What is up PartnerUp!?
Jared here, and today was all my treat. I’m so excited I got to interview my Co-Host and Co-Founder, Isaac Morehouse. This is his story.
I’ve known Isaac Morehouse for going on 12 years – personally, politically, philosophically, and in business.
We’ve been customers of each other multiple times.
We’ve read, written, and spoken on almost the exact same topics with very similar takeaways.
And I can confidently say that Isaac influenced the trajectory of my life. He’s a once in a lifetime business partner who I am honored to share the title of co-founder with.
But what makes him so special?
Of the thousands and thousands of articles, podcasts, and content pieces he’s produced, what made the “partner moment” right for him?
What first principles span the past decade of learnings that resulted in us creating PartnerHacker together?
I know you’re going to love it.
OHHH and if you listened all the way to the end, don’t miss out on the biggest news we’ve EVER dropped. The announcement of the first ever, PL[X] Summit.
The moment partner ecosystems go mainstream is live at plxsummit.com
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Full Transcript:
Jared Fuller 00:00
Hey he's been a part of this partner hacker journey since day one. But I'm not sure that the rest of the b2b world really understands like the magic behind this man, Mr. Morehouse himself. So Isaac, I know we're not going to like kick off with just like, jumping right into it. But I'm excited to chat with you today. Because you you posted something on your own podcast channel. You have. What is it on YouTube? Isaac Morehouse. Tell. Tell us about that? Yeah. Yeah, I've had a podcast for years and years. And it's like intermittent, I've had phases where I do it on a very regular basis. And now it's just kind of like here and there. And I just I've had people that followed it for a while. So and you're on, you're on like the major streaming services and YouTube, right? Yeah, exactly. Anywhere the podcasts exist. Yeah, yeah, I've had it. And they're all over the place. Like most of them are not about business, certainly not b2b. But there's some they're all over economics. So you know, just wide ranging, but I just think kind of like an update for people who've been following me for a long time. Because primarily, I've built a kind of a brand reputation in the education and early career space, and last decades, certainly, with my previous companies. And so I always get I, by the way, I've had this happen multiple times in my career. And this is this is actually a little topic I want to chat about. At some point. I was thinking about it at catalyst when there was
Isaac Morehouse 01:44
some like career related stuff people were chatting about. And this is one of the things I think about a lot. But I've had multiple points in my career where people had been confused. But they've been like, wait, what? You were the guy who was the this guy, you were so good at it, you were so passionate about it? How are you switching to this other thing? And I actually take that as a good sign for several reasons. But this was one of those moments where a lot of people were like, but you're like, the education and career guy, you know, like don't go to college, go apprentice and all this stuff. What partner hacker, this makes no sense. So I just I kind of wanted to create some context for especially the people who've been following my stuff on the other areas for a long time, and kind of explain what the nature of the how this came about and why I'm so excited about it. And the ways in which I see the connections, the parallels. So that was that that was what that was all about. So that's just how they can find it. If someone's interested in hearing like the kind of journey from Praxis to crash to partner hacker kind of more at a broader scope, the Isaac Morehouse podcasts on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, etc. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I enjoyed listening to it. I listened to it on a Friday night. So that's how good it was. I spent my Friday night listening to you. And then I'm like, Okay, so the next podcast since you did that we have to do the deeper kind of Isaac Morehouse story because we were talking into kind of pre roll Isaac, about the parallels between
Jared Fuller 03:07
kind of like ecosystem influence, and then perhaps the influence that you had on me. Like it and to be perfectly honest, like, I started a podcast is a cheat code to learn. Right? So like learning out loud, like, is that your phrase? Like? I'm pretty sure I've heard that from you or TK? Yeah, I think it's my phrase. I'm not gonna claim that for sure. Because, um, it's very possible. I heard it elsewhere. And it's certainly I'm probably not the only one to say it. But yes, I had been saying that. Learn out loud and hammering on that for like, a decade now. For sure. I mean, so whenever I thought about like, Okay, I gotta take this for real, like, I was a progression, you know, partner professional, so to speak, meaning, I'm like a CEO. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a sales executive, a marketing executive, I'm a partner Exec. Okay, I'm only going to do partnerships. Okay, well, how do I really take this seriously, not as just a part of what I do, but like what I do. I'm like, I'm gonna learn out loud. So like, I started a podcast. But I don't think that I was thinking about Isaac Morehouse. I don't think I was even thinking learn out loud, whenever I did that, but had I not listen to you. And then you know, kind of friends, business, business associates, like we've done business together. We've known each other for a long time. If I hadn't followed your stuff, I probably would have never done that.
Isaac Morehouse 04:22
Let this be a lesson, by the way. Right? Because there's no there's nowhere I can go check on my website, or my social media dashboard or my podcast dashboard and say, Oh, look, Jared fuller just launched a podcast that counts as a conversion. I influenced that there's no way that that's ever going to show up because it's not that direct. But this is this is ecosystem influence, right? There are some some small part of your decision, even the idea to do a podcast or the willingness to do it or something about it was influenced in part by The fact that me and other people in your circle, are doing this kind of stuff and talking about this as an effective way to learn and learn out loud. And like even if it's not conscious, it's like part of what creates your possibilities set and makes your brain think, Hey, this is something that people do this is something that I should do this could be beneficial. So like, that stuff is very real. I know. It's frustrating because you can't measure it. But that's that's how ecosystem influence works.
Jared Fuller 05:24
Which is so crazy. I mean, it's firsthand. I mean, like, dude, what's this? For those that dozens of you that watch on YouTube? Right partner hacker handbook, right? Like number one best selling physical book on Amazon last week and business strategy, marketing and sales, marketing and sales and selling for four separate categories, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. But that's the power of ecosystem influence, like Little did you know, little did I know that like that thought to learn out loud would spark a formative company so to speak as a formative because we're in our early stages, but formative in that we are also also evangelizing something that leads to like the publishing of the number one book in marketing sales. Like that's not even what, no one would have guessed that. No one would have guessed that at all these unintended consequences from your actions. So what I want to where I want to kick start the story of Isaac Morehouse, like, obviously, you were influential to me, as a friend as a business partner, and things that I've gone and done in my life. But what led you to uncover or discover that like you were saying this stuff before Gary Vaynerchuk was saying this stuff, right? I don't know what he's his version of that is his version of that is like something. But like I heard you say at first and then I heard Gary Vee. It's what led you in the Praxis or prior to Praxis days to start to think this way. It probably goes way back to I'm gonna, I'm not gonna derail us for really long, I promise. But I was just started thinking of this story. As you started talking, I have to tell it quickly. It goes back to my earliest days really thinking about like, ways to improve the world ways to change the world, right? starry eyed young person, how do I change the world? How do I make the world a better place? Right, it sounds so cheesy, but it's true. Right? That's what yeah, that's what motivated by and so I did all a
Isaac Morehouse 07:12
lot of time. You say? Yeah, what time
Jared Fuller 07:16
really like, I'm 38. Now. So this was like, between the ages of like, 17 and my early 20s. Especially, but then I mean, honestly, it's been my whole life. I have been very, very motivated to understand, okay, 17 to 20 is, is when you're like, coming to this. That's what I'm most. Yeah, I'm coming to this, like how, okay, I know, I want to make the world a better place. I want to expand human freedom is something that I'm very passionate about. So people have more opportunity. How do you do that? Like, how does social change actually happen? And if you like, I started looking into politics and like, yeah, that seems like more of a lagging indicator, and all these other things. But one of the things that this is a story that stuck out with me forever, and this totally relates to what you're just talking about, about ecosystem influence and all this stuff about the the snowball effect, you can't predict. A friend of mine was a much, much older guy, but back in the, during the Cold War, he would go into, he went to Communist Poland. And he met up with all this whole underground movement. And in communist Poland, they had like, like the underground was massive. They had like underground universities. They had an underground insurance pool for if your car got seized by the communist government, and they took your you know impounded it because you had like contraband literature, whatever. You would get like an insurance payout. It was called a Lloyd's of Warsaw is kind of a little joke. And they had this massive underground network where they would like smuggle in, like ideas that were banned. You know, like, whether it was free market books, or blue jeans and Marlboro cigarettes, right things that were considered banned, because they were, you know, not not part of the propaganda. And he was there working with this couple that ran a pirate radio station and underground radio station. And they had both been in prison a couple of times, and and like, they would get out and they would start it up again. And every night at the same time, they would broadcast this pirate radio station. And it was very, very risky for them. Because again, when they got caught, they get thrown in prison and could be worse. And he was like, what motivates you to keep doing this? How do you know if anyone's listening? And they said, for the longest time, we had no idea and we just kept doing it just kept putting out that signal broadcasting that signal sharing the things that we believe are important. One night, we said if you can hear this, and you value freedom, blink your lights. And we looked out the window and all of Warsaw was blinking. They said literally every house the lights were blinking. And for one, that's when we knew this matters. But that's also when we knew this this regime is coming to an end and it was not long after that, by the way that the communist government literally walked away. They literally said these people are ungovernable we quit. Right. So like the power of those ideas became so widespread that people like were changing their behavior and it made it so that regime was no longer tenable that tyrannical regime. So the reason I tell that story is not to make a political point or anything but the the power of broadcasting that signal even when you don't know where it's going and who it's reaching, right, to me, that's a great allegory to the concept of learning out loud, of sharing of like, not hiding, what you're interested in, what you're doing, what you're up to what you're passionate about, and those ripple effects. They're having this impact that's really hard to quantify and see, you don't always get a moment to see the blinking lights, but they're there, right? They're there. So I think that idea was a big part of what animated kind of the way that I think about things and motivated me to like, not be shy. And to as I'm doing something, if I'm building a company, I'm gonna, like, openly talk about what I'm doing. I'm going to blog about it, I'm going to post about it. So that's, that's like a bit of a tenuous connection. But that's kind of how I think I started with that approach. Isaac, do you have a college degree? I actually do. Even though I'm like, telling people all the time that they're usually a waste. And that's part of the reason why. I was homeschooled. And then I went to community college for my last couple years of high school, then I transferred to a four year university, like just a generic state school.
Isaac Morehouse 11:20
Did you get an Associate's at a community college? Or no,
Jared Fuller 11:23
I did, I got an Associate's and then I transferred it over and got a bachelor's. So I graduated when I was 19, with my bachelor's, and then I actually later later on got a master's in economics in a program that somebody somebody very generously offered to pay for me to do that. And it was it was really fun what I learned, but like the credential itself, basically, neither of those credentials have ever done anything. For me, career wise, that was part of my realization with praxis, like, huh, this is kind of weird. Like, this is supposed to be a ticket to a job. But the signaling power of that degree is so minimal now. And what what could you build? How could you build a better signal? That's kind of the epiphany that led me to the first company practice in 2013. So let's unpack that for a second. Because I'm aware of your story. And I feel like learning out loud. You know, can't separate signal from noise like that. What's ironic is that's the first time I've ever asked you that question. I was like, looking at your LinkedIn. I'm like, does it even have a degree? I think he has a degree. But I didn't know you had a master's? I No idea. Right? Like, how much of a signal was that to like starting a company together as partners? Right? Not that much. But you decided to start practice. So let's talk a little bit about practices because I was a big customer of praxis. And you did this after doing some not not for profit work right in the DC area. That's where we got to know each other and some political stuff, you decided to start Praxis what made you go all in on like, the anti education thing or not, let's say the establishment side of this, this is no longer representative of the signal that you should have in market. What led you to like, I have to start practice, and what is practice? And I'm totally comfortable. The radical language, by the way, you know, just like, if you're gonna create a category Salesforce is like, you know, the death of software, right? I would give talks called like, college, so I have no problem. Even without, you know, everybody's like, Oh, well, there's nuance. And there's except, of course, there are, but we're trying to tell a story here and shake people out of their slumber. So what got me there was really the realization of what, what college was like my own experience, like, what is it? Why do people keep paying for this, like they pay and then they're excited when classes canceled? Like, who pays for a good upfront, excited when it's not? Right? And so I was like, well, that must not be
Isaac Morehouse 13:42
the product. It would be like paying for a software and be like, Oh, my God, the software's down today. Yay. Like, whatever slack. Like, that's crazy. That's crazy. Right? It sounds like, huh, that must not be the product. All people want is that piece of paper at the end, right. And if they didn't, if they there's so many ways to prove that this is the case, if people just wanted the experience, you could literally move to a college town, you could attend every class you wanted to you could go to football games, you could live the whole experience without ever registering and paying tuition. No one would stop you no one would kick you out of sitting in on classes and stuff. Like in fact, professors should probably be flattered. Right? So like, nobody does that. Because those things are are sometimes add on benefits. Sometimes they're costs that you wish you didn't have to but the reason people pay is to get that piece of paper so I started to be like, okay, cuz it's like asking, what's the business model? Or how do they make their money? And what do people actually want to buy? What's What problem is it solving, and the problem is solving is people feel like they can't be a successful person. They feel like a loser if they don't have the piece of paper because the belief is that helps you get a job that helps you get a job part is actually untrue. But everyone thinks that it's true. So that's why they keep doing it. And so I had this realization when I was on the job market and I was like, nobody even like asks I haven't listed on my resume, but no one cares. No one ever follows up. I could have just totally made that up. If if a degree truly signaled a massive difference in skill, people would double check that I actually got that degree and they would be super serious
Jared Fuller 15:04
reference checks. They would they would ask, so like, I back channels I use, I do back channels a lot on people I hire, even ones that are like hard, like, I'm gonna find the person you don't want me to talk to. I'm gonna do reference checks wrong that someone on my team do reference checks, right? Like, I want to backchannel you, but no one's back channeling a professor.
Isaac Morehouse 15:25
Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like, it's all in a black box. It's like, okay, you got the degree, maybe I'll ask for a transcript to prove that you really went there? Am I gonna go interview all your professors and be like, tell me how they really did on this. What's your grading system? You said they had a 2.5? What does that mean? Right? Like, because no one, they don't treat it, they don't take it that seriously, it doesn't carry that much weight. It's kind of like this first level, hey, I've got 200 applications, that's too many to deal with. Just give me the 50 who have a bachelor's degree in something irrelevant. It's like just a sim a way to like, clear out the noise and it doesn't really do much. And so what I, the realization I had was, okay, if you have a college degree, no one asks about your high school diploma. If you've had a real job, or done a real project, no one asks about your college anymore, right? Like you said, you never it never even occurred to you to ask if I've been in college, because what I have signaled to you with other things is worth more than that. And so I had this epiphany, unlike if you sent somebody, something that was worth more a better signal than a degree, they don't care about the degree
Jared Fuller 16:26
instantly. What's so wild is if you've gone through the college experience, you know better than to judge someone based on their college experience. Right? Like, I went to Wake Forest Isaac, like, this is a top 30 school like IV of the South, whatever every car out front was like BMW, Mercedes, Volvo. I didn't even know those were names of cars. I had a Buick LeSabre. Right. Like you came from New Mexico. I don't even know like BMW, Mercedes. I've never even seen one, much less every kid have one in the parking lot. I was like, What is this? You know, I, I went to the community college first. Because I don't even know what a GPA was in high school. I didn't even know what it was. Like, I don't even know how it's calculated. I thought it was like, if you had a two you are good. Apparently a two is not a good GPA, by the way. Apparently, it's an I was
Isaac Morehouse 17:19
homeschooled. So I never knew that stuff, either.
Jared Fuller 17:22
Right? So I gotta keep you then went to college. And then like, I did two years. And I was done. Because I had my associates. They didn't want to give me credits. I'm not paying you for another year. I don't have the money. I'm done. And no one ever asked me about that. No one has ever asked me if I graduated from Wake Forest, not a single person in my entire life. I went there for two years. And even on my LinkedIn, it says withdrawn. You know, like, it doesn't even say on my LinkedIn that I got a Bachelor's it says withdrawn. Like I withdrew. I didn't, I didn't flunk out, I had a 3.8 GPA. And I withdrew at the end of the semester. Well, so I like to say to you know, the young people we work with in practice and stuff. You can have a degree, you can not have a degree, I don't really care if your degree is the most interesting thing about you, you're screwed. So like, if you go to an employer, you know, let's say we're hiring for a marketing role a partner hacker, we got to we got two people that want to work for us. One of them sends us a thing says, you know, I'm applying for your open, dear sir, or Madame, which is what they usually do. I'm applying for your insert role title, attaches my resume. BA in communications from university, whatever. What does that tell us? I have no freaking clue. Now imagine candidate number two. Hey, guys, I love the partner a podcast been listening to it for a couple months. Now you guys are getting me so excited. I saw your hiring for this role. So I took a minute to create a five email drip sequence that I think you could have for your handbook when someone opts in that kind of educates them on what you're doing. Here it is, take a look at it. I would love to talk. Even if they missed the mark on that email sequence. What's the first thought you're going to have? Is it going to be I wonder if they went to college? Or is it going to be Oh, hold on to talk to them? We don't even need to talk about hypotheticals. We just heard Aaron. Exactly. Exactly. Shout out Aaron, new content manager, partner hacker, what did He send us? He sent us a video of exactly how he's been listening to you specifically and he referenced lessons that you taught him and then shout out Aaron like this is the way that the world really works. This is why Isaac whenever we reconnected I'm like I have to work with you. I have to be a business partner with you like this is a long term partnerships are placing long term bets with compound interest. And I'm like Isaac's knowledge has paid me dividends, dividends. I know it has like I can't indirectly like I was never thinking about Isaac Morehouse or praxis, but absolutely influenced I thought about the rest of the world. It 100% did. And if you look at like how we hired Aaron versus I made the mistake of like accidentally posting a job listing to LinkedIn. Like I wrote this really funny job description. And I was LinkedIn added the button like, oh, add this to LinkedIn jobs. And I know better, like you were CEO of praxis, I was CEO of job hive. So I knew better than to use a job listing site. I press Oh, sure. horrible mistake. I mean, every application was no harm to anyone that applied. It's just I couldn't I could not look at the resumes that came in to LinkedIn and go, What is the signal? And then
Isaac Morehouse 20:31
people will know this, right? What does it mean? If there's a job posting, and you have a button that lets you apply in one click, it means you're gonna get spammed with a bunch of low value, like there's no signal coming through that noise because this person just clicked on like a whole bunch of job postings that look relevant. So when you get that it's they're asking to partner with you, right? What they're asking is, I want you to bring me into your company and help build you I want to build stuff together with you, that's a partnership asking for multi year relationship completely. That's a serious deal. And if they start it off, it's not a transaction. It's not a transaction. No, not at all. And the number one, the number one most important part to get attention, it everyone fails that in this. They talk about themselves. First, I am a professional with this many years experience, I have this, I can do this, I can do that you should pay me, right. It's such a turnoff contrast, again, think about the dating market. If you're out there at a bar, and you're like, here's a bullet point list of 10 reasons I'm highly dateable. And you just start handing that out to everyone. How's that gonna work out? Right? You make it about them? Hey, I overheard you talking about this. You're really interesting to me. I'm fascinated by you. I want to learn more about you. Right? So people, people don't even realize hiring managers or people to and especially if it's a smaller company that's passionate about their mission, if the first thing you hit them with is I love what you do. I saw this and you signal in a way that can't be faked. Right? That's a costly signal. I love what you said in this episode was so and so. And it's real. You obviously Listen, you're not just like, hey, I love your insert company name, right? Like that difference alone, just opening with talking about them? Because I'm like, Okay, tell me why you want to work with me. Specifically, I know you want a job. But don't treat me like a job. I don't want to hire a employee, an employee, I want to hire someone that really wants to work for us specifically, right? I don't want to date someone that just wants a date. I want someone that wants to date me specifically for something about me. Right? And like that alone. And that applies to partnerships want 100%? Yeah, humans are self interested. Totally. Yeah. Like be interested in them create value for them first show them you care, right? So like, all that stuff applies. So. So that was the basic epiphany. And I thought, well, like what if what what do people need to get hired at a good entry level job that's got some upward trajectory, an SDR and a great tech startup, right? That's a great job. And you can go all kinds of places with that. What do you need to get hired there, you just need a handful of things, you really need basic ability, the right work ethic and the right basic skills, some familiarity with some tech tools and communication skills, whatever, right, a good personality fit. And you need the ability to signal that you are worth taking a chance on. And so I thought, I wonder if I could grab a bunch of young people that have the raw ability, but they don't know how to signal it. And maybe they need a little bit of refinement. And if I can get them placed in companies and say, Look, this person is raw and young. But if you take them on for a six month apprenticeship, we will be training them alongside with you. And you will have them there, they'll they'll be doing full time work, but at the cost of like an intern, right? So treat it like a regular entry level employee, but it's going to cost you less. And we'll also be there to share some of the burden if they're wrong, and they're young, and we can help work with them. Right? If I did that someone could come out, we give them a six month basic boot camp and six months of real experience at a startup after that one year, there is no way in hell, they will be less valuable than someone who spent four to five years in college. The bar is really low. There's no way like I was so confident that
Jared Fuller 24:08
Isaac, I mean, I'm not confident in it, because you said so I'm confident in it because I've seen it. I can name people line by line that I hired from Praxis as an apprentice and I paid them $15 an hour. I put them in a live chat position at Panda doc. And I am aware of how much they W tude last year and it's like 200,000 210,000 180,000 140,000 150,000 person by person of people that I hired from Praxis at $15 an hour for a six month boot camp that are still a panda doc six years later, or other other companies doing incredible things. Yeah, it's true because it's this investment in this compound interest thing like If I could if I had this problem where I couldn't hire the $300,000 $400,000 year account executives, why? Because I was selling an SMB product. And for account executives or STRS, or anything in that type of market, everyone's the same. To me. Everyone was the same, like if they were a first time job applicant. And then what I realized with like, Praxis was like, Well, wait a second, you really care about my company. Like the people. I remember I used to tell Praxis participants Isaac, on the final call, I would do the opposite of a closing call. I would I call it the scare them shitless call.
Isaac Morehouse 25:42
That was that was our that was our final application call to by the way, we would try to scare you away from the program. And if it made you want to come back, you were the right fit.
Jared Fuller 25:50
Right now it'd be like here, here's what's gonna happen, you're gonna come into the office, day one, I'm going to hand you this, this is what's going to happen. This is a horrible idea on every objective standard, this is what you're going to have to do. If you pull it off, it will be the greatest thing you ever did. But if you're not ready to sign up for that, please don't follow up with me. Like I have no interest in talking to you again. And like I would say this stuff. And I would try to push them away. And the ones that push through that would like try to overcome that objection and be like, No, I'm ready for this moment. This is what I signed up for. I understand it's going to be hard. And I'm ready for that challenge. And here's why I'm the best fit for it. I'd be like, Okay, great. You're in. And I hired I think it was 18 to 2017 to 20. Somewhere in there. Only one I did not place which is wild. Right. Like, from apprentice to hire. My hit rate? I mean, I my hiring rates probably 50% in general. Right? Like I don't I don't have like that great of a hit rate when it comes to every other hire. But whenever I was placing apprentices Wow, the power of like the message the influence that because Isaac, how did these kids come to you? How did these kids from from this world come to you like they came with this different influence than what they'd been taught in college? Oftentimes they were dropouts, or they were electing to not go to college, or some of them did go to college, but they were disenfranchised by it. Because it's like, this isn't the way to, like, make a career. How did these kids come to me? How do they find you and come to me? I'm telling you, man, there's one way it was it was me being really loud. They were they were the ones they were the blinking lights of Poland, right? It was like, I'm just here broadcasting something I'm doing. I'm blogging every single day. I'm doing podcasts,
Isaac Morehouse 27:44
hold on pause, pause. And people can hear that and like they won't get it. You are blogging every single day as what like a it's just Isaac more.
Jared Fuller 27:52
It was a personal challenge. My good friend, TK Coleman, who helped me get practice off the ground. He challenged me to do this because I was like, I'm kind of bored. And I like need some more challenge in my life. But he's like blog every day for six months. I'm like, Alright, fine, we're going to do it. And that, honestly, is what led to the creation of praxis. I have these ideas bouncing around in my head for a long time. But there's something about creativity, creating that begets creativity. People think it's the other way around. But once I feel creative, then I create No, no, you create as a discipline. And the more you create, the more creative you get. And so all these ideas started spinning up, just like I'm blogging every day. And now my creative juices turned on real quick. What year was this?
Isaac Morehouse 28:33
2012 2012? Way before Gary Vaynerchuk was talking about learning doing this, by the way, just had to throw that out
Jared Fuller 28:42
there the only person I ever encountered, and I don't think I encountered him until maybe after that maybe 2013, who talked about this was Seth Godin. Right? Yeah. And he blogs daily, or at least he did. He was the first one I came across little blog posts every day and like, and I'm telling you that compounding effect of that discipline was just tremendous what it did for my confidence, my ability to tease out ideas I didn't even know I had in me all this kind of stuff. And I was like, I just wanted to create more and more and more. And I was like playing around with ideas for companies and I had had this education idea in my head for a decade of some better way to get started your career. And so that spurred it. And so that then what happened was when I decided to actually launch it, I got the idea and I was like I'm gonna do this. The combination of me having trained that consistent creation muscle, and years and years of investing in social capital, of every job I ever had everything I was always I would write handwritten thank you notes to everyone for everything. Because somebody once told me that look for excuses to write thank you notes, look for excuses to write thank you notes. And I was like, okay, that's an easy thing I can do early in my career. There's no excuse not to do it. I don't have much else to offer. I'm going to be that guy. I'm going to train my brain to be that way. I would constantly look ways to help people the way that partnerships people do this is such a great space for this, people just are very happy to create value for others to help to be helpful. And so like I was very deliberate about that. So when the time comes, and I get this idea, and I'm like, I got to build this company, I had to cash in all of the social capital I had built up, because I had no money. I didn't know what someone said, Are you going to raise VC? I didn't know what VC stood for, let alone. This was not going to be a venture. But I literally was like, what's b stand for?
Isaac Morehouse 30:27
Where were you living at this time? Because you would not know what VC stood for based on where you were living? Yeah, I had moved to Charleston, South Carolina. And I was living on Mount Pleasant, technically, but living in Charleston. But where were you?
Jared Fuller 30:41
Where did you move from, though? Well, so I'm from Kalamazoo, Michigan. And then I spent two years living in Washington DC. Okay, so you see, you have these ideas in Washington, DC, you moved to South Carolina, of course, you've never heard of DC, never. Right? Never. And like it was somebody who did not rain and do not at all. And it was like, Oh, you just like create a nonprofit and raise a budget. But I knew I wanted to be a for profit enterprise, because I wanted the most immediate direct accountability to my customers I could possibly have. I knew that. I'm gonna say this is a funny little aside, but I had been doing nonprofit fundraising, and I was damn good at it. I knew I could go out and raise.
Isaac Morehouse 31:15
We were we were both doing it. Isaac, just for the audience. Like we were both doing nonprofit fundraising at the same time for separate things in Washington, DC, it's
Jared Fuller 31:23
such a wild thing. But I knew I could go set up as a nonprofit, raise a couple million dollars and get out the door. But I had worked in that world enough. And this is not like to rip on nonprofit and save their batteries mean, but to know, if I do that, I will never know, if I'm creating enough value for these young people I want if they fail, if my program doesn't help them get a job and succeed, I want the program to fail, I want the market to tell me if it's working as fast and as harshly as possible. And it's too easy to make donors happy by showing them pictures of young people they're supporting and get their money, and then give away something for free to, you know, students with no skin in the game. And then you just you don't know you don't know how valuable it is or if it's working. So I knew I didn't want that. But so I've worked in nonprofits long enough to know that there's a, there's a like a missing link and accountability or the feedback loop is too slow, right? So you can show you can show a donor, some pictures of some young people and they'll say, hey, great, and give me a bunch of money. And you can create programs and offer them for free or whatever to that to that crowd. And they may not value it. But you'll never know, right? There's not enough accountability, I want it to be punished immediately. And severely by this customer I wanted to serve, which was young people trying to get their career started. If we weren't creating value for them, I wanted to suffer. I wanted to not, I don't want my business to exist if it wasn't valuable, right. And so that was kind of part of what irritated me about college. Right? It's like the person receiving the, the university didn't care that much about the student because ultimately the student wasn't the one paying it was a lot of subsidies and loans and third parties. And it was like this very complicated. There wasn't much accountability. So I wanted that direct accountability. So anyway, tying this back to the you know, getting it started trading in a lot of social capital, a lot of, you know, value I created with people in my network to get this thing off the ground. There was no way I could do it on my own. I mean, everything from like, Hey, you remember, I helped you get that job? Well, you helped me build a website. And like, Joe, just everything scratching and clawing and putting things on my credit card. I just I had to, I believe this idea could work and I had to bring it into existence. And I had to see what would happen if I was right. If my theory was right, that you could you could have a better way to get started on your career this way. I can't remember even when I got going off on a tangent there. But wherever whatever this question originally was, you can take it a different direction. No, I think it's really important to highlight the mindset that's very different from what made you take a different direction from nonprofits back then and create a ecosystem if you will, of people that bought into this new way of getting a job like the business model was really hard to work out with praxis and then crash which was kind of like the software platform vision emanating from praxis and I remember taking investor diligence calls for crashes you were raising money like investors were reaching out to me and asking me about, you know, praxis and where you're going with crash because I was a customer, I paid you a lot of money. You blew them away, by the way, you blew them away. I had an investor call me back after he talked to you. Because he was like, I want to talk to your business partners. I introduced him and he was like, Holy crap, that Jared guy over there at I can't remember if you're at Drift yet or you're still a panda that Jared got over drift is incredible. You need to right away and I was like I'm trying to hire him. I can't compete with drift. Yeah, totally man. I mean, so like I did an investor diligence calls and like I was singing the praises because like the proof was in the pudding. Like I believed in it so much. But I want to tie this back to like this more macro thing of like, why like why would I make this bet and be beyond excited, tell my wife and my friends and my family and then use all of my social capital to go into business with you, like so you want to use all of your social capital going solo, and then I'm like, I want to use all of the social capital that I have ever built in b2b with you. It's because of what you just talked about. It's the same kind of connection and that I saw you give and creates so much value for so many people. Like I can just name people that I know personally, you know, Luke ruffing, Olivia and Ben warmer. Read to like, I can just go down and name names of people, Alex, who works at partner hacker, right, Hernandez. I mean, I just go Go, go, go, go have peoples whose lives were transformed by you learning out loud, like you weren't trying to influence them. You were learning a lot, you were speaking truth to what you believed as a person. And I can't tell you how many times people have told me, Jared, I've never met a more passionate person. passion to me is just genuine this without bullshit. What is passion, passion is genuineness without bullshit. Like, I actually give a fuck, I care. I care more than anyone. And when it came to you building practice and crash, you cared more than anyone as evidenced by how much you gave. Isaac today, I did a call with someone you know who this is, with someone that I've been trying to get in touch with for six months. And I offered this person, my like, I will help you build a partner program. I will do all of these things that I've charged other people 50 grand 100 grand for I'll do it all for free. I am so committed to helping you nail this, and building a partner program for the next era of ecosystems. I'll dedicate an hour a week, every week, for the next three months to help you nail it. That's how I started the call, like, Why did I book this call, because I want to give you an hour a week of my time every single week for the next three months. And I already have a business that will do a million dollars in revenue this year. Why would I do that? It's like you couldn't fake how much I cared about helping this person build their partner program. And then there's another vision behind that, of course, he's like, you know, this person in this company was like, well, then what do you want on the other side, I'm like, on the other side, there's gonna be some amazing stuff that happens. The probability that it does is phenomenal. I have some ideas, but I'm not pitching you on that. I have to help you build a partner program first.
Isaac Morehouse 37:38
And that anyone's the same reason why. And I know you're like this too. If some, if some entrepreneur hits me up, says, Hey, I'm starting a company. I'm thinking about fundraising. You know, can we talk I'd like to get advice, or can you look at my pitch deck, and I will take those calls every time I can. And I don't I don't even like I'll do a very, very basic due diligence to make sure it's not like a scammer or something. But I don't even I'm not even super unlike I'll take the call. Let's do it. I'll give you 30 minutes, my time. And I'll tell you everything I know I had to get just the other day it was like, he's at a nonprofit. He's doing nonprofit fundraising. He's like, I know, it's been a long time since you did that. But I'd love to learn everything about it. I don't know anything. And I'm like, Sure, let's take the call has nothing to do with my job. But I've learned enough to know, those of those blinking lights,
Jared Fuller 38:23
I want to tie that together,
Isaac Morehouse 38:24
put it out, you do. Right. It's just like, that's, that's the stuff that comes back to you. And if you're just like real and excited, and you just give where those opportunities are there. That's how you build a network that when the time comes, when one day after 10 years of give, give give, I decide I gotta start a company and I can't do it alone. Now I have an incredible network to go ask Have I got people that will help me build the curriculum, I got businesses that will take on the first apprentices. I got people that helped me build the websites, do logo, design, all the stuff that I can't do. And I'm able to do something that I wouldn't be able to do if I hadn't spent all that time just giving generously. And there's something about that mindset. And that's why I love that phrase look for excuses to write thank you notes. Because it's more than the act of the thank you note. It's the act of look for excuses. You never want to lie you don't think someone you're not thankful to. But you notice when you start looking for excuses daily blogging does this too, right? Because you need to come up with content. What did I do? Did I encounter anyone today that I'm thankful to and can be like, You know what? I listen to music all day today. I'm thankful that Spotify exists and has a great product. I'm going to go thank them. I'm going to tweet Spotify. Love your product, so grateful for it. When you do that, yes, there can be benefits long term. Maybe someone at Spotify sees it and gives it through and maybe it leads to something. I mean, I've literally had people from products that I've given shout outs to get me on the phone and we talk about like product strategy. I'm not even kidding, like so you can have or they become a practice business partner. But even if that doesn't happen, what it does for your own mind. What it does for you is transfer formational it helps you start to see the world as full of possibility and opportunity, you start to have a grateful sort of abundance mindset when you're like, who can I'm thankful for? Who can I give something to who can I say thank you to today in some way. That's real, you start to realize, you start to see your ecosystem, you start to realize all the different things that play a part. And it's like this, this switch flips in your mind, and it transforms everything.
Jared Fuller 40:29
I mean, what ego do I have to think that I can pull the ball Raava Khan into this conversation based on what you just said, Isaac, but I think he summarizes it so good. So I have the almanac of navall Raava Khan right here again, for the dozens of you that listen on YouTube. And it's exactly what you said, Isaac, I actually want to read this because it's so freakin good. It's everything that you just said. And think what what made me care. He says, play long term games with long term people. All of the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge come from long come from compound interest. So how does one know if they're earning compound interest? Compound interest is a very powerful concept. Compound Interest applies to more than just compounding capital. Compounding capital is just the beginning. I think you refer to this as social capital. Compounding in business relationships is very important. Look at some of the top roles in society, like why someone is a CEO of a public company or managing billions of dollars. It's because people trust them. They are trusted, because the relationships they've built and the work they've done is compounded. They've stuck with the business and shown themselves in a visible and accountable way to be high integrity people. Compound Interest also happens in your reputation. If you have a sterling reputation, and you keep building it. For years upon years or decades, upon decades, people will notice your reputation will literally end up being 1000s or 10s of 1000s of times more valuable than somebody else who was very talented, but is not keeping the camp compound, interest and reputation growing. This is the guru navall Raava Khan, you know, Angel lists like the best angel investor ever probably the best philosopher in venture capital, by far, in my opinion. Wow. Wow, okay. I gotta tell you two stories, they're both relatively short. But that bring this to light, like nothing else, these are probably the biggest examples of that long term payoff. So first story, when I was at a nonprofit, I was running this program, this would have been like, like, 12 years ago, plus, I was running like a fellowship program for young people who were, you know, like getting placed over the summer in nonprofits and things like that work in in policy and stuff like that. And there was like, 100 young people in the program. And they're all at these events and stuff in DC over the summer, and I'm running it and you know, I was my job, but I didn't have to, I kind of tried to make a point to go out of my way. And notice people who were like, it's just like people that are like, all more extroverted, and they're all hanging out, have a good time, and people are more quiet. And there was a handful more quiet, Ron and I just made a point to try to connect with them as much as possible. And, you know, follow up with them after the program, email them from time to time, nothing extreme, but it was a deliberate choice to be like, Okay, I definitely want to make sure everyone has a good experience here. And nobody feels like they're kind of like just off alone. And they didn't really bond and connect. And so I want to I want to go and do that. And I made a deliberate attempt to reach out to some of the choir people. And that's it, right did that. After several years, again, of constantly blogging and talking about what I'm doing and being really loud and talking about practice, you know, which was our entire marketing strategy was all just content, there was no paid or anything for years, all of a sudden, one day, and we're always trying to get attention we had again, no VCs or anything like that. So we had no way to like, get a bunch of recognition, get get a get listed in, you know, a big news outlet or something. It was all just us like hustling and grinding on Facebook and whatever. One day I get this cold email, this email from Fox News. Now this is not a political endorsement or anything like that. I actually dislike all news channels, and I dislike politics in general, but someone at Fox News was like hey, do you want to come on Tucker Carlson Tonight, this would have been like 2016 and talk about alternatives to college. And I was like, I'll go anywhere until I study about alternatives to college right? Like the more people I can reach with this message the better so I go on it's like a two minute segment and I'm just like a there's an alternative you don't have to go into college that you can go apprentice at a startup you know blah blah blah it was massive for us the amount of traffic the you know, whatever like imagination in in status. Because of that CNN CNBC, every other news channel, got me on their shows, started doing stories. And I had no idea what how that producer knew who I was and whatever. So after the show I'm like, I have no idea how they heard of me or where this came about, and how they would know that I would be good enough to go on a live show and handle it like communication skills wise or whatever. I'm the last holdout. And so like, for those of you who don't know, like I'm very anti politic Isaac's very anti politics in general. But I believe Tucker, irrespective of your political opinions is the largest show and all of media like by by far, I think it's bigger than mine. humongous. And I don't know the the numbers, I just know that it was like 10 million people, like our website broke within like two seconds when that segment started, like, it was massive. And by the way, that's also a good reminder that like top of funnel does not necessarily equal bottom of funnel. We had exactly what so dark sauce was great, but it doesn't always.
Isaac Morehouse 45:48
So like a week after this thing aired, and it had like just incredible long tail effects. I get this email from this young guy who had been in that program. And he was one of the quieter ones that I made a point to connect with. I had no idea the combination of me doing that. And me learning out loud. He had been following me and seeing my stuff. So he knew what I was up to. He knew I was interested in this alternative to college thing. He knew that I was a good communicator, because I was always putting out podcasts and stuff. And he happened to be a producer for Tucker Carlson. And he overheard somebody they're talking about, they want to do a segment on alternatives to college. And he's like, I know a guy, right? Because I invested just took the time to pay attention to him. Whoa, right. And that led to such a cascade of things that raised our profile and whatever. Okay, that's Story number one, which is another a crazy one, right?
Jared Fuller 46:36
Like, okay, so like, wow, wow, like, that's compound interest, though, like,
Isaac Morehouse 46:40
again, those two things, those two things came together in one, right being going out of my way to be kind and to care, and then learning out loud, because I could have been kind and caring, he would have had a good feeling about me, but he never would have known that I was doing college alternatives or that I was somebody who
Jared Fuller 46:54
could speak. I have, if, for those of you who made it this far, in this episode, you're about to, like, distill, possibly one of the best lessons in life. Like there's a reason why I read that navall Raava Khan passage from the the almanac, like Isaac, how value like, if you think about all the account executives in the world, or SDRs, or people that are selling transactions in 10 years, they're in the same exact spot is they were 10 years ago. But if you think about the next decade apart are people the ones that those of you out there today that are listening to this show. And if you're driving and delivering value, like Isaac just talked about, or like, I mean, even me, I'm nobody, I'm literally nobody, but I'm like offering this company that's doing $100 million in revenue consulting for free to help them. Why? Because I know long term it's gonna pay off. Like, that's still how I operate. I know, that's still how you operate, I still take calls for free from people that I shouldn't, by every objective standard. These things pay off in a really probabilistic weird, I wouldn't say lucky. But probabilistic thinking like they're going to pay off and exponential ways. It's such a massive thing. So if you're in partnerships, think of the stories that we've been talking about. You're going to be in a better position in five years than anyone else in b2b. I got I got one more, I got one more story. This one, this one, this one's even crazier than this next story. So, you know, I've always been interested in ideas, and, you know, I love like, economics and all these kinds of things. And I always love to find the people who have really interesting ideas, but maybe aren't like the most. I don't know, they're they don't, they're not as good at maybe simplifying it for average people or they're not, and I love to, like, have conversations with them. And that was a lot of my podcasts. And so, you know, there's somebody who when I was working at a nonprofit, this professor, I had brought him in to speak at various programs, I had kind of given him a platform to talk about some of his interesting ideas. Over the years. When I started a podcast, I brought him on to interview him every time he came out with a new book. His name was Brian Kaplan. He's a very, very interesting economist at George Mason University. If you absolutely have to, yeah. So he does all kinds of stuff. So I brought him on to talk about his book about immigration, his book about parenting, he's got all this interesting stuff. He had a book called The End of education. I think it was called The End of education, something like that. And basically similar thesis, although we came to different conclusions, and we debated a good bit. I brought him on my podcast to talk about that, right. And so over the years, I had always been very generous with him, I would highlight his books out. And it's not like I was like, some Kingmaker by any means he's a successful guy in his own right. But his association with me was that I was helpful. I was useful. I had I had used my podcast interview many times, et cetera. Even though he disagreed with my thesis on the way there was the way to address problems with higher education. He liked me. So one day I get a cold email that says, hey, I'm an investor. I am So a lot of early companies and whatever. I love what you're doing with praxis, I would love to do a phone call sign Mike Maples. And I sent my standard. Hey, I don't like to take phone calls unless I absolutely have to. Can you just tell me over email what you want to talk about? And then after I hit send, I was like Mike Maples. Why does that name ring a bell? And I Google it. Google his name because how he's found a
Isaac Morehouse 50:25
partner. Oh, shit. I just heard that guy on the Tim Ferriss podcast. He's the one that like came up with the name for the four hour workweek for Tim Ferriss. He was the first investor in in Twitter, the first investor in Twitch, the first investor in Lyft. This dude is like a legendary seed investor. Oh my gosh, what did I just do sending him this blow off email? It didn't offend him, though. So he, we set up a call, because I had been, you know, practice was really successful. This point bootstrapped it was profitable is doing, you know, a million and a half a year and growing and like, but I wanted to do something bigger. I've been spending for several years trying to figure out if there was a play a software a platform approach that we could sort of do something like part of what we're doing in practice, but for millions of people. And again, you know, I have no connections or anything didn't even know a VC was when I first started. So I get on this call with Mike Maples. And it was like incredible. He's just we're talking and he's asking me all about praxis. I'm telling him all about it. He's like, this is cool. You've built How do you build a billion plus company? And I'm like, well, it's not gonna be under this model. This one can't scale that big. But I have some ideas and blah, blah. And like, a couple days later, he like calls me out of the blue. Hey, I'm at YouTube right now. We were just talking about education. I told him what you told me the other day, hey, you should come out to California we should talk about and at some point, we started all these conversations. I fly out there he drives me it is in great, crazy car to Steve Blanks house, we almost got into a car accident from a blown tire in front of us. But luckily, he took an extreme driving course one time and he knew how to avoid it at high speeds. I'm not even kidding. It was a Craziest thing. So this crazy experience was like one of the world's best investors taking me to Steve Blanks house, the guy who literally wrote the book on like, customer development, all this stuff. And at one point, I was like, Mike, how did you find me? How did you come across me? How did it he said, Well, I do these deep dives when I see an area that I think is interesting, a trend. And I think alternatives to college was an interesting trend. So I did a deep dive I spend like a couple of days or a week diving in and reading everything I can. One of the books I read was this book by this guy named Brian Kaplan. So I called him up. And I said, Hey, Professor Kaplan, I read your book. Do you know of anybody doing anything interesting in this space? And Brian said, he said the first thing he told me was, No, I don't think there's a solution. That's why they call economics the dismal science. He was like now there's nothing to do about it. It's just broken. And he goes, What are you sure? Is there anything at all? And Kaplan goes, Yeah, you should talk to this guy, Isaac Morehouse. He's got this company practice. He's pretty cool guy. And Mike's like, great. He's like, and then I started researching you. And I saw you had had some pretty cool, like new segments, you're doing some really cool stuff. So I hit you up. So long story short, he ended up being the lead investor in the company that became crash, which is a whole other story with other other lessons that are not relevant to this, but all of that, because I had invested in Brian Kaplan, I had brought him in to speak at programs I had, like, I had brought him out of my pocket. Those are those are gifts, right? I mean, they're beneficial to me, I like talking to him. But it was like, he thought of me. When someone asked him who should I talk to about this? He would not have thought of me if I was like, rude and cold, or like, oh, I disagree with this guy on education. He's a jerk or whatever, right? But we had a relationship. I brought him on my podcast. And that's, again, the combination of giving to people and learning out loud if I didn't have a podcast to bring him on. That wouldn't matter either. Right? So like, those two things have this powerful way of yielding results that you don't expect?
Jared Fuller 53:52
Well, Isaac, what I want to say right here is like we just had like the number one book on Amazon. We're we're building a movement here at partner hacker, and anyone that has been in the partnership space and like heard partner up before you were involved, or they'd like known about me and b2b and partnerships before everything. I wanted to record this episode. So that way, I can tell the world it's not about you tell them oh, so I can tell the world that like Isaac Morehouse is every bit a partner hacker as much as everyone else because the ethos that you lived in those companies influenced me to run my life the way that I have not even mentioned the content that you produce on like raising kids and family that has directly influenced me and my wife like Isaac has talked about homeschooling and like, you know, you have four children one one adopted Correct. For children, one adopted like, which is a it's a whole nother content thing and like how to like, do and live and build the world that you want to live in passionately, honestly, with integrity. You know, like trust is the new data like I kind of thought about that for a long time. But I remember talking to you about at the beginning and being so passionate about it, I'm like, I can trust this guy to call my bullshit. If this isn't right, right, like, You're everything that is partner hacker man to me, I'm so lucky to partner with you, the the community and the ecosystem, I think is going to be exponentially better because of you. And for all the listeners out there. I really hope you got to enjoy the Isaac Morehouse stories. I've known Isaac for 10 plus years. I know his story. And it's why I was so excited to partner with him on partner hacker, and that genuineness, that trustworthiness that give first get later mentality that has paid off in his career paid off in my career, how I live, how he lives. I think that's all of you. And I truly do believe that the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs, C suite execs, throughout all of b2b are going to be the people that take these words true. And over the next couple of years, five years, watch out, it's not going to be account executives are getting promoted to the C suite or starting their own companies. It's not going to be SDRs. It's not going to be content managers. It's going to be partner people that are out there building wealth and value creation in the market before being before asking for anything. And if this episode was Isaac Morehouse, the Isaac Morehouse doors does not inspire you to say that that's true. Nothing will don't listen to this podcast anymore. No, with that I'm harder. Oh, I'm so hyped to be here and be a part of like, it's amazing. I'm learning drinking from a firehose, like I don't know anything about this stuff. I'm learning from all of you from all the people that listen to this, like, it's incredible. I love it. I love being in that we're all learning from each other. You're you're like uncovering the fundamental first principles that like, beget this partnerships moment. And that's why it mattered, right? Like when this came together, there are these first principles that I'm like, wait a second, we're speaking, you know, to two different sides of the same opportunity and challenge and problem with the world in that, you know, authority and credential and like all of these other things don't matter what does is care and give and like receiving and this other approach, it's such an easy fit, because partnerships, people already lean this way so heavily. They get it they instinctively and like, that's really exciting about it. So yeah, man, I love it. I love the learning. A speaking of learning, transition. Speaking of learning, you guys know about first
Isaac Morehouse 57:17
Oh, are we going to talk about the thing that's now live that like is like the craziest thing that we've ever done? Well, I don't know if we're allowed to talk about that. Yeah, but I gotta talk about one other thing. First,
Jared Fuller 57:25
we'll talk about two. We'll talk about the one and then we'll talk about the the mega one. Okay, okay. You guys know about First Friday, which we've been, you know, pumping them you probably noticed there wasn't a First Friday because there was a Labor Day weekend. So what happened was the third Thursday hijacked the first Friday. So my daughter's bringing me some tea in here. Thank you, honey. So Third Thursday, September 22, partner page, shout out to partner page. They've had some awesome columns about about this stuff, give first, first give her advantage Mario wrote about September 22, Thursday 2pm. Eastern, what agencies want. Hint. It's not rev share. That's a topic. We're gonna bring your drink. And we're going to talk about what agencies want. We're gonna bring some agency people, we're gonna get some perspective, so that we can really get an idea of like, hey, if I want to create value for my service partners, for agencies, how do I do that? What do they actually care about? What matters to them? So I'm really excited about that. Look out for that, man, you should be able to find it on partner hacker.com. Amazing, amazing. Let's uh, we're gonna have an events page up on the sidebar. Let's do that. Isaac, because I feel like there's so much so events page. So sidebar events you'll see Thursday with partner page 2pm. Eastern Time on September 22. And then, I don't know if you've been listening to this and didn't see it online. P LX P LX P O. M wow the moment partner ecosystems go mainstream if you thought anything that we've previously done was big before you ain't seen nothing yet if you haven't been to PL X summit.com Yes PL x summit.com. Five days to redefine partner to redefine go to market for the era of partner ecosystems. Day one is partner led to startup day two partner LED product a three partner led marketing day for partner led sales day five partner led success. Yes, each day we're bringing the partner professional and their counterpart because partnerships is no longer a department F that it's an overlay to every department. We're bringing together the world's best founders, VCs, VPs and CEOs, CMOs and VPs of marketing, CROs and VPs of sales and CCOs and VPs of customer success and you the partner professional on five separate days to have the watering holes on how to transform those individual departments. If you don't think this is a big deal, it's a frickin huge deal. Day one keynote is Andrew Chen. And again for the dozens of you on YouTube. Here's another book cold start problem. Yes. Andrew Chen of Andreessen Horowitz. is the opening day keynote. Its main stream people. This is the moment November 7 through 11th. And if you haven't checked it out, there's a title track on Spotify called the moment which is literally the track for BLS. Like we literally commissioned and produced our own synthwave 80s Retro futurism stuff.
Isaac Morehouse 1:00:20
The pls playlist man, the pls playlist has been what I've been, yeah, I've been bumped into it, dude, Jared, this this event. This is why I got into this business with Tom baby. This is why I got because I'm not content to say, let's find a couple people who already agree with us. And let's talk and hold hands and have a good time. Now, hey, I'm all for that. That can be fun and enjoyable. And there's value to that. But I want to broadcast this message, this insight about where things are going. And that where they should go and shaping that the the ecosystem the partner led future for companies is more than something for partnership people to talk about. This is something company wide. This is a philosophy, a vision, a mission, a strategy, a tactic, it goes all the way from those first principles down to where the rubber meets the road in every department. And I want it to be mainstream. I want people who have never heard of partnerships professionals who are busy focusing on software product to be thinking ecosystem. First, I want Customer Success obsessed people who have not typically been worried about what's going on over in the partnerships department to be obsessed with how they can have a strategy that partner first like this is that conversation breaking out of just the partnerships bubbling and making that two way conversations happen between people who are already partner build and who maybe work in partnerships with those whose work is going to be affected by that sales marketing success part like this is what gets me excited. We want it we want to take it mainstream. What do we say we want to make partner people famous. We want to make the partnerships idea famous and get it on the map and in front and center in the conversation at startups.
Jared Fuller 1:02:00
So if you were sleeping off in the last part of this podcast, now you're not this is the moment partner ecosystems go mainstream. Isaac, what an incredible story. What an incredible event pls summit.com. If you don't get the the cheekiness you know you've heard a plg product lead growth now with PL X is partner led everything. X is everything. It's the variable P L x partner led startup product marketing, sales and success. If the biggest thing that ever happened to partnerships, we're gonna have over 5000 people there. Easy. Let's see how big we can make it. Because it's the biggest event ever in partnerships. It's hybrid, meaning it's all virtual online. 100% for free, guess what, I'm not selling you tickets. I'm just saying Kegel for free. Every single person listening this podcast feel like someone.com Go, it's 100% free. And guess what, I'll send you a workbook for all five days, we're still working out some of the kinks in details, but it's at least up to the reg it'll either be 100% free or at cost meaning like a couple bucks. Because we're not trying to make any money off of you. I'm hoping it's free by the time this goes live. And you'll have a workbook for each and every day where you can actually fill in notes and like have the workbook plan and the go forward plan with each department. So each day will have its own workbook and will physically shipped to you either it costs for a couple bucks or 100% for free if we have the right sponsors. So Holy cow, this is the longest partner up episode we've ever done. And it's one of the best ones Isaac, thank you so much for allowing me to interview you.
Isaac Morehouse 1:03:28
Yeah, when you're like, hey, Isaac, talk about yourself. I create the longest episode we've ever had. So sorry about
Jared Fuller 1:03:33
that. No, oh, no. Man it was it was a joy and a pleasure. I'm so happy to introduce the audience to like your deeper story. And you know, the the first principles and you know why we're partners together in this with the rest of the partner hacker team shout out Alex will Ella, Aaron, Sophie, the entire crew, and everyone else in the ecosystem. Thank you so much. Partner up. Peace out. We'll see you all next time at Third Thursday on September 22. And for pls summit pls summit.com November 7 through 11 Peace
