#443 How To Creatively Engineer A DJ Career Into A Premiere Comms Company Pioneee w/ Peter Schroeder of Telzio
🎵🎶🎚️🎛️🎧 🇩🇰 Peter Schroeder is the founder of Telzio, Creative Engineer, and Denmark's Renowned DJ. From captivating crowds of 180,000 as a top DJ to pioneering Telzio, a pre-unicorn unified communications company, Peter blends artistic prowess with tech innovation, making lives simpler and more connected.
🦦 Chapters/Timestamp Jumps by Otter.ai - Otter referral link https://otter.ai/referrals/AVPIT85N
🟩 DJing and the evolution of the profession. (6:56)
🟩 Starting a phone company and creating a product for small businesses. (10:23)
🟩 Creativity, problem-solving, and ADHD in the workplace. (15:33)
🟩 Entrepreneurship, scaling, and work-life balance. (17:34)
🟩 Entrepreneurship, gratitude, and fairness in business. (22:31)
🟩 Marketing terminology and AI. (27:54)
🟩 AI, technology, and comedy. (33:09)
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Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 0:00
Hi, and welcome to the show
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 0:05
that made me feel better I knew that I fucked it up and then I knew that would bother me.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 0:11
Just do an intro like it's written by chat GPT Hello and welcome to our program. We're about entrepreneurship Indic jokes. This program is called sweat equity All right, let's for realsies we have a fun guest that's DJ turned entrepreneur of a telecom business Peter shrewd. He
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 0:33
talks like this all the time. He's like perfect embarrassing moments gonna blow your mind when you hear he
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 0:37
looks like Guy ferries cool older brother. Listen to us on iTunes Apple podcast Spotify like an insult give us give us a follow Subscribe. Subscribe to the YouTube page dog is we need those subs as the kids gone. This episode is sponsored by xAPI the first search optimized AI writer is up yet just launched on the market. This is real AI not like phony AI. Talk about we talk all about it. But you need SEO content creation Baba Baba boom. Go to if you want to.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 1:14
You know me so well. I told you I don't think requests go
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 1:17
to zip biac.com promo code sweat. Like He sweat? Like sweat equity. Yeah. On tests. Like sweaty balls. And are you ready to get this show? Yes, please. And this is called sweat equity.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 2:02
Listening to the sweat equity podcast. Yeah, way better than our I didn't see the mic.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 2:12
We're a little bit there we go. We're going we
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 2:16
go live on tape. You know, unless you need a minute.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 2:22
Yeah, um, yeah, I think I'm pretty much ready. Let me just see here.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 2:25
There. It looks good.
Unknown Speaker 2:28
Looks good. Okay. Well,
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 2:29
that's that's the most important then we get.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 2:31
Yeah. Jealous. That's
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 2:32
just fullscreen, you guys so I can see you better. That's fine. There we go.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 2:37
I mean, you may not want to
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 2:41
lie. Yeah, no, I Yeah. I think that back.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 2:47
So we, we let this is very charitable of us. We let the guests do their own plugs at the top of the episode because I I can't read out loud. And I mess them all up. And I just don't want to go for it. Peter. Where can people find ya? What are you about? Real quick,
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 3:08
off. Peter Schroeder. Calm is my website. There's links to everything in there and social media and email and all that jazz and my company that tells you how to do that come to El CIO. And
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:21
you're and you're the rare, creative, that's entrepreneurial, like real entrepreneurial business wise. Not like you're a Instagram model. Yeah, you know, kind of thing. But you have a real life business. Well, there's people that say they're entrepreneurs. And it's like, yeah, you own a hair salon. That's not the same thing. I mean, technically, that
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 3:42
actually that's a bad example. I mean, technically, yes. But I'm saying like, go back to the Instagram.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:47
Yeah, I I basically affiliate market and get in kind payments, right? What landed
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 3:54
on my doorstep? Yeah.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:57
But you got a real business with I would, I think I always find it interesting. Anybody who does those two worlds because we kind of live that life a little bit. The professional. We have comedy in the show kind of outside of that. But we asked everybody when they come on the show for the first time. These two questions. Did you listen to the podcast before coming on the show? I actually did. Oh, all of them. Okay, this is gonna go this is gonna go well.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:30
We'll see. If you listen to all he's here.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 4:33
Yeah, that's a hemorrhoid ones. Yeah. There is. There is.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:38
That was a that was a big story arc. There was first. Remember
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 4:42
the arc of me asking you every episode about your vasectomy. Yep.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:45
That was another arc of dealing with my nether regions. Yeah. Because
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 4:49
I was that was also why I felt like I was so much in touch with you guys. And I just had to so yeah,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 4:55
well, there you go. Good. Yes. And the The question we ask is what advice would you give your 13 year old self?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 5:06
Um, just keep going because you're doing it right there's I feel like I definitely people try to stop God but I'm one of those you know those little boys that just like fall over and just bounce back up and just like like almost a little little call myself. Some of the things I do, I probably shouldn't. But it turns out that it kind of works for the better at the end but yeah, I just feel like it's good. Can you
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 5:35
elaborate on that? In terms of what you've done? You probably shouldn't but you don't regret
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 5:39
having start a startup we can phone company on cash and your wife's 401 K and start a phone company for that and think you can compete against AT and T 13.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 5:50
We're done like what the scenario is you go back in time to your 13 year old self so
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 5:56
he gets it. Okay, he gets it. Okay, as I'm asking for examples. 13 and forward it doesn't really matter. Okay. Well, the 401k
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 6:03
through
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 6:04
your will not be docked points for that.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 6:06
I look, his his hair is so quaffed I always
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 6:08
you're mesmerized, you're not paying attention guys with
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 6:11
you know, a little silver over jealous minds. Manzana last hurrah. Yeah, you know, the
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 6:19
technical expertise.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 6:21
Spend a lot of time in the morning like sending it like at least 15 seconds. A bird you didn't have to tell you.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 6:28
Like, you are getting that point.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 6:30
It's doing it to make it feel.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 6:33
So where are you at right now? We're where you were. You're International. You're from Denmark, correct? Yeah, yeah. Are you in Los Angeles? Los Angeles. Nice. How's the homeless out there? Nice, fun. Tent City. Is it crazy?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 6:56
No, not really. I mean, I've been here for 10 years now. And all I do is go between my house and the office. And that's pretty much it. I just had twin babies two years ago. So go going out or anything like that anymore?
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 7:09
Yeah, yeah. And Yikes. Yeah. You're in the quicksand years.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 7:14
You never got to play man to man. Yeah, yeah. zone right when I start
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 7:19
soccer reference. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 7:24
I get soccer.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 7:27
transcends many sports. Well,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 7:28
you know, talk to us about being a DJ. How do you get into being a DJ one that gets paid? I'm guessing like, right,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 7:38
and what are you doing back then? We
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 7:39
don't know. This whole world of you. I have the hack. Question of like, do you just press the spacebar and let it go? You know, like, but that's kind of a hack opinion. I'm sure there's a lot more work to it.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 7:54
But that's pretty much it.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 7:58
You gotta push it at the right time.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 8:00
I think it's all preparation, though. Right? Before you go in. No, no.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 8:06
No, no, I
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 8:08
I will say I started I found found out I don't want it to be a DJ when I was nine years old and saw some dude at at a school dance. No playing music for kids. And I was like, that's so freakin cool that you can just make people jump around just by playing some songs. So I knew I was gonna do that just start playing at my friend's birthday parties, but to cassette tape players and I turned 18 I was allowed to come into a club and played there. And I got my first gig of them slowly from there. Yeah, I was
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 8:35
always thinking your origin had to be like, the old school turntables where you got to go back and forth. I
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 8:41
mean, every party has as the designated DJ, you know? Yeah, not professionally. And that's usually
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 8:47
how it starts. Right? That designated DJs. Yeah, goes on and gets real jobs.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 8:51
Yeah. And I never thought of it like that. So why are you doing like, when you're DJing? Behind the turntable? Or do you have turntables Do you like, when you're performing the work? What do you have to do? Is it really just pushes things? Where am I missing something? I see people doing stuff, you know, moving the little things up and down and all that, but I don't know what's going on.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 9:16
So I'm off the old generation and I'm, I'm a DJ for the sake of DJing. Not so much for being in the spotlight back then, when I started out, DJ was one you put in the corner and there was no light on him there was just like, kind of hid away, particularly put them in the back room, they would do that. And I got into it because I just liked the music. And I like playing for people and giving them a good experience. But what you see today is much more the opposite. It's about seeing someone I mean, it's an Instagram model, really. It's about who has the most followers. Those are the ones that get the gigs. That has changed a lot since I mean, I haven't played a professional gig for 10 years now. I unofficially stopped when I started my company, but this has changed a lot and you Back when I went in what I, the way I play is really is more about just feeling the crowd. You know, watching them and making sure that that improvising really, when I've never prepared to get in my life, because it's all just like, whatever I feel like in the moment, but but the new kits are literally have like a playlist like it's just pressing space pretty much. Yeah, yeah,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 10:23
it's a lot of like, light light work, right? You know, like, because you can't really do much behind on that.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 10:30
Yeah, you better be dancing. They're like
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 10:33
the old porn stores, or they had the owner of the store. Like way high up. Yeah, to see everybody. Like, don't go in the beaten section. That's not for you.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 10:43
But you can definitely do a lot. I mean, if you're a real DJ, you can you're you're busy constantly, you're doing all kinds of little things. And I usually only play you know, a minute and a half of each song. So there's, there's a kind of tempo going on, especially when there's nothing prepared.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 10:57
What music are we talking house? Is that does say house, Nish house Danish house?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 11:07
All kinds of things. Really. I don't use music that was just all over the place. But yeah, electronic music mainly, but expands a little bit wider than that. I think. Amen.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 11:18
Little Chemical Brothers every now and again. Oh, yeah. smack my bishop. Yeah,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 11:24
that's good for running. Yeah.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 11:27
So you go, you're a creative engineer, which is an I've never heard that title. But it makes sense. It's one of those things where it's like, oh, yeah, that definitely exists. Not like, I'm not saying like, you're like, I'm the CEO of Happy Days. You know, like how they do. Some people have their own titles on LinkedIn and stuff. Creative engineer caught my eye. And your bio. How do you get into starting? There is a Portlandia episode about starting a phone company? Oh, yeah. That is genius. Because they try to get older
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 12:03
friends. Yeah, you're number two,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 12:05
you can never do this. Right, right. It's like, the barrier to entry is crazy to get into communications as just to have a company that can compete. How did you get into this?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 12:20
How did you get into this, I needed it myself, really. I had another project I was working on. And I needed like a support line for people to call and there was nothing I could afford, and was easy to set up and manage knowledge. I'm like, Okay, I'll just code it myself. No problem. And while I was doing that, I had so much fun, and then it just kind of okay, now I have a little product here, I can actually put online and see if someone signs up. And I posted about it. So it's really been been just about like creating a product that's cool for people to use, and not so much about going out and competing. Because there's no way we could compete in the beginning at least. And then as we kind of grow, you know, we get a couple of customers in here and there. And then they ask for new features. And they built them and then, you know, they attracted more bigger customers and eventually Facebook and Samsung and Airbnb signed up. And you know, it's, it's really just about slowly small steps and getting ahead that way. We've never spent $1 on advertising. It's just been completely organic. Maybe
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 13:15
I need to so it's for the layman. What's the elevator pitch for? Excuse me if I mess this up, because I can't really tell you tell the zo zo zo con. So bad. Got some stupid idiot.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 13:31
I'm winning the podcast. Yeah, twice. Yeah,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 13:34
we keep score behind the scenes. So it's for businesses that need it's not VoIP. Right. It's
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 13:44
it's, yeah, what's the differentiator thing
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 13:47
is more today.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 13:48
Right. Right. But it's if you have a small business out there, this is great product for your phone. We I might need to switch. I need to get rid of my business line to get something better. So I might I might be a customer pretty soon.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 14:02
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, it is really just any business that needs to talk to their customers in some kind of way. That's, that's the elevator pitch. Well, it's
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 14:11
kind of skipped over the one part where you're like, I just coded myself no big deal. Like it was like, you know, like crocheting. Like, one night just like, yeah, I needed a sweater, no big deal.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 14:24
I'm a nerd. I'm a big ol nerd. I made my personal website when I was 14, back in 98, and sold it eventually. So it's like, oh, I have this this new entrepreneurial thing that I can't help and I, I have to play with things I have major add, so I have to just do things that I think is fun. And, and, you know, that happens to be coding and it started that really early on. I've always done that. Even when I made music I was making my own plugins for for, you know, for the programs I made to use again so it's it's not really that different for me to For, you know, being in the music industry and making music to coding a film company, platform service platform. It's, you know, the whole creative engineer, I think, is it's a weird thing that people think that engineers and coders are people that sit in that basement and just, you know, I mean, I'm horrible at math. But you're gonna, I've ever was Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, logic. But but that's yours. I know. Yeah, you could say that math. Is everything
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 15:33
we get high enough.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 15:34
I know. Yeah.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 15:39
I would say that the best engineers, I know, are all really, really creative people, you have to be super creative to make something new, rather than just following the book. And, you know, being told what to code?
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 15:49
Well, I, you know, I heard something that kind of, it changed my perception of the word creative. Because creative always gets lumped into like your artsy
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 15:58
your, you know, or you create something out of nothing. And
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 16:01
then so that it's more of that. But in the business world, when they say creative, they don't think they don't say it. It's almost like a disparaging at a certain point, right. The higher you go, they're like, Oh, he's not coming into the meeting. He's just creative, creative. You know. But it's one of those things where someone spun it on me, it's the creative can be the ability to create solutions, exactly
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 16:26
what my point was, right, like creative problem solving. Yeah. So which is probably much more geared for engineers, and that, like,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 16:34
you're puzzle based, is that fair to say?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 16:39
That's a great way to say it.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 16:40
Yeah, I looked someone I was in a job interview when my ex wife was forcing me to get a full time job, and I just don't fake interviews are just like, Yeah, I'll do this if you shut up for like, three weeks. Because I had my own company. And I was like, if you just get out way,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 16:56
everything will be a lot better. Alright, stay on track.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 17:00
But I went in and someone reflected this back to me, they're like, You see everything as a puzzle. And I was like, Oh, yeah. What
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 17:07
do you mean by that?
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 17:08
No, I was like, Damn, I've never thought of it that way. I've, I feel like I can see it with a lot of people. Because it's like, you're talking about you have AD D, do you feel like you're able to hone that AD D. Like, correctly, I feel like, people go I have a DD ADHD, and I, you know, I'm, you know, I'm all over the place kind of thing. And it's like, I think you can really hone it. If you're really interested in what you're doing,
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 17:34
about. That's the thing, it's a superpower. To me. It's all about knowing it, and understanding how to deal with it and getting your wife or a partner to to deal with it as well and figure out how to, because that's, that can be the hard part. But But to me, it's a superpower. And this is really just about, you know, understanding which things I'm good at and what I'm interested in, and then finding someone else around me that are good at the things I'm not interested in, because those are never gonna get done. Even if I sat down for four, 4 million years and try it, it's not gonna get done. So it's just about understanding that and then it becomes a superpower because then you can really go to the bottom of that rabbit hole and start digging for more, you know, and really get really really really good at certain things.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 18:17
Yeah, yeah. I think about a lot of people that have add that race cars, they can really hone it in Yeah. Well, I've
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 18:29
100 Miles let but they're gonna go so far, there is
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 18:32
so much going on that it kind of is to their best, you know, kind of best use right for their kind of brain.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 18:40
That's what I'm saying with the DJing and I play a minute and a half of each song. Yeah, constantly. I mean, they usually have four records going at the same time. Because there's so much going on that I get stimulated by that right
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 18:52
and you're like in the zone where most people would get overwhelmed. Yeah, exactly. So what I want to go back to this website when you're 1414 is that we said how old Yeah, that's when you had to code websites like from the ground up
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 19:08
right there was no Squarespace
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 19:10
there's no WordPress Yeah. There's no There's no CMS content management system like it is drag and drop today or plugin system today. You had to coat really code it what was the website and how much did you get paid?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 19:29
The website was a Danish basically social media platform before there was social media for artists. Zuckerberg like for Tom from MySpace for like for like kids that wanted to draw and paint. I have some friends that were really good at that. And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna make websites so you can put that online because that's what you do. Now. It's that time and then eventually I sold it to how much? I think it'd be it was And then we just move from home. Okay,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 20:03
okay, that's, that's a good amount. But that so you've been entrepreneurial from from job, what did your parents do?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 20:12
My mom was an engineer and my dad was a drummer. Yeah,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 20:15
well, there you go. That was easy. We figured it out. Survey says.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 20:23
So. So with the back to your company, you've been you've had it for 10 years, right? Massive competition in this in this sector, I would say. Talk to us about kind of scaling up, you know, how does I talk to a lot of small medium business owners or executives? And I do, I kind of get ahead of this, I try to talk to them about their work life balance, because a lot of them are just overwhelmed. And the reason I'm there is because they are they're trying to grow, but they got too many things going on. What advice would you have anybody listening out there about scaling? I know you just kind of kind of give them advice? Hmm. Well, you might
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 21:07
still be just him in the company. We
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 21:09
didn't Well, you didn't just say this, you still have to scale. But I'm saying like you said something earlier. You know, you know what you're not good at? And we say on this show a lot know what you don't know, right? And then the the action of that is find the people to delegate those things to you know, how can you talk to us about that kind of stuff? Like, how do you deal with twins? So?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 21:34
Oh, yeah.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 21:35
Twins. That's a cool thing.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 21:41
I got it on earlier. So interesting thing is like, I never we never spent money on advertising, we just kind of grew grew very organically. We found out early on that we couldn't raise money. One thing was, I had just started dating my wife back then. And we started a company together. So he was going to invest in that. And let us be shopping, we're going into a market, no one will, you know, basically touch because it's just dominated by these big players. So we had to figure out what what do we do next? Well, we can buy ads? No, we can't, because those are $700 per click on Google Analytics. So the math adds up, you know, you can go out and buy a customer that way if you pay enough, because they stay long for a split, stay around for so long, so long, and so on. But we didn't have that money up front either. So we had to just get really, really good at this yo. And I went to the bottom of that rabbit hole. And slowly over the years got, you know, first place on Google for our certain keywords that our competitors are buying, paying a lot of money for. And that's how we we've been able to kind of grow. And that's just been a really slow moving thing. And it's kind of like a train that slowly gets up to speed. But we're kind of starting to see that that's, you know, upstream at Walmart starting to we have been seeing that for a while now. But but for the for the first many years. I mean, I did customer service and tech support for the first two, three years. And before we could even hire the first employee.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 23:08
So you're all in you said, You gave up DJ, this, this was the all in thing.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 23:14
All and I'm always all in. I never do anything half. And that also backfire. Sometimes I've been evicted twice when I was in my early 20s. And you know, like, I don't do anything half it has to be full. And it has to be extreme. Otherwise, it's not fun for me didn't
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 23:29
get half evicted. Come on, man. I don't know, can you can you keep some of my stuff in there? And I'll just sleep out to be
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 23:37
on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 23:39
Well, how would you do it? Chop them in half? One,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 23:42
one part of the bio sheet we got talked about. It's one thing that really stuck out was gratitude. said you're a big proponent of that you're, you're big on kind of you know, putting that out there. Can you talk to us about gratitude in the kind of business world you know that? I think it's very underrated thing. And it doesn't take a lot of effort.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 24:09
Yeah, no, I totally. So the way I kind of put it is I'm very much into to solidarity and making sure that that that people kind of have the same plate that the same playing field and being able to compete from the beginning. And that's that kind of comes from what I was, you know, what I experienced when I started this company is like, we have no money we are playing against these big guys. So for me, there's this whole thing, for example, you have a product called the Enterprise plans with with a lot of sass products out there. And that's only the big guys can pay for and then you get these features that make them able to compete like that. That's just backwards. You know, it'd be the small guys that get those features and the big guys have to fight for them or something like that. So for me, it's like I'm trying to just Make things kind of even. And then make sure that everyone kind of has the same art stills from the beginning. And then we can play from there. I'm all about business and, and you know, being able to compete and all that and doing well for yourself, but you have to kind of have the same cards from the beginning. So we have equal, you know, REITs, or whatever you wouldn't
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 25:20
want to call it. That's interesting. I never thought about it in a SaaS software as a product or software as a service. For those out there don't know the acronym that I wasn't even thinking that was an option. When we're talking about gratitude as like, you see gratitude in the product. I was thinking almost intrapersonal kind of relationships or, you know, vendor relationships kind of thing.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 25:45
Well, this way, it's outward. No, it's
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 25:47
way better, I think, no, it's interesting. It's like, I didn't even think of that with some products, maybe but, you know, not with SAS, or an app or software or whatever you want to call it. That's interesting. By features.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 26:03
It's, it's one of those things that you see a lot. And luckily, I think there's a lot of more companies now that have started introducing, just pay for the service, and you have all the features. That's what we did when we started out 10 years ago. And in the beginning, we had to really explain it to everyone. And like, why is it better that I pay per minute text, rather than an all you can eat thing? Well, now people just kind of start to understand why that's better. And we don't really have to explain it so much more. There's more and more companies to kind of introduce this this model. And I think it's amazing.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 26:34
Yeah. I could see that. I mean, I could see that, like, you know, people don't like to have different bills ever. They like to be able to budget things and know exactly what it's going to be. That is crazy, though. How was that where you couldn't have just an even lower level like that would offer everything that would still be that somehow the math would work out that it's cheaper, per text or call? Or did you do the math on that? That's worth it.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 27:09
Yeah, you I feel like that the phone companies have been really, really good at at explaining over the years, why you should have this all you can eat plan on this is unlimited calling plan, which is way more expensive than if you've just paid for the actual calls you make, by far. So what we did was we just went in and say how can you pay for the minutes, and then you can create all users, you have all the features all of that stuff. Because for us, the more users you add to the plan, the more you'll be calling. And the more features we add to give you, the more you'll be using our platform and the more money we make. So it just makes sense for us to do that. It's not like it's a bad business for us. But it is cheaper for the for the end users at the end of the day, not by a lot. But to a point where it is definitely significant. You can see that as you
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 27:53
use pricing models interesting, from the outside kind of looking in, it's you know, on your websites, pricing for businesses of all sizes, and only pay for what you use no user fees, or startup costs. And then you only have two options, really, you got small business, and you got enterprise that most people would do the psychological game of like, let's get three, three columns, we want them to get that middle one, or let's get five and hope they get that third or fourth one. And it's really kind of a shell game almost, to
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 28:27
do the thing where it's like they list all the things, right in a car, there's five columns, the first, you know, they're all the same up until here, and then they have to keep scrolling to see all the other stuff at the bottom. And your
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 28:37
pricing is Yeah, and $50, not 4999. I mean, you're not playing any of the psychological games on there.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 28:44
Refreshing. We're not well, so actually, I would say the reason why we have Enterprise on there in the first place, it's really not because enterprise is our target customer, it's not at all, it's because our target customer is a little bit bigger than and are our ideal customer, if you will, is a little bit bigger than small business. So, you know, we have a lot of startups as our customers, again, because it scales really well with the pricing. But we also have a lot of business with 500 to 1000 employees and but those ones wouldn't sign up if we just wrote a small business on our site. So have we put enterprise on there to essentially show that it's for everyone.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 29:24
It's I like, I turn into Larry David complaining when I think about what people classify as small business or medium business, or large corporate enterprise business. Like, we can't come up with something like everybody's definition is different. Like fucking Air Max does Small Business Saturday, and it shows like a barista coffee shop and Portland and you're like, do what you love local business. That's, I wouldn't classify that as a small business, but technically it is a small business. So you got us on the marketing. They're
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 29:55
small businesses, very encompassing term right? Right,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 30:00
I would call it a local.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 30:02
Are you Nestle? You're a small business that are
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 30:05
you sure? Yeah. Are you conglomerate that controls our food? Yes.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 30:08
Hey, thanks for explaining the joke. Yeah.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 30:12
I was trying to Yes. And do it was pretty weak. I just echo it out, Peter, before we get out of here, any any, any last words? Any anything? This has been a silly kind of interview from our side. But talk to us about AI. Because we are my I don't want to speak for air. But my thought is AI is the most fucked out term in marketing right now. It is like
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 30:43
it. Everything's a stickler for terminology.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 30:46
I know. But everything, I think you have to define what AI is it has to have some AI element actually to it. It's like keto, you can put keto on fucking whatever you want. So it's like, everything's keto.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 31:00
I think it's spot on what you're saying is it has to be called something and he is.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 31:05
He's in LA brah doesn't matter. Wait, wait, sorry, did I say that again?
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 31:13
This is a like, you have to you have to call it something. And I think AI is just a very easily to understand term for people that are not necessarily in computer into computers aren't and AI and stuff like that. So we can't call it chat, GBT or or, or even say those things out the whole thing. You know, like, we have to call it something. And now this is just a label that kind of was slapped on there by the media, I guess. And now we have to live with that. So when really AI comes around? There'll be another word for that.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 31:43
Yeah, I think it has to be defined as like it learns upon itself, like it learns on its own from from experience, or whatever you want to call it for me. It
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 31:51
doesn't really I mean, that's machine learning. And we've done that for years, right? It's not like static intelligence,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 31:57
right? You don't just stick it in a white room. And it's like, Oh, you'll figure it out. You got to feed it. So yeah,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 32:03
that's half the prompts. Yeah. But it has, yeah, it has to have input from someone. Right. But over time, I mean,
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 32:11
that's it. But machine learning is amazing. What we have now is just is we got some new tools that we haven't had before that are all of a sudden available for everyone. And we're seeing all these different applications being built on top of it. I mean, we're doing that ourselves. We've been waiting for this to happen for I don't know, I think we registered AI attendance. com back in 2017. We knew it was like going to happen eventually. Kind of just been waiting for this technology to be ready. And now it is and you see all these companies building new stuff on top of these engines that are being released by by different companies. And they're just getting smarter and smarter. Like day by day, almost right. So I think it's fun. There's a lot of stuff that's going to happen over the next year.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 32:54
Joe Biden called me dude, Joe Biden called me I did not vote Mr. President. did not name. It was really cool. To talk back. I want to touch your touch the back of your hand is the button.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 33:09
Hey, man, I never tried it. I know I just I feel like it's a lot of there is a lot of cool stuff for sure. Don't get me wrong. I just feel like it's one of those things where you got a lot of hucksters coming in as quick as possible. I'm on a lot of newsletters for these AI apps because I just want to see what's coming out if there's anything that helps me. You know, like, those newsletters, like there's an AI for that. Or drink the robot juice is another one. You Yeah, but I just I do it so I can kind of see I want to keep a little bit of a my eyes on what's going on. But I will look at a lot of them. And they're like, complete garbage. Like there's just like, they're putting stuff out too quickly. Which might be good if we were scared of AI taking over humanity. So eventually.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 34:00
Now that's probably gonna happen. Who knows? Right? What are we gonna do about it as the App Store? Hey,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 34:06
that's my kids grandkids problem.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 34:08
Um, no, it's not as your kids.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 34:10
Okay, well,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 34:12
they're had the robots figure it out for us. Yeah,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 34:15
us combat AI
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 34:17
digital overlords.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 34:19
Yeah, that's a it's a real row Burroughs situation there anything anything else we didn't cover? I don't know man. I don't know anything. Snake that eats its own tail to watch Loki Come on.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 34:36
Sorry. I didn't do the like YouTube explainer videos.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 34:41
It's it's that was a it was a reach but it was it brings the show to a complete stop. Oh our show what's this? Where Loki is this show?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 34:55
Oh, okay, this oh, we're doing the show right now. I forgot this is a shot my bad
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 35:00
Peter, thanks for coming on. This was one of the sloppier interviews from our side. I know but well, it didn't feel well appreciate it. But if you got other stuff coming down the pike, let us know and we'd be back on man.
Peter Schroeder, Telzio 35:18
Sure, happy to Hi brother. Thanks so much
