Spark of Ages
In every episode, we’re going to do a deep dive with our guest about what led them to their own 'eureka' moments, how they went about executing it, and perhaps most importantly, how do they get other people to believe in them so that their idea could also someday become a Spark for the Ages.
Spark of Ages
Creating Signal Not Noise/Melissa Rosenthal - The New PR, Driving In-Bound, Listicles ~ Spark of Ages Ep 26
What if your company's marketing could transform into its own dynamic trade publication? Learn from Melissa Rosenthal, co-founder of Outlever, as she shares her innovative approach to modern marketing on the Spark of Ages podcast. With Melissa's deep insights, we challenge outdated marketing strategies and unveil how companies can thrive in an AI-driven world by streamlining their tech stacks and targeting meaningful growth. Her experience at ClickUp underscores the importance of consolidating marketing efforts into efficient, multi-functional platforms.
Join us as we uncover Outlever's transformative tactics that help businesses reach new heights by focusing on inbound marketing and audience-first content. Melissa reveals how human writers, empowered by technology, craft narratives that break away from traditional public relations, creating impactful stories that resonate with audiences and drive engagement. This fresh approach not only positions companies as industry leaders but also redefines what it means to connect with consumers in today's fast-paced digital landscape.
The episode also explores Melissa's personal transition from the media to the tech industry, highlighting her adaptability and foresight in navigating career disruptions. We discuss the shift away from VC-backed hyper-growth models towards more sustainable, self-funded strategies that prioritize profitability and authentic engagement. Through Melissa's experiences with BuzzFeed and Cheddar, we gain valuable insights into the power of strategic decision-making and the importance of innovation in evolving marketing and technology landscapes.
Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/
Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/
Email us with any feedback for the show: spark@postion2.com
Hello, and welcome to the spark of ages podcast today. Our guest is Melissa Rosenthal, co founder of Outlever, a platform she's building to counter the frustrations she's dealt with throughout her career as a brand builder with a deep passion for value creation. Melissa is driven to empower brands through content at scale. And in building Outlever, she's opening a net New marketing and sales channel for ROI focused B2B and B2C brands. Melissa's career has been a rocket ship where she's held significant leadership roles, including the chief creative officer at ClickUp, chief marketing officer at Insight Timer, chief revenue officer at. Cheddar and vice president of Global Creative at Buzzfeed, her achievements have been recognized by Forbes 30 under 30 business insiders, 30 most creative people under 30 and Digiday change makers. I'm still hoping for, you know, I'm,
Sandeep Parikh:I'm banking on I'm that I'm gonna get 50 over 50 50 over 50. So that's what I'm, that's I'm gutting for. Alright. There you go. You're on the path. You're on the path 80 of Brady. I don't know. So I'm going to get on a list.
Rajiv Parikh:Thousand under a hundred. Some of the key takeaways you can expect from this episode, outlevers cutting edge strategy for cutting through media noise, what an expert in scaling growth for media and technology companies like Melissa focuses on and go to market for her own startup and how your company can step up their creative game in the age of AI. So Melissa, welcome to the spark of ages.
Melissa Rosenthal:Thank you so much for having me, very excited to be
Rajiv Parikh:here. Yeah, so glad to have you. I know you're, you've gone from many cycles in your career from early stage, all the way to, to, you know, mega startup to, uh, really good size companies. And now you're on your next one. So. We have so much fun stuff to talk about because I love talking to fellow marketers, especially entrepreneurs. Um, in your opinion, what's the biggest problem you see in content marketing and creative advertising in terms of how brands connect with customers?
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah, I mean, I think there's a, like, marketing is changing dramatically, like, there's seismic shifts happening. And I think that there's, you know, there were these traditional playbooks that worked, you know, many years ago. And I think there's a lot of marketers that are still kind of sticking to these playbooks, although the distribution and. Consumption and content have all evolved quite, you know, quite dramatically.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah. So there's a need for a fundamental trend, uh, transformation. I know, uh, just in the last year, last couple of years, especially in the B2B tech side, there's been a huge issue with companies hitting growth walls, right? They were growing at 20, 30 percent a year. And then all of a sudden now it's like single digits. You know, CFOs are looking at them saying, why am I investing so much on sales and marketing? Your sales to marketing ratio to new to new revenue is really high. It's great if you're growing fast, but it's not, if you're, you know, it's not, if you're not getting the growth and so many of the traditional methods aren't working like they used to.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah.
Rajiv Parikh:And so is that what you were thinking with how you were starting up this current company?
Melissa Rosenthal:The reason why we are where we are is I think we did a lot of bad, naughty things to software during the pandemic. We assumed that. You know, 50 100 percent growth year over year was just the new norm, and that we would be able to raise infinite amount of money to support that. And that profitability and a lot of other retention metrics didn't matter. And it was literally this growth at all costs model where nothing mattered except growth. And the reality of that is it's just not real. Like growth cannot be 50 100% Year over year for most companies and you can't hire and spend marketing dollars to be able to support that. So where are we now? Uh growth stopped because people realized that they had they were, you know, first of all Duplicating the amount of software that they needed Companies, even, even ourselves at ClickUp,
Rajiv Parikh:many times over. Right. I mean, you look at these, they would show off these incredible, at least CMOs would show up these incredible marketing stacks. Right. And they have million, like 25 logos as if that was a great thing. And I would sit there going, how do you operate all this stuff? How do you make all this stuff work? I mean, I'm a marketer. I love technology, but come on.
Melissa Rosenthal:You know, the reality was that we were like, you'd find people in the company using. Miro and others using like other whiteboard tools. And it's like, wait, so we have 1, 500 people in the company and we're using 10 different tools for whiteboards. That makes zero sense. So there's no price efficiency there. You're not getting any sort of like, you know, growth model baked into purchasing, um, and then you're, you're having. 10 different people using 10 different tools and they're not collaborating on them. Um, so, you know, a lot of that bad behavior within consumer between pack buying stops. And we had to face the realities of what that kind of new normal meant. And like the trickle down from for every company meant that a people were looking for consolidation. So they were looking for tools that could do multiple things and not just one thing. Like, why would you buy a tool for whiteboards when ClickUp has whiteboards within it? Um, so they were looking for efficiencies within. Existing operating systems and with existing tool sets, um, so all of these, like, you know, the kind of siloed companies that we saw, like, um, like loom and all these, you know, that they were valued at what, like, 60 billion dollars or something. I mean, maybe not 60, but like, 20 billion dollars. And it's like, how can a video clip. Make it has
Rajiv Parikh:a picture of my, it has a picture of me. It has a little bite me in a circle in the middle. That's massive technological innovation.
Melissa Rosenthal:And it's free. Um, so, you know, I think it was just like a lot of like, we just built that internally because we're like, why would we spend money on loom when we can, you know, and it was costing us like 20. Like that's crazy. Uh, so I think every company kind of did what we did. And we looked internally and we're like, what are we using that we can either build ourselves or consolidate to like, who needs to actually use it? Also, not every single person at the company needs a Figma license, which I think like was another thing, they would be giving these licenses to out to the entire company. And then we really started to constrict who actually had access to the licenses. So that's a long way of saying just like the, the ecosystem of how we bought software and Who got to access to it and what that looked like was just not reality. And I think that that shifted the entire market. And then I think we went into this weird, like, you know, out of the growth of all, out of all costs, we kind of shifted like a complete one 80 into this like efficiency, which I say this on a lot of podcasts, but like efficiency isn't a growth strategy. It's an operational strategy that should just be baked into your, your modeling as you spend. And as you think about things, but Efficiency doesn't lead to growth. Efficiency just leads to, you know, constriction of, of things that potentially you need to grow. Um, so I, I think that there's always just kind of this weird thing where people are like, you know, we're focused on efficiency. Great. Like, you should always be focused on efficiency, like, but that doesn't mean that efficiency equals growth. Um, so I think that there became this very, Big battle for marketing budgets for like, we're not spending any money. We're not doing this. And then it's like, but we're not growing. And you know, then there's this like battle of like, well, you can't have it both ways. If you're not spending any money, like let's, we want to prove the marketing is actually working. We'll stop spending money and then see what happens. Um, same thing with like outbound sales. You know, I think a lot of these companies were like, Oh my God, we need to harness the power of outbound. So they built a, a 500 person sales force doing outbound. With no signals attached, just doing these like terrible outbound sequences. Um, and now with AI, we're even seeing like kind of the, the, the, the crux of like what that has become, which is just like saturation of shitty, shitty, uh, outbound. Um, and that's not working. And then companies are like, well, outbound doesn't work. So we're going to fire that old team. Anyway, I only
Rajiv Parikh:want, I only want inbound content. I just want inbound now. Right. That's what everybody says. Right. But, and it is hard.
Melissa Rosenthal:And the thing is, like, I do believe in a lot of these things. I just don't believe in, like, we haven't, like, evolved as, like, a, as an, as a, as a industry, like, especially in software and especially, like, tech, we just, like, haven't evolved our thinking into, like, what we need to be doing. And that's why, you know, I created Outlover. Um, I, before SAS, I was in news media. And I, I saw things that worked like in terms of like getting people's attention and I built a lot of those things and I felt like we never applied or maybe some companies I worked at we did, but like, the industry as a whole, never fully applied the methodology of understanding, like, why people connect to content. And why people care about things to their actual marketing strategy. So they just started producing shit.
Rajiv Parikh:Like
Melissa Rosenthal:just, I
Rajiv Parikh:need content. So just produce a bunch of garbage articles. Nothing drives me crazier than when I, when we ask for content and we just get like a Wikipedia style article. Yeah. So bland, so boring, no examples, no story, nothing to attract you. But it's like, Hey, this, this does well because the search engines will pick it up. Well, maybe, but nobody's going to read it. For more than two minutes, two seconds,
Melissa Rosenthal:a hundred percent. I think there's also like, we're, we're dealing with this also, this problem called the internal like back, uh, back pat. And the internal back pad is like when people sit in a room and they're like, yeah, we love this. We created this video and it's got Mikey from the, you know, like Mikey on the tech side, Mikey's hilarious. And like, Mikey does this thing. And then we, we do this and it's like, It's nothing. It's just like, maybe that's funny to your company or maybe that like is great internally, but like that should never see the light of day. Um, so people just like produce a lot of like stuff because they think like they like it, but like, that's not the reality of like what marketing actually is, you know,
Rajiv Parikh:there you go. And so that led you to say, let's go start up, let me start up my own, you know, this company out lever, uh, it's about building better content for the B2B brand or B2C brand for any brand, but it's to do a much better job of it. Okay. Uh, when I go to your website, I see a, basically just a very simple landing page and I go and say, get, get me a demo. Is that because everyone knows who you are and they want to talk to you?
Melissa Rosenthal:Kind of. We will be revamping the webpage just for, I'm just
Rajiv Parikh:being playful, by the way. I'm sure you're right. I
Melissa Rosenthal:mean, we will be revamping and just like, there's a bunch of reasons now, like what you need to actually see when you get there and like what it should, what it should actually like who we're speaking to. Um, but yeah, the reality was that when I launched. A hundred percent of my inbound, a hundred percent of our demos came from inbound.
Rajiv Parikh:I'm sure.
Melissa Rosenthal:And that was our entire marketing strategy to start just inbound. Um, we are like inundated with it. So it's like a little bit now kind of just like building, building the method. I mean,
Rajiv Parikh:it's a great way to figure out who initially, if a lot of people know, yeah, a lot of people know you already, you're trying to figure out who you're doing your design with your initial designs with. We have, you want to pick the right people. You don't want to go off in the wrong direction, right? So you don't want to be too broad about what you're saying. Just pick, this is part of the initial start, right? Like let's, let's do my initial set of designs with the right people. And so let them call you, you can filter them out and then you go wide.
Sandeep Parikh:So, so just, sorry, as, as the, uh, not as the non marketing brother here, can I just ask like, exactly what does Outlever do?
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah, um, out lever turns companies into their own dream trade publication. So effectively, they are their own tech crunch, their own, um, their own kind of trade, yeah, their own news company, their own trade publication where we're publishing hundreds of stories a month, new stories, and we're talking to the people in their ICP customer set. That can give perspectives on the things that we're talking about that matter to them. So it's less about people talking about themselves and it's more about talking about the things that their customers care about, giving them a platform, think about it. If you had a podcast at extreme massive scale, where every day you were talking about 20 to 30 different news topics that affect your industry. That's what we do.
Rajiv Parikh:Okay. So everybody who doesn't know marketing, well, ICP is ideal customer profile. I
Sandeep Parikh:knew that one. I've done enough of these podcasts. So we can get out
Rajiv Parikh:with you all about the history of where that came from. I think it came from strategic selling back in the late eighties. Anyways, now I, if I, if I sign up with Outlever, I now can. Uh, take the things that I know about my industry and myself and literally have lots and lots of quality content coming from me as the brand.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah, exactly. And that, and
Rajiv Parikh:I don't have to write it all. I don't have to,
Melissa Rosenthal:I don't need an army
Rajiv Parikh:of writers, an army of,
Melissa Rosenthal:that's like every company is resource constraint, um, constricted. So we, we do it a hundred percent for, uh, the companies that we work with.
Rajiv Parikh:That's great. Do you have some initial, you must have some initial customers.
Melissa Rosenthal:Oh yeah. We have 20 customers with a bunch that are about to close and a bunch of them are already live publishing every day and talking to a lot of people and creating conversations and, uh, the motion's really working. It's really great. Same.
Rajiv Parikh:Wow. That's amazing. So, yeah, so I'm, I actually did, uh, before this call sign up for a demo. So I'm all excited about doing that. We would have made you do a live demo here, but that's okay. We'll talk, we'll talk about
Melissa Rosenthal:the company and then showing some examples.
Rajiv Parikh:Awesome.
Melissa Rosenthal:So you're getting that.
Rajiv Parikh:So we're kind of doing that. We are doing a live demo. So, and you've said you're using writers, not just building with, uh, AI, right? And, um.
Melissa Rosenthal:Quality is really important. Um, and we want it to be still from a journalistic lens. Like, why are we covering this? Why does it matter? Why should you care about it? Um, what are the sources that we're quoting? What are the quotes look like? Who are we speaking to? There's a lot of like nuances to decision making that need to come from people, but the tech can be built to enhance those decisions. Um, and that's what we've worked on over the past year, building that product, the product that allows a team of journalists to make these decisions faster, to understand what they're writing for, to understand angles. Um, because you know, what's, what's interesting is like, it's, it's not, Super native to a journalist's mind, who was written for the New York Times, how B to B angles apply to each other and how there's triangulation across customer sets and like, how all of that works. It's a very, like, nuanced skill set, um, and understanding of industry as at scale. So the expectation for journalists to have that. It's just unrealistic. Uh, so the tech helps a lot with
Rajiv Parikh:that. I see. So the tech helps the journalists identify what I, what are good angles? What are good signals to write about? I'm, you know, I, cause a lot of times for companies, when you're in the company, you feel like you have, you have some things to talk about and hopefully the, the capabilities you're offering, allow them to expand that palette, right. Of things. Yeah.
Melissa Rosenthal:Like on, you know, there, there are things that are happening every single day. It's like this biotech company just raised X amount of money. Then you have to go in and say, okay, how does this apply to a larger trend within biotech? What does this actually mean for industry as a whole? And then how does it connect back to this customer? You know, there's a lot of decisions and a lot of thought processes that need to take place to, to be able to, um, understand that and then write, write a journalistic article from that perspective. So.
Rajiv Parikh:It's like almost like PR at scale in a way, that's what your PR firm is trying to do is trying to get people to write about you. I
Melissa Rosenthal:believe that this is the new PR, like trying to get like a New York times or a Forbes, which I don't believe in anymore. I know it's 30, but like Forbes has lost all credibility in my mind. Um, but trying to get like an, like a, like a, uh, like a published piece in Forbes or wall street journal or fast company, that's a sniper shot. Like if you're paying a PR agency, 30, 000 a month to like try to get a couple of those, like. There's a lot better uses for your money and one of those is like an entire brand strategy. Like why don't you just become the news that you want to be featured in? Like that is our entire positioning statement. It's like stop trying to find or pay a middleman because their voice is more authoritative. Now if you get a New York Times like full page piece, Awesome. Well, that is fantastic. I'm
Rajiv Parikh:not
Melissa Rosenthal:knocking that. I think that has a lot of value, but who gets that? Like, yeah. And
Rajiv Parikh:I think if you're doing enough of these doing enough high quality journalistic style articles, you're more likely to get picked up by New York times or Wall Street Journal or be
Melissa Rosenthal:able to jump on something that is actually like topical enough that the perspective featured in the stuff that you're covering is applicable to that. And I totally agree. I mean, it, but we are in a world where even if you raise a hundred million dollars, like that's not worthy of. Okay. So, like, what is, you know, I, I think it's like doing something really naughty, like, you know, if you're Elizabeth Holmes or like something that's like really bad, it gets picked up in press and then something that's just like, you know, you're, you're a lot or, you know, like, it's very, it's very, um, Um, like kind of polarizing what's picked up. It's not everything anymore. So I think you need to become the news. That's
Rajiv Parikh:it is really hard now, right? Like, like a lot of folks are using, there are a set of folks like Elon that are using to say wild and crazy things as a way of getting picked up and heard.
Melissa Rosenthal:Brands don't want to do that. Yeah,
Rajiv Parikh:that's very uncomfortable. I I've, by the way, I've had folks say, yeah, I'll get, get more known, say more controversial things. And I'm like, yeah, that's just not my brand.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a risk taker and I'm not risk averse. And I do believe in an element of that, but I do not believe in like, you know, taking it to the level in which he does. Um, and
Rajiv Parikh:I'm surprised actually you just in saying about, I don't know if you want to talk further about it, but, um, Forbes, right, Forbes used to be a great business magazine and then they basically opened themselves to anyone writing articles. And so now, you know, you said, I wrote an article for Forbes and before that was amazing. And now you're like, well, it says, well,
Melissa Rosenthal:they're, they're new models even for a while. They, um, what they do is they reach out to people saying, Hey, we want you to write an article or we want to write an article with you. And then they tell them that they're going to have to pay to write that article. That's right. And then what they do is they sell that article to a company to sponsor it.
Sandeep Parikh:Yep.
Melissa Rosenthal:That's so broken. That's so broken.
Sandeep Parikh:Yep. So there's nothing like sincere about that whole experience. There's nothing that's sort of Who's reading that
Melissa Rosenthal:and trusting it? It's a contributor that's being paid to write, that is paying to write that article. That is then another company is paying to sponsor the article.
Everyone:Yeah. What is that? Yep.
Melissa Rosenthal:I don't even know what that is. Like, what am I reading? Like,
Sandeep Parikh:it just seems like a bunch of people making money and providing no value. Yeah,
Melissa Rosenthal:yeah, yeah, exactly.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah. And you can see that in the quality of the article, right? When, when you, when you know enough about that, every time you see that, I see an article from them, you wonder, is this, is this the, you know, well written business article, or is this the. The
Sandeep Parikh:clickbait, honestly, used to be able to really easily sniff out the clickbait, right? Or, or be able to say that like, uh, or you'd see, Oh, this is from the New York times, or this is from this, this trusted source. So it's, it's, this won't be clickbait. But now I feel like That you do don't you don't get that sense anymore and you're like I can't tell if this is or or or a paid sponsored Article rather than it being a real article.
Melissa Rosenthal:I was like someone that raised a significant amount of money for like a series a and They posted a write up about the raise And I read the writeup and I'm like, what is this? It was just like AI copy and pasted paragraphs that just repeated themselves over and over. And I'm like, I can't believe that someone is like promoting this article. Like this is really crazy. Like it, this isn't even like hidden that it's just like chat, GPT, copy, paste contributor. So it's like a contributor wrote it, but then they just plugged in the chat. I'm just like, wow. Like there's such an opportunity of that. The bar is so, so, so low. Right. I mean,
Rajiv Parikh:the person probably said, he probably wrote a paragraph and said, make it a hundred, you know, make it 300 words. Right. It just became repetitive. The
Melissa Rosenthal:bar is just so low and we're trying to raise it. Like quality is definitely like a big piece of this. Um, that's why I don't like, Over, over endorse the fact that like we use AI because it's really human. It's like in the AI again, it makes people more productive and more like able to write faster, edit faster. But like quality is our number one priority. Like companies don't want shit coming out of their, out of their brand. Like it's really important. Um, we want to talk about the things that matter in a really intelligent way.
Sandeep Parikh:To me, it's like, it makes the research part faster.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah, it does. At least
Sandeep Parikh:that, you know, it just collates and collabs and collects everything and presents it in a way that I can then parse as the writer, you know, more cleanly than, you know, search engine stuff. So, yeah.
Melissa Rosenthal:Exactly.
Rajiv Parikh:So now for, for Outlever, is your buyer, the CMO? Is it the head of corporate communications? Is it the,
Melissa Rosenthal:yeah, it's kind of all of the above it's, it's a CMO. It's the, you know, corporate comms person. It's some of the sales people, cause there's an outbound motion as well. That that's attached to it. Um, it's a lot of different people like a lot of different people can say yes and a lot of different people like want to have a stake in it because it's interesting to them and it kind of shakes up any sort of traditional model that they've been doing. I mean, every piece of feedback is like, holy shit, like, you're thinking about a everything that we've tasked our team with doing internally that we didn't know how we were going to do. And be a lot of the things that we were struggling with that sort of you kind of put into a nice box of the bow that you're able to do for us. So that's sort of the responses, which have been really great to say, like, it's great that it's resonating. It's great that like, I'm solving a problem that I struggled with myself. So. I feel like uniquely positioned to be able to build it and talk about it and sell it.
Rajiv Parikh:So, so are you, so would it come under, right? There's multiple budgets that this comes, that this could come under. Would you put this under the, the brand building, corporate marketing, put my message out, but budget, or would you put it in your, a lot of companies will have the demand gen or performance budget. Where would it go?
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah, I mean, it's definitely like a mix of like, probably, I mean, companies, it depends on how big their pockets are, like, some are just like, oh, well, this could easily just come out of our comms budget, um, a mix, usually a mix of like, comms, marketing, demand gen, kind of that, that three, uh, trifecta, we see, uh, a lot of marketing and a lot of comms for sure.
Rajiv Parikh:Well, are you seeing any, you feeling any, I know it's early, um, are these types of companies, there's always a challenge, right? It's something you haven't thought about when you first started it.
Melissa Rosenthal:No surprises. I think just more opportunity that we are seeing, like, there's just so much, like, I think I mentioned this, but like companies are creating so much internal collateral that like they don't know what to do with it. And they're spending a lot of time. There's been a lot of money, a lot of resources on it, and they don't know how to like get legs out of it. So we've kind of created this like octopus method of let's take everything that you're creating internally and create it into, you know, what, what is the new, what is newsworthy about that? Like, how do we actually turn that into news? How do we give that legs? How do we allow it to have a life outside of a PDF or outside of a white paper? Because like, That's like, that's one and done. Like you spent all this time, all this money, five months creating a campaign around this white paper and then like, that's it. Um, so we, we really are just seeing like massive opportunities to triangulate. Like a lot of the things that companies are already working on internally, um, and leveraging that within our strategy as well.
Rajiv Parikh:So how do you measure success? Like what is the, there's a, what does the client say for their, their KPIs are for Like, yeah, I create, I created this white paper. I created this campaign, I got it out there. So there's a checkbox usually for that. But then at the end we say, well, did it drive, did it drive leads? Did it drive opportunities? Did it drive sales? A lot of times content doesn't get put in that bucket. It gets put in more of a share a voice kind of bucket.
Melissa Rosenthal:I mean, it's, yeah. How many conversations can we get open? How many unique pieces of content can we create? Create out of it. How many unique angles, how many industries does it touch? How many C level executives can we get talking about it? How many people can we talk to about it? Like there was a thousand KPIs that we can get out of that, that are just much more meaningful and real and authentic and like true to a actual.
Sandeep Parikh:I'm curious about, you know, scaling your company, it's, it comes with a lot of challenges scaling obviously. What's like been a surprise for you so far with Outlover compared to say your other experiences at BuzzFeed, Cheddar, ClickUp?
Melissa Rosenthal:Well, we definitely don't want to be like a 1500 person company and we want to be profitable and we're fully self funded. So, you know, this is definitely like, I'm everything I've grown up with has been this model of like VC backed growth, hyper growth. And our goal is not to do that at all. It's like, how do we get to 10 million ARR and then decide what we want to do? Um, so that comes with a lot of like, I think much more strategic thinking. And careful thinking about like how we leverage different pieces of the puzzle to build a very lean, efficient, profitable, and you know, good revenue per employee model where we are not inflated and our growth is amazing. So I think being forced to think that way has like changed my perspective entirely. I'm just like, this is a good way of growing. Um, maybe for us, maybe, you know, not for something where it's like, You know, you, you are competing in a CRM market or a work management market or a cyber security market completely different. I think where we are, um, this is absolutely the right way of doing it because the decisions that we're forced to make now are going to make us very powerful and, um, very successful. Smart and strategic about how to actually grow this efficiently and make our technology even better. So like, it's just a very interesting thing when I think about scale and think about growth, like, you know, do you want to be that for, did I want to be like a company that maybe could be worth, you know, a billion dollars with five people? Yeah. Maybe that's not the reality, but, um,
Rajiv Parikh:you're the next Instagram. There you go.
Melissa Rosenthal:What's the next billion dollar, you know, billion dollar company with two people. Now, I don't think that's going to be us, unfortunately, but like, I do think that we are going to be leaner and more efficient and more profitable and grow faster than if we had venture backed money. And I think that there's a reason it's just, you're forced to make decisions. And
Rajiv Parikh:so you're, so you're not taking as much capital this time.
Melissa Rosenthal:We didn't take any capital. I self funded the entire company. My capital,
Rajiv Parikh:um,
Melissa Rosenthal:which makes you very careful about how you deploy it and how you think about it. And I think all of those decisions that you're forced to make when you're self funding something, just make you more valuable later on because you're thinking strategically, I'm like, what can the tech offset so that we can make people more efficient, more productive, but we have to lean on the tech because we can't, we don't want to hire 25 people. Um, Until we hit X amount, like you're just thinking about things in like such a different way. First, like we got to grow and it doesn't matter. So we're just going to hire.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah. So typically with VCs, right. When they, when they put money in for them, they have money, right. They have plenty of money and they want to put it to work and they want to get, you want to get an outcome within a, with a circumscribed period. Right. Where, where you, if it was your money, your money, like out of your pocket, you might say, well, I want to make certain decisions and I want to wait until some of those decisions play out. The venture firm, the venture firms like, no, no, I want to get somewhere in three to five years. Let's pour in the money today. Let's spend on that. Let's, Crank up that team, like you were talking about before, with let's hire all those people in outbound, right? Yeah.
Melissa Rosenthal:Let's create content that's lesser quality so that we can do more. And like there, there's decisions that we would be making that wouldn't be in the best interest of our customers. They wouldn't be in the best interest of our product or our long-term growth, whatever that may be. And they would wanna return in three years. And maybe our path to growth is in three years we take a round and we do that strategically because there's m and a we wanna do, but I, there needs to be for us, like a strategic reason to take that money. Not because we need to get our company off the ground, like that just isn't the model for us, but you're exactly right. Like there, there are, I think there's sacrifices that you make when you take VC money that I don't know if you realize until there's long term, like, you know, repercussions of what that is. You're like, I didn't build the company. I want it. I didn't build the product. I want it. I made all these sacrifices. And that used to be the only way forward. And I think if you can handle it and you can do it and you can sell fun, like obviously, you know, I, I'm taking a bet on my company here and on myself, but I'm doing it in a way that I am in control of what that, that is, um, to, you know, to the extent that I want to be, and I feel that I need to be. It's
Sandeep Parikh:like, it's like when you spend, when you spend your own money on it, you, you, the decisions are obviously more personal and then you are also, they're also more strategic and you get to know your own products better. You get to know the, the, the business itself better. Yeah. Um, because of that, that's, that's really, yeah, it's, it's really, uh, yeah. I mean,
Melissa Rosenthal:certainly, you know, like in venture companies, you, you hire a lot and then you sort of like create this bureaucracy and like, we don't have room or time for that. You have to hire operators and soldiers and people that are like, Just passionate about what we're doing, getting the job done or passionate about growth and what we're building here. And, and that's it. Like there's, there's no levels of bureaucracy. We can't have that. We're too lean and too small.
Rajiv Parikh:And I, and I think because you, like you were talking about, because we have, uh, this, this whole new level of technology, the gender of AI capabilities and other kinds of tech, um, we don't have to pour tons and tons of people in and, and we can make, we can make a lot of, uh, uh, I, I'm finding this in my own company, like we're able to play with so many different types of software and so many different types of outputs. Yeah. You know, we do content marketing from firms. We put out ads across various channels. We are building web environments or app environments. There's so many tools now that we can play with those tools and get answers in a way that we couldn't get before.
Everyone:Right.
Rajiv Parikh:So you can make decisions now or get signals from the market so that you can do a better job of. Right. Of steering the company without burning a ton of cash.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah. And I, you know, it's really interesting. Like what we see in every day, like my co founder sends me articles and it's like companies that are raising 50 million that are doing like a micro fraction of what our product is actually doing. And it's just like, it is really wild. I'm like, wow, like, they're not thinking about this the way that we're thinking about it. Um, We're sort of this like AI company that's like human first in a way of our approach. Like we are like, we're trying to humanize like what AI actually is in a way of like, making it just. More, more efficient for people to do things at scale, but we're not trying to retrofit AI into our modeling and into our product. It's sort of built into the like ecosystem of how we built the company. So it's just like, it's just very interesting. I'm seeing like all these things that I'm like, Oh my God, this is like kind of wild. Um, so hopefully you're solving
Rajiv Parikh:a problem. So let's go back to your a little bit of Your background and roots. So, you know, you were sitting there, uh, you've, you've had amazing success across so many companies at a young age. And so did you always know that you were going to work in technology background? I know I I've heard that, you know, your dad was an experiential marketer. Um, so was that your thing? Like I'm going to go start up, run scale companies.
Melissa Rosenthal:Um, be very cool. If like I came out of the womb being like, yeah, hypergrowth.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. Your first words were
Melissa Rosenthal:no, uh, I kind of fell into my passion was like, Disruption. Like, I think I was really excited about like, like killing the dinosaurs. If I were to say like, you know, like, there's just a lot of people that have like existed and I think we're seeing this now. Right? Like, there's, there's, there's a weird, like, I talk about this all the time with people, but look at the wealth transfer. Right? Like you have like boomers and Gen X and like, they have money from just like living and existing and like, like just sitting in a career. Right. For like 20 years and they've made money and they've bought assets. And like our generation, like has never had that opportunity. Like we were like, I came out of college, you know, during, you know, 2008. So no one had jobs and, and companies were going under. That was a
Rajiv Parikh:terrible time to come out for
Melissa Rosenthal:me to be like, okay, I have to like, think differently about what my career path is going to be. Just like from that very onset, I was Well, I wanted to go into the music industry and I'm working at this, like, music company and they're dying because the internet's killing them and these people that were sitting at the top, like, you know, making tons of money are now just like panicking. Um, so I saw like a, just sort of a reset of a mind mindset, like that I had during that time. I was like, okay, like. My career has to look a little bit different than like what this is. And it was like, what can I go into that challenges? What this way of thinking is. And it was really just like the mindset of disruption. And that's sort of how I landed on Buzzfeed. Um, I was using the product every day as a, as a consumer, as like a community member, and I thought their technology was like fascinating, first of all, they were trying to solve a really interesting problem, which is, or discover kind of why people share content, um, and. Um, little did I know that that would, like, kind of transform my entire career, but just like the notion of, like, understanding and turning, like, this thing that was considered an anomaly, like, virality into a framework and a blueprint was really, for me, um, just like an enormous. Kind of unlock, I think, like, okay, if we can productize virality and create a framework that then can be applicable to do it again and again and again, anything can be done, like, that's just like something that is considered such a rare anomaly. Like, it's a thing that just a moment, you can't, like, actually prioritize it or even describe it. And I'm like, oh, if we can do this, like, everything is possible. So that's what got me really excited about just disruption. And, um, I started as an intern at BuzzFeed and I raised my hand and just grew within the company really fast and took on all these challenges because no one had done it before. So I was up against like nothing, like, you know, it was me versus like the wild rather than like me versus, you know, Johnny, who had sat at the helm of a, you know, Music company for 25 years and knows better because he's been had the experience like I was just up against like myself really and like not knowing what I didn't know and what didn't exist like we had to basically transform an average of the entire advertising industry into understanding that like social content was something that they should put budget towards versus banner and display ads. Like that's what I was up against. I was up against that. I was up against, you know, Linear distribution of going to a newsstand and purchasing a newspaper at a magazine and having a newspaper dropped off at your door early morning. So I was up against like legacy ways of operating versus people and I think that's what was really exciting to me. It was like, all right, great. Uh, this is a new way of thinking and I can come in here and everyone is open to it because we were about embracing the future, not trying to save ourselves by sticking to the past.
Rajiv Parikh:Right. So there's a whole wide open field. You saw it, you saw this thing that you, you actually recognized that, um, uh, virality was not just something that happened and you're catching a moment. There was, there were core capabilities that you could harness and build over and over and, and then you didn't have, um, what you have in a lot of big companies where there's tons of competition for every role and the company's growing so slowly that you have to, You know, pay your dues and make your way you had wide open fields to go.
Melissa Rosenthal:And I think like we're in, in most cases, like when you're, when you're like a new challenger type of mind or thinker, like you're up against fear and insecurity of the people that have come before you that don't know how to operate or think the way that you do. And they just are afraid. So they try to like. They try to sabotage you, you know, like it's, it's just the reality I think of, of like how people operate.
Rajiv Parikh:Sure. I mean, you're, you have a lot of competitors, they're all trying to figure out how to make their way up the next level and you're actually, you don't have that, you just have, let's grow this business, let's grow this capability, then you went from there and then you went to Cheddar and then eventually to ClickUp, just multiple transformations, right?
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah. I mean, Cheddar was kind of the new, the next wave of like. Hey, I want it to like be even more at the ground floor. It was me and John, like, you know, basically starting the company. And I believed in, um, I believed in the consumer habits changing. Like we took a bet on people cutting the cord with cable years before it was happening. Like now it's like, who has a. Fucking keep the subscription, right? Like, but that wasn't a thing when we first started the company. It was like, we're going to take a bet that this will happen semi fast. Um, and that streaming will become the primary means of consuming content, um, via over the top and OTT. And yeah, that wasn't a thing. So we took a bet on that very early. And then we took a bet on re imagining what like. People want to actually watch, which is like in terms of news, which is, you know, young people telling them about what's happening in finance and tech and a cool and innovative life.
Rajiv Parikh:It's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing. And then you went to ClickUp, right? Where this was more of an, this is actually more software, enterprise software, well, I wouldn't, yeah, it's enterprise software actually. Right. It's, it's when you're tying all the parts of the company together. On a collaborative platform with project management and ability to build workflows and dashboards and all that. That's, it's like, what are you doing inside of the business? So you had the, you had the view of what consumers wanted, and then you took it to inside of, uh, inside of what businesses wanted.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm doing this huge, like, pretty big documentary of LinkedIn about my career and about this, like, moment. I think it comes out next week. So
Everyone:maybe
Melissa Rosenthal:this will be after this, hopefully. Um, but yeah, about, like, kind of this moment in time where I realized that, like, the digital publishing industry, um, was going to have, like, an issue. Which, um, and the issue was the fact that no matter how great, um, the content is the fact that you're still on the rails of distribution channels that control your destiny. It's just not a good model. Um, especially when your entire monetization is like, tied to that. So that's why I went to tech. Um, I really wanted to be able to. Live and breathe a product that was tangible, that we had control over people's ability to use it and feel it and touch it and the content and the marketing supported it. It wasn't the product. So
Everyone:ClickUp
Melissa Rosenthal:was just like everything I could have wanted as a pivot into tech. It was a bright, bold challenger company up against like, you know, Goliath, a 50 billion market cap companies where the CEO and the founding team were young, non. Tech people that believed in a vision and a legacy and a challenger mentality. And it was like everything that connected me from my old, you know, world of operating and publishing to, um, to this new way of, of what I wanted. And it was just like a perfect kind of marriage of like my skill set and where I wanted to be and the team over there. Um, and they allowed me to do some amazing things. It was like, I built an incredible team, um, full of like, just. Really smart, talented people that were wanted to challenge, you know, the, the industry and challenge the kind of status quo of what was being done.
Rajiv Parikh:What's one thing that you might've bought that you borrowed from your more consumer experience that you took to ClickUp that turned into a successful campaign. I'm sure you have many, but I'm going to ask you to pick one.
Melissa Rosenthal:It wasn't one. It was like the entire mindset of how I thought about. Content marketing, um, like that kind of going back to what we were chatting about, like my entire belief system on being able to templatize and create frameworks on virality and shareability of content. I then applied to to enterprise software, because the reality is your empire, like, we are, they're people like, I buy enterprise software now, like, You know, I don't know what we think, like, we think they're just like some guy sitting up on the 50th floor in a suit in a corner office and he doesn't look at anything and people bring things to him and he's like, I don't want to laugh, you know, I don't want to, it's
Rajiv Parikh:like, it's also, it's a consumerization of it, right? Like, so before you were buying, you didn't really have access to it as a consumer. So you're really buying it as a business. So the interfaces didn't have to be as good. It could be, there's a, you could force people through a bunch of bureaucracy through your tools and technology. Yeah. Now you're like, well, frick, I got this phone here. I can do all these cool things. The software better, the software and the interface and the environment better be as good or better.
Melissa Rosenthal:That's it though. Like you're, you're, when you're, when you say enterprise, you're selling enterprise features and enterprise capability of your product. Like enterprise is not again, like a marketing strategy enterprises. Do you have admissions and permissions and is it, you know, SOC to compliant? And like, it's not, it's not like a marketing strategy to be enterprise ready. It's a, it's a feature strategy. It's a, can we support a 5, 000 person company because we have the, we have the features and the abilities within the product. Does it run fast enough? Does, is there no downtime? There are no bugs X, Y, and Z like that's enterprise. Um, so yeah, I mean, we just kind of like approached it like enterprise. Buyers are people within departments of companies that consume content and find things valuable and let's relate to them and create things that, that resonate, like the problems that they're dealing with. Why don't we just do like, like full on, like problem pain point marketing to its fullest extent and make it humorous. And we, we've focused a lot on that.
Rajiv Parikh:And I think that's amazing. That's a great way of putting together your whole, you know, all your experiences in life and then applying it, applying it to a, to a different, seemingly different industry or seemingly different world.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah. I'm lucky enough to like, be able to have made that connection and have the, the toolkit that I developed and in media and being able to apply that to, uh, to a software company. Well,
Rajiv Parikh:now Sunday, we are going to. Um,
Sandeep Parikh:yes. Uh, so we do a little game in our, in our show here. Um, and so, uh, be prepared to shift gears, Melissa, as you are about to enter the spark tank, uh, where two, yes, that's right. Uh, yeah, it's very scary. Where two marketing mavens enter and one has their LinkedIn profile permanently switched to seeking opportunities. Uh, today's game will be focused on listicles and their surprising history. Uh, so, uh, yeah, this should be good for you. Melissa, in one corner, we got Melissa Rosenthal, co founder of Outlover, uh, and the Buzzfeed brainchild, she, and, and on a listicle herself. Forbes 30 under 30. Uh, and then we have, uh, in the other corner, my brother, Rajiv Parikh, uh, the CEO who has more confidence than a clickbait headline. Uh, you two are about to go head to head in a battle of wits and lists, okay? So, this is like, it's gonna be basically two truths and a lie. Okay. Um, I'm going to read you three statements. Two of them are true. One is the lie. You've got to pick out which one is the lie. I'm going to count down three, two, one. You're both going to show your answer at the same time so that you can't cheat off each other. Okay. One, two, or three. All right. Round one focuses on the psychological principles behind why listicles actually work. All right. So statement number one, odd number listicles do better than even number listicles. And this is because of. Anchoring bias, where a list like seven or nine sets an initial expectation that feels more unique or specific than an even number like ten, okay? Number two, the pattern recognition reward that our brains in fact release dopamine, a pleasure chemical when we recognize patterns such as the predictable structure of a listicle leading to a feeling of satisfaction. Number three, the zag, the zygarnik, the zygarnik effect explains that we experience a sense of relief and satisfaction when we complete a listicle because it eliminates the mental tension of an unfinished task. So two of these are true. Two of these are real. Uh, one is false. So one is the anchoring bias, where odd number lists are, are better. Two is the pattern recognition reward, which states that our brain releases dopamine when we recognize a pattern. And three is the Zegernik effect, which is the relief when we Uh, when we eliminate the mental tension of unfinished tasks. So which one do you think is correct or which one do you think is false in 3, 2, 1. Okay. Rajiv has chosen number one, the anchoring bias. Melissa has chosen number three, that probably because I cannot pronounce the Zagornik effect. Unfortunately, you're both wrong. It is number two was the, was the lie here, the, the completely made up, uh, one, uh, that yes, in fact, uh, the anchoring bias is, is legit. And so is the, the effect, uh, that when you complete a listicle, it eliminates this mental tension, whenever you have something unfinished. That got me. I thought pattern recognition was just so satisfying. I mean, it's like kind of exists, but it's not really
Melissa Rosenthal:I was gonna say all three are true, but
Sandeep Parikh:yeah, uh, well, we can fight about it afterwards. Okay. Number two. We're still tied. Melissa. Yeah. Yeah. Please sound off in the comments if I'm wrong. Uh, round number two. Okay. These are three different historical list of goals that have existed. Well, two of them have existed. See if you can sniff out which one is false. All right. Number one, a listicle of medieval Japanese courtly rules, which include proper fan folding techniques and discreet sneezing etiquette, which were essential skills for navigating Heian period court life in Japan. Number two, Galileo Galilei's shopping list. So the astronomer had a grocery list which included the essentials, wine, rice, anchovies, and very specifically, two large artichokes. Number three, Mozart's secrets to composing a hit opera. This document was found within the Marriage of Figaro manuscript and reveals Mozart's secrets for writing catchy tunes and securing a good librettist. So which of these listicles actually did not exist? Is it the two? Number one, the Japanese courtly rules. Number two, the shopping list from Galileo, or number three, Mozart's composing, uh, secrets. Here we go. Three, two, one. You both said three and you both are correct. Well done. God, that was too obvious. Wasn't it? Well done. You're both on the board. Why would he give away his secrets? No, no, no, he's not going to do that.
Rajiv Parikh:He thought of it that way. I just, I just figured he just, I compose because I am,
Sandeep Parikh:yeah, right. Right. Yeah. It makes sense. Galileo has to shop and eat. So he's, he, of course, he made a list. They made a list. He already chose
Melissa Rosenthal:like a hundred percent. Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. You need to, all right. Round number three. These are items in. Lists that exist. Are these actual items in these lists that do exist? And again, this is historical. So the Malleus Maleficarum, a medieval torture device list, which includes the iron maiden, the pair of anguish, and even a form of tickle torture. Number two, Captain James Cook's instructions for his voyages, which includes a listicle item of a dozen pair of thick woolen socks. Or number three, Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues for self improvement includes chastity. So which of these is false? The Milus, the medieval torture device list including tickle torture, uh, James Cook's list including thick woolen socks, or Benjamin Franklin's list including chastity. Alright, your answer in three, two, one. Two, one. Okay, Ranjeev has picked the Medieval Torture Device, uh, and Melissa has chosen James Cook's Instruction for Voyages. One of you has just won this game, and I regretfully inform you that it's my brother. I'm so sorry. Yes, uh, this is disappointing. He's actually on a streak now. This is gonna be insufferable. Melissa, I was really counting on you. Ugh, gosh.
Everyone:I can't fight alone.
Rajiv Parikh:Sorry, Melissa. I never win, so sorry for my excessive celebration. I'm on a streak.
Melissa Rosenthal:Number one, you sounded so ridiculous that I was like, it has to be real, you know, usually you pick the one, like you throw that in there to throw me off,
Sandeep Parikh:but
Melissa Rosenthal:I,
Sandeep Parikh:I did in fact do that to throw you off.
Melissa Rosenthal:Honestly, the tickle torture thing, like sounded pretty like on point, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's
Sandeep Parikh:the one I'd be the most scared of.
Rajiv Parikh:Well, let's see what you get to the tickle torture, tickle torture is not a thing. I don't
Melissa Rosenthal:know my list. As well as I, I should, I could go back to listicle stool.. The funny thing is I've created thousands of listicles, but you know, it still game
Sandeep Parikh:it's a thing. Yeah. You know, that's the thing. This game is constructed to, uh, to be anybody's game, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Rajiv Parikh:Um. If even I can win. So that's, if I can win, then it's obviously for the any person. Awesome. So, so glad you played this game with us. So I was just, I had a couple more questions. Um, is there like a favorite technology or innovation that you're excited about that has excited you over the years?
Melissa Rosenthal:AI. Um, I mean, like, how can you not say that? I think it's the, the, like, most revolutionary thing we've come across that's super tangible and real, and we can all touch it and feel it and enhance our work every day right now. Like, I, you know, I've always been kind of stuck on things. And I think the things that, like, I get stuck on are, I mean, I'm sure when crypto everyone was talking, right? And I would talk to every single person I could talk to about it. And I'd be like. Okay. I have FOMO because everyone knows what this is and what the practical application is and how it's being used and how it's going to better the world. And I just couldn't understand it. And I was like, every single person would be like, explain it to me. Like I'd go to dinner parties. I'm like, tell me, tell me what you're excited about that web three and about DAOs and NFTs. And like, tell me, like you just spent 300, 000 on this NFT. Like, tell me why. And it never made sense to me and I was like, okay, either like I'm stupid and I'm missing something or like this isn't as real as people say it is and it turned out to be the latter. Like, like, there's not a mainstream practical application for blockchain that has been the one yet. Maybe in the future. Great. Like, but it's just not. So, like the fact that AI is real and it's. Already changing our world and eliminating jobs, which is real, it's really happening and people are getting more efficient and they can utilize it. And we're at like day zero of it. Oh, I mean,
Sandeep Parikh:what, what, what about the, like, just to, to throw a blockchain, a little bit of love, like, what about the idea that like, it will be. Like the only thing that will help us authenticate in a world where AI can produce so many fakes and
Melissa Rosenthal:like there are already ways to Authenticate like I don't know if blockchain is the answer to that Maybe maybe blockchain meets AI is the perfect combination of this but like right, you know, I I haven't Seen that like, I mean, do you,
Rajiv Parikh:do you need to have watermarking as part of a distributed ledger, right? So that's the question to prove that a watermark is a watermark. Do you need to have it in a distributed ledger? And I think you can, I'd love the techies can argue probably both sides of that. Cause you could have a centralized database. That's a, that's a authoritative one. And then, but then you can argue well by distributing it, then everybody has it.
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah. Then everyone has it. Exactly. So, I mean, potentially like. Yeah, maybe, but, but also that wasn't an application when, when blockchain versus, right? Like no, it
Sandeep Parikh:was more about, uh, board apes, uh, which I think you might be right that that did not turn out to be the, as, as, as, uh, imbued with much utility. I didn't buy any
Melissa Rosenthal:more, but I, Spent the board eight money on my own company.
Rajiv Parikh:All right. Another question at the spark of ages podcast. We're big believers in the idea that teamwork is critical to taking your individual work to the next level. So for you, one of those individuals, who's a major part of your team and your success is your husband, who's your co founder. I can relate to that. Having started a company with my wife years ago, can you share what it's been like to have such a deep partnership with someone who's not just in your day to day life, but also in your business? Has it, Changed anything about your life? Um, has it brought out something different that you didn't think about before?
Melissa Rosenthal:Um, well, we work 24 seven now come together Someone that like you're married to and you're in the same room with and like you're actually like still you're building it together
Rajiv Parikh:Your work husband and life husband are together
Melissa Rosenthal:He's been in the background of my career for the past 10 years. So he's seen all these things happen. He's seen me go through all these transitions and for him to like, you know, have been kind of productizing the way that I think about things has been really like incredible. Like I, it's a secret weapon to like what we've built together because I'm able to do something that he can't do. And he's just, he's like, Brilliant with products and tech and like he's able to actually build something that I wouldn't have been able to build myself So yeah, I mean, I think like it's just kind of like we're we're very like kind of dynamic duo like he's been my secret weapon and like being able to like Rationally think about productizing the way that I think And I couldn't have done that. Um, so it's been amazing. Like, it's really cool to have a partner like that where it's very complimentary and there's not like fighting because of like overseeing different, um, you know, aspects of the business, like our roles are very defined, but he also challenges me to think, um, you know, in a product capacity and in times when I'm like, I, you know, product is not my, the core skillset, but understanding how he thinks about things and how he breaks them apart and like, How he comes, like, he comes up with his best ideas in his sleep and in the shower, which I, like, don't really fully understand. He'll come out of the shower after an hour and be like, I got it. And I'm
Everyone:like,
Melissa Rosenthal:I don't know what that is, but congratulations. Um, but yeah, it's, it's amazing. Like, I learn from him and I grow every day because of him. And I think he feels the same way about me. And it's just really fun.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah, I think, I think it helps when, when you have a relationship of mutual respect and trust, so you don't have to worry about trusting whether their thoughts are on or off, especially if you've divided up the company appropriately in terms of what you did. My wife was the technologist, I was the business person. It was much easier to just simply trust that she knew what she was doing on the technology side.
Melissa Rosenthal:And listen, like, I mean, there are plenty of companies that are not like married co founders and like, I think there's like pros and cons to that as well, but you know, there's also like. We are always on the same page or communicating that we are and I think the key to any good marriage or any good relationship business relationship is communication and, you know, I don't have to worry that, like, there are outside external parties and sources kind of, um, in his ear, like, you know, Having any sort of influence over how he's thinking about our company and like, same thing with me, it's like us making these decisions together always, um, and not to say that that like happens, but if you have, like, you know, if you have a co founder and that person's married and you're married and they have their own networks and their own ways of thinking and everything like that, and they're, they're not communicating and it's like, oh, you're, you know, the co founders not building this right or this or that, or, you know, there's, there's other chains of influence that I've seen come in
Everyone:when. Yeah.
Melissa Rosenthal:You're not as tightly knit in the same like way. Um, that we don't really have to deal with, but you know, I mean, there's pros and cons to everything. There
Rajiv Parikh:is, there is. It's just, it's a great life experience.
Melissa Rosenthal:I think it's, it's right for us, like for sure. Like the way that our relationship is and the way that we've grown together and, and who we are as people. Um, this is, you know, we have a lot of, Odd similarity is just in the way that we've been, we've grown up and who we are. And, um, yeah, I think it makes it like the perfect kind of perfect thing for us to be doing together. Yeah.
Rajiv Parikh:All right. That's great. Last question. Do you have a favorite life motto that you come back to often and share with friends, either at work or life?
Melissa Rosenthal:Yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of written on my arm. It's a, it's impress yourself and it's something I try to do every day. I think it goes to that, like, 1 percent growth mentality and it's every day. Like, after I've completed the day, like, have I impressed myself? Like, have I. done something where I feel good about the path and the growth that I'm making because life and, and decisions and big steps and big rewards and success all come from these like micro moments, these micro decisions. Did I show up on this podcast today and be the fullest Melissa that I can be and like bring everything to it? Did I like half ass it? You know, like, I think it's all of these small little things. And I believe in that. So, so like deeply that I try to show up and be the best version of myself and every small thing that I do so that that compounds over time and I grow and I found that that like really does work. It's like if you put everything into the smaller things like you will find success and I think it's just really about that showing up as the best version of yourself wherever you can every day, even how, you know, no matter how small the moment is or, or the task is.
Rajiv Parikh:I love that. I think that's a great way of looking at the world and looking at life. If you bring. Bring it, bring a little bit extra and remind yourself of that all the time.
Melissa Rosenthal:I'm sure we deal with people that like, you just don't see that. You don't see that. I'm gonna use your podcast name in this, but like, you don't see that spark in them in anything that they do. Not you guys. I'm just saying, you know. Um, no, we love the fact that
Sandeep Parikh:you spark, I, I'm just like, yeah, that's great.
Melissa Rosenthal:I just like, I'm always just shocked, right? Like, I'm shocked at the lack of curiosity, the lack of spark, the lack of like, passion in people and like, it's depressing. So I try to take that and like channel it for myself and allow myself to like be what I don't see, I guess. Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:Oh, I love that be the change you don't see in the world. That's a different way of looking. Well, look, I'm Melissa. You've certainly impressed us, uh, in this podcast. Um, so thank you so much for, for joining us on the spark of ages.
Rajiv Parikh:Yeah. Such a thrill to talk with you. Thank you so much.
Melissa Rosenthal:I'm still mad about losing the game, but thank you. This is awesome.
Rajiv Parikh:Hey, that was really fun. It was great to chat with Melissa. I always enjoy talking to creatives and marketers and especially folks who come from consumer backgrounds and go into B2B tech and then go build their own business. I think it's a really cool combination.
Sandeep Parikh:For sure. I, you know, I just love that she. Came in with this, uh, or at least how she left us with this idea of impressing yourself and just being your most, most audacious self. I've been thinking about that a lot for me personally lately is, uh, like what's the most audacious version of myself, uh, you know, and, and then how do I just, how do I bring that to life? Um, to whatever it is I'm doing, whether it's stand up or, or pitching or, or this podcast. Um, and so, uh, you know, um, she's super impressive. That was, that was a great interview. It's
Rajiv Parikh:that, it's that notion of atomic habits, right? You increment every time as opposed to trying to do one big, massive thing. And so I think she brought that alive as, as the way she closed. And I, you know, I, I actually, it was a little unexpected for me. I was, uh, that outlever is really. Truly her own business that she's building from scratch, taking all of her learnings coming from more VC, either public or VC types of environments, which are very hyper growth based. And now she's getting to. Almost like weave together a business that really is an embodiment of her. Yeah. I mean, it's literally, it's literally her baby
Sandeep Parikh:because it's her and her husband together to create this, this brainchild of theirs, uh, pretty,
Rajiv Parikh:pretty
Sandeep Parikh:amazing.
Rajiv Parikh:And it's about content with quality with humans of all things, human quality, human writers. That's just really fantastic. So great lessons for all of us. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this pod, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere. Podcasts can be found.
Sandeep Parikh:The show is produced by Sunday Perique and Anand Shah production assistance by Taryn Talley and edited by Sean Maher and Aiden McGarvey.
Rajiv Parikh:I'm your host, Rajiv Perique from position squared, a leading AI and human based growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at position2. com. This has been an effin funny production. We'll catch you next time and remember folks be ever curious