The Lazy CEO: How to Delegate Your Way to 8 Figures with Ayman Al-Abdullah

[00:00:00]

Ayman: so before seven figures, this is why I love the One-page market plan.

This is really all you need is like learn marketing. And if you've got a big enough audience, they're going to tell you what they want. You're going to see the data. You're going to see what they like. You're going to see what they respond to. You could run surveys. You could jump on calls with your most engaged communities.

It's gotta be promotion.

Allan: Welcome to the Lean Marketing Podcast, where we explore strategies and tactics to grow your business fast by doing less stuff. Today, I've got a very special guest. I've got Ayman Al-Abdullah with me and Ayman's got an amazing story. He's an incredibly insightful person. His claim to fame among many others is that he helped grow AppSumo to over a hundred million dollars in revenue.

Ayman, welcome to the show.

Ayman: Clarification only 84 million in annual revenue. It didn't break the a hundred million mark, but I did step down recognizing like, Hey we're about to break through this. And that's going to be a completely different company. One that quite frankly we need a completely different [00:01:00] CEO for.

Yeah,

Allan: million, I would put that at close enough. But so maybe let's start with a little bit of your background. So that's kind of the big headline. That's a good way to lead, but there's a lot more depth to you and you've done a lot of different things.

Maybe give us kind of a little bit of the intro.

Ayman: I mean, I'm probably very similar to many of your readers, Allan, which is I was a struggling entrepreneur, had a couple failed businesses, some that I quote unquote exited, but really it was because I wasn't able to break through and really bring enough sales in order to get things to the next level. And I had sold the two companies while I was in university and the advice that I got from a mentor at the time was get the best name on your resume.

And at the time that was Microsoft, particularly Xbox. So my first gig right out of university was at Xbox, super fun, worked on the Halo launches, all that other fun stuff. And so as far as corporate gigs go is a pretty good one. But eventually I started getting that entrepreneurship at, you [00:02:00] know, that itch that want to go and build a business again.

And I had saved up about 50, 000 and I was going to go live in Southeast Asia and go start another company. But deep in my heart, I knew I was just, I might as well have lit that money on fire. It's like, I didn't know what I was doing. And so my philosophy was the best way to learn entrepreneurship is to go and work for a founder that you know and respect.

And there was two people that I went and applied jobs for it was for the chief of staff for you know, the now CEO of open AI Sam Altman and for uh, growth hacker for Noah Kagan. Those are the only two positions that I applied for. And you know, when I jumped on the call with Noah, he's like, look.

That position, because it was for Sumo Me, I don't know if you remember that, the pop up software that, that

Allan: do. I do

Ayman: Yeah, it was for a growth hacker position for that. He's like, look, that position's been filled, but the entire team from AppSumo is moving over to work on Sumo Me. We need somebody to run AppSumo.

Would you be interested? And like just the immediate light bulbs went off. I was like, are you kidding me? Like, that's a dream [00:03:00] position. I get to step in onto a seven figure business, one that I'd already been a customer of and I think Absalom has a lot of meat left on the bone, where do I sign up?

And the rest is history.

Allan: So, to get such a high level position at AppSumo, I mean, to be chief of staff or, you know, pretty much at the top, I mean, you walked in with some skills, right? You didn't just come off the street, your first or maybe second or third job or whatever. So Noah saw something in you.

Ayman: So the first thing is I came in via intro. I came in through Charlie Hone. So Charlie Hone was Tim Ferriss's right hand man. I had been working with him for a year. On the side while I was at Microsoft. And so by the time the position opened up with Noah, it wasn't a cold DM. And this is something that's really important.

It came as a warm introduction with the subject line, Allan saying, you need to hire this guy before I do. Noah respected Charlie. He knew Charlie's [00:04:00] work. Charlie just worked on Noah's million dollar weekend book. So like they go way back. And so I wasn't just some random person. That was number one.

Number two Noah respected Microsoft. It wasn't like I was just coming from a corporate gig. He also recognized that I had started and sold two companies in the past, but probably the most important thing, Allan, Is there was a clear binary trial, Ayman, you need to close two deals in two weeks.

Can you do the job or not? And so whether he, I came in as a warm intro, whether he really liked me, whether he really respected me, what mattered most was could I pass the trial? And we continue that process to this day at AppSumo is to make sure that every person that we hire. Can pass a very binary pass fail trial with a clear deadline.

And so within two weeks, while I was working on the side at Microsoft, I'd worked nine to five Microsoft five to nine on AppSumo, closed two deals in two weeks and moved to Austin site unseen.

Allan: Amazing. [00:05:00] And so if it's not going to violate anything private what revenue level was AppSumo at when you joined?

Ayman: So yeah, it was a three, it was a 3 million. So, When I joined, it was at 3 million. It would no longer been a focus of the company because they had now transitioned to focusing on Sumo Me, which became sumo. com. And um, subsequently, you know, it was sort of on life support, Anton, who was running it at the time, did a phenomenal job of creating the playbooks, getting the business to the point where it could be run.

As a 3 million one person business, I was the only person working on AppSumo at the time. And so I was able to step in to a system, into a company that had a very solid, repeatable playbook that allowed me to keep the lights on in year one, but then improve in year two and beyond.

Allan: So what was the time period between when you went from 3 million to 84 million?

Ayman: So I joined 2015. Keep the lights on really just don't hire, don't invest all of the money. All the profits Allen was being invested into Sumo me. And so it was very much a keep the lights [00:06:00] on once Sumo Me became self sustaining. So I was about 18 months mid 2016. I was like, Noah, there's a lot of meat left on this bone.

And so from 2016 to 2021, approximately five years is we went from four to 84 million in revenue.

Allan: I mean, obvious, probably dumb question, but like what took you from, to such phenomenal growth? And was it immediate? Was it some marketing strategy? Was it some like, what is it that takes you from that, from three to 84? Yeah. I mean, most CEO gonna be like Hey

Ayman: It's about people. It's about marketing. It's about strategy. No, it was none of those things, Allan. It was hiring an intern. And I'm gonna explain when I was looking at my calendar and I realized I was spending all this time setting up the deal, writing HTML, copying these checklists, getting the email ready to go.

I was spending 80 of my time doing [00:07:00] administrative work and 20 of my time closing the deals and writing copy. And so the 20 was actually what drove the revenue in the business. Why am I spending 80 of my time doing things that don't move the needle? If I could wave a magic wand and it gets done instantly, it literally has no implication in revenue.

And so what did I do? I put up a job description and I hired an intern from UT Austin for 15 an hour. I paid this guy out of pocket, by the way. Venmo. I still have the Venmo receipts on my Ven if someone wants to go through my transactions. So 150 a week, Allan. But because I was able to take those 10 hours off my plate, I could then go and close a second deal.

And because I could close a second deal. And his name's Kavi. Shout out Kavi. I think he became a McKinsey manager. So like, obviously we hired well. I was able to double the revenue because we doubled the number of deals. And so that became the impetus for us constantly taking things off of my plate.

Then eventually taking things off of my executive's plates and allowing us to [00:08:00] rinse and repeat. And so what we needed to recognize is you have to become the laziest person at your company. Anything that doesn't move the needle on your business, anything that doesn't actually have strategic contribution in the company, you have to get off your plate, ideally by automation, because I believe hiring is a sign of failure.

And so the only reason that I hired the intern is because I didn't know how to automate that at the time. But now with AI, I'm sure we could have automated it. But if you can get that off your plate and then use that extra time to go do more revenue generating activities, we went from four to seven million as a result of that one decision.

Allan: we were both at a conference recently and I heard Andrew Wilkinson say this phrase and it stuck with me. He says, I'm Teflon for tasks, so,

Ayman: I love that. I love that. Yeah. Hunter, you have to be the laziest person in the room. And um, that's really tough for founders, Allan, because founders have so much of their identity with their work output. They are the Michael Jordans. They're like, give me the ball for the game winning shot.

And it's so tough for them to put that ball down.

Allan: totally. I 100 percent agree. [00:09:00] So it's that Superman syndrome, you know, if there's a problem, I'm going to solve it. Right. So, and. You know, swoop in there. It feels good to be Superman. You feel strong. You feel like you're capable, all of that sort of thing. The only thing is kryptonite, right? So that's, that's a big problem.

Ayman: A hundred percent. I mean, the question is, do you want to feel rich or do you want to be rich? And so, you want to feel good, amazing, go for it. But then if you're feeling burnt out, you're feeling tired, you're feeling like you're doing everything yourself, and then you're the bottleneck in the business, then you got to ask yourself, well, do I want to feel rich or do I want to be rich?

And I think that's important.

Allan: Okay, you get to 7 million by taking stuff off your plate. Do you get to 14 million to 21 million the same way or what happened as you scaled?

Ayman: So I would say as you get to seven figures, it's a hundred percent product market fit. So you are building a business that's taking a market. And a painful problem. And you are solving that problem in a unique and scalable way. But once you get to seven figures, Allan, it's no longer about product.

It's no longer about [00:10:00] product creation. And the mistake that a lot of founders make is thinking in order to get to 10 million, in order to get to 50 million, I need to launch something new. I need to launch something different. I need to continuously come up with new product innovation in order to get things to the next level.

I mean. Apple is a 2 trillion company with like five products, right? Like all of them are sitting on my desk right now. So like, this is not about new products. This is about doing those products better. And so when you get to mid-seven figures, it's no longer about product creation.

It's about company creation. And the way that we do that is with three things. Number one is process and process means automation, automate as much as you can. And then SOP what you can't. Number two is people. So we hire a few key A players and then number three is performance. So it's process, people, performance.

That is the three core elements of company creation. If you're at seven figures, that's the only thing that you should be spending your time on as a CEO is process, people, and performance.

Allan: [00:11:00] And so do you think when you came in at 3 million that AppSumo had product market fit already did it modify in some way you pivoted or whatever? Yep.

Ayman: you have product market fit. It's like almost impossible not to get to seven figures without product market fit. particularly if it's sustainable, like it's not a flash in the pan. We'd been hitting seven figures for multiple years in a row. When you do that, you clearly have product market fit.

And so I think if anyone's listening in here right now, if they're sitting at seven figures, they do have product market fit. Having said that. That doesn't mean the product can't improve. And so when I stepped in, we were doing everything under the sun. We were doing Udemy courses. We were doing eBooks. We were doing fonts.

We were doing some SaaS and so, I mean, similar to the one page marketing plan, you know, you and I were ripping to it, we have to go and reanalyze, well, who's spending the most with us? The first thing is we have to understand, who is our customer avatar? That's the first question we have to ask. And the way we start that is, who is [00:12:00] spending the most with us that we enjoy serving? And when we analyze their data, we thought we were serving solopreneur Sally. Someone that's working a nine to five, she has aspirations to go and start her own business. That's how AppSumo started, was essentially for solopreneur Sally. But what we realized was there's this other customer segment that we had been completely ignoring that had been spending way more with us, loves us, refers us way more customers and just gets it.

And that was marketing agency, Matt. And in hindsight, it's like, Oh, of course, marketing agency, Matt. They have multiple customers. They want to get rid of their monthly subscriptions. They're buying multiple license because they're typically serving 10 to 20 clients and they keep buying from us every month because they're not dabbling in entrepreneurship.

This is their full time job. And so when we doubled down on marketing agency, Matt, what did we do? We went and we improved our product. What is our product is the offers that we were launching. So when we negotiated deals, we negotiated way more lifetime software deals. We did so with white labeling, we had multi user licensing.

We had [00:13:00] tools that were designed for marketing agencies. All of a sudden, all things being equal, our customer lifetime value tripled. Changing nothing else. The business alone triples. And so like that one decision, being able to go and revisit the product market fit, being able to figure out what are we doing to take things to the next level is so critical.

And so while yes, we did have product market fit, that does not mean that you can't continuously improve. Your product and your market.

Allan: Yeah. I'm a very visual person and the way I visualize product market fit is kind of rolling the boulder downhill, right? You can barely keep up with demand. You know, it's just it's got a life of its own. And when you add some force behind it, like marketing or, you know, Ad campaigns or whatever, it just rolls much faster.

Whereas when you don't have product market fit, I think of it rolling the boulder uphill. Yes, you can, with a lot of force, you can get some traction, you can get some movement, but it's really tough all the way through.

Ayman: I'm going to give you an even better visual. [00:14:00] This is the one that I use. You know, you've got product market fit when it feels like you're wearing a meat suit in a dog park.

Allan: I love it. That's good.

Ayman: That's literally how, you know, it's like you have more leads than you know what to do. Your customers are literally beating down your door. Like that's how, you know, you've got product market. You've got a waiting list. You've got people jumping for you. And so until you feel like you are wearing a meat suit in a dog park, you do not have true product.

You may have the semblance of the starting of product market fit, but what you really need to do is continue to iterate both the market and the product, both the dog park as well as the meat suit until you're feeling like you're just being inundated by leads.

Allan: So is it fair to say when you joined at 3 million, they had product, but not really the market component because it was kind of treading water until you came. And so they had the right product, wrong market. Is that true to

Ayman: No, I mean, look, I think it's important to recognize at least in America. I don't know what it is worldwide. In America, only 3 percent of [00:15:00] people run a business. Of those 3%, only 4 percent are running a seven figure business. And so it's already super rarefied air to make it to seven figures.

And so I don't think it's fair to say there was no product or market fit. There's a hundred percent product market fit if you've made it to seven figures, because you're in the 4 percent of the 3%. And that's probably even, those numbers are probably even worse. Since 2020, cause these numbers are pre 2020.

I'm sure there's way more businesses now and it's way harder to now run a seven figure business. So I don't think that's fair to say that it wasn't a product or whether there's a market. I was just saying what we were able to accomplish over those five years was the ability to further refine What the market was and further improve what the product is.

And anyone that's sitting on a seven figure business has the opportunity to do the same thing. You've got product market fit, but there's probably more riches in your niches. And if you were able to dive deep into all of your customer [00:16:00] segments, you think there's gonna be a component there that's gonna be even.

Easier to sell to spends more with you and is less of a pain in the ass. I'll give you an example. I was just running a growth workshop with Cody Sanchez and one of the customers or one of the attendees just bought a lawn landscaping business and the landscaping business had a both commercial side as well as a residential side, the residential side required a ton of handholding.

People wanted landscaping, they want to design mock ups. They wanted multiple calls and it was like, what, maybe a 10, 000 job. One time. And yeah, there might be a, like an add on maintenance, 150 lawn cut, whereas the residential side wanted their lawn cut every single week in perpetuity, no phone calls, never again, like these engagements were worth 30, 000 per year forever.

And so which side of the business is easier? It's like you have the, you have a great business on both sides. But there's clearly [00:17:00] one side of the business that is way more profitable. The customers are way stickier. They don't want to talk to you. They're much easier. They pay their bill and it's like, that's it.

Like which business is going to be easier to run, easier to build, and more importantly, easier to sell in the future. It's definitely going to be on the commercial side.

Allan: Yeah, I agree. I agree.

What's been your experience in the important shifts you need to make at the different revenue levels? So I mean, in my experience and I mean, I'll share my own experience, but I'd love to hear from you as well. Like for me, especially if you're starting from zero, especially if you're starting the first time, getting to a million in revenue feels like impossible.

Like it just feels so hard getting to five. is very difficult. You've really got to master people. You've got to master teams and people and all of that sort of thing. 10 million is now your thing. It's a real leadership game and you need to think strategy as well. What's been your experience and what are the [00:18:00] key shifts at each sort of revenue level that you've found?

Ayman: Yeah. I mean, we talked about the process, people, performance, but like, let's go deeper into that. So I would say pre seven figures, it's a hundred percent promotion. 98 percent of your problems can be solved with just more leads. You know, you get a big enough audience. I love Greg Eisenberg's framework, ATM.

Cause it's like, how do you print cash? You get an ATM. And so what is ATM audience trust money? So audience is if you've got a big enough audience, how can you translate that to trust? How can you turn that into trust? And then if you get trust, you can turn that into money. And so before seven figures, this is why I love the One-page market plan.

This is really all you need is like learn marketing. And if you've got a big enough audience, they're going to tell you what they want. You're going to see the data. You're going to see what they like. You're going to see what they respond to. You could run surveys. You could jump on calls with your most engaged communities.

It's gotta be promotion. So pre seven figures is promotion. Everything else will solve itself [00:19:00] after that. Between seven to eight figures, so between one million to ten million depending on the business model, you're right, it's people. and it starts with you. Your ability to attract, because if you're surrounded by B players, it's probably because you're a B leader.

And so you have to be, if you want a players, you got to be an a player yourself. And so the ability for you to attract a players, to want to work for your business. I love the concept of your vision is so, but so large, a player's visions can fit under your umbrella. And so if your dream isn't big enough where their dream can fit underneath it, then you've got to do a better job of recruiting them.

One of the best CEOs that I know is recruiting his leaders three, four, five years in advance before he even needs them. And so that's really related to people. And then once you get beyond 10 million, Allan, this is counterintuitive. A lot of people don't think about this. It's actually protection. That's actually when you need to protect what you've built.

And that's both from internal and external threats. Your likelihood of getting sued when you have a net worth of north of 5 million goes up 800% your [00:20:00] likelihood of, for lack of a better term, a coup, so like half your team wanting to leave because you've built the wrong team. You know, I think we've seen this happen at Coinbase.

We saw this happen recently at Jason Freed's company, Basecamp where they, you know, basically half the team What, like it was like almost like a mutiny. And so how are you defining your core values and then being able to make sure you're hiring against those core values. So it's really around protection.

And I think that being able to compete against upstarts and competitors is really important. I think Zuckerberg does a phenomenal job. He basically kneecapped Snapchat with a single feature release of stories. And vanishing messages. He bought Instagram at a billion dollars for 13 employees. Most people said he was crazy for doing so.

And now there would not be a meta if it wasn't for that acquisition. And he's already thinking ahead. He realizes that both Apple and Android are limiting meta's ability to expand. by making it harder for them to cookie users and serve ads. And so what is he doing? He bought [00:21:00] Oculus for multiple billion because he's like the next iPhone is not going to be a phone.

It's going to be glasses. And so he bought Oculus thinking about how am I going to create a device that's going to be next generation in 2030 and beyond

Allan: The coups and the people splitting off and all of that. I feel like to some extent you know, I'm just trying to think I'm trying to advocate for our audience. I feel like that's a Silicon Valley sort of phenomenon. like, if you're running a. screw manufacturing business or whatever.

Like is, is that relevant in that case as well?

Ayman: 100%. Here's the thing. I thought core values were bull until I didn't. It even happened at AppSumo. So like, I thought core values were garbage. I was like, no, like core values. That's a corporate thing. That's something for Intel. And then I realized that my managers were hiring people that I personally would have never hired.

And then all of a sudden, half the team, I'm sitting there meeting with them and I'm like, you aren't bought into this vision. You don't match the vibe. So people think core values are garbage, but Allan, if you step into a gym, you know, there's a difference between two gyms, right? In [00:22:00] America, like there's, I don't know if you have Planet Fitness and Equinox, like, yeah.

So like there's a different vibe. And so if you don't, if you're not crystal clear on the vibe of your gym, it becomes really easy for you to walk in and go, whoa, why are they serving pizza at Planet Fitness? This is not the gym that I want to be a part of. And then all of a sudden, when you push back on the pizza, you've got half your team going, well, pizza, we always serve pizza on Fridays and like, we don't serve pizza at a gym.

This is ridiculous, but in Planet Fitness, it's normal. And so you have to be very explicit. So at AppSumo, we made it crystal clear who we serve and who we hire. We hire people that are hungry, humble and weird. Hungry means they always want more. Humble means they have a team first mentality. And weird means they bring their true authentic self to work.

And so we're not hiring the McKinsey person with a three piece buttoned up suit, even though he's got the pedigree and the resume, we're going to hire the person that's got a chip on their shoulder and wants to prove themselves because no one else has given them a chance. That's the vibe at AppSumo.

And I think that it's really important for [00:23:00] even that screw manufacturing business to avoid your warehouse going on strike. Is being crystal clear on who you're serving, crystal clear on the vibe you're creating in your warehouse and being, honestly, I think the CEO should be doing the final interview on almost all hires to ensure they're matching the vibe that they want.

And so protection is not just for the Silicon Valley mindset. It affects any and all businesses once they get beyond 30 employees.

Allan: Fair enough. you know, it's enough for the founder to kind of step away? You know, I've seen some founders who are just incredibly capable. They can take a business right through to IPO or whatever the exit is or the a hundred million dollars or whatever the goal is. And others are who like, look, I can get this to a million.

I'm the startup guy. I'm the hustle guy. Beyond that, I need a professional manager to kind of take over. What are your thoughts around leadership? And I don't know Noah at all, but. I get the feeling he's kind of the big ideas guy. He's not the, he's not the guy writing the [00:24:00] SOPs and getting into the code and all of that.

I may be completely wrong about that, but that's the impression I get.

Ayman: I remember last year I was sitting in my bed and for whatever reasons, two in the morning and I was awake and I look over at my phone and my phone lights up. And I go and I'm like, for whatever reason, I'm like, let me go see what this is. And I go and I pick it up. And it's from a CEO that I don't work with, but it's like a famous CEO that, we've exchanged a couple of chats with.

And he messaged me. He's like, Hey, can you chat? I think I made a huge mistake. And it's like two in the morning. I'm like, what's going on? And so I immediately went downstairs. So I didn't wake up my wife and I gave him a call. And he's like, Ayman, I hired a CEO. And everything's falling apart in my company and I can't sleep.

And I didn't know who else to chat with, but you. And so we unpacked and we ended up realizing that. Most founders think they want to hire a CEO because they don't truly understand the CEO position. There's five things a CEO can delegate. Number one is the vision. Where is the company going? Number two is the culture, the vibe that you and I just talked about.

[00:25:00] Number three is hiring of the exec team. Number four is ensuring survivability, making sure you never run out of cash. And number five is allocation capital. And so the P and L. And so if you care about any of those five things, you 100 percent should not hire a CEO. And so this individual, when I'm chatting with them on the phone.

He's like, Ayman, those are the five things that are completely screwed up. Since I've stepped down, the vision's completely gone. The culture is completely off. Cash is a mess allocation of resources. The P and L is a complete disaster. The exec team is a disaster. Everything's a disaster. And what I realized is like, People think the CEO needs to be doing SOPs and writing code.

It's not, it's about 80 percent this stuff, which is about 80 percent away from the day to day of the business. It's operating two or three years ahead in the company. And so what most founders think they need to hire a CEO it's because they're burnt out doing the day to day of the work. What they actually need is a COO.

They need a chief operating officer to handle the day to day of the business. They need someone that they can speak to. Their vision into [00:26:00] reality and go, this is what the plan is for this quarter, go and execute. And so it's very rare. I mean, I know we were at Andrew Wilkinson's event. Andrew Wilkins has got what?

40 companies. He's running his business like a portfolio. He needs CEOs. Most founders, 99 percent of their net worth is tied up in one company. You're going to go in and put that responsibility of your net worth on one individual that you probably don't even know. To me, I think that's a mistake. And I think that most founders would do a much better job hiring a COO and a president and continue to stay in the CEO

Allan: Well, I mean, regardless of what The title of the position is like in some businesses, the CEO is exactly as you described, big picture, thinking about the vision, all of that. In others, they're like, all right they're got the marketing team reporting, the sales team reporting. They're very much in the weeds.

I guess regardless of whether the person is called a COO or a CEO or whatever, the person who's kind of leading the day to day at some stage or correct me if I'm wrong, the [00:27:00] founder is often not the best person to be running that

Ayman: yeah. Well, but I think the title is, is important, Allan, because the day to day needs to be run by someone called the COO or the president, because then it becomes crystal clear to that person that you hire that you're That you are not in charge of those five things. I think that a lot of times people make the mistake of hiring or giving away the CEO title.

And then the person gets frustrated 'cause they're like, wait a second. I thought I was the CEO. Why are you chiming in on the vision? Why are you chiming in on my exec team? Why are you wanting to review the p and l? And they're like, well, I actually, I mean, I know I'm on the I'm on the board. So I wanna review those things.

And then the CEO or the president or the new CEO thinks of it as micromanaging rather than a true division of, Duties, which is the CEO makes the final call on those five things and it's the COO or the president's responsibility to go and execute. They may chime in. They may be able to provide some feedback.

They are the boots on the ground, but it's [00:28:00] ultimately the CEO and typically it's the founder's responsibility to make the calls on where is the company going? What is the vibe? Who is the exact team that's going to be building this? How are we allocating our resources? And so are we going 80 percent marketing or 80 percent engineering and then ensuring survivability and so ensuring we never run out of cash.

And if we have those clear division of duties, then there's never any confusion between, well, who's making this final decision. And I think it's really important distinction when you hire for this day to day position, the title that you give them. So they're crystal clear on what their responsibilities are.

Allan: that's a good point. It's something that, that I think I need to think about. And, you know, I've often felt like the, you know, the title is not super important, whatever. It's just like, okay, this is your comp, this is your title, this is whatever.

But I thought of it more as day to day versus visionary. It's kind of visionary integrated to use traction kind of terminology.

Ayman: Yeah. Well, I mean, think that's really important. When, if you're crystal clear, like, Hey, the day to day is [00:29:00] the COO or the day to day is the president. And then the visionary is the CEO. That to me is the clear differentiation between the two titles. And so the way we ran it at AppSumo is I had a COO, Alona.

She was phenomenal. She ran the day to day. Her responsibility was making sure that this quarter's numbers were hit. My responsibility was making sure next quarter's numbers were hit. And so I was always operating two or three quarters ahead because I knew that she could handle this quarter. And obviously I could jump in as necessary, but it was really important that you have a right hand person that can handle the day to day.

So you could be operating two to three quarters ahead with the business. You could be engaging with the board and be like, here's where we're taking the company in three years. Here's some strategic acquisitions. Here's some strategic opportunities for us. And so you're always operating two to three years ahead of the business because the day to day is being handled.

Allan: I recently heard a really good quote. He said champions do daily what everyone else does occasionally. So you're not extraordinary. You just do the ordinary. Extra, [00:30:00] and that sort of dovetails well with something you said earlier, that you don't need new products, you don't need new services, you don't need a big new launch, you just need to do more of what's already working, more of what the product market fit is.

And the more I've kind of, kept away from exciting new launches, creating an app, doing all of the sorts of stuff that feels exciting to me, the better the business has done. But it's a really hard thing to do as an entrepreneur. Like, I know personally I thrive on novelty. I want to play with a new toy.

I want to do a new launch. I got this, I went to a conference, got this idea, this guy's doing that. I'll be cool if we do something similar or whatever. I call that Entrepreneurial boredom. And I've seen it many times where the founder, the entrepreneur just has a well running business. We just need to add a little bit more fuel to the fire and we'll keep going.

We'll go from 3 million to 4 million to 7 million, so on and so forth. But they just jump in there and create chaos, like they're hiring or firing [00:31:00] the wrong people. They're launching a new product when no new product is needed. The current one works. How do you fight entrepreneurial boredom?

Do you just have a skunkworks budget and a project? Do you have, do you spin off a separate business? I suspect, you know, Andrew Wilkinson maybe has some of that as well. He has an idea. He launches, he hires someone, launches a new company or whatever else. How do you deal with that?

Ayman: I think founders are the greatest natural resource any community can ever make. And it's exactly for those reasons. Is the ability to go and, Pick and prod and search for problems and more importantly, search for solutions to those problems. The problem that they run into is exactly what you just described, which is they derail the thing that's already working in order to go and launch the new thing.

And the Business has a convex curve, meaning that each incremental hour and each incremental dollar on whatever is already working has exponentially more likelihood of [00:32:00] increasing the ROI than going back to square one and starting on. It's like there's just such a flat line before you have the launch.

And what ends up happening is founders steal resources from here where things are absolutely taking off to go and start the new thing. And so what we need to do is recognize that there's a really important distinction. We have to hire to scale revenue. We don't hire to discover it. And this is important because oftentimes we end up hiring individuals to go and look for new veins of growth, the founder's responsibility.

If they're sitting on a seven figure business, they are sitting on a literal gold mine, literal, because there's so many opportunities for growth. But the problem is. Discovery is very expensive. That is the founder's responsibility. If 80 percent of the company's time, resources, and money is spent on running the existing, let's call it oil refinery.

They've discovered one oil vein that refinery is working. Don't pull [00:33:00] people money and resources away from the oil refinery. That's already pumping to go and discover. another oil refinery. That's the founder's responsibility. Take 20%, take your own team, work with contractors, and go and prod for oil. And once you've found it, Your job is to hire, to scale that revenue because you've discovered it.

Don't pull away from the existing thing, but rather build another oil refinery. The only difference between a seven figure business and a 700 million business is the amount of refineries that are running concurrently. The problem that most founders work, they struggle with is they're constantly pulling from one refinery to go work on the next one.

And then they're wondering why are they stuck at 4 million? And it's because all you're doing is you're, all you're doing is doing this. You're pulling from one to move to the other, and all you're getting is 4 million here, 4 million there, collectively, rather than going, we got 4 million here, now we've found this other one that's doing 100, 000, but has the potential to do 4 million, we're going to use that 100, 000 to grow out this team, and now we have an 8 million dollar business, and then [00:34:00] we have a 16 million dollar business, and then we're growing over time.

At AppSumo, I had a hunch that there was oil in affiliates. And so what did I do? I took a thousand dollar test and my own time and I sent an email to our top referrers and I go, Hey, you've been referring us customers for credits for the next month alone. We're running an experiment. Those credits, I'm also going to PayPal you for those credits.

And so if you sent us 100 worth of customers, I'm going to PayPal you 100. And my hypothesis was this is going to increase the number of customers that these top referrers bring in. And guess what? The hypothesis proved true. I used that extra 1, 000, I invested in software, and I hired a contractor. Today, affiliates brings in multiple eight figures in revenue.

For App Sumo, but it started with digging for oil. It started with prodding and then realizing like, Hey, I've discovered oil here. There's a potential for ROI. How do I invest in this? And so this is important. We hire to scale revenue. We [00:35:00] don't hire to discover it.

Allan: So, the wrong way to have done that would have been to hire an affiliate manager, pull resource away from the main business and try to discover whether affiliate is something that might work or not.

Ayman: Well, here's what most founders will do. I think affiliates is the next $10 million business. We're stopping everything. Or I'm pulling my top employees and we're gonna go and try to figure out affiliates. they'll literally send a Friday afternoon Slack message going. I think affiliates is a great opportunity.

And then the team's like, Oh, I guess this is the top priority. All right, we're going to stop everything else. We're going to stop worrying about Black Friday and we're going to focus on building it. So they completely, to your point, throw chaos into the business and the team has no clue what is the priority in the company.

Here's the thing, and founders, if you're listening to this, a Slack message from you is a strategic misdirection for the company. Anytime that you have a random Friday night idea, It is a complete, you are literally adjusting the sales in the company. Instead [00:36:00] on Monday morning, go and test affiliates on your own, maybe with one or two contractors, maybe with your chief of staff.

Prove it to be true. This is the way we've, we solve entrepreneurial boredom. If your hypothesis proves true, This is an opportunity for you to, you know, be the Superman and then all of a sudden you're like this worked, take the profits from your experiment to then go and hire an affiliate manager.

Allan: Many, many, Many moons ago when I worked in corporate we used to call that BWI, boss with ideas. So boss would go to a conference, come back and write, right, we're switching to Oracle. You know, so, um,

Ayman: It's the worst. Teams hate it. Yeah. It's very distracting. It's it's so founders don't realize that they are top gun fighter pilot jets. They are very agile. They can move on a dime and they can handle the G forces. What they don't realize is that all of their employees, they stepped onto a commercial airline.

And so if you fly a commercial airline, a 747, the [00:37:00] way you fly a fighter pilot jet, everyone in the back is going to feel way too much G forces and they're going to be vomiting. They're going to go get me off this plane. And so if you're dealing with a lot of employee turnover, you got to ask yourself, am I flying this plane like a commercial airline or am I flying it like a Top Gun fighter pilot jet?

You can handle the G forces. Your team can't. What does your team want? Hey, we're going to hit a cruising altitude of 10, 000 feet. We're going from Lisbon to UK. We'll be there in two hours. Everyone has a great time. There's no chaos. We land on time. And yes, we're going to get there a little slower, but you're going to get there with a much bigger team.

And so you have to recognize, am I in a fighter pilot jet mode or am I in 747 mode? And if you've got a big team, you can't be the boss with ideas. imagine you're on a flight and the everyone's like, Hey we're shifting. We're no longer going to the uk, we're going to Barcelona. It would be uproar.

It'd be like, what are you talking about? What do you mean we're gonna Barcelona? You told I bought the ticket for the uk and yet most founders operate their business this way. Like, we're laughing now. [00:38:00] But it's like, it's so obvious for most people that it's like, if you're operating this way. number one, don't get upset when your team is confused.

Don't get upset when your team is vomiting, when your team feels burnout, when people are leaving you, when your customers are confused, when your employees are confused and you're going, screw it, I'm going to do it all myself.

Allan: So really the message is, Because like I said, I absolutely 100 percent am guilty of this. I suffer from this. I'm like, see a great idea. Like we, we attended Andrew Wilkinson's event. I came away with a whole, notebook of great ideas and things like that, and, you know, it's very tempting to, right guys, we're going to do X, Y, Z.

So the better ways to run a little bit of an MVP, maybe with yourself, maybe with some external contractor or whatever else, and then, you bring it into the business. If you see some traction rather than,

Ayman: I love that. The other way to do it, Allan, is I'm a big fan of monthly plans, monthly goals, because I think that quarterly is too slow for most founders. They're going, [00:39:00] I can't wait 90 days before I give up my next idea, but I can probably wait two weeks. And so if they know that, Hey, it's October 21st right now, if I can wait till November 1st before I reveal my grand idea, that gives me 10 days to go and MVP and test this, bring some data and then propose my one singular new idea for November.

Be like, Hey, I think it's really important for us to launch a community. So in November, we're going to go and test the community. So now we can go and we can reveal that to the company. And it doesn't feel like, we're jerking the plane, but rather, Hey, this is the layover and now we're deciding on the next leg of the journey.

Allan: shift gears a little bit. One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot is what's going to be the stuff that is real value going forward in with AI, with automation, with all of that sort of stuff. And, you know, everyone's kind of looking for waiting for that billion dollar single person business.

And the thing that keeps coming back to [00:40:00] my mind is, you know, almost everything will be automated or made much easier or whatever. Like a lot of the value in the past has been. technical trickery. Like you, you know how to get on the front page of Google through some SEO hacks or backlinks or whatever.

So you did really well. You knew how to get on people's for you page through whatever your hashtags or whatever stuff that you did. Now more and more, I think it's going to be personal brand led, you know, that founder, that face of the business connecting because almost everything else becomes either automated or a commodity or a lot easier to do than it's been.

I noticed Noah has done a great job at his YouTube channel, his social presence, all of those sorts of things. How are you thinking about that? And am I on track, off track? What are your thoughts? It

Ayman: Yeah. I mean, I, I think AI 100 percent is going to completely change the game. And what I'm referring to is not artificial intelligence, but authentic individuals. [00:41:00] Like, I think the reason that people resonate with Noah is he's on off. He's authentic, like who he is on his content is a hundred percent who he is in person, like people really resonate with people that are just raw.

Like the only way we can connect with individuals is their ragged edges. And so when people are too perfectionist or too, or they're hiding behind the camera, like even Peter levels, I mean, he's been crushing the AI game as a result of him just putting himself out there. You know, people are connecting with authentic individuals.

I mean, Joe Rogan has a bigger presence than CNN, Fox news, all these news companies combined, because he's an authentic individual flaws in all. And so I think that the more that you can be an authentic individual, this is the only way you can truly beat AI. Because in a world where everything is AI, everything is automated, everything feels the same.

The only way to truly differentiate is to truly be yourself. And so I think you're a hundred percent spot on Allan. I think the future is AI and I think it's authentic individuals.

Allan: totally agree. And I mean, the way, things are going, it's the [00:42:00] stuff that we do, even in the physical world, I mean, a lot of people thought the physical world is safe because you know, you need someone to whatever, move things or whatever, you know, it's, so far automation has mean been mainly in the software sort of domain, but now we're gonna see.

We're going to see physical robots, we're going to see physical you know, assistance and things like that. I think that's that's something that we need to really be thinking about a lot. And I think the other thing I think is we're still early on in the personal branding. I mean, there are some people who've done it exceptionally well, like a Gary V, like a Noah Kagan, like a Tim Ferriss.

For the most part, they seem to be exceptions. I think every single business is going to need someone who's the face of the business, who shows up, who has an opinion who you know, talks about what they believe in.

Ayman: Yeah I, I tell my founders that before 10 million, you got to be 80 percent internal, 20 percent external, but after 10 million, you've got to be 80 percent external. Like, there [00:43:00] is no way you're going to be able to hire the executives that you want to hire if you are not a celebrity in your industry.

Allan: Mmm.

Ayman: If you are not speaking, if you are not writing bestselling books, if you are not getting yourself out there, it's going to be incredibly difficult for you to attract the level of talent needed to break 100, 150, 200 million dollars in revenue.

And so, it was awesome that I had. A partner in Noah, where he was the face of the company, even when it allowed me to, to run the day to day. And so I had his presence, I had his brand in order to elevate AppSumo's overall brand, which made it much easier for me to attract top level talent. And so if you don't have someone like a Noah, you're going to have to go and be your own Noah.

And unfortunately that means you are going to have to go do the podcast circuits. Do the YouTube, circuit. You're going to have to go and do speak engagements. You're going to need to get to the point where if you slide into the DMS of your top executives on your dream 100 list, they're going to want [00:44:00] to respond and they're going to want to jump on a call with you.

You don't have to do that after, before 10 million, but after 10 million, it's an absolute necessity.

Allan: Mmm. correct me if I'm wrong, but you consult now, you help seven figure founders become nine figure CEOs. What are the recurring themes you're seeing in some of these seven figure businesses that, that are keeping them seven figure or keeping them bottlenecked?

Ayman: Yeah. I mean, one of the biggest differences that I had, like when I was running AppSumo send figures. It's like, I kept running into the same issues over and over again. And like, I would read all of the books and I felt like I had all of this information and I just didn't know what to do. It felt like I had all the ingredients and I just didn't know the right order.

And honestly, the biggest difference was finding mentors that had done it before. And finding individuals that had run 10, 50, a hundred million dollar businesses and being able to ask them like, Hey, what's the right sequencing? What's the right order? What is the one thing that I should be focusing on right now?

Because before it felt like I was just like, I had the ingredients, but I was doing it in the wrong word. [00:45:00] It was like, I was cracking an egg on top of a freshly baked cake. And I was like, why does this taste weird? And it's really important to understand that there's, Certain plateaus that plague companies at very disparate steps.

And so, as we mentioned before seven figures, you are dealing with product market fit issues. You either don't have the right avatar. You don't have the right problem. You don't have the right promotion strategy. After seven figures, it's that process, that people, that performance. And so the biggest things that I see that plagues entrepreneurs is they are still deeply involved in either sales or delivery.

They're still jumping on sales calls, or they're still the ones doing the marketing or even worse. So they're ones still doing delivery. They're still having to jump on customer calls. They're still having to follow up and make sure that the work can get actually delivered. And so if you're still stuck in either sales or delivery, it's either you haven't automated enough for the business or you haven't hired the right executives.

So there's two key executives that every [00:46:00] founder and mid seven figures should be hiring for. It's one on sales and one on delivery. And so. At its highest level, that's your chief revenue officer. And that's your chief operating officer. Your chief revenue officer is responsible for sales and marketing.

Your chief operating officer is in charge of delivery, finance, and HR. And if you don't have those two things, then you are the CRO and you are the COO. And when you are both of those, the limit in your revenue is the limit on your calendar.

Allan: so if you are stuck in the delivery phase, so is it, do you look at. Elevating someone in your team to take that leadership role do you bring someone from outside? What are your thoughts on kind of hiring based on attitude and helping someone build up the skill? Hey, I've got someone really hungry here.

They maybe don't have the skills, but I'll help upskill them versus I'll bring in someone external that I know has done this job before or whatever else. And I'll just pay them whatever the premium salary that [00:47:00] I need to pay them. What are your thoughts on that?

Ayman: I think the first thing is we have to recognize that people aren't paying for products, they're paying for outcomes. And so you have to get crystal clear on what is the outcome that I'm trying to deliver, because if I can get crystal clear on the outcome, then it becomes easier for me to bring innovation to that delivery.

And so that might not even be a people thing that might be solved with a template, with AI, with software. If you can come up with a more innovative and leveraged way to get that same outcome, do that because hiring increases complexity in your business in perpetuity. and particularly if you have like the worst type of business is one where you have a thousand employees in order to have to deliver on your customers.

It's like now you have all these different variations. You've got all these people to manage. It's a mess. And so what would be much better is if you just had a computer plugged into the wall that just auto delivers everything that you're looking for. So that's step one. [00:48:00] If you can't do that, I think that homegrown talent is very underrated.

They already know your business. They already understand your culture. You already know how they're working. It's much better. And in fact, they're going to be much more loyal if you're able to elevate the individuals internally. over time rather than hiring externally. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean you can't hire that person that you wish you could hire for a thousand dollars an hour and have them advise. And then that way you get their 10, 000 hours, but it's being fed through your internal individual. And I'll give you an example. Well, we hired a copywriter in 2016, 2017. She was phenomenal, really great copywriter, never managed anyone before. But eventually I was like, look, I need you to build out your team.

She started building out her team. She became our email marketing manager. Eventually got to the point where she's like, now I want to get into operations became a director of operations. That person ended up becoming our COO. So she's still with AppSumo. She's still Noah Kagan's [00:49:00] COO. She's been with the company now seven years, eight years runs half the company.

Homegrown started as an individual contributor. And so I think it's oftentimes we tend to overlook the homegrown talent. We think, Oh, that been there, done that executive. is going to come in and save the company. Look, I've hired a bunch of them. They're a mess. They come in, they cost way too much.

They don't prove ROI. They expect everything to be done on day one. It's much better to develop your homegrown talent. And now Elona, she could run circles around any of those individuals.

Allan: I totally agree. I mean, I've had a lot of success in elevating people who are existing in my team. And Anna, who currently runs the whole operation. She started basically as a business coach and she's become a CMO. Now she runs the whole operation. So, many other examples like that.

What are your thoughts on. business unit. What are your thoughts around build versus buy? Like, if we see a little bit of traction or whatever, let's say the, like we were talking earlier, the affiliate thing or whatever, should we now buy someone who's already successfully [00:50:00] doing that and plug that into the business?

Should we just continue to build? What are your thoughts around build versus buy?

Ayman: I just have no experience with buying. So it'd be really hard for, I know there's a lot of people that this is their bread and butter and they're really good at it. And I know that you can be successful, But I think that someone who's never done it before, they vastly undervalue how much it takes to number one, find a potential acquisition target, do the proper due diligence, properly vet them, negotiate them, close them, come up with terms that make sense.

And then now that you've acquired them, now the real hard work begins, which is now I have to integrate them and do all of those things. And so when you're evaluating the ROI on your time and your money. For me personally, it's always been easier to just do it in house. Now, eventually they get to the point where if you're at North of 150 million, you've got more money than you know what to do with.

And so then it makes sense for you to hire a head of business development. I actually think when you're North of 150 million, your likelihood of growing a hundred percent year over year [00:51:00] can probably only happen as a result of acquisitions before that you, it's kind of like a game of risk. You have to recognize that you've only got 10 pieces, every move.

And. If acquiring a company might end up eating eight of your pieces. And so if you're comfortable with that, you're comfortable with 90 percent of your company focused on this acquisition that may or may not go through just because of how big this opportunity is, then go for it. But for me personally, it's always been better, easier for me to build rather than buy.

Allan: Yeah, I mean, in my experience, having been through several acquisitions on both sides, is people, number one, grossly underestimate the integration challenges. Because they're integrating different technologies, different cultures, we do it this way, they do it that way. Sometimes there's geographical issues and the other thing that people grossly overestimate is the synergies that they're like, Oh, wow, we only need one, one accountant or one bookkeeper or one whatever.

And that's rarely ever the [00:52:00] case. The synergies are often way overestimated and you end up just basically adding a lot of cost and addition to, and complexity to the business.

Ayman: Yeah, well, I've never gone through either. So I'm glad you're corroborating my, gut feel and my assumptions.

Allan: what's something I should have asked you that will be helpful to our audience?

Ayman: One of the things that I think a lot of people, when they're thinking about building their team is they think about building their team equally across the board. And I think that a lot of times they're, they don't understand actually how critical it is for you to be strategic with your pay and with who you hire.

And framework that I think about with this is unicorns versus donkeys. And so what I mean by that is there are probably only 10 percent of your roles that drive 80 percent of the revenue in the business. At AppSumo, it was who was negotiating the deals. If we get incredible deals, everything else is amazing.

So those [00:53:00] individuals need to be paid or paid higher than average because they're the ones actually driving the business. And so when you're thinking about your strategic flywheel, what is the thing that actually drives the business? By the way, it's not about who's paid the most of your company.

I use the example of airlines a lot because people can understand it. If you step on a plane, the highest paid person in the flight crew is the pilot. But the difference between a C level pilot and an A level pilot still has to pass a minimum bar of regulations in order to fly a commercial plane.

They're all great. The bar is so high that the cheapest pilot is just as good as the most expensive. They're going to get you to the place safely, but the difference between your flight attendant, a top tier flight attendant and the worst flight attendant often dictates the difference between a premium airline and a budget airline.

But the difference is maybe only more than one or 2 an hour. And so those individuals, those are your unicorns. If you can end up overspending on your flight attendants [00:54:00] and underspending on your pilots, you're going to be way more strategic. With the way that you invest. So your flight attendants are your unicorns.

Your pilots are the donkeys. They just need to get the job done. The unicorns are what makes a magical experience for your customers.

Allan: So the unicorns are the people who have kind of, contact with the customer or are strategic in some way within the business. Is

Ayman: That's right. It's whatever a strategic, it's different at every business. Like people don't realize what the reason Walmart it was so successful is because they have a world class logistical data team. So they were able to understand how to buy at bulk. And so their data team is their unicorns. And so they could deal with the world's worst store associates because the prices were so low, customers would willing to deal with it, you know, and there's a premium retailer at in the States called Nordstrom, the sales associates there are the best. And so they're the ones that are overpaid.

And so it really depends on every company [00:55:00] where some are customer facing, some are behind the scenes. It's really important for you to know why are our customers coming to us? And how do we make sure that we are over investing for those individuals because they're the ones that actually may move the needle on that includes the people that includes the software that includes the customer experience.

It's important. Your P& L is often your biggest expense on a seven and eight figure business. I see founders over obsessed about lowering their taxes. They're moving to Puerto Rico. They're doing a million things and they spend almost no time thinking about their headcount.

Allan: I love that. Ayman, thank you so much. That was such a valuable episode. You came with a wealth of knowledge. How do people find out more about you? And of course we'll link to all the places that you are. But where's the best place for someone to find

Ayman: Honestly, the place I have the most fun is on Twitter or X is where I drop a lot of my content. You know, I begrudgingly copy paste it over to LinkedIn, but most of the people are going to find my most engagement on X. If you [00:56:00] click the link in the bio on X. I have a free Notion Wiki. You can click into that and you can get access to a Notion Wiki that immediately gives you a repository to store all of your information and it'll automatically add you to my monthly CEO newsletter that's going to walk you through the nine steps, nine figures as a reminder every month of like, what's the one thing that I should be focusing on?

Allan: That's awesome, man. Thank you so much.

Ayman: Thank you, Allan. Thank you. Appreciate it.

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