[00:00:00]
[00:00:17] Matt: Rahul, welcome to Outfoxed. Great to have you here, and, yeah, excited to chat with you in more detail today.
[00:00:24] Rahul: Cool. Thanks for having us, Matt, for having me, I should say.
[00:00:28] Matt: I love the team focus that it's always that a us or a we. That's, great. well, for, those who have not heard of you or Noble, why don't you, why don't you give us an intro to Rahul?
[00:00:41] Rahul: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Rahul. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Noble. Noble is paid placement for AI search. So we help brands show up in Google's AI overview, ChatGPT and Perplexity. And specifically the way we do that is we look at the sources being cited for the prompts you care about, [00:01:00] and we actually get you mentioned in those sources.
[00:01:02] Rahul: And then the idea is that, you know, with how these LLMs work, if you're mentioned in the sources that they're pulling from, then you'll show up in the answer that your prospects are reading. So certainly see the future of buying, you know, with AI search and getting, you know, using these LLMs for prospects to do evaluation and research.
[00:01:18] Rahul: And so we help brands, essentially show up in AI search to convert more prospects. Prior to starting Noble. I led sales for, digital healthcare companies, so OODA Health and Cedar in the patient payment space. And then prior to that I was the CEO and co-founder of TowerView Health, which was a medication adherence company.
[00:01:38] Rahul: I started, with my college roommates back in 2014.
[00:01:42] Matt: Which I have to say when I was researching you, one of the things that jumped out. I was reading about Tower Health and I think my first response was, oh gosh, I think I've wanted to create this five times myself personally, and the older my parents get, the more important it becomes.
[00:01:58] Matt: But honestly, the older I get, [00:02:00] the more I think if I could have something, make sure I'm distributing my, like what I need to take every day just for supplements. You know, not like I'm on a bunch of like, man, like remembering. I feel like with all the distractions in our lives, tools that can help us manage things like that are really great.
[00:02:16] Matt: So that's, that was a great idea. Like, I know that didn't work out the way you'd hoped, but I was like, I love the idea.
[00:02:23] Rahul: No, I appreciate it. And even when we started it, remember like raising money the first time and then every VC was like, you know, this is a graveyard in terms of people that have tried ideas around managing your medications and
[00:02:35] Rahul: no company had really figured it out. And so I think similar to you, that's the reaction we got where I was like, oh, this is a great idea. It's a big need in the market for users, but then turning it into a viable business is where I think, you know, where we struggled. But I think, you know, probably 50 other companies in the past decade who are venture-backed also struggled, to really make it work and a lot of learnings in that process for sure.[00:03:00]
[00:03:00] Matt: I bet. Was there one particular thing about the experience with Tower Health where you kind of walked away and said, okay, well whatever my next startup is, I'm absolutely gonna do this or not gonna do something. Like, was there one of those moments?
[00:03:15] Rahul: I'm absolutely not gonna do hardware ever again because it's like you raise venture funding and then like half of it goes out the door
[00:03:22] Rahul: when you do a prototype run, it's just like hardware is so expensive. Yeah, it's time consuming. And it's just, it's really, difficult to make good hardware, especially for like seniors. Like we were, like, our users were typically 65 plus, they were elderly. And to make hardware that's intuitive, easy for them to use, you know, connects to the internet, connects, you know, it has all those aspects of like a smart device, yet it's something that they could just like, you know, grab from the box and start using
[00:03:52] Rahul: is so, so difficult to do. But yes, I think like hardware was definitely a learning, and we didn't know anything about manufacturing hardware. Like, [00:04:00]
[00:04:00] Matt: Oh, that's brutal.
[00:04:01] Rahul: But I, think also broadly like understanding, just like the difference between your users and your customers. Because we had a model where our customers were health insurance companies, so it was like the large health plans, like the Blue Crosses of the world, the United Healthcare, the Humanas were our customers, but then our users were their members or the patients.
[00:04:22] Rahul: And so that difference between who your user is and your customer is, also really shapes how you design your product,
[00:04:30] Matt: Right.
[00:04:30] Rahul: because the people paying you are not necessarily the people using your product. And so that's very, very difficult 'cause you're just managing another set of stakeholders. They have to be really happy with your product, even if they're not the one directly paying or using it.
[00:04:44] Matt: Oh wow. So you're bringing enterprise buying cycle complexity to a consumer product, which, yeah. That sounds like, yeah, congratulations for retaining all of your hair.
[00:04:55] Rahul: Yeah. We were 23 years old and we were doing, healthcare, we were doing [00:05:00] hardware and we're selling to health insurance companies that it's like a 24 month long sales cycle just to get a pilot going.
[00:05:06] Matt: Oh, yeah.
[00:05:07] Rahul: And say, I mean, in some ways it taught me a lot about sales and like, you know, it developed the interest I have now in selling to the enterprise. It was incredibly, incredibly hard to do, which is one of the many reasons it didn't end up working out, but good learnings for the rest of my life.
[00:05:25] Matt: And with Noble, it's a fascinating space, right? Like we're all facing disruption to buying cycles from AI entering the conversation literally. And I find it fascinating that you've taken a different approach to what the sort of standard has been like. You know, there's a bunch of what I would call prompt
[00:05:46] Matt: evaluating or prompt tracking type tools. What you're doing is almost more like a service. Talk a little bit more about this because it's like, I like that you guys have zagged while everybody else is kind of following a [00:06:00] similar pattern, and I'd love to hear more about that.
[00:06:01] Rahul: Yeah, I think the first batch of companies that are focusing on AI search, they're largely, visibility or monitoring tools.
[00:06:10] Matt: Yeah.
[00:06:10] Rahul: So they essentially will take the top 20 prompts you care about, run them through the LLMs, and then give you a sense of how often you're showing up in those prompts.
[00:06:20] Matt: Right.
[00:06:20] Rahul: They're either shipping the front end or kind of hitting just the backend API. So what they do is, it's helpful as a starting point, but just letting you know how often you're showing up in the LLMs doesn't help you increase
[00:06:31] Rahul: that visibility. And the thing that we saw in the early days is like in order to actually show up more often, you need to be actually mentioned in the sources that those LLMs are citing. And the challenge here is typically those sources are not your own website. It is they’re third party sources, or they're even other companies in your space that are being cited.
[00:06:51] Rahul: And so then the question becomes like, how do you actually get mentioned in those sources where you can't just update your website or you can't just update a page that you own? [00:07:00] And so, you know, what we started and we started doing this very manually, where me and my co-founder, mostly my co-founder Josh, was the one who was actually kinda doing the outreach to these publishers because we didn't have a background in SEO.
[00:07:12] Rahul: So like we didn't come at this from like an SEO perspective. We came at this from like a, we think we know how people are gonna buy perspective.
[00:07:18] Matt: Interesting.
[00:07:19] Rahul: And so our lens on this was like we, like when we were making our own purchases and evaluating and doing research, we were using ChatGPT and Google more and more in terms of the LLMs.
[00:07:30] Rahul: And so it was very clear to us that what you may have like asked a friend about in the past, now you're turning to these LLMs to get research and feedback and advice. And so if you’re asking kind of more of these prompts or questions to the LLMs, you're getting answers back from them. You're not visiting websites. Then from a brand's perspective or from a company's perspective, you really need to figure out how to show up in the LLMs because otherwise your prospects are just, they're not gonna find you.
[00:07:59] Rahul: It's [00:08:00] not like the Google, like 10 blue links days where there's always like a page two where you could show up lower on the page. It's kind of all or nothing, in terms of visibility. And what I also see in like in terms of just like how I see people buying, what this experience will be, I think in the future people are not gonna leave the LLM to book a demo or to check out.
[00:08:21] Rahul: I think the experience is largely gonna be hosted on ChatGPT or on Google, where you start with a search prompt, then you kind of refine that. You'll ask more follow up questions, and then you'll have the ability to check out or book a demo directly on the LLM, versus today you go to a brand's website and you do that.
[00:08:40] Rahul: I think all that's gonna get compressed into the LLM because you know, if you are ChatGPT, you wanna take a percent of that transaction instead of just, you know, having ads that show up. So we kind of saw this as like, we think that this is the future and how things are going with just search in general.
[00:08:57] Rahul: And then the biggest question that any brand is gonna ask [00:09:00] is, well how do we show up? And how do we make sure that we can actually get in front of our prospects? So that was what really kind of, you know, kind of captured our interest in this new, kind of, this new trend in this rise of LLMs. It was not like a, oh, we're experts in SEO.
[00:09:16] Rahul: And so this is just the next evolution of SEO. I think it's actually taking the entire experience on the internet and fundamentally shifting it.
[00:09:24] Matt: I think you're right. I mean, I've looked at this a lot from a similar perspective, which is that it's more about the fact that B2B buying cycles are, and I would say like B2C as well, but the, buying cycle that we've depended on and have developed a pretty clear understanding of for the last 20 years,
[00:09:41] Matt: it's the buying cycle itself that's getting thoroughly disrupted. And so you, can't just simply think like, oh, whatever I did with SEO, I'm just gonna do that with LLMs. I think some of that is similar, like what you're describing effectively the SEO playbook around that is like link building, right?
[00:09:57] Matt: So you're, [00:10:00] productizing the step that you would have to take once you analyze the data and decide, oh yeah, we need better placement here. You're just saying, I'm just gonna skip to the end and say this is the thing, if you wanna be placed here, you know, we can help with that. Yeah. That's super interesting.
[00:10:13] Matt: It makes a lot of sense.
[00:10:13] Rahul: Yeah. And I think with link building and like honestly, I didn't even know what link building was six months ago. And so like when I learned it, it's something that typically agencies do, but with now with these software agents that you can build, it's like the function of what a person would do,
[00:10:28] Rahul: now, software could do. That's how we've essentially productized this. The other thing that I find really interesting about these, kind of these offsite mentions in the sources is that unlike link building, which just kind of helped you incrementally, you know, show up higher in the search result. In the, like the 10 blue links, with dimensions, you could actually, you'll guarantee that the prospect is reading your answer or like reading about you because you actually show up in the answer.
[00:10:55] Rahul: So it's much more direct, like get in front of the prospect versus with link [00:11:00] building, it could help you over time, show up higher in the search results, but you still wouldn't know if people like clicked on the link and actually read your article. With the LLMs, if you actually show up in the answer, it's almost, you know, you're guaranteed to get that visibility then.
[00:11:16] Matt: So your hypothesis for the business is that, being cited or being in part of the citations is what ultimately determines being mentioned. And so let's build a product that targets the citation piece, knowing that kind of the rest of it is just how LLMs work.
[00:11:36] Rahul: Yeah, I think, there's a lot of research around this and this is also just how LLMs work, where the primary kind of factor that influences the search results and the brands mentioned are whether or not that brand is mentioned in the source is being cited by the LLM.
[00:11:53] Rahul: So, you know, mathematically that's kind of how LLMs work and like, Ahrefs, you know, did a good research study on this that said [00:12:00] the top influencers of what actually shows up in the LLM like search answer is based off of offsite mentions and getting your brand essentially mentioned in the sources being cited by the LLM.
[00:12:14] Rahul: And, particularly this is relevant for like category level searches. So like what is the best CRM for an early stage company or like, what is the best call recording tool or like what is the best, you know, whatever the category is, because that's the point that prospects are doing research to try to understand what is out there.
[00:12:33] Rahul: Certainly when you're then, you know, looking at specific products, so like this is, we're using Riverside for this recording, so if you were to ask ChatGPT or Google, like, you know, how does Riverside work or how does Riverside compare to Zoom or something else like, then yes, it'll go to the Riverside website and look at that specific brand.
[00:12:52] Rahul: But if you're asking at the category level, like what is out there and what should I be evaluating, that's where third party sources are incredibly valuable. And getting [00:13:00] mentioned in those sources will help you more than anything show up in the actual answers.
[00:13:04] Matt: Now, I imagine, your buyer is very different for this company.
[00:13:09] Rahul: Yeah.
[00:13:10] Matt: How did you figure out your ICP for this?
[00:13:12] Rahul: Yeah, so we and it's even like it's an evolution today, so.
[00:13:17] Matt: Yeah, I bet.
[00:13:17] Rahul: We started this thinking that like, okay, this is like. AI SEO. So you call it a AEO, call it GEO. Like there's a million different acronyms floating around. And so we initially thought that, okay, if this is to be the SEO person at the company who is making these decisions and trying to help that brand show up more, then we should go to the SEO person.
[00:13:35] Rahul: And once we kind of started like launching this version of Noble, we've had a lot of success, selling essentially to the whoever leads SEO at that brand. What we're also kind of in the process of evaluating is essentially seeing if we can position Noble, not just as an SEO tool, but as a new paid growth channel.
[00:13:57] Rahul: So essentially not just saying like, oh, you have LinkedIn ads, [00:14:00] you have Google Ads, but now you can actually pay to place within the LLMs. So can we, from an ICP perspective also go after the growth marketer? Who's in charge of their paid budget? And the reason that I'm interested in this is like the paid budgets are like 10 times larger than the SEO budget.
[00:14:16] Rahul: And so if we can make an argument to whoever, like owns that paid budget that you should give a certain percentage of your budget to Noble to show up in these LLMs, then that's just a much larger like ICP that we can command.
[00:14:30] Matt: Yeah, it makes sense. I mean that. Finding the people who have budget to spend is why there's lots of really great sales and marketing tools, and why that's constantly being, evolved.
[00:14:42] Matt: So it's interesting though, what I, you, I heard you say the SEO person, but for a lot of companies, they just don't have SEO expertise internally. How, I'm curious, did that become apparent pretty quickly or did that take a little while before that pattern surfaced?
[00:14:58] Rahul: We actually realized that pretty [00:15:00] quickly, but it is also a factor of the stage of the company.
[00:15:02] Rahul: We kind of realized that large companies, if they have an SEO person. Then they're just naturally, they're, larger, their marketing team is larger. So that also gives us an idea of like, well, they probably have more of a budget to spend. So actually whether or not you have somebody in-house who leads SEO is a good proxy for how mature your company is and what potential budget you may have to spend on this.
[00:15:25] Rahul: And if you don't have an SEO person, it's probably your head of demand gen who would be the buyer. So the demand generation marketer or potentially just, you know, whoever that marketing person is at the company. I do think for this product, like yes, like this is something that startups could use.
[00:15:43] Rahul: But if you're that seed stage or Series A startup, this might be a little bit too early for you. And we're also trying to position this product to focus on more enterprises and like mid-market and like growth stage companies, purely because like we're [00:16:00] relatively new in the market and we wanna be able to charge more for the product.
[00:16:04] Rahul: We certainly can scale it down to have a price point that does make sense for an earlier stage company that wants to show up in the LLMs. But going back to like the ICP, I think us starting with the SEO person also helped me understand that like if you just had somebody who runs SEO at the company, you're probably a mature company and that probably even makes it more interesting for us to, talk to you because you probably have a budget for them to use.
[00:16:27] Matt: Right?
[00:16:28] Matt: At a minimum you've got somebody who. If you need them to spend a couple hundred dollars a month, they probably can whereas, yeah, if you're trying to sell to somebody else in the org, you've gotta get attention and time and then you've got, yeah, budget to worry about. So how, you know, look, I think first time entrepreneurs will swear that if you build it, people just show up.
[00:16:49] Matt: How'd you guys, what did you have to do to try to get those first? Those first customers?
[00:16:54] Rahul: Yeah. Initially it was all, you know, introductions through our network and so we [00:17:00] essentially, you know, we've been in the sales and marketing space for the last two years, and so our, the original product that we launched with Noble was around word of mouth recommendations.
[00:17:08] Rahul: So back when we started this, you know, about two years ago, our thesis was like the entire SaaS market is so crowded that people are just asking their friends for recommendations because they wanna cut through the noise. And while that was true, ultimately we just ran into legal and privacy issues because, you know, understandably these companies were like, we can't show prospects which of their friends use the product without the consent of their friend.
[00:17:31] Matt: Right, right.
[00:17:32] Rahul: And so like, essentially it was okay, like we're probably gonna hit a ceiling in terms of how big this product can get. And then at the time, like the LLMs were just taking off and so it became apparent that that quote unquote friend that you're asking for recommendations and advice,
[00:17:47] Rahul: is going to be the LLM that you turn to for product recommendations and advice. And so then it became very clear that like, you know, how do you, like, how do companies actually show up in these LLMs? And it wasn't as easy as like [00:18:00] SEO or wasn't as straightforward as SEO. And so that's kind of how we pivoted into this.
[00:18:04] Rahul: But I say that to say that we spent two years selling to people in sales and marketing. So we had an existing customer base already, and we already had relationships in the industry with people who were essentially leading marketing or they did demand gen. And so essentially what I was doing was essentially going back to my contacts I had a good relationship with and saying like, Hey, can you introduce me to your SEO person?
[00:18:27] Rahul: I want their feedback on what we're building. And then I would use that session to get quote unquote feedback. But then I'd ask 'em like, oh, like this seems like something that you’d find pretty interesting. Would you wanna like test this out? And so that's kind of how I would go from like asking for advice to being like, well, do you wanna, you know, be a customer of ours?
[00:18:45] Matt: I mean, that's a great, look, I think a lot of people who start companies find themselves in a pivot as we, I don't think that's a controversial statement. And yet I think one of the things that a lot of folks worry about is how do I try to [00:19:00] leverage whatever I've gained in terms of customer awareness into a pivot?
[00:19:04] Matt: And that can be really, challenging. But I think the way you described it is probably the best way to do it. That's great.
[00:19:11] Rahul: Yeah. Pivots are hard 'cause I, think at the core of it, you also have to admit that you were wrong or, you know, the timing of your first product just, it's not the right time for this or whatever it is,
[00:19:21] Rahul: it just, it didn't work, which is hard, because like, I think there's always this desire for a founder to just want to keep pushing through and to be like, Hey, this is gonna work. We just need to get to a certain level of scale, then things will change. And I think like, at least for us, like we were running out of money, and we're like, we have a few months left.
[00:19:39] Rahul: Let's just throw something together. Let's see if we can capture some, you know, demand and interest in the market. We did, we started, to see traction immediately and then we were able to raise more money off the back of that traction, but kind of having that moment of being like, well, you know, this really isn't working.
[00:19:56] Rahul: Are we okay with admitting that and then trying to do [00:20:00] something over the summer to really figure it out and then, you know, essentially start from scratch? Because for us it's like, yes, we had the relationships in the industry, but I think what we were looking at is like, you know, if we could start any new company right now in this moment, what do we wanna do that we think would be successful, that would solve a real problem?
[00:20:17] Rahul: And we weren't necessarily looking at it from the perspective of like, well, what have we already built that we could leverage, again, from a technology perspective? Or we also weren't looking at it necessarily from the perspective of like, who do we have relationships with that we could sell to again.
[00:20:31] Matt: Right.
[00:20:33] Rahul: But we happened to kind of fall into that second bucket, which obviously was very helpful once we had an idea to go-to-market with a product. But it was more so just like a, what is a problem that we think is a priority? And I would say that's actually the biggest difference in the reception we're getting by focusing on AI search than we did by focusing on like word of mouth recommendations or warm intros
[00:20:56] Rahul: in that I don't have to tell prospects that this is something that they should care about. [00:21:00] They're already trying to figure it out. And that just makes such a big difference when you're trying to sell to somebody because you have this conversation and they're like, oh, our board was talking about this.
[00:21:09] Rahul: Or like, you know, our, CEO keeps asking me like, why we're not showing up in ChatGPT. And so the fact that there's already urgency around it, you know, that makes just a world of difference when you're trying to get traction with a new product or just a new idea.
[00:21:24] Matt: Now, that said, at the same time, this industry has acquired, attracted lots of competitors. And so I find this moment in time for you really, really educational for people who are listening because how many of us
[00:21:54] Matt: have thought an idea, started it, invested some time, various levels of time and energy only to [00:22:00] see a competitor and have that like steal the wind from our sails. You know? Talk about that aspect of Noble 'cause I have to imagine you guys are going through that process right now, and that probably has occurred to you at least once in the last few weeks.
[00:22:12] Matt: I'd love for, yeah. Can you, are you willing to be open about this? Because this,
[00:22:17] Rahul: Yeah. I mean, I would say like I experienced this on the other end with my first company because we were in the kind of the medication management space.
[00:22:24] Matt: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Rahul: And at the time there was a company called PillPack that was acquired by Amazon for close to a billion dollars.
[00:22:30] Rahul: So we were a company that was shutting down and then almost the same time, you know, a similar type of company or idea was getting acquired by Amazon for a billion dollars. And so it was just like, you know that, not that it could have been us, but you see how just like the strategy you have and some of the ways you approach the market can have completely different outcomes.
[00:22:51] Matt: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Rahul: And I think that's very applicable to kind of the AI search market right now, where you have to have a unique point of view and you have to [00:23:00] be doing something that actually moves the needle versus try to do just a little bit of everything, or just trying to just like kind of ride the tailwind around the market, just thinking, oh, if I do like anything around AI search, it'll be like relevant enough.
[00:23:14] Rahul: Because it's a huge category. There's a lot of money that's going to be spent, which is good in a lot of ways, but it's gonna attract very smart people as well. And so if you don't have something that really stands out that's really differentiated and that can like, just like capture a prospect's attention and interest quickly, it's gonna be very, very tough.
[00:23:34] Rahul: And so what we did specifically is we saw that with the visibility trackers, that those were gonna become a commodity very quickly. And yeah, we're having this conversation in, mid-November, Amplitude launched a free version.
[00:23:49] Matt: Yeah, like what, a month ago?
[00:23:51] Rahul: Yeah. So it's like we can kind of see the writing on the wall where there was no defensibility in terms of just like hitting the APIs or scraping the front end on [00:24:00] these searches.
[00:24:02] Rahul: And so the other thing we were trying to think about is like reporting is always helpful. But that doesn't necessarily help you increase your visibility.
[00:24:09] Matt: Right.
[00:24:09] Rahul: So if we did one thing and did one thing really, really, really well, what would that one thing be? And as we learned more about like how LLMs work, it became clear that it's just the game of getting mentioned in the sources being cited.
[00:24:23] Rahul: And if you can figure out how to do that, that's almost like a cheat code. Around, you know, what typical approaches would be because like typically with like SEO, you create a ton of content or you get a lot of backlinks. But if there's a way that you can essentially jump over all those steps and just reach out to the publisher or the author of an article and just get you mentioned in that article, then that essentially is, you know, a way to guarantee, you know, that your prospects probably see you in the answer as long as that source is still being cited.
[00:24:53] Rahul: So. I think we wanted to focus on doing one thing really well from a product [00:25:00] perspective. Kind of have that be our wedge into the market and then we could expand from there. But at the time, I think this also helped us that we were probably like a year after like the Profounds and the Scrunches and the Athenas and the Peecs, kinda like all the early entrants into the space so we could see what everybody was doing and then we could take a different approach to the market.
[00:25:19] Rahul: Whereas if we tried this a year ago, we probably may have fallen into like the same go-to-market and like product roadmap that they all have today.
[00:25:30] Matt: Yeah. So how do you, this is fascinating. I think this is a really great case study in real time because like you're talking to buyers that this is an urgent need.
[00:25:41] Matt: Like you can't have a business that depends on SEO or search traffic or website traffic without thinking this is existential, right? Maybe it's 1% of free traffic, maybe it's five. But right now it's probably really low. But the fear of the disruption, I think is, tremendous. And I think it's, I think it's realistic.
[00:25:59] Matt: [00:26:00] So you're talking to people who are thinking about this, you're not trying to do all things, you're not saying Yeah, yeah, yeah it's Profound plus a bunch of other stuff, right? Are you finding that people are hearing that? Are they, saying, oh, well, we'll just get two things? Like how do you find that that kind of positioning is working for you?
[00:26:21] Rahul: Yeah, I think luckily there is so much interest in the space that people started to do research to actually understand how to get mentioned in these LLMs. So when we talk to them and I say like, you know, what we do is we specifically get you mentioned in the sources that these LLMs are citing. That clicks for them.
[00:26:39] Matt: Got it. Yeah.
[00:26:40] Rahul: Whereas, didn't have any education in the space. And they're like, well, what does that do? Like, why would that help us? Then it would be a much harder sell, because then I have to educate them on how LLMs work. But I do think that because this is like a top two or three priority for I think most marketing teams out there,
[00:26:57] Rahul: they have done the research to actually understand, well, how [00:27:00] do we even show up in these LLMs? Like what's driving that visibility? So when we have a conversation, like our approach resonates with them. So that's been really helpful. And then, you know, there are teams that, you know, may not be as educated on how these LLMs work, but if they have somebody who does SEO in-house, that SEO person will definitely, definitely know.
[00:27:21] Rahul: Kind of what's driving visibility in AI search.
[00:27:24] Zach: Today's episode is brought to you by Hunter.io. The B2B lead generation platform made for every professional. Whether it's prospecting, fundraising, recruiting, link building, or just trying to connect with the right people, Hunter makes it easy.
[00:27:41] Matt: I'm listening to this and I, and the thing that occurs to me is that you've gotta be, do you feel a whiplash effect?
[00:27:47] Matt: Like, the first time you get in a car that can go 0 to 60 in less than three seconds, that head getting pressed against the back is a pretty incredible feeling. And I would imagine going from a hardware based startup to [00:28:00] this industry specifically, are you getting a little bit of that head pressed against the backrest?
[00:28:05] Rahul: You know, fingers crossed, things have been good. Like we just pivoted over the summer, so a few months into this.
[00:28:09] Matt: Yeah.
[00:28:10] Rahul: We went from zero to over half a million dollars in ARR in like two months. That’s great. So things are moving very quickly. The contract sizes are, you know, 50K plus, for just like an average size company.
[00:28:24] Rahul: So I do think that this is something that can grow quickly, but it also has defensibility. Because like ultimately what we're building is a marketplace between brands who wanna show up in these LLMs and publishers who wanna get paid for their content. So if we can create this network of publishers, which you know, that is the network effect that we're effectively like building and that we can benefit from.
[00:28:48] Rahul: Then as other companies try to enter the space or try to copy us, they're gonna have to start from scratch to build this network of publishers specifically. So I do like that about our [00:29:00] approach. It's like, it's not like most AI companies, which is like, there's not really any defensibility. I do think that there is a very strong network effect with what we're building as we aggregate publishers, that join our network.
[00:29:11] Matt: So this is not your first rodeo, this is a second time founder, CEO, right?
[00:29:17] Rahul: Yes. Yeah.
[00:29:18] Matt: Do you consider yourself a salesperson?
[00:29:22] Rahul: Ah, this is so funny. I don't, and that was actually the hardest thing when we shut down my first company because I had to take a sales job. And so I went from being a founder, CEO when I was 24, and we shut down the company when I was 29.
[00:29:36] Rahul: And then I went from being a founder, CEO, which I identified as to somebody who led sales at a startup. And it was good. It was a great company I worked with really smart people, but I, never thought of myself as a salesperson and I, talked to the CEO, who was my, who I reported to about this. I'm like, I never like, you know, it's so weird to introduce myself as like [00:30:00] VP of sales at this company and like, that's not what I think of myself.
[00:30:03] Rahul: And like my wife and I have had this conversation before around just like, identity and what you identify with. And so that's why when I went from selling to then, you know, starting another company, there was a part of me that just like felt like this is like what I feel fulfilled doing because I was back in a role that, you know, I felt just like, not just like more proud about, but like if I felt more aligned with like, how I think of myself, even though from a functional perspective, you know, 90% of my job is sales.
[00:30:33] Matt: Right.
[00:30:33] Rahul: Like, it's still the same thing, but it is, and it's not just the title, but it's also just like, I think it's the idea of creating something, starting something from scratch, you know, and, essentially just bringing that into the world. That I just love to associate myself and think of myself as doing that.
[00:30:50] Matt: So by the way, this is like the sort of internal argument of my life, right? Because you're right, as CEO founder, you're selling everybody all the time. Like the whole [00:31:00] job is basically selling, but not, you don't, but I think most CEO founders do not identify with themselves as salespeople. And yet, if you think about some of the most successful CEOs.
[00:31:12] Matt: That's effectively what their superpower is, despite not wanting to use it as an IC, but I find this idea, this sort of cognitive conflict, really fascinating. Man, and actually you pinpointed the key friction for me, which is that as somebody who sees myself as a creative, a builder, that is not like the core value of a salesperson, and yet you were, you did sales full-time.
[00:31:38] Matt: So like you have to figure out how to harness the qualities of it. How do you reconcile that as CEO founder, that it is in fact a big part of your identity, even though you might not name it as such?
[00:31:51] Rahul: That's a good question. I think from a functional perspective, I think it's just realizing that the role is sales across, for instance, like aspects, like [00:32:00] you're selling people to join you.
[00:32:01] Rahul: So like recruiting is sales, obviously you're selling customers for revenue, you're selling investors for funding. Like it's constant pitching that you're doing. I think also the difference here is like when you're a founder. It's so emotional. Because like, in some ways, every time you get rejected, it's personal.
[00:32:19] Rahul: Whereas like when you're selling a product and you're like a VP of sales at another company, it's like, if they say no, it's like, well, they said no. Like you just, you move on. And, I guess I didn't take those rejections as personal as I do when it's your own like company 'cause it's like your own baby.
[00:32:37] Rahul: It's like, they don't like what I created. Yeah. And it's much more personal than, well, my job is to sell this product. They don't like it, okay, fine. Like, they have all these, reasons, like I'll check in with them in a few months and we'll figure something out. But I think that that's probably the harder part about, it's just like the emotional investment and just like how much you care about every sale, every [00:33:00] conversation, whether it's hiring, you know, selling or fundraising, but it's all different aspects of sales.
[00:33:06] Matt: It's so true. I love this. You're right, because if you're in sales, you’re managing a pipeline. Even the pipeline is your product, right? And the conversations are just data points about the product. But when you're a CEO, every single, there is no pipeline. These are all potential users who you want to fall in love with your baby.
[00:33:26] Matt: And yeah, every single one of them that rejects you is, it feels like a rejection. You don't think about it as a pipeline and a percentage and all of that. Yeah, it's a really good point, but, the transition from founder selling to hiring a sales person and a sales team, it sounds like you've actually been on both sides of that.
[00:33:45] Rahul: Yeah. And the thing I will say about like how I approach this now, like, and I think it's because I saw myself in this role, like with another company when another founder, CEO hired me is like. I [00:34:00] wanna hire, like work with like, I guess hire somebody I've worked with in the past, so I know not just how good they are, but like kind of what their level of quality is in terms of just like how much they care.
[00:34:09] Rahul: Like I think so much of sales comes down to just like, do you care? And, 'cause if you care, you're gonna do all the follow ups, you're gonna go after, like, not just the leads that you're given, but you're gonna do like that prospecting yourself. You're also typically like the face of the company for a lot of these clients because that's who they see instead of like, say the CEO.
[00:34:28] Rahul: And if you hire a good first salesperson, then they can ultimately build up the team. Like they start as an IC, they learn the ropes, they learn the pitch, they learn the objections, and then, you know, you can kind of trust them with growing the team from there and probably hiring underneath them. So as I started
[00:34:46] Rahul: Noble the second time around one of the benefits of doing sales for other companies, I got to meet other salespeople. And so that was great because I kind of created this network of who I thought were exceptional salespeople.
[00:34:57] Matt: Yeah.
[00:34:57] Rahul: At my last job. And so [00:35:00] as I look to kind of grow Noble and like, you know, ultimately grow the enterprise sales team, the first people I'm going to, and I've been talking to them like for the past two years, just keeping that thread going, is because that's exactly who I wanna pull from.
[00:35:12] Rahul: Because I've worked with them before. I know their level of just ambition and just how much they care. And that also is so important for just like the culture of the team because I do feel like they're, like, you also meet a lot of salespeople who are not just like coin operated, but they just like, all they care about is just closing the deal and like, you know, they don't necessarily care about like all the other aspects of company building.
[00:35:34] Rahul: But I think when you meet like a good sales person, they do care about the culture. They care about, like, like feedback that they're getting from the clients. Like how the product team is taking that feedback. And I think it also just like helps improve the overall company and the business when the go-to-market team is like, cares more than just like, hitting their foot up.
[00:35:55] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Have you found a trick to help you [00:36:00] find those people? I just, developing a two year relationship is not a, that's not really a playbook that's repeatable.
[00:36:08] Rahul: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, luckily, like, I think initially I'll definitely go after people who I've worked with, but then I think from there I would ask the people who I hire to see who they've worked with in the past.
[00:36:19] Rahul: Like, I do think with sales, like it's not your resume. Like I don't care if you've worked at a big Fortune 50 company and like, crushed quota, like every company is unique, every product is unique, every buyer is unique. But what I think you really need is like you need to have worked with somebody in the past and you need to actually know if they're good and if they care.
[00:36:38] Rahul: And other salespeople know this about their colleagues based on how they interact with them. And even just like how they work together. Like if you work with somebody that helps you out as a salesperson,
[00:36:48] Matt: Yeah.
[00:36:48] Rahul: and is a team player, like that goes a long way to be like, yeah, I wanna work with this guy again.
[00:36:52] Rahul: Not just because like he or she like crushed their quota and like they did well, but they made the whole team better. So I [00:37:00] do think part of it is like, you know, just like, have you worked with these people before? But I think also if you're looking to hire, you've gotta do like a little test. Like you, you've just gotta, for me at least, it's like getting a sense of how much is this person willing to grind and care.
[00:37:14] Rahul: Because I think, you know, people understand like the fundamentals of sales. Like I think that everybody can learn the pitch, they can learn the product, they can learn the space. But I think what I try to do is like, if I hadn't worked with somebody in the past, what I would just try to test is their effort level and how much they would care.
[00:37:30] Rahul: And sometimes that's just like giving them like an assignment or a project that might take them a ton of time. It might be complete busy work. And just like, just with, the total, like all I'm looking to see is like, do you care enough to complete this project as part of the interview process? and that's me just testing out, like, are you willing to grind enough for this role?
[00:37:51] Rahul: If so, like that's what I care about. Because inherently I think anybody who we're talking to, they're gonna be smart. They're gonna like be well spoken, like they're gonna be [00:38:00] all those things that you can kind of assess in an interview. But it's hard to assess just like what is your level of grit and how hard do you work?
[00:38:08] Matt: I mean, I think that's true with almost every role actually in a, if you're sub 50 people, I feel like that should be like the number one set of criteria for how you, hire anybody is trying to find that grit. Do you guys do, I'm trying to think of your motion here.
[00:38:46] Rahul: Yeah.
[00:38:46] Matt: I would imagine outbound could be really effective for you. Is that something you guys have invested much in yet?
[00:38:51] Rahul: We haven't invested in it much yet, but I do think it will be effective. So right now, kind of given where we are, we have a lot of like [00:39:00] referrals within our network that's driving our business.
[00:39:02] Rahul: And like we also have a really nice kind of growth loop into our product where when we reach out to publishers to mention our clients in their article, a lot of times those publishers are other companies or other vendors and so they'll get our outreach email and they'll be like, oh, you're doing this for company X, can you do this for me as well?
[00:39:19] Rahul: So that was kind of an unexpected growth loop. From an outbound perspective. I think one thing that we will try is like giving out. Kind of this free gap analysis where it's like, Hey, like here is, here's your brand. Here are probably prompts you care about. We just ran this for you. Here's how often you're showing up in AI search.
[00:39:36] Rahul: Here's how you're doing relative to your competitors. You know, do you want us to help you get mentioned in any sources? And just starting with that as like a free outbound like tool or kind of offering to give them, I think something like that could be effective. I also think it's a huge market and at least right now, and hopefully in the, like in the future, it will be top of mind for marketers.
[00:39:58] Rahul: So I do think [00:40:00] that that also helps when you do an outbound motion. So it's something that we haven't done a lot of yet, but I, definitely do think we're gonna invest in that.
[00:40:07] Matt: Well, darn, I can't pepper you with questions about your tech stack, your go-to-market, your go-to-market software, but that's okay.
[00:40:13] Matt: We can avoid the shameless plug for our sponsor, Hunter, whose awesome hat I'm wearing for today's podcast.
[00:40:20] Rahul: We do use Hunter for email verification. So,
Love it.
There it is, shout out to Hunter on that.
[00:40:27] Matt: Shout out to the best email verification in the space right now for sure. That's awesome. I'm glad to hear it.
[00:40:32] Matt: Thanks for supporting the plug. Thank you. Of course. Really appreciate your openness. I think this is, it's really been fun just to hear your perspective and your experience going through what I think all of us experience in different ways and just being able to hear, I guess your lessons I think has been fantastic.
[00:40:48] Matt: Is there, I guess if there's one thing that you're thinking about that you've been like really excited by, whether it's just like personal, like, I learned this thing, I now know this [00:41:00] thing. I'm so excited about the fact that I know this thing that I didn't know before. Like, do you have any either advice or lesson that you've learned recently that you wanna share?
[00:41:08] Rahul: I was thinking about this when you, asked a question a few minutes ago about like kind of not just like how we're operating differently, like as a second time founder versus first time founder. But also like as you build a team, like in how I interact with the team, I will say, like, even with my co-founder, the second time around versus my co-founders for the first company is I don't, not like, not that I did try to act like I had all the answers, but I always tried to act like I was unflappable or like, you know, when we run into a roadblock I’d always be like, it's okay.
[00:41:38] Rahul: Like, we're gonna figure this out. Like, I think now, I try to be a bit more. And just kinda letting them in to how I'm actually feeling. So I feel like I'm a part of the team versus just like, oh, this like fearless leader. That's just like always like, oh, like, you know, gung ho and like, we're gonna figure this out.
[00:41:56] Rahul: I know all the answers. I think now when we get those setbacks, [00:42:00] I try to just share with the team candidly, like how I'm feeling, so that I feel like we're all in this together versus them just looking to me like for the answer or for that direction. And it also makes me feel less like isolated and less lonely if I feel like I can share with them, like how we're feeling.
[00:42:20] Rahul: And you know, I also think that we have a team that probably wants, that, wants to feel like they're in it with us versus like feeling like they're an employee and they're just like taking orders or they're getting direction from the founders. So I think that's kind of one thing I learned from my first company in that like, it does feel very isolating.
[00:42:41] Rahul: You kind of feel like you have to be that persona and the more you can let your team in to how you're feeling, whether it's the ups and the downs, like I do think that's gonna make you more connected with the team. And also like it'll make you feel like less on an island.
[00:42:58] Matt: So you feel that's working for you that that intentional sort of almost vulnerability or transparency shift has paid off in the ways that you had hoped?
[00:43:07] Rahul: Yeah, I think it has. And like as the second time around, like we've already made a huge pivot. Like we spent a year and a half on a completely different product that didn't work out. Now we're pivoting over, like we haven't lost team members as a result of that. Like I think it's, I think naturally also, the people that you are recruiting at this stage, they want to be part of an early stage venture.
[00:43:29] Rahul: They want that excitement. So, yeah.
[00:43:33] Matt: That's why they're choosing the instability of a startup over, you know, the opposite with big companies. Yeah, that makes sense. It's just tricky, right? It's challenging. I think all CEOs probably struggle with the loneliness thing. Based on what I've heard, this is a thing I've been researching a bit lately and it seems like it's common, but you're right.
[00:43:54] Matt: I think you have to hire for that. Not everybody wants to be exposed to the guts, [00:44:00] right?
[00:44:00] Rahul: Yeah.
[00:44:00] Matt: Sometimes your team is not prepared for that cultural shift, but it sounds like for you they were, and that's been really positive, so that's great. Was there anything you did to suss that out or did you kind of just go in both feet just jumping off the high dive?
[00:44:14] Rahul: Yeah. Well it is funny, like during the interview process for our team, like I'll be very candid with them and I’ll be like, Hey, we're a startup. We have X number of months of runway left. This may not work. If you're in a position financially where you, you know, need this money and something were to happen where you don't have a job in the next few months, don't take this role.
[00:44:33] Rahul: And I think I try to scare them a little bit. That's good. Like, do I really wanna do this because I think in my first company I was selling them on the upside and how amazing things are gonna be and like how this company's gonna be so valuable and we're just about to take off. And I kind of realized I was doing them a disservice because I was, you know, setting their expectations way too high.
[00:44:57] Rahul: And I also wasn't [00:45:00] being realistic, which is how uncertain every startup is.
[00:45:05] Matt: Yeah, it's hard. I fight with that all the time. Like I still, I mean, I try. The, my personal struggle is that I think my passion and my enthusiasm for a solution to a problem can be infectious. At the same time, it can create the expectation of a bias.
[00:45:29] Matt: Right? And so like there's this interesting balance between demonstrating when you're enthusiastic about something and trying not to look like you're trying to convince everybody. And I honestly, I worry about that constantly. I never know if I've actually struck the balance on that, but I think
[00:45:46] Matt: it's hard for founders. Because I think if you don't have that sort of almost blind optimism that like makes you think that above all odds you're actually gonna accomplish this. If you don't have that, you're probably not a good founder. But if you do have [00:46:00] that, it can run into some of those other friction points and that can be difficult to juggle.
[00:46:03] Rahul: Totally. And like what you're saying is probably why you and other people are so good at sales is that you get so excited about something, you see the value in it, you can get other people excited about it, but then at the same time, like, you get them excited to buy, which is great from a sales perspective, but then when it’s, their life, their livelihood, like their family, and like, you know, their stability, you don't necessarily wanna oversell.
[00:46:25] Matt: Right. Totally agree. Yeah. Well, listen, Rahul, this was awesome. Thank you so much for, being a guest and, for being open with us and I've really enjoyed the conversation. Tell everybody where they can find your current product.
[00:46:37] Rahul: Yeah, so if you go to thatsnoble.com, you can go learn more about it.
[00:46:43] Rahul: And if you're interested in showing up in AI search, you can book a demo and you know, if you mention the podcast, I'll talk to you directly.
[00:46:50] Matt: There it is, mention Outfoxed. And to be clear, it's spelled N-O-B-L-E. So if you're a CrossFitter, this is not N-O-B-U-L-L. It's not [00:47:00] Nobull. This is Noble.
[00:47:01] Matt: So Rahul, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.
[00:47:04] Rahul: Of course. Thanks Matt.