Introduction to Building a Community
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[00:00:00] Sharath K: that is exactly what I would, ask people to do when it comes to building a community building an audience. It's basically broadcasting what you're doing. Narrating your story in an authentic way and attracting these eyeballs when they come. Now you have a opportunity to like really ask, right?
Welcome to Growth Leap
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[00:00:21] Michel: Hi everyone and welcome to Growth Leap. I'm your host, Michel Gagnon. We talked to pretty awesome business builders who are designing disruptive and meaningful companies.
Introduction to Sharath Kuruganti
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[00:00:30] Michel G: Hello everybody.
Meet Sharath Kuruganti
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[00:00:31] Michel G: Today we are joined by Sharath Kuruganti, a serial maker who's built and shipped 15 plus projects using no code tools. He went through a successful exit with a SaaS product shout out and lead and nurtured communities at world class startups like Product Hunt, Draft Bit, and On Deck. He was also head of community and brand at Threado and hosts two podcasts, the undefeated underdogs and YC founder stories. He's now building guest lab, an AI research assistant that generates personalized intros, and. Interesting topics and insightful questions from your guests, LinkedIn profiles. Sharath, welcome to the show.
[00:01:11] Sharath K: Thank you. Thank you, Michel. Appreciate you for having me.
The Journey of Guest LabBuilding Guest Lab: From Idea to Launch
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[00:01:14] Michel G: Finally, finally, we, we talk,
Sharath, you've been building many projects over the years. the most recent is guest lab. Can you tell me a bit about the project itself and also maybe walk us through the process from idea to launch. And maybeexplain a little bit, if it was different from your previous, projects.
[00:01:34] Sharath K: Yeah. So, I've built many projects before,like you said, and I think the common theme among all of them is I build it for myself, like, that's like the, the rule zero, I just, I just look for things in, Like my, my own problems are the things I'm doing in a repeated way. I want to find them and build a product around it and hopefully share it online and on the internet and kind of find people who have similar problems.
That's how exactly how I built everything like shout out. That's of all the products. So this one is exactly the same thing. I am a podcast host. Like you said, right. I host two shows in my previous job. I hosted another show. It's like in total of three shows. I shipped more than, I don't know, like one 20 plus products, episodes.
And I am. Very particular about learning about the guest in a, in a deep, full insight way. So whenever I invite a guest, the, the thing I used to do is I go through their LinkedIn, go through their personal website, go through the hell out of like tweets and all the shit. That they do and kind of generate three things.
I want to make a personalized intro. You want to ask like some topics or questions. And that's when I was like, I have like this insights where I have, that comes in picky hand, picky, like, okay, there is this keen insight that I want to maybe plug into the episode. So I'm doing that again and again and again and again and again.
This is like fricking time taking. And you know this, you are a host as well. So you spend time on research. And one of the things that we do as hosts is to give the time so that the guests will be more welcome, more, inclusive, like he or she will be like okay, I know you, this is not the first time.
And most of, most of the times we are meeting the guests for the first time. I'm meeting you for the first time, right?
Challenges and Solutions in Podcasting
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[00:03:28] Sharath K: But the conversation is going to happen in it at a deep level because the guest, so bottom line, I'm like, dude, this is like super hard and I'm sure everybody else is feeling the same way.
At least whoever does the interview style episodes. So I thought, like, what if I build a tool around this and use AI? to leverage the technology to generate all these things. And it actually worked. It's like, I have this, collaborate with another, technical person. I'm non technical and he said, Hey, we can use open AI.
We can scrape LinkedIn. That's, that's an initial start. And we can just like kind of. And it really worked.it worked like 75, 80%. I'm not saying that it is going to do research end to end. That's why we, whenever I talk to folks kind of give guest lab is going to give you a heads up. So that, that was like the idea and we built it, we shipped the landing page.
We got some good attention. We then shipped like an MVP. we've built like a wait list. We, rolled out the product, the wait list and yeah, right now, we're like the very tiny numbers, like 10, 10 people paying. They have 10 customers. we have more than, I think, 120, 135 MRR and, yeah.
We're just like kind of having fun. We build this for ourselves in, put it out and find people like you, like hosts, like you, who can take advantage of it.
Building with No Code ToolsChallenges and Strategies in No-Code Development
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[00:05:03] Michel G: It's definitely a problem that I've been going through, so I understand the pain and as I was telling you a bit earlier, I've tried to come up with my duct tape solution, which is not beautiful, but I think it's, I think you've done a fantastic job and it's definitely a pain.I'm interested in how you've built it and, uh,you've worked a lot with no code, tools in general. I'm also non technical. And, um, I don't know, is, have you built, or did you build it differently from your previous no code experience? Is there, with 15 projects in the, in the pocket, maybe you, you've, you knew some, some shortcuts, but was the, was the process similar to the past?
[00:05:51] Sharath K: No, this time around, this is the first time I would say, I directly went to like, collaborating with, with the technical, co founder, if you may call him like my, the one I'm collaborating with, the reason is, is it's such a local tools are amazing. It's just that it takes time, it takes time to go to zero to one.
way. So that's one reason. I think the other reason I'm intentionally choosing not to fully rely on no code tools is, I'm, I'm kind of like developing this skill of collaborating with others. So that's another benefit of, Doing things with others so that you learn how to communicate, how to pivot, how to basically work, how to, especially in a remote setting, you're setting yourself in a position where my end goal is to build my own thing, period.
I want to build my own startup, other bootstrap raised. I don't know. But I want to be full time founder doing one thing 24 hours, 365 days. So I'm just putting myself in a position where I'm preparing myself for those, when I'm ready for that situation. So it's like kind of, I don't know if people can grasp the, basketball reference.
You're playing, practicing and practice, practice, practice. And when you enter into a league, you basically are ready. So I'm right now practicing everything I'm doing right now is towards practice. So that's one of the reasons I'm kind of not going after building my own thing, building any, any idea using a no code tool, because I know I can build it.
It's just that, I will leave, the other things, Which is, which are very important to me. this time around, I just built a, like a landing page using the no code tool called card, card. co. that's like the best, best, best landing page, platform ever. You just like spin off, you literally spin off like a simple landing page in five minutes.
So I've done that and everything else is like, it's all fully coded. And there are, complex no code tools that can actually help you build AI oriented products like, it's not like there is the, there's a lack of tools in the market. It's just that I chose not to. So everything else in the past.
I was like, I used to build a landing page, validate, build a small MVP that, then collaborate if there is like a signal that it's going to scale, then if like people are using it and they're like, Hey, we need XYZ features and I can't ship it overnight. Code can. So I used to like, work with others, but now it's like, let me do this route multiple times to learn.
and then, hopefully, this will be like a, like a learning lesson for me. Yeah,
Applying to Y CombinatorApplying to Y Combinator and Future Goals
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[00:08:50] Michel G: sold a shout out for, when you reach, 30 K a R and you've recently shared that you apply to Y Combinator with, for, with the idea of guest lab, I believe. What, what's your, what's your end game? Because I, one of the things I appreciate about you is, How you try to balance, I guess your entrepreneurial or your maker, idea, how you combine, let's say your entrepreneurial endeavors with,having some sort of,a well rounded life, you know, we've talked about family earlier before joining. So what's the end game with, with guest lab and, the fact that you've applied to Y Combinator recently,
we applied and, uh, we got rejected too. Yesterday I got the, the email from YC saying that there is no room for us this time. So,that was the first time you were applying. Mm
[00:09:45] Sharath K: I applied for, Or another product, which I worked last year, which we never shipped. that's like the rabbit hole. I didn't want to enter this time.
I spoke to like a lot of people. I can talk about it as well. It's just, it's, it's, it's a wrong way to build a product, at least in my opinion.
[00:10:01] Michel G: Yeah, yeah,
[00:10:02] Sharath K: But anyway, with this time, yeah, we applied the goal was, get into not for money, but for network, but for.skin in the game, like, like really, truly it allows, me and my co founder, both of us, we used to have jobs. Now we don't have jobs. My co founder is consulting. I'm thinking of doing consulting because I have to pay my bills.
He has to pay his bills. So that's partially, they're going to like, invest, which will allow us to work on the thing we want to. And, the end game. Yeah. Anyway, YCF it's, it's like very. I would highly recommend everybody to apply for YC regardless of where they want to bootstrap. They want to venture, they want to like do whatever they want.
They want, it's, it, it actually allows you to get clarity around what you want to do. So that is like the main important thing. So I learned a ton going through the whole process, the mistakes I made.and I want to like, don't do that. I found gaps that, that are very pretty visible, which I want to avoid if I want to apply for next time, which I will, for winter batch.
I don't know. Anything can happen in this six months, but, but yeah, the goal is, so the way I'm treating YC is the way I used to treat product hunt when I started my maker journey.let me explain what I mean by that. When I started my maker journey, the goal was to build something for myself and launch it on product hunt period.
That's it. There is no revenue. Don't forget about, all the other semantics that pull you down. It's just that you build something, you find like 10 people, 20 people, your friends share it with your like audience, then launch it on product hunt. That's get feedback. If it is working it right. I am in that I'm getting into that more as a founder, which is now my goal is I want to build a startup where there is a problem that exists in the product people want in a hundred percent from day zero, I would, I would charge for the product.
That's another thing that I didn't do charge for the people so that it gets validated immediately. And the end goal is get into IC. That is like the end goal because that will actually drive at least me to that, to the end of the course, like, okay, this is what your goal is. This is what your goal is.
You have to do a certain things for XYZ. So, and there are like different paths, and I'm not going to get into that. But for me, it's like, I think the, the network is. Pretty invaluable in the exposure is pretty invaluable. And I'm not saying that if you get into YC, everything will happen, will happen magically overnight.
You just still have to work your ass off.you have to still hustle, which is what I want to do. So long story short, we applied for guest lab and I know for a fact that, it's not a big market. So I know probably that that might be a reason they rejected. podcasting is still. I don't know.
It's still early, right? And most of us don't have money. Let's be honest. Right. So we're just, I think most of the podcasters are doing podcasting as a hobby,
[00:13:21] Michel G: yeah, but it's different for me, I'm, I'm swimming in a boatload of money, for
[00:13:29] Sharath K: But yeah, generally, I think I would say 80 percent 90 percent people are podcasting out of their passion
[00:13:36] Michel G: sure, yeah,
[00:13:37] Sharath K: and I think 10 percent people have money like that, that 10 percent have definitely some pretty good, pretty good money, like, that's just the type of people who are making a living out of it, through sponsorships and all, and it's hard.
We know that we just, again, we build it for ourselves and put it out. So end game, I don't know. I think it's fully functional now. You know, what, what I'm thinking now is to keep it as is not kill it, but it's generating revenue, it has paying customers, plug it wherever it is necessary, and then take these lessons, build the next thing.
So that's where I am right now in that transition mode. And if we hear like, Hey, it's, it's basically pretty much saying that it's going to be in, the maintenance mode. It's going to be there. It's fully functional. If someone's like you said, Hey, the shit's broken. You need to fix it. Yeah. We'll then fix it.
And then, it is right there. So,we realized, we tried our best and it's really hard. It's hard to get attention of a podcaster who's not making money asking for money. So we realized that. And it's, it's a, it's another lesson, right? Like you have to go after a market where. People have money in their pockets and they were willing to spend it's not like you're you have to convince so with guest lab I have to convince people like hey, this is the benefit.
There is a problem. There is like the value So that bit is a little intense Especially if I'm working on different things, maybe it might be little straightforward if I have like this 24 hours That's what I want to try with YC If I have 24 hours time, maybe it would be a different story, but in general, it's hard podcasting is still hard.
there is no money there. especially if you're, if you're not building a hosting, or if you're not helping people make money, it's hard. So we, we, we learned our lesson, but it was like definitely an improvement from the previous project. I was mentioning, which we all supplied for YC. Yeah, that was, it was like a, I would say like a 10x improvement from that project to this one.
Now take these lessons, go to the next one. Right.
[00:15:59] Michel G: I agree with you, there is like in the podcast world, like that's, What guest lab is solving is one of the problems, but there's quite a few others, right? One of them is the actual production, the editing and the promotion afterwards. So, yeah, I think. The, the world and the, like the, the set of software that are supporting but caster is a lot better than like three, four years ago.
I, I mean, the tools I was using was really felt like I don't know if I'm relatively old, but,I used to record, like to do, a mix, on a cassette, like with two,
to radio side by side, and you have to
play the press record on both sides. So, when I started doing a podcast thing, which is not that long ago, but it felt sometimes a little bit like this, things have improved quite a lot.
So, I agree with you. I think though, that, there is, also another key factor, which is,Chad, GPT and all the other
AI tools, right? So there is definitely. In my case, I've found myself in a situation where I'm saying, okay, like, do I need three, four
AI? Software or, or chat GPT power, subscriptions, right?
So sometimes I think there's also, maybe there's a phase, where we are right now that makes it,a
b
Community Building and Audience Engagement
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[00:17:24] Michel G: it more,challenging and I guess maybe confusing also for, for the people.
[00:17:28] Sharath K: hmm.
[00:17:29] Michel G: on
Insights on Community and Audience Building
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[00:17:29] Michel G: e of the things that you've done quite well is building in public, and also
building a community and, which is something that I really need To work on, practice.
And so that I can eventually go to the NBA, to come back to your initial, um, analogy, what's your trick, you've done that for, a lot of other companies, you have your own podcast, you, I think you went from zero to 23, 000, followers on, on Twitter slash X, have you learned?
Like what are The key things that, we should do.
[00:18:05] Sharath K: I think the biggest thing is don't, I would say two things. One is do it with intention. Like there should be like a
pure desire to do this. So community building, audience building should come. From your heart, not from your mind. If you, if you involve mind, I think then becomes more transactional. So I would say do it with intention and avoid transactional things. Like you give me this, I'll give you that, that's not going to work.
And that's like the fundamental thing. What is something you should not do is basically be goal oriented. If you're starting a thing and your goal is to like, in my case, I want to build a startup, right? So my goal is to build a startup. Let me use community building as a tool or a lever or like a channel that is also not going to work because you're always going to put that goal in.
You're doing things for that goal, not for people you genuinely have to show. That's why I think. One of the, one of the shortcuts to build a community is building everything in public because you're, you're telling them naturally what you're doing day to day, week to week, month to month and sharing those stories, sharing those lessons.
It's going to attract people. It's sharing that you're vulnerable. It's going to attract people sharing that you want. It's going to attract people. So that is whenever you attract people, pulling them naturally towards you. That is. That is like you have like right now you have like a set of eyes looking at you now you have an option to like tell them what you want to do so either they listen or they just walk out, which is fine, right?
So that is exactly what I would, ask people to do when it when it comes to building a community building an audience. It's basically broadcasting what you're doing. narrating your story in an authentic way and attracting these eyeballs when they come. Now you have a opportunity to like really ask, right?
Hey, I'm building this. Do you have a, do you have two cents you want to share? Hey, guest lab, I'm building this. You're a podcaster. Would you be a paid customer? So you then have an opportunity to really present your ask. And then again, it's, it's all about, So it's all about like you trying, to position yourself, sell yourself in front of a set of eyes and the way you bring set of eyes should be organic and natural.
So that's what I would do. I would define, community, doing thing podcast another way, like you broadcast these stories and you have a set of people, Oh, wow. I heard you talking about. This, to the next person, I was really kind of felt relevant. So now I have your attention. Now you know, now that you have audience attention, what would you do?
So it is always community building should always be intentional and more intentional, less transactional to me.
Community
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[00:21:16] Michel G: But if we try to get a bit more specific because,
[00:21:20] Sharath K: Mm
[00:21:20] Michel G: building is a big word, right? And, it's a bit like selling for instance, right? So if you take selling, selling, and you try to teach somebody who's not naturally
good at selling.you have to teach them. Look, you have to have, let's say an ideal customer profile. You have to
have some sort of a system to acquire leads to qualify those leads. And then you need to put the input, which is, I don't know. I'm going to reach out to that many people
every day to, ultimately adjust your messaging and, learn from that, but to get the outcomes that you're looking for. How do you actually do you know, there's the growth work, the sales work, and then there's a community building work. Like, how does that fit in your day to day? do you have some sort of structure around, that intention that you mentioned?
[00:22:09] Sharath K: I'm not exactly building a community. I'm building an audience. So those two are first thing are separate. audience building is one too many. Community building is many too many. It's, it's more of like a, like a dinner table. Community building is sitting in a dinner table where each of each person is going to talk with each other.
Hopefully,
[00:22:29] Michel G: Mm hmm. Mm
[00:22:30] Sharath K: building is you're standing on a stage and there is a set of people looking at you. So I'm more into leaning towards that as of now, this moment, when I used to work for Product Hunt. my previous jobs, I did things that bring people together. So the way you do, let's go into that first, which is the way you do things, for building a community is, Hey, again, it's always, I think broadcasting is something that you should do in both, instances that you have to put something out your, whether it is an initiative, whether it is something that you want to try it's content in audience building case.
So. An idea, for example. So for, and when I was at working at Product Hunt, Product Hunt did this thing called AMAs and everybody knows the format, ask me anything. I don't know, like five, six, seven years ago before I joined and they killed it for whatever reason. I re brought that. The goal was to bring an expert present in front of a set of makers so that they can talk to each other.
And I'm building like a dinner table and I'm inviting a head And around that head seat, there are like a bunch of people sitting. So what I, what I did there was I sparked a conversation and everybody started talking, not just with the expert, but with each other. So do that at scale. That's where you have community.
Do that with five people to start with, for example. Next invite to 10 and that the other way to do it is do mastermind sessions, do office hours. These are all like there, but you have to do it with intention. I think that is, that's why I go back to intention. Why are you building this expert? Why are you bringing, why are you building this dinner table?
Is it where you want to, at the end of the day, they're all, they're done with the dinner, they're all going home and you're like, Hey, this is, this is what you need to pay because you, you're part of dinner table or Hey, let's meet next time. It's so fun having you part of the conversation. I want to do this again.
Those two are different things, right? There's one is transaction. One is intentional.
[00:24:45] Michel G: hmm. Well,
[00:24:49] Sharath K: there are like, there are a million things you need to do. Or million ideas, initiatives, community programs, like ambassador program is something I did. The goal was to find champions in these, in these cities and give them, empower them to bring more of, find more of those people in their communities and build a micro sized community as part of a larger community.
So it goes on and on. that's where you, you, that's how you build a community. And on this side, it's like more broadcasting, putting content out, doing things, things in public. And when they come, you're, they're talking to you and that's where you also have this, chance to like, say, Hey, you can talk to each other too.
Like you can do initiatives like that. So I used to do this, I used to do AMAs on Twitter every Sunday. I used to do that. Now I'm not doing it, due to kids and all. But when I started like these AMAs, people come up with the question. I share my insight and there is someone who's also sharing their insight.
To them. So there's like a, a sense of community there. but it's again, straight, strictly straightforward audience, because they're all hanging out in a place called Twitter, not in a place where you build, like there is no dinner table there. So,I think that's, that's the details and I can go in depth about, if you have any specific question, but overall, I feel that's the two big differences.
[00:26:25] Michel G: yeah, fair enough.
Should Every Company Build a Community?
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[00:26:26] Michel G: And it feels a bit like everybody's building a community. not everybody. Many companies are trying to build a community.
Should Every Company Build a Community?
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[00:26:31] Michel G: I think one of the things you've said, unless I'm,hallucinating is, that not, Not all companies should build a community, right?
[00:26:40] Sharath K: Yes.
[00:26:40] Michel G: And if we stick to this because I want to go back to the audience building afterwards But if we if we stick to this what what's your take on that?
What's your recommendation and why you think some companies? Are you know may be better positioned to to go and build a community?
[00:26:59] Sharath K: So there is no, criteria. It's all comes to founders, like what they want to do with their startups startups And it's partly how they want to position their product to, right? If you have, if you're building a B2B product, you're attracting businesses, but you're attracting decision makers of that particular startup or businesses, right?
That's a community right there. If you're a consumer, B2C, very, that has an organic pull towards B2B. Your product. Now you have like a, like a million set of eyes. You don't need all of them. You need champions. That's where you, you end up building an ambassador program, like how Notion did. So Notion's approach is more consumer centric because they're, everybody can use it.
But there are some, like my previous role, I, I was the head of community and there, it was all about bringing community, head of communities together because the product is designed for them, for community teams. So that is like the differentiation. I would say that's like the path, but it's all, it's all like, not community is not for everybody.
Key Considerations for Building a CommunityKey Considerations for Community Building
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[00:28:16] Sharath K: If you, if you don't have the time to invest in people, Just don't do it. It's plain simple, because someone else is doing that. Someone else is building community. You want to build it. You're bound to. You're signing up for failure
or you're signing up for disappointment. So I would rather start asking yourself, do I really need a group of people hanging out together on a week to week, month to month basis, forget about community as a big word.
Start right there. If the answer is maybe to yes, refine that maybe why ask yourself, why do you need it? Number two, do you have the time reality check, check yourself? Do you have a, do you have time to invest one hour per day? You, all you need is one hour per day, for example, to just talk to someone.
Number three, do you have really like, the money to spend? It's not like you just willing to spend the time, but you also have invest through doing some, I don't know, like launch a swag program and make make them feel special, right? Like send them some goodies that they care about, right? Oh, wow.
These guys are caring about us. And number four, I think, do you want to really build a community of People are community of customers because so that you can have firsthand feedback, you can provide great support. So there are so many questions you need to answer. And once you have this, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
You'll know, okay, now I have this clarity. I can just start a support community. That's it. The whole point is. My, my people who pay for my product, they're going to hop on it. If they have feedback, we're going to solve it. If they have, if they don't like the service, we're going to provide better service.
It's, it's like a tight relationship. So there is a lot of retrospection that needs to happen before even you start bringing people together, forget about community building, for, especially for startups, especially around founders. And then comes the question, do I have to scale this? Do I have to build a team around, like, is there a way I can outsource this because I've built it.
The Role of Founders in Community Building
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[00:30:37] Sharath K: So I think the biggest thing I would say is founders should start a community. You should not hire someone because you have money so that they can take care of a community you want to build. You're again, bound to failure because they don't know what you want. You're hiring. That's good. But at the end of the day, if you're starting your early stage, you have like a 3 million, 4 million seed round.
You have money to invest. Please don't hire a community leader. Anybody start with yourself, take to a point where like, there are like 50 to a hundred people actively coming together on a monthly basis. Then you have, okay, now I can outsource. So I think that's what I would say. It's not for everybody.
[00:31:25] Michel G: Yeah, and I think what you just said at the end, it's a bit like your company culture, right? It's not something that you can delegate to HR or, or somebody else, right? And I'm assuming, or, I mean, there's some communities you can go in a, Unexpected direction. you
know, depending on the individuals who are joining.
Right. So I think I agree with you. You want to make sure that you're kind of setting the right tone at the beginning.
Balancing Audience Building and Daily RoutinesAudience Building and Personal Routines
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[00:31:50] Michel G: Now, let's move a bit to audience. And I want to do a bit my my Tim Ferriss on on this one, which I'm not going to ask you. What's your morning routine? But, Yeah, one of the things that I personally find difficult is the, structuring the day and the week.
I, really enjoyed Paul Graham's Relatively old article about the maker and the manager schedule. I think this is something that I've faced, when I started managing a tech company with 40 engineers. I was obviously the, the, the CEO and had the manager's schedule and
I would, I would show up, on the sixth floor and it's like, Hey, where's, what's going on with this? Where's that feature, which was not appreciated, right? So I've kind of learned to, to, to adapt a little bit and also like integrate, like, let's say the good things of both worlds in my day to day. But when you look at your audience building, audience building, your, your building in public, what,do you have any,have a system or a schedule around that?
I, I, I'm, I'm doing an inter, I interviewed Andrew Gazdecky, CEO of Acquire. com, and whenever I reach out to Andrew, like, I've, sometimes I have the impression that, he doesn't sleep, like he's super responsive. It's amazing.
So what's your, system if, if there's one to, to make sure that you're consistent, that you keep providing value and that, you're, you're building an audience that, is worth building in a way,
[00:33:19] Sharath K: I think maybe I have to have a system, but I don't have one. short answer is, maybe I should build one. I think more, I'm more of like, I'm responding, it's more natural till now, everything I did is more kind of, I'm responding to it. It's not preplanned. I tried that. I didn't like it. It's like I used to schedule these suites. I'm like, felt very unnatural, obviously. And I kind of also felt, fell in the trap of building, writing threads, that again, didn't work.
Maybe I'm, it's not for me that, that is something you should ask yourself. So there are some set of fair frameworks everybody offers or everybody at least shares in their billion public journey, right? They're, they're also doing things in public, right? So there are these people who are like, Hey, this is how you write threads.
If you write threads, you might get some attention. All you need to do is digest, try and see like what is really working for you. So I think that is the system that you need to build. If, if you ask me, in my case, I felt very. Comfortable reacting, responding naturally to a, to an idea or a thought or like basically anything that comes to my mind.
but yes, I think there is like the other set of people who are like, hey, you have to be very systematic When you build an audience because you're investing timeyou're investing, Ideas, you're investing a lot of other things into it. You're putting effort. Maybe again, I think I'm right now in a phase.
I have more time for the first time in my, in my whole life. So I want to try out like finding, figuring out my system is what I want to build. Like, for example, one of the core, one of the raw ideas I have is I want to dedicate days to the things I want to do, like Monday, I just want to work on podcasting.
That's it. I want to source guests. I want to do research on my upcoming guests. I will schedule interviews on that particular day and call it a day. Maybe Tuesday. I want to really like fully,indulge myself in like, okay, let me do. Find ideas. I want to build tinker, so even then I think I cannot force my myself to stop doing other things.
That's why I think, whatever comes naturally to you. But I think, yeah, no system, maybe, that's why I didn't have, I don't have like 100, 000 followers, maybe, which is fine, right? because a lot, many people who started with me, Man, they growed insanely crazy, like some of my, all the people I know have more than I think what 250k, 300k, followers, that's insane amount of people, but I'm approaching more of like with intention, doing things, I also want to try out like a systematic, more strategic way, but let's see.
The Journey into PodcastingThe Journey into Podcasting
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[00:36:30] Michel G: host two podcasts, which is a little, a little bit crazy, especially if you said you had,a third one when you were doing community work, in your previous gigs. the undefeated underdogs and YC founder stories. And they're all guests or interview type podcast, which as we, we know it's, it's work.
why, did you decide to get into the, the podcast game and why did you decide that one was not enough?
[00:37:05] Sharath K: So the first one was, that actually came out accidentally, under the feet of underdogs was, was born within, within a day or two. And I actually went on a podcast like this. And what I did was the, the, the, the guest was asking, the host was asking questions, it was, it was having fun.
Like just now I'm having fun with you, like, like talking out authentically. Then I flipped the table and I kind of became host and counter asked questions. Like naturally it wasn't planned or anything. It's like jamming at
[00:37:43] Michel G: You took over.
[00:37:45] Sharath K: And I'm like, Whoa, this is very, this is like quite new to me. After that, I was like, I felt very energetic.
I'm like, wow, I can ask questions. I can hold a conversation. I, I think I discovered that, tiny skill in me. Then I spent some time like, what if I launch a podcast, pure, simple, like there is no big plan to it. And I'm a, I'm an underdog myself in my whole life. People underestimated me, still underestimating.
And I got, I get rejected kind of adds me fuel. Like I use rejection as my motivation. Like, okay, if someone says like, you can't do it, let me actually try to do it. So I think there is like a. Relatability, if I want to talk to an underdog, because I have, I am an underdog. So I felt like, okay, let's actually invite all the underdogs.
That's it. That's like the premise of the story. And I think I wrote a letter on my website. And if you checked, the podcast website has a letter, that's what I want to do because I want to unpack what people are thinking. Founders, VCs, creators, everybody. And I just started like interviewing people and I had like so much fun.
It was like, so fun. And I'm learning something new. I'm kind of like putting, people are putting ideas in my head. I'm like, okay, this is kind of cool. Let me actually do it. so I shipped like 60 episodes there. I paused it now. I'm, I'm, I want to like source maybe like a season two type of a thing.yeah, a lot, lot of things going on in my life.
So I'm like, let me take a step back. Pause this in, do it. I will be bringing back the podcast soon. Have plans to launch a swag program around underdogs, you know,all that much. So that was purely the idea. It's like, why? And later I realized these are all people. Who have done successful things.
So it's like, it's like I'm building a network around these people as well. I think that's it. That's, that's the goal. There is nothing, I don't know if it becomes big. I don't care if it becomes big. All I care is I'm having a good conversation with the guest, asking thoughtful questions, get better at asking thoughtful questions.
And I think that's it. And the other podcast. I was applying YC for the first time, I kind of,I know like a lot, many people offered like, Hey, let me help you,read your application. There are like, X, Y, Z things you need to do and all that, but it's not documented anywhere, if you think about it, at least to me, I didn't find it, all the stories that, YC founders went through, so I'm like, okay.
This is another opportunity again. So I'm, I purely did that for myself. Again, the goal is to go into YC, right? So what if I surround myself with YC founders? That was the goal. And I started like YC founder stories, it was, it was not like a very consistent thing, which I have to do it now that, I have more time, I want to do more, more episodes on that, but the goal was, Really like, there'll be like two parts.
One is a set of questions that they already know, which are standard. Then I deep dive, dive deep into like question answers, questions from their answers, which happened in part one. So again, simple, like, someone who's applying for YC, they can check it out, they can like, go through that and maybe learn and then that's it.
[00:41:27] Michel G: I agree that a podcast is just a great way to build relationships. And you've talked about being intentional as opposed to transactional. I think Podcast is just a, it's just a great way, to, to connect
with people. And in my experience, I, I agree that, I mean, I've discovered people because I'm personally, I, what I like about the Undefeated Underdogs is, I like when we interview, Not extremely well known people, right?
Because everybody in the end,interviews the celebrities, let's say. So sometimes there's very, like, amazing stories that you discover.and yeah, I've, I was pushed into podcasting, because of my partner of saying, you should do this great marketing. And I was very reticent because, there was a bit back in the days, a bit of a steep learning curve, like in terms of, okay, what kind of tech, at the beginning, it's something new.
How do I set it up? in the end, I think the greatest, Let's say outcome, that I'm getting or, or positive outcome is, is the relationship building. So I love it.
[00:42:41] Sharath K: Yeah,
[00:42:42] Michel G: Oh,
I don't want to, I don't want to take too much of your time. I just want to ask a couple of,A few more questions on, on the postcat itself. You kind of answered one of the questions that I had, which was, do you have a specific goals for your podcast? but it seems to be that your approach is again, a bit more, a free flow.
Memorable Podcast Guests and Stories
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[00:43:03] Michel G: do you have, any, memorable stories, or guests that you've received where he's, because you've, you've kind of published quite a, quite a few, is there something?a moment, a guest, a story where you said, wow, uh,
[00:43:16] Sharath K: a good question.let me think. I think on top of my mind, oh man, I invited so many people.
so I invited Anna Lorena Fabrega. she's the chief evangelist at Synthesis, this ed tech company. She's a teacher. And she's like, content creator as well, who's like educating people about how you should look into education system for your kids and all that. I think she's shared a series of things that we normally generally know, don't talk in the U S much about like how the education system really works.
and I think that's, that was, that was a phenomenal episode for me because I actually, at that point I had my first kid. And I was like, totally believed in the school system.and this is what I want to do. And I, she kind of rewired some of the things and she asked about, some deep questions of how you want to have your kids think about certain things.
[00:44:19] Michel G: So that is definitely one of the awesome things. what's her name?
[00:44:24] Sharath K: Anna Lorena Fabrega.
[00:44:27] Michel G: Okay.
[00:44:27] Sharath K: So definitely, it's like how to raise your kids in unconventional way. If you want to check it out, highly, highly recommend that episode. Who else? I think, I invited, of course, you know,Andrew Gastecki. Awesome.
I love that guy. He's just like pure, pure, natural. Noah Kagan was on the show. He talked a lot about how to go from zero to one, in a very quick, faster way.
That was one of my favorite episodes. Every episode is my favorite. And I, like I said, like I don't interview people because they have big following or anything.
I generally try to, put myself in the position where, okay, what is something that they, they uniquely bring to the table? Right. Luis Pereira, he, he built audio pen. That guy is, is a legend in his own way. He's making six figures, seven figures, if I'm not wrong, through this app. And he's like, I don't want to go full time on it.
I just want to have fun with it. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. That level of balance is insane. If you have like a fully profitable product, he's not hiring anybody. He's just doing things. Just for fun, like purely fun. So he's, he's like 100 percent intentional. There is no room for anything else.
So he's a great guy. Pierre, my good friend, Cal. com founder. He, he, he shared like amazing, story about how open source, Arlen Hamilton, she's like amazing investor. Her, her vision is to make or help a thousand. is awesome. Right. How to empower like underrated, underrepresented, people, Oh, I, I have like so many awesome people.
I'm so fortunate to even have these so many people like, awesome, guests on my show. It's like, yeah, everything, every, every episode is my favorite. There is like, there is so much, to learn.
Lessons Learned from PodcastingLessons and Future Goals
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[00:46:32] Michel G: What, what's the biggest lesson that you've learned over the years in, in podcasting?
[00:46:40] Sharath K: I don't think about
what I'm drawing by doing podcasting. I think it's all about, like being in awe. I think that's, I think if you ask me, like being in awe, seeing these people, they, they all turned obstacles into opportunities. Either for themselves or for others and they did it in a spectacular way and doing that itself is so inspirational.
So I think the biggest, I don't know, it's, it's more of, wow, it's, it's possible, some of the things they did. Let's take Arlene Hamilton. She was a homeless person once. Now she's running a multi, multi million dollar business. million dollar fund and she invested in hundreds hundreds of founders.
So that level of the, the, the steep is incredible. If you just think about it, right. So I'm just in awe of, consistently in awe. When I talk to these folks, I think, yeah, the biggest lesson is you, everybody has an op, a skill to ask great questions. So. don't underestimate that, try it out and do it multiple times and you'll get better at it.
So, and there is a ton of benefits if you ask great questions so that the biggest, biggest, biggest upside is you will be so clear you have, you achieve clarity because you're asking the right questions, right?and you're thinking through, you're not doing it and it helps you make right decisions. It makes you think better.
so I think that's something that, that's an upside. Like now that I've interviewed so many people, I'm like, okay, let me think through something. It's not like I don't want to jump into it right, right away. So maybe, maybe those are some things I observed.
Not lessons per se, but yeah, some observations.
[00:48:42] Michel G: one of the things that I've learned myself is to, to kind of let go as well. I always have my list of questions, but you never know where you're going to end. So,
sometimes you have a plan and then it goes a different way. Most of the time it's, it's, it's a more
interesting path that you're following. But one, maybe my last question to you.
Future Aspirations and Closing Thoughts
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[00:49:03] Michel G: Is, regarding your future, big question, big loaded question at the end. But,you're at a, I don't wanna say crossroad, but you're at a point where, you have a bit more time to think you've done a lot of stuff. If we fast forward, in the next, 12 to 24 months, and we talk again, and you tell me, I've, I don't want to say achieve, but I am where I want to be. What, what does that look like for you?
[00:49:35] Sharath K: always wanted one thing. Maybe I'll change that one thing after I achieved that thing, which is I want to be like a full time founder. I lean more towards building a venture backed fund, a venture backed startup than bootstrapping. Because I did that with shout out. It has some amazing, benefits.
I think, yeah, going, if you ask me like 24 months, 24 months from now, where you'll be, I'll be. Hopefully touch wood, working on a thing full time with smartest people, like small team, probably 10 or less, remotely distributed,
just, focus on what people want and do things in public, and have extreme fun, like while doing it, like, I think that's, and getting paid for it, getting paid for it for all, all of those, People who are working with me, getting them paid, in an equal way and just have fun work with smart and smartest, people like investors bring them because they don't have money, not just, they don't have money.
They have more insight that they can add. so bring that type of people and yeah, ultimately like, have fun. and I think that's, that's like the goal. That's like the dream. The dream is do your thing,full time. Maybe once I achieve that, I might change into something else.
[00:51:06] Michel G: Well, I wish you all that and more, and I want to thank you so much for your time. I'll make sure that people have access to your link to your podcast and all the great episodes that you've already mentioned. If people, our audience wants to reach out to you, X might be the best place to do that.
[00:51:27] Sharath K: Yes. Twitter is always the best, best place. And I can, I will never call Twitter X it's so fucking
[00:51:35] Michel G: yeah, yeah, I know. I know.
[00:51:36] Sharath K: I just, so reach out to me on Twitter. My, my DMS are open. I'm happy to help. Happy to answer any questions. whether you want to go through like GTM you're wanting, you want to advise on community building, audience building anything happy to help, and share my My two cents.
[00:51:53] Michel G: wonderful. Thank you so much, Sharat, and we'll be in touch.
[00:51:58] Sharath K: Absolutely. Thank you, Michelle, for bringing me on.
[00:52:01] Michel G: Cheers.
Thanks again for listening, I hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. And as usual you can find the show notes at stunandawecom.
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Introduction to Building a Community
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[00:00:00] Sharath K: that is exactly what I would, ask people to do when it comes to building a community building an audience. It's basically broadcasting what you're doing. Narrating your story in an authentic way and attracting these eyeballs when they come. Now you have a opportunity to like really ask, right?
Welcome to Growth Leap
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[00:00:21] Michel: Hi everyone and welcome to Growth Leap. I'm your host, Michel Gagnon. We talked to pretty awesome business builders who are designing disruptive and meaningful companies.
Introduction to Sharath Kuruganti
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[00:00:30] Michel G: Hello everybody.
Meet Sharath Kuruganti
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[00:00:31] Michel G: Today we are joined by Sharath Kuruganti, a serial maker who's built and shipped 15 plus projects using no code tools. He went through a successful exit with a SaaS product shout out and lead and nurtured communities at world class startups like Product Hunt, Draft Bit, and On Deck. He was also head of community and brand at Threado and hosts two podcasts, the undefeated underdogs and YC founder stories. He's now building guest lab, an AI research assistant that generates personalized intros, and. Interesting topics and insightful questions from your guests, LinkedIn profiles. Sharath, welcome to the show.
[00:01:11] Sharath K: Thank you. Thank you, Michel. Appreciate you for having me.
The Journey of Guest LabBuilding Guest Lab: From Idea to Launch
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[00:01:14] Michel G: Finally, finally, we, we talk,
Sharath, you've been building many projects over the years. the most recent is guest lab. Can you tell me a bit about the project itself and also maybe walk us through the process from idea to launch. And maybeexplain a little bit, if it was different from your previous, projects.
[00:01:34] Sharath K: Yeah. So, I've built many projects before,like you said, and I think the common theme among all of them is I build it for myself, like, that's like the, the rule zero, I just, I just look for things in, Like my, my own problems are the things I'm doing in a repeated way. I want to find them and build a product around it and hopefully share it online and on the internet and kind of find people who have similar problems.
That's how exactly how I built everything like shout out. That's of all the products. So this one is exactly the same thing. I am a podcast host. Like you said, right. I host two shows in my previous job. I hosted another show. It's like in total of three shows. I shipped more than, I don't know, like one 20 plus products, episodes.
And I am. Very particular about learning about the guest in a, in a deep, full insight way. So whenever I invite a guest, the, the thing I used to do is I go through their LinkedIn, go through their personal website, go through the hell out of like tweets and all the shit. That they do and kind of generate three things.
I want to make a personalized intro. You want to ask like some topics or questions. And that's when I was like, I have like this insights where I have, that comes in picky hand, picky, like, okay, there is this keen insight that I want to maybe plug into the episode. So I'm doing that again and again and again and again and again.
This is like fricking time taking. And you know this, you are a host as well. So you spend time on research. And one of the things that we do as hosts is to give the time so that the guests will be more welcome, more, inclusive, like he or she will be like okay, I know you, this is not the first time.
And most of, most of the times we are meeting the guests for the first time. I'm meeting you for the first time, right?
Challenges and Solutions in Podcasting
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[00:03:28] Sharath K: But the conversation is going to happen in it at a deep level because the guest, so bottom line, I'm like, dude, this is like super hard and I'm sure everybody else is feeling the same way.
At least whoever does the interview style episodes. So I thought, like, what if I build a tool around this and use AI? to leverage the technology to generate all these things. And it actually worked. It's like, I have this, collaborate with another, technical person. I'm non technical and he said, Hey, we can use open AI.
We can scrape LinkedIn. That's, that's an initial start. And we can just like kind of. And it really worked.it worked like 75, 80%. I'm not saying that it is going to do research end to end. That's why we, whenever I talk to folks kind of give guest lab is going to give you a heads up. So that, that was like the idea and we built it, we shipped the landing page.
We got some good attention. We then shipped like an MVP. we've built like a wait list. We, rolled out the product, the wait list and yeah, right now, we're like the very tiny numbers, like 10, 10 people paying. They have 10 customers. we have more than, I think, 120, 135 MRR and, yeah.
We're just like kind of having fun. We build this for ourselves in, put it out and find people like you, like hosts, like you, who can take advantage of it.
Building with No Code ToolsChallenges and Strategies in No-Code Development
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[00:05:03] Michel G: It's definitely a problem that I've been going through, so I understand the pain and as I was telling you a bit earlier, I've tried to come up with my duct tape solution, which is not beautiful, but I think it's, I think you've done a fantastic job and it's definitely a pain.I'm interested in how you've built it and, uh,you've worked a lot with no code, tools in general. I'm also non technical. And, um, I don't know, is, have you built, or did you build it differently from your previous no code experience? Is there, with 15 projects in the, in the pocket, maybe you, you've, you knew some, some shortcuts, but was the, was the process similar to the past?
[00:05:51] Sharath K: No, this time around, this is the first time I would say, I directly went to like, collaborating with, with the technical, co founder, if you may call him like my, the one I'm collaborating with, the reason is, is it's such a local tools are amazing. It's just that it takes time, it takes time to go to zero to one.
way. So that's one reason. I think the other reason I'm intentionally choosing not to fully rely on no code tools is, I'm, I'm kind of like developing this skill of collaborating with others. So that's another benefit of, Doing things with others so that you learn how to communicate, how to pivot, how to basically work, how to, especially in a remote setting, you're setting yourself in a position where my end goal is to build my own thing, period.
I want to build my own startup, other bootstrap raised. I don't know. But I want to be full time founder doing one thing 24 hours, 365 days. So I'm just putting myself in a position where I'm preparing myself for those, when I'm ready for that situation. So it's like kind of, I don't know if people can grasp the, basketball reference.
You're playing, practicing and practice, practice, practice. And when you enter into a league, you basically are ready. So I'm right now practicing everything I'm doing right now is towards practice. So that's one of the reasons I'm kind of not going after building my own thing, building any, any idea using a no code tool, because I know I can build it.
It's just that, I will leave, the other things, Which is, which are very important to me. this time around, I just built a, like a landing page using the no code tool called card, card. co. that's like the best, best, best landing page, platform ever. You just like spin off, you literally spin off like a simple landing page in five minutes.
So I've done that and everything else is like, it's all fully coded. And there are, complex no code tools that can actually help you build AI oriented products like, it's not like there is the, there's a lack of tools in the market. It's just that I chose not to. So everything else in the past.
I was like, I used to build a landing page, validate, build a small MVP that, then collaborate if there is like a signal that it's going to scale, then if like people are using it and they're like, Hey, we need XYZ features and I can't ship it overnight. Code can. So I used to like, work with others, but now it's like, let me do this route multiple times to learn.
and then, hopefully, this will be like a, like a learning lesson for me. Yeah,
Applying to Y CombinatorApplying to Y Combinator and Future Goals
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[00:08:50] Michel G: sold a shout out for, when you reach, 30 K a R and you've recently shared that you apply to Y Combinator with, for, with the idea of guest lab, I believe. What, what's your, what's your end game? Because I, one of the things I appreciate about you is, How you try to balance, I guess your entrepreneurial or your maker, idea, how you combine, let's say your entrepreneurial endeavors with,having some sort of,a well rounded life, you know, we've talked about family earlier before joining. So what's the end game with, with guest lab and, the fact that you've applied to Y Combinator recently,
we applied and, uh, we got rejected too. Yesterday I got the, the email from YC saying that there is no room for us this time. So,that was the first time you were applying. Mm
[00:09:45] Sharath K: I applied for, Or another product, which I worked last year, which we never shipped. that's like the rabbit hole. I didn't want to enter this time.
I spoke to like a lot of people. I can talk about it as well. It's just, it's, it's, it's a wrong way to build a product, at least in my opinion.
[00:10:01] Michel G: Yeah, yeah,
[00:10:02] Sharath K: But anyway, with this time, yeah, we applied the goal was, get into not for money, but for network, but for.skin in the game, like, like really, truly it allows, me and my co founder, both of us, we used to have jobs. Now we don't have jobs. My co founder is consulting. I'm thinking of doing consulting because I have to pay my bills.
He has to pay his bills. So that's partially, they're going to like, invest, which will allow us to work on the thing we want to. And, the end game. Yeah. Anyway, YCF it's, it's like very. I would highly recommend everybody to apply for YC regardless of where they want to bootstrap. They want to venture, they want to like do whatever they want.
They want, it's, it, it actually allows you to get clarity around what you want to do. So that is like the main important thing. So I learned a ton going through the whole process, the mistakes I made.and I want to like, don't do that. I found gaps that, that are very pretty visible, which I want to avoid if I want to apply for next time, which I will, for winter batch.
I don't know. Anything can happen in this six months, but, but yeah, the goal is, so the way I'm treating YC is the way I used to treat product hunt when I started my maker journey.let me explain what I mean by that. When I started my maker journey, the goal was to build something for myself and launch it on product hunt period.
That's it. There is no revenue. Don't forget about, all the other semantics that pull you down. It's just that you build something, you find like 10 people, 20 people, your friends share it with your like audience, then launch it on product hunt. That's get feedback. If it is working it right. I am in that I'm getting into that more as a founder, which is now my goal is I want to build a startup where there is a problem that exists in the product people want in a hundred percent from day zero, I would, I would charge for the product.
That's another thing that I didn't do charge for the people so that it gets validated immediately. And the end goal is get into IC. That is like the end goal because that will actually drive at least me to that, to the end of the course, like, okay, this is what your goal is. This is what your goal is.
You have to do a certain things for XYZ. So, and there are like different paths, and I'm not going to get into that. But for me, it's like, I think the, the network is. Pretty invaluable in the exposure is pretty invaluable. And I'm not saying that if you get into YC, everything will happen, will happen magically overnight.
You just still have to work your ass off.you have to still hustle, which is what I want to do. So long story short, we applied for guest lab and I know for a fact that, it's not a big market. So I know probably that that might be a reason they rejected. podcasting is still. I don't know.
It's still early, right? And most of us don't have money. Let's be honest. Right. So we're just, I think most of the podcasters are doing podcasting as a hobby,
[00:13:21] Michel G: yeah, but it's different for me, I'm, I'm swimming in a boatload of money, for
[00:13:29] Sharath K: But yeah, generally, I think I would say 80 percent 90 percent people are podcasting out of their passion
[00:13:36] Michel G: sure, yeah,
[00:13:37] Sharath K: and I think 10 percent people have money like that, that 10 percent have definitely some pretty good, pretty good money, like, that's just the type of people who are making a living out of it, through sponsorships and all, and it's hard.
We know that we just, again, we build it for ourselves and put it out. So end game, I don't know. I think it's fully functional now. You know, what, what I'm thinking now is to keep it as is not kill it, but it's generating revenue, it has paying customers, plug it wherever it is necessary, and then take these lessons, build the next thing.
So that's where I am right now in that transition mode. And if we hear like, Hey, it's, it's basically pretty much saying that it's going to be in, the maintenance mode. It's going to be there. It's fully functional. If someone's like you said, Hey, the shit's broken. You need to fix it. Yeah. We'll then fix it.
And then, it is right there. So,we realized, we tried our best and it's really hard. It's hard to get attention of a podcaster who's not making money asking for money. So we realized that. And it's, it's a, it's another lesson, right? Like you have to go after a market where. People have money in their pockets and they were willing to spend it's not like you're you have to convince so with guest lab I have to convince people like hey, this is the benefit.
There is a problem. There is like the value So that bit is a little intense Especially if I'm working on different things, maybe it might be little straightforward if I have like this 24 hours That's what I want to try with YC If I have 24 hours time, maybe it would be a different story, but in general, it's hard podcasting is still hard.
there is no money there. especially if you're, if you're not building a hosting, or if you're not helping people make money, it's hard. So we, we, we learned our lesson, but it was like definitely an improvement from the previous project. I was mentioning, which we all supplied for YC. Yeah, that was, it was like a, I would say like a 10x improvement from that project to this one.
Now take these lessons, go to the next one. Right.
[00:15:59] Michel G: I agree with you, there is like in the podcast world, like that's, What guest lab is solving is one of the problems, but there's quite a few others, right? One of them is the actual production, the editing and the promotion afterwards. So, yeah, I think. The, the world and the, like the, the set of software that are supporting but caster is a lot better than like three, four years ago.
I, I mean, the tools I was using was really felt like I don't know if I'm relatively old, but,I used to record, like to do, a mix, on a cassette, like with two,
to radio side by side, and you have to
play the press record on both sides. So, when I started doing a podcast thing, which is not that long ago, but it felt sometimes a little bit like this, things have improved quite a lot.
So, I agree with you. I think though, that, there is, also another key factor, which is,Chad, GPT and all the other
AI tools, right? So there is definitely. In my case, I've found myself in a situation where I'm saying, okay, like, do I need three, four
AI? Software or, or chat GPT power, subscriptions, right?
So sometimes I think there's also, maybe there's a phase, where we are right now that makes it,a
b
Community Building and Audience Engagement
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[00:17:24] Michel G: it more,challenging and I guess maybe confusing also for, for the people.
[00:17:28] Sharath K: hmm.
[00:17:29] Michel G: on
Insights on Community and Audience Building
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[00:17:29] Michel G: e of the things that you've done quite well is building in public, and also
building a community and, which is something that I really need To work on, practice.
And so that I can eventually go to the NBA, to come back to your initial, um, analogy, what's your trick, you've done that for, a lot of other companies, you have your own podcast, you, I think you went from zero to 23, 000, followers on, on Twitter slash X, have you learned?
Like what are The key things that, we should do.
[00:18:05] Sharath K: I think the biggest thing is don't, I would say two things. One is do it with intention. Like there should be like a
pure desire to do this. So community building, audience building should come. From your heart, not from your mind. If you, if you involve mind, I think then becomes more transactional. So I would say do it with intention and avoid transactional things. Like you give me this, I'll give you that, that's not going to work.
And that's like the fundamental thing. What is something you should not do is basically be goal oriented. If you're starting a thing and your goal is to like, in my case, I want to build a startup, right? So my goal is to build a startup. Let me use community building as a tool or a lever or like a channel that is also not going to work because you're always going to put that goal in.
You're doing things for that goal, not for people you genuinely have to show. That's why I think. One of the, one of the shortcuts to build a community is building everything in public because you're, you're telling them naturally what you're doing day to day, week to week, month to month and sharing those stories, sharing those lessons.
It's going to attract people. It's sharing that you're vulnerable. It's going to attract people sharing that you want. It's going to attract people. So that is whenever you attract people, pulling them naturally towards you. That is. That is like you have like right now you have like a set of eyes looking at you now you have an option to like tell them what you want to do so either they listen or they just walk out, which is fine, right?
So that is exactly what I would, ask people to do when it when it comes to building a community building an audience. It's basically broadcasting what you're doing. narrating your story in an authentic way and attracting these eyeballs when they come. Now you have a opportunity to like really ask, right?
Hey, I'm building this. Do you have a, do you have two cents you want to share? Hey, guest lab, I'm building this. You're a podcaster. Would you be a paid customer? So you then have an opportunity to really present your ask. And then again, it's, it's all about, So it's all about like you trying, to position yourself, sell yourself in front of a set of eyes and the way you bring set of eyes should be organic and natural.
So that's what I would do. I would define, community, doing thing podcast another way, like you broadcast these stories and you have a set of people, Oh, wow. I heard you talking about. This, to the next person, I was really kind of felt relevant. So now I have your attention. Now you know, now that you have audience attention, what would you do?
So it is always community building should always be intentional and more intentional, less transactional to me.
Community
---
[00:21:16] Michel G: But if we try to get a bit more specific because,
[00:21:20] Sharath K: Mm
[00:21:20] Michel G: building is a big word, right? And, it's a bit like selling for instance, right? So if you take selling, selling, and you try to teach somebody who's not naturally
good at selling.you have to teach them. Look, you have to have, let's say an ideal customer profile. You have to
have some sort of a system to acquire leads to qualify those leads. And then you need to put the input, which is, I don't know. I'm going to reach out to that many people
every day to, ultimately adjust your messaging and, learn from that, but to get the outcomes that you're looking for. How do you actually do you know, there's the growth work, the sales work, and then there's a community building work. Like, how does that fit in your day to day? do you have some sort of structure around, that intention that you mentioned?
[00:22:09] Sharath K: I'm not exactly building a community. I'm building an audience. So those two are first thing are separate. audience building is one too many. Community building is many too many. It's, it's more of like a, like a dinner table. Community building is sitting in a dinner table where each of each person is going to talk with each other.
Hopefully,
[00:22:29] Michel G: Mm hmm. Mm
[00:22:30] Sharath K: building is you're standing on a stage and there is a set of people looking at you. So I'm more into leaning towards that as of now, this moment, when I used to work for Product Hunt. my previous jobs, I did things that bring people together. So the way you do, let's go into that first, which is the way you do things, for building a community is, Hey, again, it's always, I think broadcasting is something that you should do in both, instances that you have to put something out your, whether it is an initiative, whether it is something that you want to try it's content in audience building case.
So. An idea, for example. So for, and when I was at working at Product Hunt, Product Hunt did this thing called AMAs and everybody knows the format, ask me anything. I don't know, like five, six, seven years ago before I joined and they killed it for whatever reason. I re brought that. The goal was to bring an expert present in front of a set of makers so that they can talk to each other.
And I'm building like a dinner table and I'm inviting a head And around that head seat, there are like a bunch of people sitting. So what I, what I did there was I sparked a conversation and everybody started talking, not just with the expert, but with each other. So do that at scale. That's where you have community.
Do that with five people to start with, for example. Next invite to 10 and that the other way to do it is do mastermind sessions, do office hours. These are all like there, but you have to do it with intention. I think that is, that's why I go back to intention. Why are you building this expert? Why are you bringing, why are you building this dinner table?
Is it where you want to, at the end of the day, they're all, they're done with the dinner, they're all going home and you're like, Hey, this is, this is what you need to pay because you, you're part of dinner table or Hey, let's meet next time. It's so fun having you part of the conversation. I want to do this again.
Those two are different things, right? There's one is transaction. One is intentional.
[00:24:45] Michel G: hmm. Well,
[00:24:49] Sharath K: there are like, there are a million things you need to do. Or million ideas, initiatives, community programs, like ambassador program is something I did. The goal was to find champions in these, in these cities and give them, empower them to bring more of, find more of those people in their communities and build a micro sized community as part of a larger community.
So it goes on and on. that's where you, you, that's how you build a community. And on this side, it's like more broadcasting, putting content out, doing things, things in public. And when they come, you're, they're talking to you and that's where you also have this, chance to like, say, Hey, you can talk to each other too.
Like you can do initiatives like that. So I used to do this, I used to do AMAs on Twitter every Sunday. I used to do that. Now I'm not doing it, due to kids and all. But when I started like these AMAs, people come up with the question. I share my insight and there is someone who's also sharing their insight.
To them. So there's like a, a sense of community there. but it's again, straight, strictly straightforward audience, because they're all hanging out in a place called Twitter, not in a place where you build, like there is no dinner table there. So,I think that's, that's the details and I can go in depth about, if you have any specific question, but overall, I feel that's the two big differences.
[00:26:25] Michel G: yeah, fair enough.
Should Every Company Build a Community?
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[00:26:26] Michel G: And it feels a bit like everybody's building a community. not everybody. Many companies are trying to build a community.
Should Every Company Build a Community?
---
[00:26:31] Michel G: I think one of the things you've said, unless I'm,hallucinating is, that not, Not all companies should build a community, right?
[00:26:40] Sharath K: Yes.
[00:26:40] Michel G: And if we stick to this because I want to go back to the audience building afterwards But if we if we stick to this what what's your take on that?
What's your recommendation and why you think some companies? Are you know may be better positioned to to go and build a community?
[00:26:59] Sharath K: So there is no, criteria. It's all comes to founders, like what they want to do with their startups startups And it's partly how they want to position their product to, right? If you have, if you're building a B2B product, you're attracting businesses, but you're attracting decision makers of that particular startup or businesses, right?
That's a community right there. If you're a consumer, B2C, very, that has an organic pull towards B2B. Your product. Now you have like a, like a million set of eyes. You don't need all of them. You need champions. That's where you, you end up building an ambassador program, like how Notion did. So Notion's approach is more consumer centric because they're, everybody can use it.
But there are some, like my previous role, I, I was the head of community and there, it was all about bringing community, head of communities together because the product is designed for them, for community teams. So that is like the differentiation. I would say that's like the path, but it's all, it's all like, not community is not for everybody.
Key Considerations for Building a CommunityKey Considerations for Community Building
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[00:28:16] Sharath K: If you, if you don't have the time to invest in people, Just don't do it. It's plain simple, because someone else is doing that. Someone else is building community. You want to build it. You're bound to. You're signing up for failure
or you're signing up for disappointment. So I would rather start asking yourself, do I really need a group of people hanging out together on a week to week, month to month basis, forget about community as a big word.
Start right there. If the answer is maybe to yes, refine that maybe why ask yourself, why do you need it? Number two, do you have the time reality check, check yourself? Do you have a, do you have time to invest one hour per day? You, all you need is one hour per day, for example, to just talk to someone.
Number three, do you have really like, the money to spend? It's not like you just willing to spend the time, but you also have invest through doing some, I don't know, like launch a swag program and make make them feel special, right? Like send them some goodies that they care about, right? Oh, wow.
These guys are caring about us. And number four, I think, do you want to really build a community of People are community of customers because so that you can have firsthand feedback, you can provide great support. So there are so many questions you need to answer. And once you have this, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
You'll know, okay, now I have this clarity. I can just start a support community. That's it. The whole point is. My, my people who pay for my product, they're going to hop on it. If they have feedback, we're going to solve it. If they have, if they don't like the service, we're going to provide better service.
It's, it's like a tight relationship. So there is a lot of retrospection that needs to happen before even you start bringing people together, forget about community building, for, especially for startups, especially around founders. And then comes the question, do I have to scale this? Do I have to build a team around, like, is there a way I can outsource this because I've built it.
The Role of Founders in Community Building
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[00:30:37] Sharath K: So I think the biggest thing I would say is founders should start a community. You should not hire someone because you have money so that they can take care of a community you want to build. You're again, bound to failure because they don't know what you want. You're hiring. That's good. But at the end of the day, if you're starting your early stage, you have like a 3 million, 4 million seed round.
You have money to invest. Please don't hire a community leader. Anybody start with yourself, take to a point where like, there are like 50 to a hundred people actively coming together on a monthly basis. Then you have, okay, now I can outsource. So I think that's what I would say. It's not for everybody.
[00:31:25] Michel G: Yeah, and I think what you just said at the end, it's a bit like your company culture, right? It's not something that you can delegate to HR or, or somebody else, right? And I'm assuming, or, I mean, there's some communities you can go in a, Unexpected direction. you
know, depending on the individuals who are joining.
Right. So I think I agree with you. You want to make sure that you're kind of setting the right tone at the beginning.
Balancing Audience Building and Daily RoutinesAudience Building and Personal Routines
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[00:31:50] Michel G: Now, let's move a bit to audience. And I want to do a bit my my Tim Ferriss on on this one, which I'm not going to ask you. What's your morning routine? But, Yeah, one of the things that I personally find difficult is the, structuring the day and the week.
I, really enjoyed Paul Graham's Relatively old article about the maker and the manager schedule. I think this is something that I've faced, when I started managing a tech company with 40 engineers. I was obviously the, the, the CEO and had the manager's schedule and
I would, I would show up, on the sixth floor and it's like, Hey, where's, what's going on with this? Where's that feature, which was not appreciated, right? So I've kind of learned to, to, to adapt a little bit and also like integrate, like, let's say the good things of both worlds in my day to day. But when you look at your audience building, audience building, your, your building in public, what,do you have any,have a system or a schedule around that?
I, I, I'm, I'm doing an inter, I interviewed Andrew Gazdecky, CEO of Acquire. com, and whenever I reach out to Andrew, like, I've, sometimes I have the impression that, he doesn't sleep, like he's super responsive. It's amazing.
So what's your, system if, if there's one to, to make sure that you're consistent, that you keep providing value and that, you're, you're building an audience that, is worth building in a way,
[00:33:19] Sharath K: I think maybe I have to have a system, but I don't have one. short answer is, maybe I should build one. I think more, I'm more of like, I'm responding, it's more natural till now, everything I did is more kind of, I'm responding to it. It's not preplanned. I tried that. I didn't like it. It's like I used to schedule these suites. I'm like, felt very unnatural, obviously. And I kind of also felt, fell in the trap of building, writing threads, that again, didn't work.
Maybe I'm, it's not for me that, that is something you should ask yourself. So there are some set of fair frameworks everybody offers or everybody at least shares in their billion public journey, right? They're, they're also doing things in public, right? So there are these people who are like, Hey, this is how you write threads.
If you write threads, you might get some attention. All you need to do is digest, try and see like what is really working for you. So I think that is the system that you need to build. If, if you ask me, in my case, I felt very. Comfortable reacting, responding naturally to a, to an idea or a thought or like basically anything that comes to my mind.
but yes, I think there is like the other set of people who are like, hey, you have to be very systematic When you build an audience because you're investing timeyou're investing, Ideas, you're investing a lot of other things into it. You're putting effort. Maybe again, I think I'm right now in a phase.
I have more time for the first time in my, in my whole life. So I want to try out like finding, figuring out my system is what I want to build. Like, for example, one of the core, one of the raw ideas I have is I want to dedicate days to the things I want to do, like Monday, I just want to work on podcasting.
That's it. I want to source guests. I want to do research on my upcoming guests. I will schedule interviews on that particular day and call it a day. Maybe Tuesday. I want to really like fully,indulge myself in like, okay, let me do. Find ideas. I want to build tinker, so even then I think I cannot force my myself to stop doing other things.
That's why I think, whatever comes naturally to you. But I think, yeah, no system, maybe, that's why I didn't have, I don't have like 100, 000 followers, maybe, which is fine, right? because a lot, many people who started with me, Man, they growed insanely crazy, like some of my, all the people I know have more than I think what 250k, 300k, followers, that's insane amount of people, but I'm approaching more of like with intention, doing things, I also want to try out like a systematic, more strategic way, but let's see.
The Journey into PodcastingThe Journey into Podcasting
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[00:36:30] Michel G: host two podcasts, which is a little, a little bit crazy, especially if you said you had,a third one when you were doing community work, in your previous gigs. the undefeated underdogs and YC founder stories. And they're all guests or interview type podcast, which as we, we know it's, it's work.
why, did you decide to get into the, the podcast game and why did you decide that one was not enough?
[00:37:05] Sharath K: So the first one was, that actually came out accidentally, under the feet of underdogs was, was born within, within a day or two. And I actually went on a podcast like this. And what I did was the, the, the, the guest was asking, the host was asking questions, it was, it was having fun.
Like just now I'm having fun with you, like, like talking out authentically. Then I flipped the table and I kind of became host and counter asked questions. Like naturally it wasn't planned or anything. It's like jamming at
[00:37:43] Michel G: You took over.
[00:37:45] Sharath K: And I'm like, Whoa, this is very, this is like quite new to me. After that, I was like, I felt very energetic.
I'm like, wow, I can ask questions. I can hold a conversation. I, I think I discovered that, tiny skill in me. Then I spent some time like, what if I launch a podcast, pure, simple, like there is no big plan to it. And I'm a, I'm an underdog myself in my whole life. People underestimated me, still underestimating.
And I got, I get rejected kind of adds me fuel. Like I use rejection as my motivation. Like, okay, if someone says like, you can't do it, let me actually try to do it. So I think there is like a. Relatability, if I want to talk to an underdog, because I have, I am an underdog. So I felt like, okay, let's actually invite all the underdogs.
That's it. That's like the premise of the story. And I think I wrote a letter on my website. And if you checked, the podcast website has a letter, that's what I want to do because I want to unpack what people are thinking. Founders, VCs, creators, everybody. And I just started like interviewing people and I had like so much fun.
It was like, so fun. And I'm learning something new. I'm kind of like putting, people are putting ideas in my head. I'm like, okay, this is kind of cool. Let me actually do it. so I shipped like 60 episodes there. I paused it now. I'm, I'm, I want to like source maybe like a season two type of a thing.yeah, a lot, lot of things going on in my life.
So I'm like, let me take a step back. Pause this in, do it. I will be bringing back the podcast soon. Have plans to launch a swag program around underdogs, you know,all that much. So that was purely the idea. It's like, why? And later I realized these are all people. Who have done successful things.
So it's like, it's like I'm building a network around these people as well. I think that's it. That's, that's the goal. There is nothing, I don't know if it becomes big. I don't care if it becomes big. All I care is I'm having a good conversation with the guest, asking thoughtful questions, get better at asking thoughtful questions.
And I think that's it. And the other podcast. I was applying YC for the first time, I kind of,I know like a lot, many people offered like, Hey, let me help you,read your application. There are like, X, Y, Z things you need to do and all that, but it's not documented anywhere, if you think about it, at least to me, I didn't find it, all the stories that, YC founders went through, so I'm like, okay.
This is another opportunity again. So I'm, I purely did that for myself. Again, the goal is to go into YC, right? So what if I surround myself with YC founders? That was the goal. And I started like YC founder stories, it was, it was not like a very consistent thing, which I have to do it now that, I have more time, I want to do more, more episodes on that, but the goal was, Really like, there'll be like two parts.
One is a set of questions that they already know, which are standard. Then I deep dive, dive deep into like question answers, questions from their answers, which happened in part one. So again, simple, like, someone who's applying for YC, they can check it out, they can like, go through that and maybe learn and then that's it.
[00:41:27] Michel G: I agree that a podcast is just a great way to build relationships. And you've talked about being intentional as opposed to transactional. I think Podcast is just a, it's just a great way, to, to connect
with people. And in my experience, I, I agree that, I mean, I've discovered people because I'm personally, I, what I like about the Undefeated Underdogs is, I like when we interview, Not extremely well known people, right?
Because everybody in the end,interviews the celebrities, let's say. So sometimes there's very, like, amazing stories that you discover.and yeah, I've, I was pushed into podcasting, because of my partner of saying, you should do this great marketing. And I was very reticent because, there was a bit back in the days, a bit of a steep learning curve, like in terms of, okay, what kind of tech, at the beginning, it's something new.
How do I set it up? in the end, I think the greatest, Let's say outcome, that I'm getting or, or positive outcome is, is the relationship building. So I love it.
[00:42:41] Sharath K: Yeah,
[00:42:42] Michel G: Oh,
I don't want to, I don't want to take too much of your time. I just want to ask a couple of,A few more questions on, on the postcat itself. You kind of answered one of the questions that I had, which was, do you have a specific goals for your podcast? but it seems to be that your approach is again, a bit more, a free flow.
Memorable Podcast Guests and Stories
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[00:43:03] Michel G: do you have, any, memorable stories, or guests that you've received where he's, because you've, you've kind of published quite a, quite a few, is there something?a moment, a guest, a story where you said, wow, uh,
[00:43:16] Sharath K: a good question.let me think. I think on top of my mind, oh man, I invited so many people.
so I invited Anna Lorena Fabrega. she's the chief evangelist at Synthesis, this ed tech company. She's a teacher. And she's like, content creator as well, who's like educating people about how you should look into education system for your kids and all that. I think she's shared a series of things that we normally generally know, don't talk in the U S much about like how the education system really works.
and I think that's, that was, that was a phenomenal episode for me because I actually, at that point I had my first kid. And I was like, totally believed in the school system.and this is what I want to do. And I, she kind of rewired some of the things and she asked about, some deep questions of how you want to have your kids think about certain things.
[00:44:19] Michel G: So that is definitely one of the awesome things. what's her name?
[00:44:24] Sharath K: Anna Lorena Fabrega.
[00:44:27] Michel G: Okay.
[00:44:27] Sharath K: So definitely, it's like how to raise your kids in unconventional way. If you want to check it out, highly, highly recommend that episode. Who else? I think, I invited, of course, you know,Andrew Gastecki. Awesome.
I love that guy. He's just like pure, pure, natural. Noah Kagan was on the show. He talked a lot about how to go from zero to one, in a very quick, faster way.
That was one of my favorite episodes. Every episode is my favorite. And I, like I said, like I don't interview people because they have big following or anything.
I generally try to, put myself in the position where, okay, what is something that they, they uniquely bring to the table? Right. Luis Pereira, he, he built audio pen. That guy is, is a legend in his own way. He's making six figures, seven figures, if I'm not wrong, through this app. And he's like, I don't want to go full time on it.
I just want to have fun with it. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. That level of balance is insane. If you have like a fully profitable product, he's not hiring anybody. He's just doing things. Just for fun, like purely fun. So he's, he's like 100 percent intentional. There is no room for anything else.
So he's a great guy. Pierre, my good friend, Cal. com founder. He, he, he shared like amazing, story about how open source, Arlen Hamilton, she's like amazing investor. Her, her vision is to make or help a thousand. is awesome. Right. How to empower like underrated, underrepresented, people, Oh, I, I have like so many awesome people.
I'm so fortunate to even have these so many people like, awesome, guests on my show. It's like, yeah, everything, every, every episode is my favorite. There is like, there is so much, to learn.
Lessons Learned from PodcastingLessons and Future Goals
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[00:46:32] Michel G: What, what's the biggest lesson that you've learned over the years in, in podcasting?
[00:46:40] Sharath K: I don't think about
what I'm drawing by doing podcasting. I think it's all about, like being in awe. I think that's, I think if you ask me, like being in awe, seeing these people, they, they all turned obstacles into opportunities. Either for themselves or for others and they did it in a spectacular way and doing that itself is so inspirational.
So I think the biggest, I don't know, it's, it's more of, wow, it's, it's possible, some of the things they did. Let's take Arlene Hamilton. She was a homeless person once. Now she's running a multi, multi million dollar business. million dollar fund and she invested in hundreds hundreds of founders.
So that level of the, the, the steep is incredible. If you just think about it, right. So I'm just in awe of, consistently in awe. When I talk to these folks, I think, yeah, the biggest lesson is you, everybody has an op, a skill to ask great questions. So. don't underestimate that, try it out and do it multiple times and you'll get better at it.
So, and there is a ton of benefits if you ask great questions so that the biggest, biggest, biggest upside is you will be so clear you have, you achieve clarity because you're asking the right questions, right?and you're thinking through, you're not doing it and it helps you make right decisions. It makes you think better.
so I think that's something that, that's an upside. Like now that I've interviewed so many people, I'm like, okay, let me think through something. It's not like I don't want to jump into it right, right away. So maybe, maybe those are some things I observed.
Not lessons per se, but yeah, some observations.
[00:48:42] Michel G: one of the things that I've learned myself is to, to kind of let go as well. I always have my list of questions, but you never know where you're going to end. So,
sometimes you have a plan and then it goes a different way. Most of the time it's, it's, it's a more
interesting path that you're following. But one, maybe my last question to you.
Future Aspirations and Closing Thoughts
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[00:49:03] Michel G: Is, regarding your future, big question, big loaded question at the end. But,you're at a, I don't wanna say crossroad, but you're at a point where, you have a bit more time to think you've done a lot of stuff. If we fast forward, in the next, 12 to 24 months, and we talk again, and you tell me, I've, I don't want to say achieve, but I am where I want to be. What, what does that look like for you?
[00:49:35] Sharath K: always wanted one thing. Maybe I'll change that one thing after I achieved that thing, which is I want to be like a full time founder. I lean more towards building a venture backed fund, a venture backed startup than bootstrapping. Because I did that with shout out. It has some amazing, benefits.
I think, yeah, going, if you ask me like 24 months, 24 months from now, where you'll be, I'll be. Hopefully touch wood, working on a thing full time with smartest people, like small team, probably 10 or less, remotely distributed,
just, focus on what people want and do things in public, and have extreme fun, like while doing it, like, I think that's, and getting paid for it, getting paid for it for all, all of those, People who are working with me, getting them paid, in an equal way and just have fun work with smart and smartest, people like investors bring them because they don't have money, not just, they don't have money.
They have more insight that they can add. so bring that type of people and yeah, ultimately like, have fun. and I think that's, that's like the goal. That's like the dream. The dream is do your thing,full time. Maybe once I achieve that, I might change into something else.
[00:51:06] Michel G: Well, I wish you all that and more, and I want to thank you so much for your time. I'll make sure that people have access to your link to your podcast and all the great episodes that you've already mentioned. If people, our audience wants to reach out to you, X might be the best place to do that.
[00:51:27] Sharath K: Yes. Twitter is always the best, best place. And I can, I will never call Twitter X it's so fucking
[00:51:35] Michel G: yeah, yeah, I know. I know.
[00:51:36] Sharath K: I just, so reach out to me on Twitter. My, my DMS are open. I'm happy to help. Happy to answer any questions. whether you want to go through like GTM you're wanting, you want to advise on community building, audience building anything happy to help, and share my My two cents.
[00:51:53] Michel G: wonderful. Thank you so much, Sharat, and we'll be in touch.
[00:51:58] Sharath K: Absolutely. Thank you, Michelle, for bringing me on.
[00:52:01] Michel G: Cheers.
Thanks again for listening, I hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. And as usual you can find the show notes at stunandawecom.
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