He Makes $4K/Day With This Weird Middleman Business

0:00 So, this month we're doing $120,000.

0:03 Yeah, it's crazy.

0:04 Our company's only existed for 6 months.

0:06 I lived in a closet for the whole duration of that.

0:09 In Norway, we're passively invoicing like $12,000 a month right now.

0:13 Wow.

0:14 I have my mom as customer service there.

0:16 It's on autopilot.

0:17 Like, why cut off the revenue, right?

0:20 Exactly.

0:19 Mom needs a job.

0:20 Next [music] week, we're doing 1,000 cakes for one single company.

0:24 Wow.

0:24 Tell me your thoughts on the dead internet theory.

0:27 What that has to do with this?

0:28 The dead internet theory is that 99.99%

0:31 of the content we consume on [music] internet, emails,

0:34 phone calls, videos such as the one we're making right now,

0:37 it's all going to be AI.

0:38 So, in a world like that, we're not going to be able to send cold emails,

0:43 we're not going to be able to send LinkedIn DMs or cold

0:46 call anyone cuz there's going to be too much [music] noise.

0:48 So, the way you cut through to someone in the future,

0:51 which we really believe in, is physical gifting.

0:54 Getting attention is absolutely everything.

0:56 A, it buys you loyalty.

0:57 B, it's [music] a cheap way to stay top of mind,

0:59 which is harder than ever today.

1:01 I mean, sending an email wouldn't do that.

1:02 In fact, sending an email would probably make you seem annoying.

1:05 Yeah.

1:05 One thing your viewers might find interesting is

1:07 like how I have my agent set up.

1:10 Yes.

1:11 Yep.

1:10 Yes, very curious about that.

1:12 I'm not involved in it.

1:13 Every 2 hours, it checks my email, goes and sources 20 new bakeries,

1:18 it responds to all the emails,

1:19 negotiates with the bakeries until we have a deal.

1:22 This sort of outreach would have been impossible just a year ago.

1:25 And I can take that and do that with so much more than just cakes and bakeries.

1:29 So, if someone's watching this right now and they're thinking like, okay,

1:32 this works, this makes perfect sense, but I don't have anything to sell.

1:36 What should I sell?

1:40 So, I come across this guy that started a business

1:43 6 weeks ago and he did $120,000 his second month.

1:47 40,000 of that was profit.

1:49 What's he doing?

1:50 Cold caking.

1:51 He's doing cold caking.

1:52 And if you've never heard of that, it's cuz it's brand new.

1:54 In a world where cold calls, texts, and emails are less effective than ever,

1:58 this is the strategy you need to make

2:00 a bunch of money selling whatever it is you sell.

2:03 This story is freaking amazing.

2:05 This guy's gone viral a bunch of times,

2:07 so I had to ask him all these questions for myself.

2:09 Please enjoy.

2:10 Well, William, why don't you tell us who you are and what you do?

2:12 Well, I'm William and I help you get customers by sending cake.

2:16 We started like 6 months ago saying we

2:18 were going to automate birthday deliveries with cake.

2:20 Did that in Norway, sort of blew up,

2:22 and we decided let's think big and go to the States.

2:25 So, we moved to to SF and said let's do it in San Francisco as well.

2:29 So, you moved from Norway to San

2:31 Francisco specifically to expand your cake shipping business.

2:36 Yes.

2:37 I mean, I feel like if you could make a business work in Oslo,

2:39 Norway, you could make it work anywhere.

2:41 Exactly.

2:42 Uh, but actually, the the fun thing is we we came

2:44 to San Francisco and then we tried to do the same thing,

2:47 the birthday thing, and nobody in San Francisco cared cuz I

2:51 I think the American culture is nobody cares about their employees.

2:56 [laughter] Oh, shoot.

2:56 Okay.

2:57 Yeah.

2:57 So, we we pivoted and yeah.

2:59 Well, first of all, like, Norway is tiny, it's freezing, it's, you know,

3:04 middle of no- nowhere northern Europe,

3:06 and it's probably not very business-friendly, I imagine, right?

3:11 Well, it's definitely business-friendly, but but it's a smaller market, right?

3:14 I mean, the whole population in all of Norway is 5 million people, right?

3:18 So.

3:18 Oh, jeez.

3:19 It's uh yeah.

3:20 That's like a little bigger than Utah.

3:22 Exactly.

3:24 Okay.

3:24 So, tell me what your business started as and what

3:27 first gave you the idea for this business.

3:29 And I know your model changed when you moved to SF,

3:32 so explain exactly what the business model started as.

3:35 The idea actually came from I've I've worked in sales since I was 12 years old.

3:38 So, always been been chasing that.

3:40 And in Norway, there was almost like a hackathon, but for sales.

3:44 So, it was called the Norwegian Championship of Sales.

3:47 And there's like 100 sales reps that show up.

3:49 I'm like uh stressed and nervous.

3:51 I have no idea what I'm selling.

3:53 And then I get a paper in front of me that says,

3:55 "You're going to automate birthday deliveries with cake." Hmm.

3:59 This was just randomly assigned to you at a competition.

4:02 Yep.

4:03 It's ridiculous.

4:04 But but that day I I booked like 17

4:06 meetings in 4 hours with like companies like KPMG.

4:10 So, I was like, "Okay, this is big.

4:11 People want this." And from there, I started building a birthday solution.

4:15 Yeah.

4:15 So, first of all, how did you book those 17 meetings?

4:19 Just outbound cold calling to a list that they provided you?

4:22 Yep.

4:23 And what was your pitch to them?

4:24 I don't remember exactly what I pitched back then,

4:26 but I think it was something like, "We started this new company.

4:29 Uh, we're doing something crazy.

4:30 We got investors on board and we would like to give you a free cake if

4:34 you'd like to take a meeting with us." And then like I told them the idea,

4:38 which was "We're going to automate your birthday deliveries." And everyone

4:41 laughed at that cuz you you get so many cold cakes,

4:43 but when when is someone or you get so many cold calls,

4:46 but when is someone called you and asked if you want a cake, right?

4:49 Yeah.

4:50 So, it was like a very smooth intro into the call and yeah, just worked.

4:55 Okay, so there's like a couple different gifts going on here.

4:57 Like, you want to give them a cake to get their attention, right?

5:02 But the the quote-unquote hypothetical startup that you

5:05 just raised money for is something that automates birthday

5:08 deliveries that like a large company would buy

5:11 from you so they could better serve their employees.

5:13 Is that right?

5:14 Right.

5:14 So, let's say you have 40 employees and all of these employees,

5:18 you want to make sure they they feel seen.

5:20 So, you do something for their birthday.

5:22 Maybe you do something every time someone turns 30,

5:24 40, 50, not every single birthday, whatever.

5:26 You have to recognize these people.

5:28 And so, at least in Norway, it's very normal to do that with cake.

5:31 And what's the worst that can happen, right?

5:33 You remember someone but forget someone else.

5:36 So, we just figured, okay,

5:37 let's just solve that pain and make that never be an issue again.

5:41 And was the idea to integrate with like Gusto

5:43 and ADP and Paychex and use that data to automate everything?

5:47 Yep.

5:48 Hey, YouTube's fine, but what about when you're driving around?

5:50 What about when you're mowing the lawn?

5:51 You need my audio podcast, The Kerner Office.

5:54 Just look up TKOPod in Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

5:59 I think that's It's also where we met the problem

6:01 with it because when we were cold calling people,

6:03 we were very aggressive with like, "You have to sign up for this." And then

6:07 we integrated with like 40 different HR systems,

6:11 and we said, "Okay, let's scale this when we get to the US." So,

6:15 we did that and we AB tested like 40 different ads and none of them converted.

6:20 So, I think the good thing is this is a genuine

6:23 cash cow business opportunity because the retention is really good.

6:26 Like, if someone signs up for this, they're going to stay there.

6:29 But the problem was when we tried to really

6:31 scale this and make this a big company,

6:33 we met the issue of this not being a big enough

6:35 problem for someone to actually sign in with their HR system,

6:37 make sure everything is okay without a human person pushing them.

6:42 So, that's That's why we pivoted,

6:43 but like we we grew that to $150,000 ARR before we we pivoted.

6:48 Oh my gosh.

6:48 Okay, I'm still confused about the competition aspect of this.

6:52 Did at this sales competition, did they give all of the sales

6:56 people the same hypothetical startup, the same offer?

6:59 Yep.

7:00 Okay.

7:01 So, you weren't supposed to actually turn this into a business.

7:04 Is that right?

7:05 That's right.

7:06 How many people were at this competition?

7:09 Like uh 50 Yeah, I mean, there was like a thousand people watching,

7:14 but like 50 sales reps or more that competed.

7:17 So, they just put us in rounds.

7:19 It was like I think they divided the day into five blocks of like 1 hours.

7:25 So, you cold called for 1 hour.

7:26 Whoever had the least meetings after 1 hour,

7:29 the the 50% at least got knocked out.

7:32 And then they did that five times until there was a final.

7:34 And then the winner got like $10,000, I think.

7:37 So.

7:37 And how close did you get to winning?

7:39 Third place.

7:40 I was one meeting away from first place.

7:41 So.

7:42 Oh, no.

7:43 So, but but still, I mean,

7:45 uh I think I got $500 and I got the idea that made this happen.

7:49 So.

7:50 So, were you on a team or was it just you cold calling for 5 hours straight?

7:54 Just me.

7:55 Okay.

7:55 Now, so of the 50 people, you were the only one that said,

7:59 "Hey, I know this is just hypothetical here,

8:01 but I'm actually going to start this business cuz I had a lot of success

8:06 here and you were comparing it to previous

8:07 cold calls that you made and you're like,

8:09 "Jeez, 17 calls and 17 booked appointments

8:11 in 5 hours for something that has high LTV, lifetime value, low churn.

8:17 Like, I need to actually do this." I just started doing the numbers in my head.

8:21 I was like, "Okay, so wait.

8:22 So, if a company with 40 employees sign up,

8:24 that's $80 per cake and then 50% margins, maybe I'm able to make that happen.

8:30 Wait, that's like $5,000 a year.

8:34 And then if I get sales reps to do this and I pay them $2,000 per client,

8:38 then wait, uh the next year, I'm just going to make full profit on that." So,

8:43 I I I just started doing the numbers and like

8:46 calculating in my head and it just made sense.

8:49 So.

8:49 Oh, man.

8:50 And here's the thing.

8:51 Like, I'm a little surprised it didn't work

8:53 in the States because I just filmed a video,

8:56 it hasn't gone live yet,

8:57 but with this woman in Dallas that does corporate gifting.

9:01 And a lot of what she does is for birthdays, but mostly it's like for, you know,

9:05 high-ticket enterprise SaaS where she'll send like the company will go

9:10 to someone's LinkedIn and see they graduated from Syracuse and send like

9:13 a highly curated box of like Syracuse alumni gear to someone

9:18 in the hopes that they'll get a call with the sales rep.

9:21 And she facilitates the logistics of all

9:23 these gift boxes and she does very well.

9:25 So, like, obviously corporate gifting is a well-established industry here.

9:30 Why do you think you couldn't break into that from with a birthday angle?

9:34 Well, that's sort of what we're breaking into now,

9:37 but from a sales angle, right?

9:38 I just think companies usually have two really

9:41 large budgets and it's sales and it's engineering.

9:45 You always want to sell your product and get more customers and you

9:48 always want to build your product better so you get more customers.

9:51 And so, that's where the two largest budgets are and everything else is

9:54 just noise that you have to do to make the business go around.

9:58 So, I think it just wasn't a big enough pain for people to say,

10:01 "Oh, I really want to prioritize this." Now,

10:04 it is to be said after going like semi-viral

10:07 with the cake thing the last couple of weeks,

10:10 we have gotten inbounds from people who are like, "Oh,

10:12 we want to do cakes." But, compared to the people that's inbounding us

10:16 and saying we want to do cakes or cold cakes as I call them,

10:20 it's just not comparable.

10:21 And the same thing happened in Norway.

10:23 We went This is where how I know like

10:25 what what we're doing now is the right thing is

10:28 we were in all the biggest news in Norway

10:30 like all the time because it's such a unique idea.

10:33 And we got zero inbounds from that.

10:35 Everyone thought it was cool,

10:36 and when we called everyone knew about us and it was easier to sell,

10:39 but the pain wasn't big enough for people to reach out and say,

10:42 "Oh, I've been waiting for this the last 5 years." I think

10:45 that that goes for a lot of businesses is it just isn't the biggest priority.

10:49 Like if if you're good at sales,

10:50 you can scale this and you can make it something you

10:53 probably make like a million dollars a year off of them,

10:55 and that's fine, but I wanted to build a a really big company,

10:58 and I think the path we've taken now is is even better.

11:01 Yeah, I mean it So, the budget thing is is a smart.

11:04 And this is similar, but you're more likely to sell a product

11:07 or service that's most closely tied to revenue, right?

11:11 And so, you doing this for sales people

11:14 to book more calls is directly tied to revenue,

11:16 therefore it's an easier sale for you as opposed to like help

11:20 your employees maybe be 2% happier 1 day of the year, you know?

11:24 It's like, "Eh." In Norway, the cultural the culture,

11:28 you know, benefited that, but in the US, it's like, "How am I going to make

11:31 more money for my birthday cake, bro?" You know?

11:34 Exactly.

11:34 I'll let that be said.

11:35 I never tried cold calling in the US.

11:38 I just went straight to ads.

11:39 So, I I definitely think there's someone watching

11:42 this that can take this and and run with it.

11:45 I think Yeah.

11:46 I think it's a great idea.

11:47 Now, tell me your thoughts on the dead internet theory.

11:50 That's a great question.

11:51 And how that what that has to do with this.

11:52 So, AI is just getting better and better.

11:54 I think we can all agree it's not

11:56 going to It's not going to stop evolutionizing itself.

11:59 So, in a couple of years,

12:00 AI will be so good that it's literally impossible to tell a human from AI.

12:05 Mhm.

12:06 And in this world, I can spin up a cloud agent that makes

12:10 10,000 UGC videos or 100,000 emails

12:14 that all feel super natural and super human-made.

12:17 And so, the dead internet theory is

12:19 that 99.99% of the content we consume on internet,

12:23 emails, phone calls, videos such as the one we're making right now,

12:27 it's all going to be AI,

12:29 and humans aren't going to use the internet the same way we are today.

12:32 It's going to be so much noise, it's going to be impossible to cut through.

12:35 And I think like the first step to counter that is humans are going

12:39 to get agents that like answer your phone or check your email and say,

12:44 "This is what you have to prioritize today."

12:46 And then the second step is like the Elon Musk

12:48 vision where you have neural links and you're communicating

12:51 completely off the internet the way we are today.

12:54 So, in a world like that, we're not going to be able to send cold emails,

12:59 we're not going to be able to send LinkedIn DMs

13:01 or cold call anyone cuz there's going to be too much noise.

13:05 So, the way you cut through to someone in the future,

13:08 which we really believe in, is physical gifting.

13:11 If we can become the company that has the most data on what kind of gifts work,

13:17 we become the next Apollo or the the next like real big GTM engine.

13:24 So, Okay.

13:25 Okay.

13:25 So, I love everything about this.

13:27 Talk to me about Well, first of all,

13:28 dead internet theory like I do think you're you're mostly correct,

13:32 but also it's going to be agents talking to agents.

13:34 Yes.

13:35 Like it'll be agents reading cold emails,

13:36 and sometimes an agent monitoring an inbox will get a cold

13:39 email that's relevant to what the owner of that inbox actually needs.

13:43 For sure.

13:43 And that agent is going to have credit card info,

13:45 and it's going to go buy things while we're out like hiking and fishing.

13:48 And actually like it's going to improve the quality of life in a lot

13:51 of ways cuz we're going to be sick of the internet, you know?

13:55 Oh yeah, I view this as a good thing.

13:56 Yeah, oh yeah.

13:57 The internet will be busier and more bustling than ever,

14:00 but it's just going to be computers talking to computers, right?

14:03 So, you're saying like this breaks through that fourth wall,

14:07 so to speak, the physical barrier,

14:09 and you can still use agents to send these cakes and to do all the outbound.

14:14 Like you could you could use an agent to do outbound

14:16 cold email to get a physical cake in front of someone,

14:19 and then you kind of marry the best of both worlds, right?

14:22 Yeah.

14:23 And this can also like the way we're doing it today is

14:25 we have a sequence where we first send the email that says,

14:28 "Hey, in 2 days I'm sending you a cake.

14:30 Is this the right address?" And then we send the cake,

14:33 and then we we follow up either through email or phone.

14:35 And like AI agent would respond to there's a cake coming to this address.

14:40 Is it the right address?

14:41 Yeah.

14:42 But, the thing about the agents is they're never

14:44 going to know what the human doesn't tell them.

14:47 And a lot of sales is about making

14:50 someone want something they didn't know they wanted.

14:53 And if you can't cut through the agent

14:55 because the agent doesn't know the human wants it,

14:57 then you have to like you have to get into the face

14:59 of the human either through network or through like just a physical gift.

15:04 So, Mhm.

15:05 Okay.

15:05 So, let's talk about like pure AB test.

15:09 What have you done to to test like Let's say you get the 10 people on the phone,

15:14 and on 10 of them you you just give

15:16 them the your pitch to whatever it is you're selling.

15:18 And on the other 10, you send them a cake to then give them the pitch.

15:21 Like how much better of a conversion rate do you get from a cake?

15:25 Um well, cold calling has like what?

15:28 2 3% conversion rate?

15:30 Maybe you can pull off some stats on so you can correct me.

15:33 be all over the map, right?

15:34 If you're selling t-shirts, maybe 30%.

15:36 If you're selling $30,000 a month software, could be 0.3%, you know?

15:41 Exactly.

15:42 So, but but there is like an average there.

15:43 And from the cakes we've sent out so far,

15:46 35% have converted into meetings, which is really just crazy.

15:51 Wow.

15:53 [laughter] Yeah.

15:52 Guys, tkowners.com.

15:54 That's my community where people are building businesses.

15:56 I do AMAs, Q&As every week live.

15:59 You can ask me anything you want.

16:00 You can have accountability partners.

16:02 It's about a thousand people in there building, starting, growing businesses.

16:05 Check out TKO as in The Corner Office, tkowners.com.

16:09 So, you send out a hundred cakes, and you and 35 meetings are booked for like

16:14 Is it mostly software stuff like Silicon Valley stuff?

16:17 Yeah, that's mostly what we're getting,

16:20 but I'm also getting like accountants in Miami reaching out,

16:23 real estate brokers.

16:24 Like really anyone and everyone is reaching out and doing this.

16:28 There's like There's the one part where there's

16:31 software companies trying to sell to other software companies,

16:34 but there's also like next week, this is crazy,

16:37 we're doing a thousand cakes next week for one single company.

16:40 And this is a dentist software company, archie.com.

16:44 They're just sending it to a thousand dental offices in San Francisco,

16:49 Florida, Houston, just all over.

16:52 Have they done a test yet?

16:53 No, it's Well, the thing is they reached out and did such

16:57 a big order volume because they did the same thing with pizzas last year.

17:01 Okay.

17:01 And it was really successful.

17:02 That was their test, so to speak.

17:04 Yeah.

17:04 Do you know what the the economics were on their pizza campaign?

17:08 Uh like how much they paid and how much they converted?

17:11 Yeah.

17:11 I do, but I don't want to say because I don't know if I'm allowed to.

17:15 good.

17:15 It was good.

17:16 Good enough to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do it again.

17:19 Yes.

17:20 Yeah.

17:20 For sure.

17:21 Or is it maybe a thousand?

17:23 Yeah, yeah.

17:23 Okay.

17:24 So, tens of thousands.

17:25 Yeah.

17:25 Are they paying like 50, 60, 70 bucks per cake for these at that volume?

17:29 Mhm.

17:30 Clearly, you're not in the cake-making business.

17:32 Are you just like drop-shipping these from someone who ships cakes?

17:37 You could say that.

17:38 I mean, we we put software on top of it to make logistics better.

17:42 What we do is we I have a AI agent I'm happy to show you

17:46 in a bit as well that's constantly

17:48 sourcing bakeries all across the US, London, Australia.

17:52 And then it negotiates with the bakeries and says, "Hey,

17:54 we're going to be buying all these cakes from you.

17:56 Um so, we need a 30% discount." Mhm.

17:59 Mhm.

17:59 We've been in Forbes, we've we've been so and so on.

18:02 And then they're like, "Okay, we'll take a chance." They give us a discount,

18:05 and then someone like Archie reaches out,

18:08 they need cakes in 10 different cities.

18:10 We make a We have a system where we just plot in all the 1,000 recipients,

18:15 and then we let them track all the orders,

18:18 the all the different bakeries are taking pictures per delivery, and so on.

18:23 So, So, this this is like 1-800-Flowers, but for for outbound sales, basically.

18:28 Cuz that's what 1-800-Flowers does, you know?

18:30 Uh I would say that's pretty accurate.

18:32 Now, are most of these cakes only traveling at like,

18:34 you know, 30 miles or less because of the localization of it?

18:38 Yep.

18:38 That's fair to say.

18:39 I mean, for Archie for instance,

18:40 and we've done this a couple times We did it for Rippling as well.

18:43 They wanted a couple like really special cakes in like very

18:46 niche areas where we didn't want to spend time finding a bakery,

18:50 so we just sent the cake on a flight.

18:52 Hm.

18:53 So interesting.

18:54 That's possible as well.

18:55 Does it matter at all if the cake is any good?

18:58 Is there any correlation to close rate or book call rate?

19:01 I definitely think so.

19:02 I care a lot about the quality of the cake.

19:04 We only partner with like organic French patisseries make

19:08 quality cakes because at least my opinion is well,

19:12 that represents the quality of your company.

19:14 So, nobody wants to do that.

19:15 Yeah.

19:16 And so, we're we're very picky about the bakeries we we end up working with.

19:19 We There's a lot of cheap bakeries we end up just saying,

19:23 "Well, this isn't the right fit." So, Yeah.

19:25 Do you have any data from your customers on the close

19:29 rate being higher or lower once they get on these booked calls?

19:33 It's a good question.

19:33 Cuz I I don't Here's what I'm thinking.

19:35 Like there's a direct correlation to the effort

19:38 you put into something and the potential outcome.

19:40 Like if I film a video with a business owner, and it's like this talking head,

19:44 he's in one state, I'm in another, 50,000 views.

19:47 If I film the exact same video with the same content,

19:49 and I'm in person, and we're grinding stumps together,

19:51 we say the same words,

19:53 but the viewer sees that I had to get on a plane or he had to get on a plane.

19:57 We're out there sweating.

19:58 And they take it more seriously.

19:59 They take it more seriously and I I might get 500,000 views on that, right?

20:03 So, I would think that if I just, you know, dial for dollars,

20:06 do cold calling all day to get these book calls to sell enterprise software,

20:10 my close rate might be 15%, but if I, you know,

20:14 if I use these cakes, I'm going to spend a lot more money,

20:16 but A, my book call rate goes way up and B,

20:20 theoretically I would think that your close rate

20:21 goes from 15 to 20, 5, 30%, you know.

20:25 I don't have the data on that, but it sounds logical, right?

20:28 So, like one thing that's important is my cakes don't close either the sale,

20:32 it just gets you the meeting and gets you the attention.

20:35 The rest of the job you have to do yourself,

20:36 but I think there is something very psychological about

20:41 wanting to give something back when someone gives you something.

20:44 Yeah, the law of reciprocity.

20:46 Exactly.

20:46 That's what they do in like the Turkish

20:48 markets if you've ever been in like Turkey.

20:50 They They're like They You come in their store and they start

20:52 giving you candy and they're like giving you so much because it's psychology.

20:56 Yeah.

20:56 So, uh sounds logical.

20:58 If I were you, I would like hound my previous customers and say like,

21:02 do you have any idea on what your close rate was

21:05 on these that like the calls that came from these cakes?

21:08 Cuz then you could put that front and center on your landing page and it's like

21:11 That is true.

21:12 Increase your close rate like increase your book call rate

21:14 by 32% and your close rate by 64% like Yep.

21:18 That'd be huge.

21:19 Like it's a net of net, you will make, you know,

21:22 316% more money for every dollar spent

21:26 on cakes versus cold calling or whatever it is.

21:28 Yeah, you're you're spot on and I think like this data

21:31 is so important for us to collect because long term,

21:35 if this vision of the future becomes right,

21:37 which I really do think it is, one, cakes are going to be overused.

21:41 Everyone's going to get five cakes a day.

21:44 So, we have to do more than cakes.

21:46 And when we get to that point, sure,

21:48 we're going to be a huge company already by then,

21:50 but to become even huger, we have to collect the data on what works.

21:54 Like maybe we send a cake, but the close rate only goes up so and so much,

21:58 but if we send something even more personal and we

22:01 can talk about what what that could be as well,

22:03 but um maybe the close rate is even higher, but the book rate is lower.

22:07 So, all of this data is super important.

22:08 I totally agree with you.

22:10 Tell me about your number.

22:11 So, once you focused on the sales market in the US,

22:16 what was your first month like, your first 6 months, year, etc.

22:18 both from a revenue and profit perspective?

22:21 Well, we've our company's only existed for 6 months.

22:25 Oh, wow.

22:26 So, it's young and promising still.

22:27 Well, in in in Norway, the the birthday thing,

22:30 we're passively invoicing like $12,000 a month right now.

22:34 Wow.

22:34 So, you're you still have that side of the business going.

22:37 Yeah, it's just running.

22:38 To to to be quite honest with you, I have my mom as customer service there.

22:43 [laughter] It's on autopilot.

22:44 Like why cut off the revenue, right?

22:46 Mom needs a job.

22:47 Yeah, sure.

22:48 So, we have that going and when we got to the US,

22:51 we did zero sales for the first 2 and 1/2 months.

22:54 Like I said, we were just trying to figure things

22:56 out and really felt like we were hitting a wall.

22:58 I was almost about to like just put down the company because of that.

23:02 I didn't see it becoming large enough.

23:04 But then we cold cake, which I'm coining as a term,

23:08 A16Z, Sequoia, like a bunch of big venture capital Venture capital firms.

23:13 Yep.

23:14 And that went viral.

23:16 That hit the news and we got so many inbounds.

23:19 What was the message to these firms when you sent them a cake?

23:22 What was the pitch?

23:23 So, this wasn't my cake or like we sent the cake, but we were in Founders Inc.

23:28 and a friend of mine, Andrew Anderson,

23:30 who's like running a crypto platform that's really taking off.

23:34 He was fundraising.

23:35 So, he put his whole pitch deck on like a 100 piece size cake.

23:40 Wow.

23:40 Yeah, yeah.

23:41 And like it was just a bunch of text

23:43 of everything he was doing and the VCs loved it.

23:46 One of them posted it on X.

23:47 It got like 300 300,000 views.

23:50 That ended up in the biggest tech news in Europe

23:52 and from there the ball is just like uh it's been non-stop.

23:56 Were you linked in those articles?

23:58 Yeah, yeah.

23:58 So, it was amazing for him.

24:00 He probably raised his around.

24:01 Amazing for you.

24:02 Great backlink.

24:03 Win-win all around.

24:05 Exactly.

24:05 Yep.

24:05 And that's also the interesting thing about what we're doing now is it

24:07 becomes this marketing loop because if you send a cake to X company,

24:13 then X company might take a picture of that.

24:15 Not only will they book a meeting with you,

24:17 but they might take a picture of it and post it

24:18 on social media and that gives you PR and then they might think,

24:23 oh, this worked on me cuz I just booked a meeting and posted it on social

24:27 media and then they reach out to me and say we want to do this as well.

24:31 And that's what's happening right now.

24:32 Like I'm getting inbounds from people that have gotten

24:34 a cake and think this is this is cool.

24:37 So, You know what you guys should try is um what's it called?

24:40 Like a like a singing-gram when like someone

24:42 shows up in person and sings to you?

24:45 You need an elf?

24:46 Yeah, like cold mariachi.

24:49 Yeah.

24:50 Yeah, like cold mariachi.

24:51 They sing a pitch.

24:52 Like they sing a pitch to them.

24:53 It would cost a lot more than a cake,

24:54 but the results could be a lot better, right?

24:57 I'm I'm down.

24:59 Yeah.

24:59 I love that you call it a day maker cuz you're not going all in on cakes.

25:02 I I agree with you.

25:03 At some point, people are going to be getting too

25:05 many cakes and it's just going to be a waste, right?

25:07 But that's fine.

25:08 You just pivot.

25:09 You do something else.

25:10 So, okay.

25:10 So, first 2 and 1/2 months, you're hitting roadblock after roadblock.

25:14 That goes viral thanks to a tweet.

25:16 What do your numbers look like after that point?

25:17 So, this month we're doing $120,000 revenue.

25:22 Yeah, it's crazy.

25:23 in.

25:23 Yeah, or I mean this pivot is 1 and 1/2 month ago, right?

25:29 [laughter] Oh my gosh.

25:29 So, 6 weeks after pivoting,

25:31 you're doing 120 grand a month and growing double digit I imagine per month.

25:35 Yeah, you yep.

25:37 It's a lot of fun.

25:38 Listen, I need more people like this to interview on my podcast.

25:41 So, if you know of someone with a side hustle

25:43 or a business that's unique and cool and super profitable,

25:46 email Molly, m o l l y at cofounders.com.

25:49 That's one word, cofounders.com.

25:51 Molly at cofounders.com,

25:52 tell her your story and we'll give you 100 bucks if we end up interviewing them.

25:56 What does your team look like?

25:57 Do you have much overhead like developers

25:59 or anything or are you profitable today?

26:01 No, honestly, we're cooked.

26:04 I have a list of No pun intended.

26:07 Yeah.

26:07 You're baked.

26:08 Uh we're baked.

26:09 I have a list of 45 inbound leads right now from people that are like,

26:13 we need cakes in Australia.

26:15 We need cakes in Canada.

26:16 We need cakes in Spain and Mexico and we're just like

26:21 we can't sleep at this point trying to fulfill them all.

26:24 So, we just have to fundraise and hire and keep this momentum going.

26:30 So, you're just putting all your money back into the business.

26:32 Oh, yeah.

26:32 I mean, I just came home from came home

26:34 from San Francisco after being there for 3 months,

26:37 but I lived in a closet for for that the whole duration of that.

26:41 Probably all you can afford.

26:42 It's so expensive there.

26:44 It is.

26:44 It really is.

26:45 I would think you'd get to this business to the point

26:47 where you have a positive cash flow conversion cycle.

26:50 You get paid on day one.

26:51 You have net 30 payment terms with your bakeries,

26:54 at least with many or most of them.

26:56 We're profitable right now.

26:57 So, Okay.

26:58 Well, like that could be that could be your natural fundraising.

27:01 Like that could prevent you from having to fundraise at all, right?

27:05 Especially after you send a bakery a bunch of businesses like,

27:07 listen, your cake's delicious.

27:09 It's working.

27:09 We love working with you, but we're cash strapped.

27:12 If you want to keep getting business from us,

27:14 we need to be able to pay you in 30 days or else

27:16 we're going to have to go to the bakery down the street.

27:18 Then you guys will be rolling in it.

27:19 Yeah.

27:20 For sure.

27:21 Totally agree with you.

27:22 Um we could bootstrap, but my vision is to be a lot more than a cash cow

27:26 business and I think to do that, I want to scale even quicker.

27:30 Yeah.

27:30 Like uh for instance, there is a lot of company or there is

27:34 a couple of companies that have done some deliveries now.

27:36 They do one delivery batch, it goes successful, they order another one,

27:39 it goes successful and then they're like, okay, let's just make this recurring.

27:42 Can you guys integrate with our HubSpot or Salesforce?

27:46 So on and so on.

27:47 There's uh they're asking some are asking

27:49 for ping pong tables uh instead of cakes.

27:53 Yep.

27:53 It's wild.

27:55 we want to be able to keep up with all of that demand

27:57 and to do that, I I think the right move is to fundraise.

28:01 Yeah.

28:02 But but you're right.

28:03 This could be a cash cow business for sure.

28:05 So, on $120,000 in cakes, are you profiting 40 grand, 50 grand?

28:10 Yeah, uh 30, 40 grand, yeah.

28:13 Okay.

28:14 Okay.

28:14 So, let's say a lot of my audience, most of my audience is not on the coast.

28:18 They're like in middle America, 25 to 55-year-old entrepreneurial either,

28:23 you know, about 40% are business owners, 60% are aspiring business owners.

28:28 So, if someone's watching this right now and they're thinking like, all right,

28:31 I want to start a business or grow a business with something like this.

28:35 I don't want to start a cake delivery business, right?

28:37 He's got that locked down, but I want to use this principle to make money.

28:40 What like and someone doesn't have an offer yet, let's say hypothetically.

28:44 What types of offers or services or whatever

28:47 could someone use with your cakes or with sending

28:50 their own cakes or whatever to increase

28:53 the likelihood of success based on what you've seen?

28:56 Cuz if I sell t-shirts, right,

28:57 it's like the unit economics don't make sense, right?

29:00 But if I sell enterprise software, it does.

29:02 It does make sense.

29:03 That's enterprise software isn't approachable to an individual

29:06 that wants to start a business either, right?

29:08 So, I think it is, to be fair.

29:11 I think anyone can make anything today.

29:12 I mean, it says so on your your t-shirt.

29:15 But I guess you could [laughter] It's true.

29:18 But like I'm saying like a $4,000 a month product,

29:21 you know, like Salesforce or whatever.

29:22 Like agency services, sure.

29:24 You vibe code them out.

29:25 I totally get it.

29:26 In 2 weeks we're doing uh like 50 cakes with a SEO

29:29 agency and what they're doing is they're putting like a video.

29:33 They're recording a Loom video and they're putting a QR

29:36 code on the cake and then we're sending that out.

29:38 So, when people get the cake and they scan it,

29:40 it's like uh a SEO audit of of their website.

29:43 Oh, that's cool.

29:44 And that's cool.

29:46 Also, there's just the virality moment of it.

29:49 So, I do agree if you're selling t-shirts, don't send cakes.

29:53 But, I think one of my biggest lessons building this company is do crazy things,

29:59 post about it, and you're going to go viral.

30:01 And so, for 100% all of our customers

30:04 that have done like a huge amount of cakes,

30:08 every single time it's it's gone viral, and it's ended up in the news,

30:11 and it's just been a positive PR thing for for just both us and for So,

30:17 I I think like one of the things we did

30:18 is we we had a unicorn uh cake that was huge.

30:21 That That went super viral.

30:23 Another thing I did, and here back in Oslo before moving to to Asaph,

30:28 which I I think is great.

30:29 This is unrelated, but I think it'll give an idea of how

30:32 I want you to think is we hosted this founder dinner,

30:35 and we got all the best founders in in Norway to to be a part of this dinner,

30:39 and then we're like, "Okay, how do we make this something people talk

30:42 about?" We hired or we we released a llama.

30:46 So, we had this big venue.

30:47 We had a private chef, seven-course dinner.

30:51 [laughter] And then we had a llama walking around in the venue,

30:52 and we had a jazz band playing jazz.

30:54 And like, that blew up as well, right?

30:56 So, I I think like attention is everything.

30:58 Getting attention is absolutely everything.

31:01 And the cakes is right now like such a great

31:03 thing a way to get attention cuz it's still new, it's novel, and so on.

31:07 But, if there is one tip I have,

31:09 it's just do crazy things that get people's attention.

31:12 And then post it.

31:12 Yeah.

31:13 And post it.

31:14 Yeah.

31:14 So, agency services, I think that's a great idea.

31:17 Like, is I have a community called playmakersai.com,

31:22 and I teach people how to be

31:23 AI consultants or to start AI implementation agencies.

31:27 And we talk a lot about customer acquisition,

31:29 we talk about paid ads, all types of stuff.

31:32 But, this is like a no-brainer.

31:33 Like, why not ship cakes to a medium-size business

31:36 that you know has 5 to 50 million dollars in revenue,

31:39 and instead of a QR code to an SEO audit,

31:42 it's a QR code to their website that gives them an AI audit.

31:45 This says like, "Your business could be improved with AI.

31:48 Call me." And then you just upsell the heck out of them.

31:50 Yeah.

31:51 It's a no-brainer.

31:52 Yeah, you can do anything.

31:54 You're Like I said, we have accountants

31:55 and real estate agents doing this as well.

31:57 So, uh I think as long as you're as long as you

32:00 think there is marketing coming from this, and second of all,

32:02 you have a high enough average contract value or LTV Mhm.

32:06 to make it make sense, like send some cakes.

32:08 It's [snorts] Yeah.

32:11 I mean, dude, if I'm a if I'm a if I'm a real estate agent,

32:14 I'm going to get a list every morning of properties that are expiring, right?

32:18 They've been listed for 6 months,

32:19 and that the realtor that's the listing agent is about to lose Yeah.

32:23 lose the listing.

32:24 A week before that expires, I'm going to send them a cake, right?

32:27 There you go.

32:27 Cuz even if it's a $500,000 residential home,

32:30 that's 10 to 20 grand net to the realtor.

32:33 If they close 10% of those, then what's an $80 cake, you know?

32:37 Also like the one thing is the cold cake, which I mean, you're spot-on.

32:41 Another thing is the retention cake.

32:44 Let's say you have some customers that you've had for like a year,

32:46 and then you're like, "Thank you for being my customer for a year.

32:49 Here's a cake." And that's like what you're doing

32:52 there is you're just going over the bar of expectations,

32:55 and that makes them think about you and talk

32:57 about you and refer you to more people.

32:59 So, Yeah.

33:00 do retention cakes, you can do cold cakes, you can Yeah,

33:03 there's there's a lot of things you can do with cakes.

33:06 I mean, we hired a custom home builder

33:07 for our home and paid him a whole lot of money,

33:10 and every Christmas we get like a a box of nuts.

33:13 He probably spends 40 bucks on them.

33:15 And you know what?

33:16 Anytime someone a church asked me, "Hey,

33:18 who'd you use for your home builder?" I'm like, "Use him.

33:19 Use him.

33:20 Use him." For cuz cuz of a $40 box of nuts, you know?

33:23 It works.

33:24 It does.

33:25 Yep.

33:25 It keeps it if nothing else, if A, it buys your loyalty.

33:29 B, it keeps you top of mind.

33:31 It's a cheap way to stay top of mind, which is harder than ever today.

33:34 Yeah, I mean, sending an email wouldn't do that.

33:36 In fact, sending an email would probably make you seem annoying.

33:39 So, Yeah.

33:40 This is amazing.

33:40 Is there anything cool about the story that I

33:43 neglected to ask you about before we wrap?

33:46 There's so much cool things about the story,

33:48 but I think this was a great conversation.

33:49 Well, I mean, 120 grand, your second month, profitable, incredible.

33:54 I applaud you on what you've done.

33:55 This is amazing.

33:56 Do you know if any of the other 49 people tried to start a business like this?

34:00 Not as far as Well, actually,

34:01 there's there's been a lot of people that have reached out and like just said,

34:06 "Hey, man, I'm going to compete with you." Like anything,

34:09 it's it's all about execution.

34:11 If someone does want to start something similar, I encourage that.

34:14 I Like heck, we might even partner, right?

34:17 Maybe I I go like, "Hey, we have this brand, and you can have this area,

34:20 and we'll take a split revenue." We almost franchise it, right?

34:23 So, one thing your your viewers might find interesting is like

34:26 how I have my agents set up to find these bakeries.

34:30 Yes.

34:30 Yes.

34:31 Very curious about that.

34:32 Yeah.

34:33 to ask Cuz you you mentioned you have like these uh AI agent agencies.

34:36 So, the the way I do it now is I have like

34:38 this super prompt in in Claude Cowork connected to a superhuman MCP.

34:43 Superhuman is like an email system.

34:45 Uh the super prompt says like how you're supposed to negotiate,

34:47 it says how you're supposed to find good bakeries,

34:49 like look at reviews, and so on.

34:52 And then every single day, I don't I'm not involved in it.

34:55 Every 2 hours, it checks my email,

34:58 and if I haven't found a bakery in the location I've told it to find it,

35:02 it goes and sources 20 new bakeries,

35:04 it responds to all the emails, negotiates with the bakeries.

35:08 And the initial email we send out is like an email that says,

35:12 "Hey, we want to buy a 200 cakes in 2 weeks.

35:15 Can we make it happen?" And that catches the attention of the bakery,

35:17 and they're like, "Yes, please." And then we go like, "Okay,

35:21 you you have to give us a discount." They give us a discount.

35:24 If the discount is good enough, my agent sends that email to my personal email,

35:29 where I just give a thumbs up or a thumbs down on it.

35:32 And if I give a thumbs back,

35:33 it goes down or back to the bakery, renegotiates more until we have a deal.

35:39 Yeah.

35:40 Maybe that was complicated, but it's like No, I Claude Cowork,

35:43 that's like I can wrap my mind around that.

35:45 Yeah.

35:46 That's incredible.

35:47 That's how we do that, and and that's allowed us to go

35:49 from one bakery to like 15 bakeries in a month, which is Wow.

35:54 Like this sort of outreach and like partner

35:56 networking would have been impossible just a year ago,

35:59 which is why like nobody has done this before because it In reality,

36:03 this is so time-consuming to sign up all these bakeries,

36:05 and I can take that and do that with so much more than just cakes and bakeries.

36:09 So, Yep.

36:10 Yeah.

36:11 The tediousness is the moat.

36:12 It is.

36:13 Right.

36:13 That's why That's why Plaid is a billion-dollar business cuz they went and made

36:16 API connections with every random credit union

36:19 and bank that had terrible API docs.

36:22 They went and did the hard thing hard thing to do that, and now they are the de

36:25 facto solution for connecting financial institutions, right?

36:28 The tediousness is the moat is

36:31 the first mover's advantage is your competitive advantage.

36:34 It's amazing.

36:35 William, thank you.

36:35 This is awesome.

36:36 Where can we find you if we want to buy some cakes or learn more?

36:39 Hit me up on LinkedIn, William Lindholm.

36:42 Hit me up on Instagram if you're not on LinkedIn, that's also William Lindholm.

36:45 Okay.

36:46 Thank you, William.

36:47 Nice meeting you, man.

36:48 Guys, I meant what I said about playmakersai.com.

36:51 There's about 300 of us in there, and we're all doing the same thing.

36:54 We're starting AI consulting businesses.

36:56 We're implementing AI into small and medium-size businesses.

36:59 And we're having a lot of success.

37:00 So, check out playmakersai.com, and shoot, use a cake to go find some customers.

37:05 We've got over 100 hours of recorded content including 3 to 7

37:09 hours of live content with 25 different paid experts every single week.

37:14 We'll see you there at playmakersai.com.

37:16 If you like this content, please share with a friend,

37:18 hit a like or a comment below, and we'll see you next time on the Corner Office.