Mike Hudack
speaker
274 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Mike Hudack’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
know something happened and we were in a bunch of whatsapp groups and went viral because we've been in some stage of that thing in a bunch of places around the world for like a year and a half two years now the company's only two and a half years old we've been talking about it we've been posting screenshots and animations and finding our people around the world who are like interested in it and like helping them find us so that
like before we went viral in Kenya, we had like a few hundred people there who loved the product already. And like my co-founder went down to Nairobi and gave a talk at a conference and, and it all happened kind of like when he was down there and a couple other people from the team. And there were people at the conference coming up to him and being like, I'm so proud of you.
Like, I feel like I built this thing with you, you know, like I'm like, couldn't happen to a better product or whatever, you know? And they, they like, I think, you know, felt like they helped us build it and hopefully they continue to feel that way because we kind of found each other as we were creating this thing.
Yeah, I think that totally works. And, you know, it all depends on who your audience is, like who you're trying to reach and what you're trying to do. A bunch of them are going to be on TikTok. And like, you know, that's a great way to get them into the funnel. And you can just like watch the top 10 clips at any given time and be like, okay, I'm going to like emulate this format.
I know that the algorithm likes this right now. And I know a lot of people who are really successful at doing that right now. If you want to target like techie people, you probably want to do it on Twitter X. If you want to target salespeople, you probably want to do it on LinkedIn.
And there's a format and there's a way of thinking and a way of talking and a way of interacting, which is like native to those platforms. And you have to behave that way to be successful in them.
It's important. Oh, yeah. The first thing I'll say is that one of my favorite lines about this is, I think it's originally a Walt Disney quote, which is, we don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies. And Facebook co-opted this, and it's in the little red book, you know, which is, we don't make services to make money, we make money to make better services.
And I really believe that the most successful companies in the world have that view. I think that you can build an incredibly successful company that makes you millions of dollars that does not have that view. You know, that's kind of like the more mercenary approach, but you kind of need to decide who you are before you start with your pricing strategy.
But putting that aside for a moment, I think you just with an AI company, it feels really clear to me that you look at the number, the amount of human input that you're saving And the cost of that human input, and I mean total cost, I mean salary, emotional damage that you have to sustain in doing the work, you know, all of that stuff.
And by the way, those two things are very important because like, you know, some things in the world are really, really annoying, but only take like five or ten minutes. But if you automate them away, I'll pay more. than the time saved because of the emotional damage you're saving me or the frustration that you're saying, right?
So you have to kind of like apply that lens or that adjustment factor. And then I think you just apply a discount. Like, okay, I just saved you $100,000 worth of labor, $50,000 worth of emotional damage, $150,000. Okay, it's a machine doing it, so I'm going to price that at a 75% discount or a 50% discount or an 80% discount.
And maybe you get away with an 80% discount. Sorry, a 20% discount, charge 80%. I don't know, but I assume it isn't that bad to do 50%.
I believe you can go up. But I think you need to be thoughtful about it. So when I was working at Monzo, which is like a big new bank in the UK, we had a we had a bunch of problems. I mean, one was that we were a regulated bank and people didn't think of us as a bank. So you're you have the you have all the downside of being a bank without the upside.
And another problem was that we just didn't charge quite enough money, like we didn't have enough things that made money. And that was kind of OK before COVID. But then our number one revenue stream was actually people using their debit cards overseas and the interchange you get from that. And that went away overnight and we were totally screwed.
And I remember spending weeks on a spreadsheet with the finance team going through every line item. And we knew that we had a gap that we had to fill, trying to figure out how to fill the gap. And we were terrified.
of what was going to happen when we started charging for like, you know, your fourth ATM withdrawal and what was going to happen when we started charging for replacement cards and, you know, we had a list of things. It was totally fine. It was completely fine. Nobody cared. People loved the product.
like maybe a few people complained or whatever, but like honestly, like everybody just thought it was really fair. And they were like, Oh, we've been getting this thing basically for free this whole time, and we really appreciate it. And yeah, OK, that seems cool. Like if I use the ATM for a third time, I'll pay a little fee, you know, and that has really stuck with me like that lesson.
Like if you build a thing which is like beautiful and people love and has a place in their lives, you can charge more for it later. And, you know, that goes against conventional wisdom. And I think if you have that knowledge, it's a secret weapon because it's easier to get distribution for something that costs less.
That's exactly right. And if you create great value, you can then find the efficient frontier of your pricing over time. That's it.
I don't know. I think that he's one of the smartest, most determined, most principled people I know. And deeply thoughtful. And he has a quality very few people have, which is he's also kind of fearless. Once he makes a decision about a thing, he kind of goes all in while still being open to input on the other side. I guess what I'm saying is he's very good at what he does.
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