12:36
I bet I'm secure enough to be the little spoon sometimes in the relationship.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
12:39
Everybody wants a spoon every once in a while your
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
12:43
coffee stir maybe? Yeah, everyone's every country around them has tried to take them over for so long. And it builds hard people. And that's
3
Speaker 3
12:53
such that's so so that's the business secret in Israel, right? So so why are their startups so wildly successful, on average, they have fewer failures, and more big tech of every other country that is not the United States, they have some of the most some of the biggest exits, because their founders don't think about my local market. Because the local market is too small. The country, even the regional market is hostile entirely. So they have to think Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, Asia, all at the same time, because they don't have access to that. So there's it could be immediate, where a lot of companies build their business. I want to serve my local market. And I'm gonna do well. Right. And so they're limited in how they grow. The other ones, they're thinking globally, right from the get go. Right, right from the get go. We think globally.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
13:46
Do you think Waze was made by an Israeli group? Just to know how to get around better than everybody else? Just just to escape anything? Yeah,
13:57
it probably, you know, it probably happened.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
14:00
Google, but there's a lot that comes out of there, which is, I
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
14:05
think that that's a very profound
14:09
and prolific, not you.
14:12
You know what the other secret is?
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
14:14
And the observation is really interesting to me that I've never even thought it was born and raised in America. You know, it all starts here for us, USA baby like and thinking you got to think globally from the start. Interesting.
3
Speaker 3
14:28
So So yeah, exactly. You got to think globally from the start. And on top of that, you know, our, you know, in North America and all the safe countries, you turn 18 years, and if you're still a kid, you still just wrap it around, right? Yeah. Maybe you go to college, you party all the time and whatnot. But over there at 18 They put a gun in your hand and now you have to possibly manage, you know, a billion dollars worth of times at the age of 18 and a half.
14:55
Yeah, well, you already had a muscle.
3
Speaker 3
14:58
I mean, nobody likes You know, you know, the dichotomy there 15 years ahead of anybody else at 18 they have responsibilities that are real. No. Did you you know, wash the floor at the 711?
1
Speaker 1
15:14
Yeah, there's a trade off worth it. It's a very serious kind of controversies. Right.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
15:18
It's a legit danger.
15:20
The funny Jays that we get the
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
15:23
Mel Brooks with AK 47 in his hands.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
15:26
South Korea and Israel to me are kind of similar that way. It builds hard people hard movies and films come out of their TV, because everybody's around them is trying to take them over. And then you're you're right, like, early on, you're an adult adult, when you're 18. You're not like, I need to be on my mom's cell phone. Till I'm 30 Because I shouldn't pay for that. You know, it's like,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
15:52
I've only killed one person. Right? Right.
15:58
It's a different ballgame. That's for sure.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
16:00
Yeah. So do you find the Israeli upbringing, at least part of it kind of guided you towards your kind of, let's say? How do you attack things do you think feel like you have that kind of in you? Yes. That. Like, yeah, you know,
3
Speaker 3
16:21
yes. Because Because my my parents, you know, instilled it in me. Right? That's how they dealt with us. That's how they talked to us. I worked as a plumber, with my father starting at the age of 13. I saw how he negotiate how we work how we did everything, right. And so in his as Israeli as it gets, well, not really kind of Israeli Moroccan because
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
16:41
I'd like to see that contest.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
16:47
Yeah, no, I mean, that it, I was gonna say, parents that come from another country have kids in the US or Canada. They're not like, Oh, we're leaving that behind. We're gonna leave that attitude. But we're, we're here now. They bring that shit with him. And
3
Speaker 3
17:05
of course, because that's the shit that actually built half of America right? It's all immigrants, small businesses. Boy that grew to be you know, they came in it's like, you can't find a job. I can't speak the language. I'm open the restaurant.
1
Speaker 1
17:16
Yeah, we kick the shit out ourselves for being racist. I'm like, but look at how homogeneous all other countries are compared to the United States. It's easy. Yeah, no, we kicked the shit out of her cell we have low self esteem and high self esteem at the same
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
17:34
time, USA, they will be like, God, we gotta get together. You know, like, that's, that's our kind of duality, right? We're never satisfied kind of thing. But you know, I'm interested in this fractional CTO or fractional CMOS. But the way it's positioned in the bio I read your your in this is kind of figurative, I guess because you're not an attorney, but says you're a lawyer for other companies to find their their dev teams outsource them to you.
3
Speaker 3
18:08
So So yeah, so broke. Yeah, so fractional CTO is a is a big, taxing technology consultant or business consultant. It's massive. It's there's quite a lot of varieties and sub specialties within it. But the fractional CTO The reason why I even created this, or not created but I launched the practice within it. It was created a few years ago, but it was actually named, called CTO as a service back then. Right. And so the reason I did this is because I realized in my experience in industry and with clients that most companies don't need a full time CTO. That's the reality. They just don't need one. Because a CTO does strategy. How much bloody strategies and small business business need to do is how you host your website. Bleep off. Like, and they hire, and they hire people full time for this. I mean, yes, I'm being very facetious. And, and
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
19:12
it depends on scale and scope of the company. Yeah.
3
Speaker 3
19:16
You know, there's a lot more to do. But that's the reality is the reality is that you don't need a lawyer in house. If you're a small business. You don't need other strategic executives, unless they're actually going to do work that they're supposed to do and have to write but yeah, yeah, exactly. Technology is built up. It's maintained, but it runs at a scale that will surpass your business any day of the week. Because there's effectively unlimited scale. Other operations like sales and whatnot. Yeah, you need you need a full time sales exec to organize the whole thing.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
19:49
The one thing can't sell. I mean, it makes a lot more I think a fraction of the sales team they can't sell. Look at these numbers. Does it make I think a fractional CTO makes more sense than a fractional CMO. In terms of like being fractional, I think it just because the technology side is always a lot of upfront stuff. And it can be set and forget, for a while. I know you want you dream of that for marketing stuff. I mean, but like realistically, like that stuff has to be refreshed regularly,
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
20:25
if the latest chart was a graph, it would look like a ski slope with Sure,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
20:29
yeah, but I'm saying, I think the technology side is much more able to be fractional, in
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
20:38
a company, that's a software company, you might need someone that's more hands on than someone that is a if you're,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
20:45
but even still, I don't even think that would apply. They'd have their own r&d guy.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
20:49
Well, if they were to, if the seat if they wanted to see to do I'm picturing the CTO would manage that team, but from you know, day to day kind of thing, if it's an app that has so users that kind of,
3
Speaker 3
21:02
yeah, so So and, and the problem with the whole CTO label is that especially when used in startups, it's has a bad definition. Not lost, it's not a bad definition, it has a non static definition, the job role evolves. And I always say, it evolves over four phases of the business I used to call or generations of the business, I should say, okay, at first generation one, you just started a business, your CTO needs to be an engineer, he needs to shut up and code while that job, let's be nice, he needs to code, right? And design,
21:40
he can mumble drums,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
21:42
you know, but keep it down. As long
21:45
as you know, that's it, as long as he listens to Rammstein, it's
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
21:47
fine if you if you need to, if you if you need them to shut up, just get a bunch of toothpicks thrown on the ground, don't count them all up. So
3
Speaker 3
21:57
you know, I'm a developer, like, you know, and I make I'm making fun of us people, but it's true, you need to be there, you need to be coding as as much as humanly possible, right. So that's the first year or two. Now, what's coding software development is a is a creative process. You can't you can't just code all the time, it's too much, right. And creativity is one part of the brain. Now, as the company as the company graduates, to the next generation generation to the CTO needs to become a manager, you're stopping creativity, something you probably love, because this is what you do. And developers, the good ones at least and the happy ones love their job, then they love to be creative love to call. So you're asking now an engineer, start managing people process money, the team, now start thinking in meta about how the business is impacted by mine decisions you haven't taken with them.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
22:57
Never, ever just never do it. Right? Most most people at that level, they go, I got it. I'm gonna win this personal communication.
3
Speaker 3
23:08
And you know what happens? These these goes up, go CTOs are so many, that there's quite a few of them, who have left the company after a year and a few months, invested their share their equity, right, their shares or whatever, and, and moved on to the next company. And they keep doing that over and over and over and over and over. It doesn't make any bloody sense. So now the person is a manager, generation three, could be a year later, after birth of some startups, here's $50 million, we'll knock yourself out. You're going your might even skip monitoring go directly to leader because now you have multiple teams and managers and people under them and processes. Like you are coding before. Hey, it was you in the screen. Now you have a company to run. Right? Most most startup cities do not make it past generation one. That's it, they stopped there. And then they hired their big boy CTO, starting at generation three. Makes sense? Yeah.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
24:09
Going from specialist generalist kind of thing. player coach for and sports people.
3
Speaker 3
24:17
Yeah, and the fourth generation. And the fourth generation is your visionary. Like you got to think shit up. Now you're going back to Creative. And you need to be a great engineer to understand that you don't really need to have been a leader or manager and anything like that, because you're beyond that. You've got vice presidents that will deal with everything for you. And you just think of strategy. You know, many people want to skip from generation to generation for it doesn't really work that way and in their role. So that's why so many CTOs in startups just don't survive, or they burn up completely and go back to being a developer.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
24:53
I would add also, one plus of a fractional C suite executive is If you're better at strategy when you have a couple of clients going at once, like or in a year, say, but just if it's an interim CEO, CTO or CMO, whatever we're talking about interim fractional, or fractional where you're kind of popping in once a week or half a day a week, or something like that. I constantly will go, Oh, I was doing this over here. I want to try it over here. Because I think it'll work. But that's a product business as a service business. But I think I think that strategy will apply over here. And I get that I've gained a lot of like, chess knowledge almost that way.
3
Speaker 3
25:37
I did. I wrote a post on LinkedIn that got some heat. And I said, while your traditional CTO 40 years of experience worker three to four companies recently knows what he's doing. Good. Right. Fractional CTO 20 years of experience 35 Different companies, five different industries. Every business model imagine imaginable. Yeah. Well, there's, there's, there's knowledge there. You're you're paying for that knowledge. And that's what you're going to pay almost close to 400 an hour. Right. That's, that's the thing.
26:12
That's gonna charge.
3
Speaker 3
26:14
Yes. What do you need? Yeah, absolutely. Entrepreneur. Yeah, they don't respect you. They don't. I used to charge much lower once. When I raised my prices. That's when I started started signing deals. Yeah,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
26:25
that's a common thing. We've heard that we need to listen to that one day, you don't have enough revenue, double your prices, boom.
26:32
And then people more people sign because now they respect your
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
26:35
perceived value. Well, we have the thing where we do the work in our industry, and but we're not great on the business development side. Because it just it's, that's a that's I hate a lot of the salespeople in marketing. I know. I hate them. But we got to get over that. But anyway, but I'm saying like, it's one of those things. It is a weird, it's feels counterintuitive, almost. It's just like, raise your prices, you'll do a lot better. And we're like, hey, we'll do it for $1. That's how it used to be.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
27:07
What I did not agree with that strategy.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
27:10
I didn't either, but it's you know, got to keep the lights on and then fledgling marriage. We got that out of the way. So a lot of dead weight. 130 pounds lighter. So what the front with a lawyer, it says, Think of me like a lawyer, basically, you're going into kind of vet, you're playing the middleman, as the fractional CTO to find the correct deaf team. You're going in? I imagine you're in a pinstripe suit. You know, going in, they're going on the tech wizard. Doo, doo asked, going in there.
27:51
Actually, probably with a dress shirt and underwear, but
27:54
Okay, okay, risky. This could be it could be a
3
Speaker 3
27:56
dream, or it could be the reality of life right now. Are we in the middle of may or may not be wearing pants? You have no idea.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
28:03
The same these.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
28:05
You don't know what we got. We're in Florida. freakier over here. That's even worse. But I'm saying like, you're coming in as what we used to call kind of a high end consultant of sorts. But consultant is such an elastic term, the fractional movement, it's kind of picking up steam a little bit, are you going you're going in and going, Okay, you need these, this kind of team price that can deliver it on this schedule, that you're coming in quality, cost delivery, that kind of thing, right? And vetting
3
Speaker 3
28:38
Exactly. But I also what I also do is I also design the technical solutions themselves.
28:44
So you build an architecture, building strategy,
3
Speaker 3
28:47
architecture, technical architecture, the whole thing. That's why I'm a fractional CTO, or CTO, actually a CTO should be half business half technology, there should be the master of both worlds. Agree, combined, because there is no technology. There's no business without technology, there's no technology without business. There's the like, it's it's one in the same. You have to understand how it works.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
29:08
Yeah, we've said it with with clients ago, I want to know the company goals, and they're like, What are you talking about? You're like, you don't have come on
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
29:14
girl business. But my company goals. She asked me that personal question. Give me a
29:19
revenue number that you want to hit. Why? No, five years? How
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
29:21
dare you?
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
29:22
We don't know. You know, like, you never read a business plan. No,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
29:26
you don't know. Do you?
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
29:27
It's like, what the what? What do you want to do with the business so we can go in lockstep with you? Yeah, yeah.
3
Speaker 3
29:34
And yeah, if you tell me if you if you hired me to tell me what you need, right from the get go, you already made a mistake. That's the thing. It's for me to figure out what you need. Yeah, right. Don't Don't come to me with like, now. I have so many clients, because what I did what I do, the service you're referring to was fractional CTO, which you know, is I'm two hours a day everyday with a startup or a midsize company. I'm their CTO. I meet with everyone with a direct cuz like managers say, and you know what the reality is when people ask me first of all, I can do it all in two hours a day. How much work do you actually think people do? I love what's important meetings, good workers. Yeah. It wasn't BS meetings. Yeah, I know. Hours of focused work,
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
30:17
right. Our friend of the program, de nacre says you get, at best about average six hours of a good employee.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
30:24
That seems high to me. That's the right. That's a high right. And they've mastered how to look like they're working. they've mastered how to take their mini breaks,
30:32
we talked about a 12 hour day, you know, that kind of right?
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
30:37
Yeah, you're taking a two hour lunch, too.
3
Speaker 3
30:39
Right? So so the service, you're, you're referring to is, I represent clients with their dev agencies. So you hire Davidge, on your website, and in app build, I need this, I need that. And they'll go in and just build it out for you. And they'll charge you monthly until it's built, and so on and so forth, and you got a product. But probably 100% of the population doesn't understand how software is built. They don't get it. They don't know. Right? And so they'll go to these divisions with it, this is what I want. And then they'll be surprised why it's a quarter million dollars. And when they say, You know what, yes, I'll make an investment. They think it's a good I there was a good idea, whatever it is, right? I'll make the investment. And then what they get is a subpar product that's late, and they have to pay an extra $150,000. So you have 400k with a shitty product. Now, the problem with that efficiencies is they have zero, usually most of them, most of them, there are a few that will say no, I can't do this for you, because we're just not good for them. Right. But a lot of them want money.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
31:47
Right? Most of them the most insecure industry there is they're all just like you, we could do it. Now we could do that totally we can do. We can Google that, right? So
1
Speaker 1
31:59
I figured this stuff out all the other stuff before this, I
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
32:02
can figure this out.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
32:03
Everybody else here is like, Man, I can do it. I'm jacked up on Ritalin, who's doing
3
Speaker 3
32:09
so so. So they do that. And the devotees, He has no incentive to reduce the cost. They have no incentive in quote unquote, building it, right? Because there's a way to build software. Right? There's a proper way to build software to write the source code, we have standards within the industry, it's not enforced by a government as it could never be. But it's enforced by the community. Most dev agencies don't follow that. So the code you get is shit. It's not it won't scale your business, and 99% chance you will have to rewrite the entire thing. When you get when you start getting any, any sort of traffic. So I come in with an in between the founders, the president, whatever, the company, project manager, that one something built, and the dev agency, and they talk, the client talks to me, and the dev agency talks to me, and I translate, and I and my job is to protect my client against the the dev agency, because there are their business model implies that they don't want to help they just want to build it and get paid for it. It's hourly, this is how it is. Why would I Yeah, it's yeah, it's transactional that way, right? Because I don't hire the dev agency, I don't hire the devs. I don't even offer it as an option. If I tell you, Yes, you need to spend that money, or no, you don't. And let's write it this way. And let's make sure that they do it that way. And so on and so forth. I could save you 50% 60%, sometimes, right, and ensure that the dev agency actually wrote the code correctly. Which is, which is one of the things that most clients don't don't know, the way you get the code back. And the way it runs, will, will say whether will will will confirm whether you can actually transition that over tweet, employee the code, or you have to completely rewrite it because it's nonsensical. And most people go to completely rewrite. So they'll spend half a million, whatever, right? And they'll lose it, and they'll have to redo it again. But if you do it right, the first time, it costs more, yes, and that it should because software is not cheap. And you have more chances of success, and my job is to reduce your bill. That's my job.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
34:46
What would you say your biggest you personally your biggest value add is communication. You're a good communicator.
3
Speaker 3
34:55
Yes, I can explain something I can't speak any technical concept and in a non technical way, I'm actually writing a book about this right now.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
35:06
Great. I mean, that's something I've been saying. That gives me a self serving question because
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
35:14
I feel like I'm like, What do you make sure be best friends? You
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
35:18
think you're good at that? You're gonna always question that kind of thing. But it's like, there's value in that, for sure. Especially, but I'm saying like in when he gets into technology, there's such a knowledge chasm. Because out, while you're talking about that I was thinking about, Okay, what's a metaphor for? What do you say?
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
35:35
It's about metaphors. Building a house? Yes.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
35:39
But building a house might need to have a little bit more. Now most people have a little bit of knowledge on you know, what to look for? In the foundation or
35:50
shed? Did you read my the first chapter of my book or something?
35:53
No, we're just,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
35:55
rarely we have to.
3
Speaker 3
35:58
That's exactly that's the that's the the analogy that I make. Building a house. Every aspect of building a house is found in software development, literally every aspect and every decision that you make at the beginning impacts a decision you have to make at the end. Yep. Or you'll incur very heavy costs of rebuilding and moving a wall. You know, yep. You're coming your house coming down? That, that? Yeah. You didn't mark that wall as the load bearing wall, you didn't know. So you took it down and variable, your whole system went down, buddy,
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
36:30
look, we bought a house, we bought a house in 2015. And Mike knew
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
36:34
not he and I Yeah. To be clear,
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
36:38
yeah, and bought a house one day, knowing that the code wasn't all the way quality, but it was, it was 90% of the way there. And we you know, kind of, we just wanted to get it, right. I feel like
3
Speaker 3
36:50
as long as you know, right, like you knew in this case, and saw the damage is not gonna say, Hey, by the way, pitfall is over here, and the dead bodies are in over there, right? But
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
37:00
I knew what I didn't know. And I tried to coach myself up as much as I could, for when we were going to buy to look for things you know, I didn't need to be a builder, but I needed to be able to kind of see it, you know, and point it out.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
37:16
Right? Well know what kind of bugs are flying around the house and stuff?
3
Speaker 3
37:19
Yeah, most people know how to build a house. They have a basic idea. You did you do this? If I asked you how is software built you wouldn't maybe use the word but most people will not be able to even say you start with
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
37:33
googling it.
37:35
Well, there's there's no HTML TV
3
Speaker 3
37:39
No there isn't there is you know there's the lgt has a Home and Garden Television still exists? HGTV
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
37:49
Yeah, bro what a record of white women drinking white wine going to do during the day.
37:54
television at home I rent DVDs that's what I watch
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
37:57
DVDs Whoa, she is in the matrix backwards. It's
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
38:01
Canada dude. Oh, yeah.
38:03
Streaming yet?
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
38:05
No, it's gonna drive for hours read by
3
Speaker 3
38:08
Netflix kinda is garbage. They don't have half the content that Netflix US has whenever I go down to Florida because my people we migrate south in the winter to Fort Lauderdale something otherwise I think I'm pretty sure they just shut down the city when we're not there and by Fort
38:23
Lauderdale that you mean boca?
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
38:26
Why is that funny? Why are
38:28
you because there's a lot of
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
38:30
love and oh, you know now you don't want to say the word juice.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
38:35
I never I was saying James the whole time. I'll say I'm so I've been called by so many people in my life that no you haven't Yes.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
38:43
i How you say that? You say that? You want that so bad. I've never heard it. Yeah, then you Mazel Tov and then you just bounce to the next thing. Nobody's buying it
38:57
it's coming up in September. Okay
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
39:00
can't sell high holy days. I can't be there.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
39:03
Look man he's nauseous right now we gotta go Yeah, bro
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
39:15
can't stop. Although if you're in Florida and you gotta let us know. Come over. Come over to the Gulf Coast day stop that symbol. stomp on it. Would you say
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
39:28
no I said I got a lot of buttons.
1
Speaker 1
39:30
Pretty good. Pretty good. Little late but pretty good.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
39:35
When I repeat it because Duncan over Yes. It seems late and I don't even like repeating it.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
39:42
I mean timings everything all right, we'll have to have you back on but if you come down to Florida, you got to let us know. Come over the the Gulf side of the state and anything Oh, how about this In one minute, tell us about the state of AI. To Japanese game show pressures on
40:09
right now it's a crock of shit.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
40:11
I agree. I fucking agree. There's too much stuff. Oh,
3
Speaker 3
40:14
yeah. Charge GPT is all the rage. But charge up is just a prediction engine and does a fantastic job. I use it all the time. But it is not designed for to replace work. It's not even designed to help you. Most of the time,
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
40:28
it should, should be when you search for something, that's how.
3
Speaker 3
40:33
Right so so the likes of charge GPT would be, I think the integrated into the big browser. And you can chat with the internet, right? And it helps to a certain extent. But it's it's nowhere ready to, you know, hurt employees in any way, shape or form. It will at most make someone 10% 20% more productive. I saw a thing not and not in a way that they can even replace the person
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
41:00
I saw saying it said that Chet GPT was asked a math question or some question that it has been continuously getting it more wrong as it goes along. And it does, it's not an intelligent I'm fearful of the Idiocracy situation where it's just like, the all the dumb people just keep having dumb, dumber and dumber and dumber. And that's what's happening with AI. What if that happened? Well, so
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
41:24
80% of the country will even sniff at it. So I think we might be safe, just by
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
41:32
word part of the 20. Yeah, but
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
41:34
we look at we talk shit about it, it, it gives you answers like an exchange. No,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
41:39
we're already on the robot list. Once they, you know, get by.
3
Speaker 3
41:45
I believe in the Holy cow. GPT. And I hope that our future,
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
41:49
okay, see, yeah, I agree. Let's pull up Pascal's Wager they do a thing where it's like the last thing you said, maybe number a bad word about the
3
Speaker 3
41:59
thing. You know, everyone's afraid that AI is gonna take jobs away. And the reality is that it can't write it can't write a proper copy for a website. It'll sound idiotic, and without any soul. A, you know, it can write a story. But, you know, it doesn't always make make sense. It writes code. Sure. And I use it for that, too, to try as as a sort of a help. Right? Oh, yeah, that's what it's called. That's what I need to type in our Member. Because I couldn't remember. But it's a tool. That's it. It's, it's just it's, you know, a driver assist. That's what it is. It's human assist. It's three. Without Us All right. Now the way the way I was explaining I was explaining AI, the way the current state of charge up in another podcast, and they said, if you're dumb ai ai will actually make you dumber, it will make it even much worse, but exponentially, right? If you're smart. It will it make you exponentially smarter, because you know what the heck you're doing. So there's a lot like I can write a whole application by just asking charge up write me code for this write me code for that. It will do it if I copy paste all of these into my system into my code. And and I don't actually know what it's doing. Like it's It's nonsensical you make it wouldn't make any sense. So if you're smart, makes you smarter.
43:27
That's it. Thanks for saying we're smart.
ER
Eric Readinger, Fractional ...
43:30
dumb people think they're smart dumb. Yeah. Like I'm getting smarter.
LS
Law Smith, Fractional CMO, ...
43:35
I'm pretty good. Thanks for coming on while I'm typing on again, because we we barely got to a lot of those bullet points we had for ESL. Appreciate anytime, anytime. Thanks, man. But you missed it.
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Otter Chat
Summary
Topics
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The number one podcast in the world. (0:00)
Introduction of the episode. (1:34)
Strip clubs and strippers. (5:24)
The importance of having an authentic voice in business. (9:32)
Think globally from the start. (13:40)
Fractional Cto vs. Cto as a service. (18:08)
How to be better at strategy when you have multiple clients. (24:53)
Understanding the business and company goals. (29:06)
The value add of communication. (34:45)
Why are you coming to Boca? Florida? (38:01)
