#3 - Our first product lead came before launch Ship the Diff https://shipthediff.com/episodes/003-first-product-lead/ computerlove.tech got its first serious product lead before the product was launched. A sales meeting that felt messy ended with a request for a demo and a conversation about pricing. YouTube: https://youtu.be/bb6zHVvdtI4 Transcript 00:00 Hello everyone and welcome to Ship the Diff episode 3. 00:03 I'm on my way to Copenhagen right now. 00:06 I just parked my car at the train station parking lot 00:10 and I'm going to take the train towards Copenhagen 00:13 because I'm doing a podcast with Jonas, 00:16 the Danish podcast I have, Verbos Podcast, 00:19 with Mads Henrichsen, who is one of the co-founders of syv.ai, 00:24 another AI company here in Denmark. 00:30 He trained the first Danish large language model called DanskGPT 00:34 and has a company, an AI company product slash consulting company, 00:41 a bit like ours basically, or basically where we want to go at least. 00:46 And we're going to make a podcast on how's it going with actually LLMs 00:54 and training of them and what is kind of like the state of art 00:57 and state of all of that. 01:00 Because we, me and Jonas have, once we talked a lot about, you know, 01:04 the model training aspects of all of this AI thing, 01:10 but now we are more talking about agents on the podcast. 01:13 So it's because we just want an update from some practitioners 01:17 who are actually, you know, training models on GPUs and stuff like that. 01:22 We also used to do that, but not that much anymore. 01:25 So looking forward to that. 01:27 And today has been a crazy week. 01:30 Monday we had a sales meeting 01:33 where we, with one of the companies we are in dialogue with, 01:38 and we, me, Jonas and Christian met with the CEO, 01:43 the CTO and the head of sales and marketing. 01:46 And kind of like accidentally, 01:50 because I heard that the problem that they have had, 01:55 our open source solution pretty much could solve that, right? 02:00 So a little accidentally, 02:01 I sort of like pitched our open source product 02:06 that we haven't launched yet. 02:08 And yeah, the meeting was a little messy actually. 02:11 And both me, Christian and Jonas didn't think that it went that well. 02:16 But actually they reached out in this week 02:19 and actually wanted to talk, 02:22 to have another meeting where we could demo the product. 02:25 And yeah, you know, talk about pricing 02:29 and what we can do to kind of like help each other, right? 02:31 So very surprised that this is one of our kind of like goals 02:35 for, you know, December, end of December or so, 02:38 so that we actually have a pretty like hot lead 02:44 talking about, you know, 02:46 not wanting to buy workshops from us 02:48 or, you know, advisory, 02:50 but actually wanting to have a demo 02:52 or like figure out if the product is something for them. 02:56 So that's very surprising and very unexpected. 03:00 Yeah, and I'm of course going to tell more 03:02 about the product very soon. 03:04 We have a launch date, I think, in, 03:07 we've set a deadline for launch in two or three weeks, 03:10 I think so, maybe four, but yeah, 03:15 but I'm going to tell more about that, of course, 03:17 in some later videos. 03:20 Otherwise, this video, this week 03:22 has just been crazy basically. 03:24 I have been to Jutland 03:27 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. 03:29 Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Aarhus 03:31 and Wednesday I traveled to Aalborg 03:34 where we had a workshop at a company Thursday. 03:39 So, and then we got on a plane, 03:42 me and Christian, back to Copenhagen from Aalborg 03:45 and I was home, you know, 03:49 late evening yesterday 03:50 and, you know, I was up, you know, 03:54 I think I was at Jonas' house 03:57 five o 'clock or so in the morning Tuesday. 04:01 So, super tired. 04:02 Actually, I would have loved to just, you know, 04:04 take a day off today, 04:05 but we need to get a podcast recorded 04:08 and I also needed to record this podcast. 04:11 So, I'm doing that right now. 04:15 Yeah, so, so, so, so that, that's, that's, 04:20 that's the state of things right now. 04:22 And next week we also have, 04:24 we have three, three workshops in next week 04:26 and we're also traveling to, 04:28 to Jutland again to another customer 04:30 where we, and also a customer 04:32 that could be a potential buyer of our product 04:36 and helping, you know, 04:37 setting up some, some stuff there 04:39 that is going to help them kind of like 04:41 take a step closer to, to, to, to the, 04:45 to being this, to building this 04:48 agentic organization basically. 04:50 Yeah, so, so yeah. 04:53 One of the biggest things we struggle with 04:55 at the moment, of course, like it's, 04:57 it's a balance, right? 04:58 Because we want to protect time, 05:01 you know, product development time. 05:04 I have talked about this before, right? 05:05 But at the same time, 05:06 we also need to, you know, pay our bills. 05:09 So we, we, we also need to have 05:11 these like workshops, 05:13 but we, not, it's not like we don't 05:15 really enjoy the workshops 05:17 and we learn a ton from them 05:18 and get a lot of, you know, 05:20 a big network of talking. 05:21 And it's so, it's, it's, it's, it's, 05:24 it's so fun. 05:25 And, you know, we learn so much 05:27 from talking to, to, to all of the teams 05:29 that we're working with. 05:30 So this shouldn't sound like 05:32 that we don't enjoy it, 05:33 but we just also, we have ambitions 05:35 on the product side, right? 05:36 So, so we also need to prioritize that. 05:39 And that's kind of like the, 05:40 the tension at the moment, I guess. 05:45 But in the end of September, 05:47 I've just blocked, you know, 05:48 the, the, the, the, we, 05:50 I have blocked, you know, 05:51 an entire week. 05:52 There's only one workshop that week, 05:54 but I've blocked it so we can, 05:56 so we can actually have, 05:57 you know, one full week of, 05:59 of, of, of, yeah, 06:04 basically just product development. 06:06 Yeah. 06:06 And yeah, so, so, so, 06:09 and, and, and we are, 06:11 we have a rule where we are, 06:13 you know, maximum, 06:14 we are having three workshops 06:16 in one week because more than that 06:18 is really like, that's, 06:19 that's a lot, right? 06:21 Um, yeah. 06:23 And then we, we're trying to save 06:24 time also for product development. 06:27 And yeah. 06:28 And also we have discussed 06:29 if we should maybe team up 06:31 with some other instructors 06:33 that can actually help us get out 06:34 and, and do, do, do these workshops. 06:38 So only one of us have to, 06:40 to, to, to go out and do them. 06:43 Um, yeah. 06:44 So that's also an opportunity, right? 06:46 But, but let's see what we, 06:47 we find out. 06:50 Yeah. 06:50 And then there is VAT, 06:52 it's called in Danish, 06:54 that I think we have to report, 06:56 or file that I think it's called, 06:58 uh, next week, 07:00 first of September. 07:01 That's kind of like the, 07:01 the deadline. 07:02 So, uh, so that's the first accounting 07:05 thing we have to do in, 07:06 in, in, in, in computerlove.tech. 07:08 And that's, uh, yeah, 07:10 we need to do that, right? 07:11 So, so, so yes. 07:13 Um, otherwise I just hope, 07:15 uh, that, uh, all of you guys 07:16 enjoy following, uh, 07:18 ship the diff. 07:19 Um, I really, uh, my, my clear, 07:23 as I also mentioned in the first video, 07:26 I think my clear goal with this podcast 07:28 is to just be consistent. 07:29 And, uh, and I don't like you, 07:32 I call it a podcast, right? 07:34 But you could also basically call it a vlog, 07:36 right? 07:36 Write a video vlog of video log of me, 07:39 just talking to the camera 07:41 and actually brain dumping, 07:42 maybe sometimes having some guests 07:44 and all my co co founders with, 07:46 uh, with me. 07:48 Um, yeah. 07:50 So this is basically the strategy 07:51 and I hope some of you, 07:53 you know, get something from, 07:55 from, from this, right? 07:56 And, um, at least I hope, 07:59 you know, I can share my journey 08:01 and, uh, my, uh, my, my story 08:03 with the building company, 08:05 uh, to, to inspire you guys also, 08:07 if you wanted to, 08:08 want to get started, uh, 08:09 building a company. 08:10 And also, I've won, 08:12 there was one of, um, 08:14 the followers I have 08:15 who mentioned that it would be sweet 08:17 if I could put the transcriptions 08:19 of the episodes online on the website. 08:22 So, I'm also considering that 08:24 because then, you know, 08:25 I guess we can, yeah, 08:27 you can basically just point your agent 08:29 at some, some place, right? 08:30 And then it can just basically, uh, 08:32 summarize whatever you, 08:34 whatever happened in the, the, the, uh, 08:36 the, this episode, right? 08:37 Then you don't even have to watch it. 08:38 You can just, 08:39 you can just ask your agent 08:41 what I said and it will, uh, it will, uh, 08:43 it will basically, uh, 08:45 get you up to speed, right? 08:46 So, uh, so yeah. 08:48 But, uh, I think that was it. 08:49 I need to catch a train right now. 08:51 So, uh, but thank you so much for watching. 08:52 Uh, if you made it here in the video, 08:55 I guess you're probably, uh, 08:57 a, uh, a, uh, a pretty, uh, 09:00 pretty hardcore subscriber, I guess. 09:02 So, so thank you so much for, 09:04 for listening and see you again next week. 09:06 Bye.