Neil Patel Founder of Kissmetrics

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Today, we are talking to Neil Patel, the cofounder of Kissmetrics, a New York Times bestselling author. And we discuss how frustration led him to establish a marketing empire, the importance of leveraging in-person relationships to grow your brand, and how experimentation is the most effective product strategy. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO podcast.

(Neil Patel at 00:00:29) Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:30) This is the Modern CTO podcast. Yeah, I was really excited to have you on because I love the simplicity of your products.

(Neil Patel at 00:00:48) Oh, thank you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:49) Yeah. The ability to communicate very clearly and succinctly. I think it's a little underrated. People don't give it enough credit. But when I see it, I'm like, I love the person behind that. Cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:03) So your current projects, Crazy Egg and Kissmetrics, anything else?

(Neil Patel at 00:01:08) No, that's really it. I have an agency called Neil Patel Digital.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:12) And then, so could you give the listeners kind of an overview of Kissmetrics and Crazy Egg, or whatever you're most excited about? Maybe what you're doing at your agency?

(Neil Patel at 00:01:23) Yeah. So for me, when I think about all the agency stuff, software stuff, or anything like that, it's more so my goal is just to help other entrepreneurs or business owners get more traffic and then convert those into visitors. So my background, when I started out as an entrepreneur, I paid a marketing firm to help me generate traffic and sales and they failed miserably. Then I hired another one and they failed miserably as well. From being broke and frustrated, I had no choice but to learn it on my own.

(Neil Patel at 00:01:58) My goal was, hey, why can't people be honest with the services they're offering? If they can help you, then they should charge you. If they can't help you, they should just be upfront. And that's my whole purpose behind the ad agency. And the software is Crazy Egg, Hello Bar.

(Neil Patel at 00:02:14) They help you with the conversion side.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:17) So you were working at an amusement park and you saved up all your money, and then you went and spent it for this marketing firm, and they just came back with goose egg, like nothing.

(Neil Patel at 00:02:26) Pretty much.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:28) Oh, man. Dude, that is so frustrating, right?

(Neil Patel at 00:02:30) Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:31) So then you go from that, you get frustrated, you start your own marketing company, and that was with a power manufacturer? What type of company was that?

(Neil Patel at 00:02:43) Yes. So if you ever fly in a Boeing plane, they provide them with the power supplies. Or if something happens to you or with your heart—hopefully it never does—but they provide the power supplies like Phillips for the heart resuscitator machines. And yeah, it's a good B2B business. Helped them do marketing, made millions of dollars from it, and that's how my career started.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:07) So is that like, were you using content marketing, advertising, a mix of everything?

(Neil Patel at 00:03:12) A mix of AdWords and SEO. Back then, social media wasn't as popular. Content marketing wasn't really popular either.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:21) And then you parlayed that success, and then did you just promote that success to get your next clients? Or how did it build?

(Neil Patel at 00:03:29) No. So once I did well for them, the owner's son had an ad agency, and then he got me a few more companies.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:37) Oh, that's interesting. So then you market with these other companies and just slowly build your reputation over time?

(Neil Patel at 00:03:43) Correct.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:45) Now I work a lot and I love it. So to the outside world, it looks like I'm working a lot, but I'm just kind of doing what I love. So I get up, like, 5:30 this morning and do a little training and then go drive an hour north to a 7:00 or 8:00 networking event that's at a Techstars Startup Week up in Tampa. And meet a bunch of people, say hello, and then spend about an hour there and then drive back an hour south to start doing shows and doing a couple advice-type calls, CTOs calling in, just me personally, not on the show. And then I do a couple of those, and I did some consulting for app technology call.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:29) And then I do my Modern CTO podcast, and then I keep going like that throughout the day. And then I end up crashing around 9:00 or 10:00 at night, waking up 5:30 and doing it all over again. Now, what is your—do you have a super busy, high energy schedule?

(Neil Patel at 00:04:48) No. No. Mine is the opposite of yours. I wake up early, I go to the gym, come back, eat some breakfast and do emails and meetings and phone calls and.

(Neil Patel at 00:05:03) You know, everyone's a blog. I do podcasting once every month or so. I record in batches with the video stuff. But most of my day's filled with emails, phone calls, meetings.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:14) And they're usually getting your advice on what to do strategy-wise for marketing?

(Neil Patel at 00:05:21) Well, so I have quite a few inboxes because we get over a thousand emails a day in my name, so there's no way I can handle them all. My team usually responds to people asking questions, and they respond as them. Right? They're not responding as me, but they respond to them, and they'll let people know that we get tons of emails. It's more so, you know, I just do meetings, phone calls, and stuff like that related to the businesses and making them grow and dealing with people that work there, like teammates, and just strategizing and focusing on growing.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:54) So you're growing your products, your Crazy Egg, your Kissmetrics, and then you're also doing consulting to grow other products as well?

(Neil Patel at 00:06:00) Well, the agency does the consulting. And yeah, work with medium to large corporations just helping get more traffic and sales.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:10) Now, is most of your stuff really internet-based? Because here's a thing that I've been thinking about recently. So the more I go out into the world, right—I have a background of writing code for over 15 years, so I spent most of my life inside, quiet, right? And then I started the podcast and some other items, and I started going out into the world more and meeting people at conferences.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:39) And then it kind of exploded with those in-person relationships. So that's kind of new for me. So when these companies are doing the marketing, are you focusing just on the internet or in-person relationships too?

(Neil Patel at 00:06:55) You have to do both to do well. So I do both.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:58) That's what I'm finding out. I have some small app companies that will talk with me because of my track record of building applications, like mobile applications. And a lot of them will want to focus on just taking all of their money—and it's very little money, like maybe $10,000—and then throwing it all at ads at once and go that route. And others of them go out instead and build in-person relationships, and those ones tend to be more successful with the limited cash. What is your experience with that? What are your thoughts on that?

(Neil Patel at 00:07:42) To each their own. I don't think there's a right or wrong way. Like, it's up to the individual, right? For example, what do you prefer?

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:50) Well, before I was doing a lot more, I would only say the ads, right? But now I'm finding that relationships—and I'm not saying it's either-or—but now I'm finding that the relationships push farther, much farther, much faster, and that's kind of news to me.

(Neil Patel at 00:08:12) I look at it as a multichannel approach. You do a bit of everything and you see what happens. But it works differently for each people, right? So it's like some people are better at one thing than another. So it's like that's what you should end up focusing on.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:27) When you're growing what you're doing, you do a lot of conference speaking?

(Neil Patel at 00:08:31) I do a lot of conference speaking, do a lot of content marketing, do a lot of podcasting, do a lot of videos. It's pretty much a mixture of everything. But there are different ways to do anything, especially in the startup world, right? Some people like doing stuff that's bootstrapped. Some people like doing stuff that's venture-funded. There's no right or wrong. It's just you've got to figure out what works for you and works for the business.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:53) One of the times I heard you speak—that got me hooked on who you were—was when you did the foreword for Content Machine for Dan Norris.

(Neil Patel at 00:09:05) The foreword for Content Machine? Oh, the foreword. I thought you were talking about Ford cars. I'm like, wait, Ford? So Dan Norris's book. Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:14) Yeah. So that was, I was like, oh, this guy is really interesting. And then I went and checked you out, and I was like, oh, man, Neil's awesome.

(Neil Patel at 00:09:21) Oh, awesome.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:23) Yeah. And then when Jenny was setting it up, because she was like, who's your dream guest for marketing? Because we wanted to have some marketing people come on the show and talk to CTOs. And I was like, oh, man, we should get Neil Patel.

(Neil Patel at 00:09:39) Thanks for having me. I do appreciate that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:41) So are you working on your next book yet?

(Neil Patel at 00:09:45) I am not working on my next book. Won't be doing another one.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:49) You won't be doing another one?

(Neil Patel at 00:09:51) Correct.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:52) How did that come about?

(Neil Patel at 00:09:53) I don't want to do another book. It's a pain in the butt.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:57) You're just like, nope, not doing another book.

(Neil Patel at 00:09:59) Pretty much.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:01) You're pretty exact about it, right?

(Neil Patel at 00:10:03) Yeah. But I hate dealing with publishers and all those people. They give me so much bullshit. They're like, you need to do a better job selling books. So and so sold more than you. It's like, what are you talking about? I can see the numbers publicly. Or like—and this was even before we launched it—like, oh, they had amazing pre-sell. I'm like, what are you talking about? Our numbers are larger than theirs. Like, no, they did this and that. And I called up the other person because I knew him, and like, oh, here are the numbers. And I'm like, we sold more. I'm like, stop causing issues. And I'm like, go from there. So, you know, it's just like I just don't like dealing with them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:36) Oh, wow. I didn't see—I didn't go that route. I just went and talked to all my friends who were also CTOs. I was like, what topics do you want to hear about? We talked to everybody, made a list of topics, drafted some stuff up, sent it out. Everybody gave me their feedback. I was like, all right, cool. And then went to, found a formatter and an editor and kind of tied it all together, and now it's going to print next week.

(Neil Patel at 00:11:04) Cool. That is a much better and easier route. And if I did another book, I probably wouldn't go to a publisher again, although technically in my contract, I believe I have to give them the right of refusal or something like that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:17) Okay. So we've had a couple expert, influential marketers on. And part of our audience is CTOs that have, you know, 400-plus employees. And part of our audience is lead developers who are awesome at their craft or maybe also looking to step up in the CTO role. And then the other last third of our audience is sort of the two-people partners trying to make a piece of technology or a robot or something like that, like garage-style startup. And I want to bring them value with some advice from someone like you who's in marketing about the best way to go about getting exposure for what they're doing and raising awareness for it on a limited budget, specifically maybe $10,000.

(Neil Patel at 00:12:14) Okay. So someone wants exposure, $10,000. And what kind of business is it again?

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:22) Let's say they're making robots. Mind-controlled robots. Like, it's a drone, but you fly it with your mind.

(Neil Patel at 00:12:28) For kids and entertainment or B2B purposes?

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:33) Let's go kids and entertainment.

(Neil Patel at 00:12:35) Cool. And you want to market this with $10,000 and you have tons of inventory or you're limited on inventory?

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:45) Unlimited inventory.

(Neil Patel at 00:12:47) And international, domestic, only US?

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:52) They're in the US, and they want to ship in the US because their product's in US warehouses.

(Neil Patel at 00:12:57) Cool. I'm, like, sorry for all the questions, but—

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:59) Making it up. They'll keep coming up. I've got them all day.

(Neil Patel at 00:13:02) So I would create a Shopify store.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:05) Okay.

(Neil Patel at 00:13:06) I would talk about how you have these mind-controlled robots and you can do cool stuff. And I'd start creating viral videos and campaigns of having people submit what they're doing with their mind-controlled robots, such as doing little robot wars or delivering products or services. I would even do hackathons, or not a hackathon, but a version of a hackathon. Instead of people programming, they're more so showing the coolest things you can do or how you can modify it or adjust it so it can solve world problems and you can have bonuses. And you don't even have to pay much. You can probably get sponsors for that. But the way I would market it is, once you create the Shopify store, assuming it's just US, I would just do Facebook ads, targeting people who are into drones, kid toys, people who are parents. I'm going to go with the father, because it's probably like fathers like doing this with their kids versus—I don't know, maybe mothers would like to do it as well. And just pitch it. And then I would, on my Shopify store, once they buy something, I would add in some upsells and downsells and then go from there.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:17) That was amazing. All right. So now I know the type of questions to ask Neil when I got them.

(Neil Patel at 00:14:24) You have to make sure you have the upsells and downsells because you've got to make the margins back because the Facebook ads end up costing a bit.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:30) Oh, man. I'm just going to shamelessly ask. Okay. So you're a CTO and you've written your first book. What do you do? How do you market it?

(Neil Patel at 00:14:39) You go to all of the developer blogs. You get them to review it. You go to all the startup blogs. You get them to review it. Most will say no, but it's a numbers game. Hopefully you have people in the book who are doing your foreword or have given you quotes and testimonies. You can ask them to share it. And then I would do is I would hit up a lot of corporations who are old school but want to innovate and do more techy stuff, figure out security or data science or anything that your book covers, and be like, this book would help your engineers and improve their quality, one day potentially become CTOs and build better and faster products and follow the lean methodology or whatever the pitch that the book does. And then being like, you know, we would love to do a program or give you a discount. And we would give this to all 1,000 or 2,000 engineers at your company. You would buy copies and you'd be like, and what we can do is a live Q&A with your engineers or I can come and give a free speech and I'll teach your guys, your people in your company how to do X, Y, and Z better when it comes to engineering.

(Neil Patel at 00:15:55) So have them pay for the books, but then also give them a little bonus for buying a lot.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:00) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Dude, you just light up with this stuff. You're a machine.

(Neil Patel at 00:16:05) That's what I've been doing for 16 years. So I think I'm decent at it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:10) Dude, you are amazing at it. Thank you.

(Neil Patel at 00:16:15) Yeah. No problem.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:16) That's what you're doing with the calls.

(Neil Patel at 00:16:18) Yes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:20) Yeah. See? Oh, man. You just came alive and just slate it. It's just unbelievable, dude.

(Neil Patel at 00:16:27) Yeah. And I even forgot to ask you one question because it's like when you're doing the drone stuff, I assumed you had high margins, right? So but I should have asked that. I had to clarify, but usually those toys have high margins.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:43) Yeah. We're gonna pretend it had high margin. That's not it. Like, I made this up, but we're gonna say for that scenario, they had high margins. They were very successful due to your advice.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:54) Actually, what happened was I had a futurist on the show and I was telling him about these. Have you seen the mind control devices that you can have? It reads your brainwave. So if you think jump, it makes the character in the game jump. If you think run, it makes the character run.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:08) No. Does it really work like that? Oh, yeah. Well, there's a number of TED Talks and stuff displaying. There's about 10 companies in this space, and they all have devices you could purchase today less than $500.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:17) Buy them, hook them up at home, run the game on your own computer. So I thought to myself, being like who I am, alright. Well, let's just take one. I'm a software developer by trade. I was like, let's take one of those and just hook it up to a drone. So when I think up, the drone goes up. I can have the drone run around the office with my mind.

(Neil Patel at 00:17:36) I've never seen a plan to check it out.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:38) Yeah. Well, that doesn't exist. I mean, the device exists and the drones exist. I would just put them together.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:44) So there we go. If you wanna do it, let me know. No.

(Neil Patel at 00:17:47) I'm just kidding.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:49) But, yeah. That's actually, I mean, I could see kids buying it. When you were talking, my mind was, my imagination was going crazy. When you're talking about the different hacky stuff, I could see kids spray painting their drones or coloring them different or doing all sorts of different stuff, like some modifying them and the lights. Like, it could be pretty sweet.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:07) Yep. So, alright. Any other topics that you want to get off or knowledge that you want to distribute to the world?

(Neil Patel at 00:18:19) So, you know, the biggest thing with marketing is experiment, especially if all of you, any of you guys listening are techies. You guys all know about experimentation, and you need to experiment. The more of them you do, the better off you are.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:33) You gotta science it. You gotta try a few things and then take what works best and do variations of them. And, I mean, like, scientific process. Is that what we're talking about? Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:43) Okay. Cool. Because that's what works for me.

(Neil Patel at 00:18:45) Exactly. And I'm like, the same thing is, you know, that's what ends up working with marketing, and it's not rocket science. It's just tons of experimentation, learning from what happened, and continually improving.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:56) Amazing. And that's how we got here today as humans with the technology and the advancements we have is just small incremental improvements, trying things, and seeing how they go. Thank you so much, Neil. It's been awesome. Thank you so much for listening to the Modern CTO Podcast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:17) Share this. Get the word out. Thank you guys so much. I couldn't do it without you. I appreciate it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:22) You guys are the absolute best.