From Trustpilot to AI Startups: Scaling Tactics and Outbound Strategies with Thomas

GTM Tales Thomas

Ivor: [00:00:00] So hello everyone and welcome to Go To MarketTales. The podcast where I sit down with experts in B2B go to market to hear and exchange stories that have unlocked growth. So following on from the episode with Sakina from Shopify, this is now our sixth episode. And yeah, today I'm really, really pleased to have Thomas who Was one of the first employees at Trustpilot joining as just the fourth team member.

And so he's seen firsthand what it takes to scale a startup from the ground up. So I'm super interested to dig into his experience there and also how he's going about getting his [00:01:00] new project update mate AI to market. So Thomas, it's great to have you with us today. How is everything? Thank you, 

Thomas: Ira. And thanks for the introduction.

I really appreciate it. Um, everything is going great. Um, literally just five minutes before I was jumping on this, had a great customer meeting. So feeling good today. Thanks for asking. 

Ivor: Awesome. Really, really good to hear that Thomas. So you've had quite a journey in the tech industry, I would say, particularly with your time at Trustpilot.

So I'd like to start there. Perhaps, perhaps going back a little bit before actually, can you perhaps share how you transitioned into the tech world and what drew you to join Trustpilot as one of its earliest employees? Yes, 

Thomas: I'd love to. Um, so going back before Trustpilot, I've always been heavily, uh, interested in everything tech, um, [00:02:00] Basically doing the least amount of work to get the maximum output in every aspect of my life.

And that drives you towards some tech perspectives. Education wise, I also chose a direction where it's about business performance management. So I've always believed that I have something to add to that aspect. Yeah. So, so, so that's, that's basically a background. I was so fortunate that I also come from a family that adopted tech, uh, PCs.

Uh, for those of you old enough to know what, uh, um, um, 386, 25 megahertz PC is, uh, you know, where I'm coming from. That was the first in the house, uh, me trying to, to, yeah, do everything tech at that moment, um, and it just escalated from there.

Ivor: Cool. When you talked about getting maximum output from the minimum amount of input, it reminded [00:03:00] me about the Bill Gates quote of he will always choose a lazy person to do a hard job. 'cause he'll find, or she'll find the easiest way and the most optimum way of getting there. Um, so as. You were the fourth employee at Trustpilot.

You saw the company great from the ground up. What, uh, was some of the key roles and responsibilities during the early days? And how did you approach scaling the team and operations there? Walk me through that. Yeah, 

Thomas: I'd be happy to. Um, and basically I had five roles over the course of five years. Um, I would say unofficially I replaced the commercial co founder pretty early on.

Trustpilot had been established. Um, at that point it had a very, uh, B2C focus. It was about the users, about the reviews. Uh, we had, it hadn't really gotten to the point where they've really coined [00:04:00] the B2B side of things. And I think a lot of the things we're going to talk about About Trustpilot today is that it was a two edged, it is a two edged sword, um, where you both need to satisfy B2B clients and they got to bring in some revenue and you got to have the users on the other side to be happy with the platform and to believe that it is trustworthy for them to continue to use it.

Both parts have to be there or else it wouldn't exist. Um, so I'd say everything started off with, um, With basically me coming in and trying to, to scale as, I dunno, what's it called? Head of sales, VP sales, something like that. Early days titles doesn't matter when you're that early. Um, there was the, the three co founders, a couple of, uh, student workers.

And then I was, I was added to the team, um, throwing myself in as an individual contributor and basically, [00:05:00] um, going for a very specific niche. Uh, that being e commerce companies that had, uh, no social proof at all on their, in their appearance online. Um, and, and what we did was basically almost, we were at the phone book where we could get lists.

We were working in an old, uh, uh, Microsoft access database. That was our zero when we started. Um, luckily we had Peter, the CEO and co founder who was quite nerdy around databases, so he could create lists where he said, these have the highest probability of being successful. Uh, for us to actually help them get some social proof so they can have a higher conversion rate on their website when they sell.

Um, so our thinking was that e commerce shops have a lot of traffic, quite low conversion, maybe 1, 2 percent of the visitors will convert into buying customers. Could we just add, maybe, you [00:06:00] know, raise that to 2. 2 or 2. 3 percent conversion rate. That would go straight to the bottom line with very little effort.

This was the early days of, of online shopping. So there was a rising awareness about scams and ways that you could end up buying something, giving you, giving your money to them without getting any goods. And that was the thing we believed in. And we also would like shops to identify themselves as a good place to shop and help the users that way.

Ivor: So that leads me to my next question, and I think a lot of listeners and a lot of people within, you know, not only B2B, but also B2C are focused on conversion rate optimization. So how did you move from that 1% to the two to 3%, which has a huge knock on impact, isn't it, to that model at Trustpilot, but also.[00:07:00] 

If you're doing, yeah, a certain amount of leads and bringing a certain amount of leads through your website and you're able to actually increase that, you'd double it from 1 percent to 10 percent in just a month, that can be, that can be huge for growth. So how did you go about doing that? 

Thomas: So diving into that specific part, the key element for shops were to have some sort of social proof on their website.

And there has been several ways to do this. Uh, back in the early internet days, there were different logos and certificates and stuff you could get, uh, to showcase that you took this seriously. Um, but I think shopping online, especially around 2010, uh, 2009, 2010. And in the coming years, so 15 years ago, um, you really wanted to see what do other people think about this place, especially from those who had a shopping experience.

And we made it very, very easy and very affordable for the shop [00:08:00] owners to activate the highest amount of their buying customers to leave a review that they could automatically display on their website, uh, without having to do anything themselves except for delivering good service. So that was the key offering and what we also charged for to facilitate that.

Ivor: Interesting. Interesting. And you developed the model to become more of a. B2B play as well. So how did you approach turning those consumer insights into a business model that appealed to companies as well? 

Thomas: So a classic call, if I were to summarize it all would be, uh, hi, Ivor, you run this shop. Um, I'm from Trustpilot.

I've been looking at your site. I've tried Googling your name. I either find nothing about how it is to shop with you, or I find maybe one or two negative comments somewhere. That doesn't leave me with the impression that you're good. Typically, we would get the response, but we're magnificent. We have great [00:09:00] customer service.

Say, okay, I believe you, but why don't you tell the public that that's the truth through your customer's voice? They will start thinking and say, look, you probably don't have the time to do this yourself. So we've set up an automatic feedback system, asking every single client with an easy to write a review link where they didn't have to create a user because we knew that they were real people that shop there.

Um, and we would get up to 10 percent response rate on behalf of the shop owner. For, for the customers to, to actually write a review and we fed it into a widget on the website, as most of people know, Trustpilot websites today have that widget where it automatically updates with the reviews that was it.

That was the offering maximum amount of reviews fed directly to your website. And we've optimized towards Google. So you would find that there. Uh, 

Ivor: What I found really interesting was, yeah, that's [00:10:00] social proof is absolutely key, not only in 2008, but before then and now, I think if you go into any B2B SaaS website, one of the first things you should see really is some testimonials, um, some reviews from real people.

And, uh, when we started to actually, um, add a few of those to, to our website on, on Nethia. We did see a big increase in conversions there. So it's a key thing today. And I, I think, um, one of the aspects that I found really interesting. Was how you actually got back to more companies and you alluded to before a campaign that Tapped into people's fears perhaps and you're quite direct into going out to more companies.

Could you? Talk about that a little bit more if you remember. Yeah tactic. I'm so yeah, 

Thomas: so [00:11:00] as I mentioned before There is this human nature that, uh, there's a, there's a high chance that if you get a review, you'll likely get it from someone who was dissatisfied. Uh, it's different today, back in 2009, 10, majority of internet warriors were the ones who had a bad experience.

I know they wanted to spread the word and they could do that easily. Now, at this point, TripAdvisor was already there. Yelp was already there, which was very, very much about travel and local places to eat. And they struggled a lot with getting a lot of people to write reviews that weren't just the dissatisfied where we had an advantage.

So we pick it back, pick it back a bit on their business model, but we had the fortunate, uh, world of e commerce with a lot of bias. So we could get a lot more reviews. So, [00:12:00] and I know this might be a little controversial for some, But what we did was, and I honestly still believe it, it's a fair way to do it, because we pretty much just highlighted that the internet can be a cruel place, and you got to take things into your own hands if you want to, um, if you want to own your identity, so to speak.

So often what would happen is that, um, we would call companies that was the prime lead list for us in the sales team. Um, that we very quickly grew. Um, I'd say the first couple of years, we were around 10, 10 salespeople for a couple of markets, we would always try to call the companies that had one bad review.

We wouldn't overplay it, but we would definitely call them and say, Hey, Ivor, I'm calling from Trustpilot. I don't know if you're aware of this, but you already have someone who's writing a negative review about your company. That was one tactic and they, you would definitely get their attention. [00:13:00] It's probably the easiest call called intro I've done.

Uh, they wouldn't hang up on you. They might get angry, but, uh, you would get talk time. Um, the other thing that we did, uh, this was a little technical hack. I can't take credit for it. Someone else can, uh, back in those days, but we, um, so Trustpilot is an open review platform, meaning that everyone can look up reviews.

Everyone can look for a company through the search bar. So if I were to go in and look up Omnifia. Uh, and maybe write a review, but at that time we would actually, uh, send someone an email that someone had been looking for reviews. So we would scrape your website and we would write you, Hey, admin or whatever we could derive from the website.

Someone has been looking for reviews about your company on Trustpilot. So your company page on Trustpilot would be auto created if someone looked [00:14:00] you up. So we didn't have to have user generated things. We just did it on the go. So a lookup would create the website. A review would create an email to the owner saying, Hey, someone is writing about you, just wanted to let you know.

Uh, 

Ivor: I love that. I find it fascinating. These nitty gritty details of the campaigns that helps drive, grow for various different brands. And you know, that's super interesting that you, um, tapped into maybe the fear of companies that you're targeting. And I absolutely think that's, Much more of a driving force in decision making.

I think as humans, we're much more wired to respond to scenarios of fearful states, right? Rather than, we can help you drive more revenue or more [00:15:00] customers into your business. People are much more Uh, likely to respond and do something if you spark that kind of fear within them and it is a little bit, um, you could say a little bit manipulative, but I think that's just the reality of, of good marketing today.

Thomas: Thanks. I agree. And coming to, to, to identifying the word manipulate, you know, chiropractors do it and people willingly pay the money to manipulate them. So, uh, 

Ivor: exactly, exactly. So, um, I want to move on actually to, there's quite a lot of other aspects to, to cover here. So you talked to us about the, the pricing and that was quite a key.

Moment in trust pilots, uh, growth as well. So could you touch on that a little bit? And then, um, perhaps we can get into that, the scaling challenges and then move on to, to update. 

Thomas: So converting this to, um, let's just take a British pounds, uh, for the package that [00:16:00] we delivered. So the auto updating widget and the automatic feedback service, where we would ask on behalf of the shop that was around, so a hundred Danish Kroners would, would be equivalent to maybe.

Let's say 12 pounds per month. Um. We quickly realized, and that was a significant part of my job, to be running first in front of the team, trying to test the waters, what could actually be possible. So over the course of, I would say a year, we, um, I tried just to go out and say, double. So the next client, because we didn't have prices on the website and for B2B marketers, this is also a thing.

I don't think there's a right answer. Should you have prices on your website? Maybe at some point, if it's easy, simple, but we didn't at that point, I believe they do have now, but we went, I went in and say, well, it's 24 pounds a month. Majority would just say, fine, let's do it. And I was like, Hmm, I wonder if I say 36 [00:17:00] majority still said, yes, let's do it.

Then I said 48. And I think within that year, we ended at around 80 pounds per month. Well, we saw a significant drop off, which was okay, because if you did the calculations, you would gain more revenue and you will still get that part of the clients who really saw the value of the most, meaning that you wouldn't end up with someone being nitty gritty.

And I'm dissatisfied about this. They knew this had value. So by raising the price, and this is a strategy, a lot of B2B marketers should consider. It's okay to get nos, you can't win them all. And maybe you don't want them all. Okay. So we six times the price in one year for the same product. Uh, and that gave us the muscles to go out and raise significant investment rounds.

This was another time money was almost free. VCs were standing in a queue to, to give you money, but that helped of course. 

Ivor: How did you look at [00:18:00] the competitors? Did you understand what they were pricing, um, their solutions out as well when you factored in the price increase? 

Thomas: So early days, there were almost no competitors, a few in Germany, uh, but it was mainly certificates that you could buy for your website.

It was pretty easy to challenge that. And I mean, talk to a shop owner, say, put yourself in the consumer's shoe. Do you trust 65 reviews from other users or do you trust that you bought a certificate? I think it's pretty obvious what you would convert the most with um But going into germany that has a little bit of a lower price level We had challenges.

Um And that's also a bit of another story because there's two ways of running a review platform, the open platform. Everyone can write reviews. That's what Trustpilot believes in. That puts a whole support crew into play that costs money. [00:19:00] Whereas a lot of the German players, they had closed review platforms, meaning the same in the UK, there's a few of them that meant that the shop owners could decide which consumers they wanted to ask.

Became pretty easy to get a five star rating then. Um, so we 

Ivor: all surprise, surprise, surprise. 

Thomas: Yeah. So we allowed to say, look, at the end of the day, there's gonna be the winner. It's gonna be the open platform. Do you believe that? Yeah. Now we need a support team to help. If someone flags a review for being wrongly put there, we need to be able to help that, to maintain our trustworthiness that has a price, a premium price.

That's why we are a bit above the, the rest. So that was how we, we marketed that. 

Ivor: Okay, so you mentioned, uh, Germany, and I think that's probably quite a good segue, uh, opportunity. So you talked about before scaling company like, um, trust pilot came with quite a lot of challenges and [00:20:00] expanding into new markets, pay some, some difficulties.

So. Could you speak to that a little bit? How, um, what challenges did you face when you scaled across different markets and how did that impact the growth? And 

Thomas: thanks for bringing this up. This touches upon one of the things that I really, really care a lot about and that I've consulted quite a number of companies about, um, scale as fast as you can when possible.

But be aware if you're doing it in Europe, uh, or in any other, um, fragmented market, when it comes to language barriers and cultural differences. Um, Trustpilot stands out as a special case on that growing scaling challenge, because there was good reasoning behind going into, let's say 10 new countries in a year.

It made sense. There were no competitors. They had e commerce up and running. But what we may not have realized back then, and we were still a young team, uh, the founding team, um, [00:21:00] was that unless you do everything that you did well in those countries where you're winning, you might get competitors who.

Just do their own country, France, Germany, and you will get such hot competition that you may not, may not ever catch a break and you may not become the defacto standard. Uh, and that's what we experienced, experienced, um, Denmark stands out for Trustpilot as one of the winning markets. UK is. Up there as well.

Uh, Netherlands as well, but thinking about that, the millions of dollars put into Germany, France, Italy, Spain, um, and It's still local players that, that has the market, the biggest market share, um, that might change, but that has been an uphill battle and also dissatisfying for a lot of employees that, why can't my market get the same attention as this market over here?

It isn't as easy as say, [00:22:00] well, you speak French. Try to hit up some clients in, in, in France, you need translation, you need support in that local language. You need everything to back it up. Um, and it, it's a hard job being a solo, uh, cowboy in, in a, in a country where no one else than yourself backs you up.

That was the scaling difficulties, uh, where we were fortunate enough to have a lot of funding and a lot of backing. So we could resist it, but that could have been the downfall of TrustPilot going into too many markets too quickly. Um, for those listening to this podcast, I would introduce a thing called like, uh, a critical mass.

So if you're working with something, figure out, is there a critical mass where you can don't rest on your laurels, but you know, if I reach this amount of clients or this amount of users or et cetera, then, you know, you're in a place where you can cool off and maybe [00:23:00] allocate some energy to another market.

But if you haven't reached it, reach it first, if the strategy allows for it, before going into a lot of other markets. 

Ivor: Yeah, I actually have, uh, experience to, to share as well in, in this respect. So I was a head of marketing at a B2B fintech called Tokeney. We had, you know, like most startups, Big ambitions and we didn't just want to succeed in one continent.

We actually wanted to make our mark globally. And I think a lot of this comes from VC funding as well. You've got to take over the whole world. You've got to become a unicorn. And so the plan was to expand into the U. S. Asia and Europe all at the same time and there was quite a big problem and that was, we were quite a small team with limited resources, about 20 of us [00:24:00] and each one of we, we realized each one of these markets had its own challenges.

You know, different events, different communities, and each required its own dedicated resources and strategies, much like how you just talked about. You can't just have a one man person in France, for example. And we found ourselves struggling to gain traction in, in any of them, really growth had been quite slow, disjointed and unsustainable as well.

And so we kind of took a step back and started to rethink our approach and we narrowed our focus down to just becoming the leading provider in Europe first. And as soon as we, Made that shift things did start to change quite quickly. We built stronger relationships with local communities, gain momentum in European market, and we were being referred to in the press as the, uh, European leader in digital asset technology.

So it was a [00:25:00] complete game changer. And what I learned is, you know, sometimes ambition can actually outpace practicality, keys to master, I think one market before moving on to the next. And that focus. Really creates that clarity and clarity creates that sustainable growth, I think. 

Thomas: Yeah, I can 100 percent relate.

And even being the market leader in Europe, that's incredibly difficult because we are such a small continent with so many different cultures and languages, uh, and I get why a lot of people want to go to the U S is one language, it's a huge market, but my God, it's costly. Uh, could be money down the drain.

The competitions. 

Ivor: Usually really, really tough as well in the States. Right. Okay. So let's, let's move on. So after your time at Trustpilot, you've now let's whisper to now. So you've co founded UpdateMeet AI, which sounds like it's solving some really interesting problems around, you know, internal communication and, and reporting.

So yeah. Talk a [00:26:00] little bit about that and how you're kind of approaching go to market with update. 

Thomas: Thanks for asking. And this is a bit of like, it's my partner, Hans Christian and I, it's our baby. Um, and, uh, we're still early days. We're two months in, um, We've got our first eight paying clients. Um, and majority is not even from our network.

It's people who literally had a significant need that they wanted to solve. Um, so very, very short. What we do is we bring AI into play. We attach, let's just say for simplicity, chat GPT to all your internal systems. Um, and we help you send the exact compromised or compressed data to the right people at the right time.

And the use cases typically as companies grow, when we talk about scaling, uh, the founders, the leaders come further and further away from real life customers and what they're saying. And how do we [00:27:00] actually solve if there's problems with your product or your services? So the main thing we're helping companies with right now is that we, um, leach onto their support system and we help bring out a weekly report that AI helps produce.

So no one has to do it in the companies and deliver it to a leadership group. Let's say Monday morning, eight o'clock, which means that no one can forget. No one can be blamed for if it's biased in a way, this is the raw data. This is your clients. This is the essence of your business. Now, leadership group do not discuss whether you need more or less or who wrote it.

This is the truth now get to work on solving it or agreeing not to solve it. And I think this has been huge eye opener for me in getting feedback from clients that they said, We're paying the starter package 19 a month. We have three AI agents. It's brought our leadership team together, working, [00:28:00] having a hive mind rather than a silo thinking way for 19.

It's been the best money we've ever spent, uh, on getting real insight to. What is the true nature of what our customers are thinking? Um, so yeah, really, really happy. Nice. Love it. 

Ivor: Yeah, really cool product. And yeah, GPTs and LLMI think are the perfect solution for analyzing data and coming up with insights, finding the, the patterns in that data, the anomalies.

It's far more efficient using an LLM than. Someone find coming through all that data and missing all the different, um, key points and say, yeah, insights there. So how are you like getting that in front of people? What do you, what's your channel? They usually say, especially when starting out focus on one channel.

So, What do you, what do you focus on? 

Thomas: So we we've chosen, so I [00:29:00] did, I tried to analyze the market and where the richest data is, is in your support channel. So I look, we, we quite early went in and said, we need at least three support software that we have a direct connection to. So we chose, uh, send desk, crisp and intercom.

And currently, and what I'm spending most of my time on is trying to speak to a head of support C level and or product owners in companies that use Intercom. And the main reason for that is that Intercom is by far the most expensive system. At least I've heard that, which gives me an indication about that.

These companies, they take their support quite seriously. They, they, they, they don't want to fail out on having a bad system for support. So that gives us a level of serious seriousness when it comes to that. Um, so practically, practically I've done two things. Uh, I went to WebAlizer and built with. [00:30:00] And help and ask them to help me create lists with companies using this technology.

And, uh, then either through LinkedIn, um, basically visiting a person's web profile on LinkedIn, waiting a day. If they visit me back, I send them a connect request. Um, and if we connect either, I get the phone number in the contact details, or I sent them a message trying to get a conversation going And if they feel they are really getting the, the gist of what everyone is speaking about, not just those who pays the most or yells the loudest.

Ivor: I see so often, um, on LinkedIn or, uh, whatever social media platform that cold calling is is dead. That seems to be a common thread, but I just I couldn't disagree more. Actually, I think. In this era where you're getting tons of these automated emails and you could say. [00:31:00] cold calls, uh, you know, at the cost of getting automated themselves.

But I think you get far fewer automated messages by cold call and it's a real chance to just get straight in front of your, your buyer and make an impact. So what, how do you do that? How do you, um, make an impact when you have that cold call in, in a minute or two before we close off the podcast and I get your book

Thomas: Yeah. Um,

Ivor: If you can fit

Thomas: yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll get a run to that. Um, so basically I'm at the stage where I'm so fortunate to be able to say I'm a partner and a co founder. Now that adds a lot of credibility and I'm asking for, for talk time to both present, this is an AI startup and that we've done some things on the reporting.

Both the content of it and the speed of how we can do it. Um, do you want to kick me off the line or do you want me, or do you want to continue a couple of minutes and then you can say, yes, let's have a meeting where I [00:32:00] see it or no, thanks. That's not for me. So completely upfront ask for allowance to, or ask for, uh, to be allowed to tell basically what you're doing.

Uh, I use a little trick. I maybe it's not a trick, but I very quickly say, Hey, look, this is a sales call, it's now a bad time, or can I get 30 seconds of your time to just explain why I'm calling you? You can decide whether you want to continue our conversations or hang up on me. Is that okay with you? And when I say this is a sales call, I add, but you probably already discovered that and they're like, Oh yeah, I did.

And you're talking to their ego and they are like, they think they have the upper hand and that's okay because I have given them control. Um, that that's the gist of it. And then it becomes a really, really friendly, uh, talk and, and a live demo where we talk into their challenges about, uh, getting reporting done at the right time with the right content.

Ivor: Really, really [00:33:00] cool. Um, I'm going to test that out someday and let you know how it goes. Um, so yeah, something we do to close every episode out is we ask each guest to recommend a book for the next guest with a short reason why. And it's actually quite a funny coincidence as our last guest was. Sakina from Shopify, and she recommended, um, cold calling sucks. And that's why it works. And the reason she gave was to be excellent in sales. You have to be good at cold calling and it's a great book on the topic. So I feel that's quite apt with, with some of the, the things that you've said in this podcast. So yeah, what's your, uh, recommendation Thomas for the

Thomas: Yeah, I, I did a lot of thinking about this and I've could have gone in the direction of sales books sort of like that, but I want, there was one book that I read over the last year that really set [00:34:00] apart or set something different in my mind. Uh, it's Daniel Kahneman thinking fast and slow. And, uh, the reason I'm, I'm highlighting this is.

It helps you analyze your day to day situations on which mindset and how you think about solving problems. Um, and can give you a tool. I know it's, it's not a fair way of making that book that compressed. Uh, but it really added a lot of value for me to not jump to conclusions and which subtle clues in conversations you need to look for and listen for to realize should you use your auto system.

And just get it done, or you should really analyze, say, Hey, look, I don't think I'm equipped to answer this yet. Let me get back, analyze, do a bit more heavy thinking before I say something or do something. This has been a game changer for me, and I would recommend [00:35:00] anyone who want to do something with their career, uh, takes that part seriously.

Um, and if you're not up for reading a whole book, it's quite long. Uh, I believe you can find a compressed version on Blinkist or something. That's a good start.

Ivor: I think in, yeah, it's super relevant if you're working in a startup as well, because you can often be under pressure to get things moving and kind of make a decision, but sometimes when you make the wrong decision, you have to. Unwrangle all of those things that you've built and it can actually take longer.

So taking time and each decision is super, super important and enables you to, to grow faster for sure. So thanks a lot for the book recommendation, Thomas. Um, if people want to reach out to you, how can they

Thomas: Yeah, so, uh, look up Update Mate AI on LinkedIn. You can find me and my partner hands Christian there. We can both be be reached, um, or else, uh, drop me an [00:36:00] email at, uh, it's not the chat g PT, but T WB at Update Mate ai. Um, so it's for Thomas Windberg launch. So Twb at Update made AI. Hit me up there, find me on LinkedIn.

Um, I'm in a state where let's do some sparring on AI and how we can make things better and easier with scaling.

Ivor: Or perhaps someone can give you a cold call.

Thomas: I would love for that and feel free to record it and we can decipher it together with the help of AI afterwards.

Ivor: Said no one ever to I'll give you a cold call. I would love that. But anyway, on that note, thank you so much for being an awesome guest, Thomas. Guys, thank you for tuning in to Go To Market Tales. If you're interested in the topics or want to be a guest for one of the episodes, then please reach out to us.

Speak next time. Thanks for tuning in.

‍

GTM Tales Thomas

Ivor: [00:00:00] So hello everyone and welcome to Go To MarketTales. The podcast where I sit down with experts in B2B go to market to hear and exchange stories that have unlocked growth. So following on from the episode with Sakina from Shopify, this is now our sixth episode. And yeah, today I'm really, really pleased to have Thomas who Was one of the first employees at Trustpilot joining as just the fourth team member.

And so he's seen firsthand what it takes to scale a startup from the ground up. So I'm super interested to dig into his experience there and also how he's going about getting his [00:01:00] new project update mate AI to market. So Thomas, it's great to have you with us today. How is everything? Thank you, 

Thomas: Ira. And thanks for the introduction.

I really appreciate it. Um, everything is going great. Um, literally just five minutes before I was jumping on this, had a great customer meeting. So feeling good today. Thanks for asking. 

Ivor: Awesome. Really, really good to hear that Thomas. So you've had quite a journey in the tech industry, I would say, particularly with your time at Trustpilot.

So I'd like to start there. Perhaps, perhaps going back a little bit before actually, can you perhaps share how you transitioned into the tech world and what drew you to join Trustpilot as one of its earliest employees? Yes, 

Thomas: I'd love to. Um, so going back before Trustpilot, I've always been heavily, uh, interested in everything tech, um, [00:02:00] Basically doing the least amount of work to get the maximum output in every aspect of my life.

And that drives you towards some tech perspectives. Education wise, I also chose a direction where it's about business performance management. So I've always believed that I have something to add to that aspect. Yeah. So, so, so that's, that's basically a background. I was so fortunate that I also come from a family that adopted tech, uh, PCs.

Uh, for those of you old enough to know what, uh, um, um, 386, 25 megahertz PC is, uh, you know, where I'm coming from. That was the first in the house, uh, me trying to, to, yeah, do everything tech at that moment, um, and it just escalated from there.

Ivor: Cool. When you talked about getting maximum output from the minimum amount of input, it reminded [00:03:00] me about the Bill Gates quote of he will always choose a lazy person to do a hard job. 'cause he'll find, or she'll find the easiest way and the most optimum way of getting there. Um, so as. You were the fourth employee at Trustpilot.

You saw the company great from the ground up. What, uh, was some of the key roles and responsibilities during the early days? And how did you approach scaling the team and operations there? Walk me through that. Yeah, 

Thomas: I'd be happy to. Um, and basically I had five roles over the course of five years. Um, I would say unofficially I replaced the commercial co founder pretty early on.

Trustpilot had been established. Um, at that point it had a very, uh, B2C focus. It was about the users, about the reviews. Uh, we had, it hadn't really gotten to the point where they've really coined [00:04:00] the B2B side of things. And I think a lot of the things we're going to talk about About Trustpilot today is that it was a two edged, it is a two edged sword, um, where you both need to satisfy B2B clients and they got to bring in some revenue and you got to have the users on the other side to be happy with the platform and to believe that it is trustworthy for them to continue to use it.

Both parts have to be there or else it wouldn't exist. Um, so I'd say everything started off with, um, With basically me coming in and trying to, to scale as, I dunno, what's it called? Head of sales, VP sales, something like that. Early days titles doesn't matter when you're that early. Um, there was the, the three co founders, a couple of, uh, student workers.

And then I was, I was added to the team, um, throwing myself in as an individual contributor and basically, [00:05:00] um, going for a very specific niche. Uh, that being e commerce companies that had, uh, no social proof at all on their, in their appearance online. Um, and, and what we did was basically almost, we were at the phone book where we could get lists.

We were working in an old, uh, uh, Microsoft access database. That was our zero when we started. Um, luckily we had Peter, the CEO and co founder who was quite nerdy around databases, so he could create lists where he said, these have the highest probability of being successful. Uh, for us to actually help them get some social proof so they can have a higher conversion rate on their website when they sell.

Um, so our thinking was that e commerce shops have a lot of traffic, quite low conversion, maybe 1, 2 percent of the visitors will convert into buying customers. Could we just add, maybe, you [00:06:00] know, raise that to 2. 2 or 2. 3 percent conversion rate. That would go straight to the bottom line with very little effort.

This was the early days of, of online shopping. So there was a rising awareness about scams and ways that you could end up buying something, giving you, giving your money to them without getting any goods. And that was the thing we believed in. And we also would like shops to identify themselves as a good place to shop and help the users that way.

Ivor: So that leads me to my next question, and I think a lot of listeners and a lot of people within, you know, not only B2B, but also B2C are focused on conversion rate optimization. So how did you move from that 1% to the two to 3%, which has a huge knock on impact, isn't it, to that model at Trustpilot, but also.[00:07:00] 

If you're doing, yeah, a certain amount of leads and bringing a certain amount of leads through your website and you're able to actually increase that, you'd double it from 1 percent to 10 percent in just a month, that can be, that can be huge for growth. So how did you go about doing that? 

Thomas: So diving into that specific part, the key element for shops were to have some sort of social proof on their website.

And there has been several ways to do this. Uh, back in the early internet days, there were different logos and certificates and stuff you could get, uh, to showcase that you took this seriously. Um, but I think shopping online, especially around 2010, uh, 2009, 2010. And in the coming years, so 15 years ago, um, you really wanted to see what do other people think about this place, especially from those who had a shopping experience.

And we made it very, very easy and very affordable for the shop [00:08:00] owners to activate the highest amount of their buying customers to leave a review that they could automatically display on their website, uh, without having to do anything themselves except for delivering good service. So that was the key offering and what we also charged for to facilitate that.

Ivor: Interesting. Interesting. And you developed the model to become more of a. B2B play as well. So how did you approach turning those consumer insights into a business model that appealed to companies as well? 

Thomas: So a classic call, if I were to summarize it all would be, uh, hi, Ivor, you run this shop. Um, I'm from Trustpilot.

I've been looking at your site. I've tried Googling your name. I either find nothing about how it is to shop with you, or I find maybe one or two negative comments somewhere. That doesn't leave me with the impression that you're good. Typically, we would get the response, but we're magnificent. We have great [00:09:00] customer service.

Say, okay, I believe you, but why don't you tell the public that that's the truth through your customer's voice? They will start thinking and say, look, you probably don't have the time to do this yourself. So we've set up an automatic feedback system, asking every single client with an easy to write a review link where they didn't have to create a user because we knew that they were real people that shop there.

Um, and we would get up to 10 percent response rate on behalf of the shop owner. For, for the customers to, to actually write a review and we fed it into a widget on the website, as most of people know, Trustpilot websites today have that widget where it automatically updates with the reviews that was it.

That was the offering maximum amount of reviews fed directly to your website. And we've optimized towards Google. So you would find that there. Uh, 

Ivor: What I found really interesting was, yeah, that's [00:10:00] social proof is absolutely key, not only in 2008, but before then and now, I think if you go into any B2B SaaS website, one of the first things you should see really is some testimonials, um, some reviews from real people.

And, uh, when we started to actually, um, add a few of those to, to our website on, on Nethia. We did see a big increase in conversions there. So it's a key thing today. And I, I think, um, one of the aspects that I found really interesting. Was how you actually got back to more companies and you alluded to before a campaign that Tapped into people's fears perhaps and you're quite direct into going out to more companies.

Could you? Talk about that a little bit more if you remember. Yeah tactic. I'm so yeah, 

Thomas: so [00:11:00] as I mentioned before There is this human nature that, uh, there's a, there's a high chance that if you get a review, you'll likely get it from someone who was dissatisfied. Uh, it's different today, back in 2009, 10, majority of internet warriors were the ones who had a bad experience.

I know they wanted to spread the word and they could do that easily. Now, at this point, TripAdvisor was already there. Yelp was already there, which was very, very much about travel and local places to eat. And they struggled a lot with getting a lot of people to write reviews that weren't just the dissatisfied where we had an advantage.

So we pick it back, pick it back a bit on their business model, but we had the fortunate, uh, world of e commerce with a lot of bias. So we could get a lot more reviews. So, [00:12:00] and I know this might be a little controversial for some, But what we did was, and I honestly still believe it, it's a fair way to do it, because we pretty much just highlighted that the internet can be a cruel place, and you got to take things into your own hands if you want to, um, if you want to own your identity, so to speak.

So often what would happen is that, um, we would call companies that was the prime lead list for us in the sales team. Um, that we very quickly grew. Um, I'd say the first couple of years, we were around 10, 10 salespeople for a couple of markets, we would always try to call the companies that had one bad review.

We wouldn't overplay it, but we would definitely call them and say, Hey, Ivor, I'm calling from Trustpilot. I don't know if you're aware of this, but you already have someone who's writing a negative review about your company. That was one tactic and they, you would definitely get their attention. [00:13:00] It's probably the easiest call called intro I've done.

Uh, they wouldn't hang up on you. They might get angry, but, uh, you would get talk time. Um, the other thing that we did, uh, this was a little technical hack. I can't take credit for it. Someone else can, uh, back in those days, but we, um, so Trustpilot is an open review platform, meaning that everyone can look up reviews.

Everyone can look for a company through the search bar. So if I were to go in and look up Omnifia. Uh, and maybe write a review, but at that time we would actually, uh, send someone an email that someone had been looking for reviews. So we would scrape your website and we would write you, Hey, admin or whatever we could derive from the website.

Someone has been looking for reviews about your company on Trustpilot. So your company page on Trustpilot would be auto created if someone looked [00:14:00] you up. So we didn't have to have user generated things. We just did it on the go. So a lookup would create the website. A review would create an email to the owner saying, Hey, someone is writing about you, just wanted to let you know.

Uh, 

Ivor: I love that. I find it fascinating. These nitty gritty details of the campaigns that helps drive, grow for various different brands. And you know, that's super interesting that you, um, tapped into maybe the fear of companies that you're targeting. And I absolutely think that's, Much more of a driving force in decision making.

I think as humans, we're much more wired to respond to scenarios of fearful states, right? Rather than, we can help you drive more revenue or more [00:15:00] customers into your business. People are much more Uh, likely to respond and do something if you spark that kind of fear within them and it is a little bit, um, you could say a little bit manipulative, but I think that's just the reality of, of good marketing today.

Thomas: Thanks. I agree. And coming to, to, to identifying the word manipulate, you know, chiropractors do it and people willingly pay the money to manipulate them. So, uh, 

Ivor: exactly, exactly. So, um, I want to move on actually to, there's quite a lot of other aspects to, to cover here. So you talked to us about the, the pricing and that was quite a key.

Moment in trust pilots, uh, growth as well. So could you touch on that a little bit? And then, um, perhaps we can get into that, the scaling challenges and then move on to, to update. 

Thomas: So converting this to, um, let's just take a British pounds, uh, for the package that [00:16:00] we delivered. So the auto updating widget and the automatic feedback service, where we would ask on behalf of the shop that was around, so a hundred Danish Kroners would, would be equivalent to maybe.

Let's say 12 pounds per month. Um. We quickly realized, and that was a significant part of my job, to be running first in front of the team, trying to test the waters, what could actually be possible. So over the course of, I would say a year, we, um, I tried just to go out and say, double. So the next client, because we didn't have prices on the website and for B2B marketers, this is also a thing.

I don't think there's a right answer. Should you have prices on your website? Maybe at some point, if it's easy, simple, but we didn't at that point, I believe they do have now, but we went, I went in and say, well, it's 24 pounds a month. Majority would just say, fine, let's do it. And I was like, Hmm, I wonder if I say 36 [00:17:00] majority still said, yes, let's do it.

Then I said 48. And I think within that year, we ended at around 80 pounds per month. Well, we saw a significant drop off, which was okay, because if you did the calculations, you would gain more revenue and you will still get that part of the clients who really saw the value of the most, meaning that you wouldn't end up with someone being nitty gritty.

And I'm dissatisfied about this. They knew this had value. So by raising the price, and this is a strategy, a lot of B2B marketers should consider. It's okay to get nos, you can't win them all. And maybe you don't want them all. Okay. So we six times the price in one year for the same product. Uh, and that gave us the muscles to go out and raise significant investment rounds.

This was another time money was almost free. VCs were standing in a queue to, to give you money, but that helped of course. 

Ivor: How did you look at [00:18:00] the competitors? Did you understand what they were pricing, um, their solutions out as well when you factored in the price increase? 

Thomas: So early days, there were almost no competitors, a few in Germany, uh, but it was mainly certificates that you could buy for your website.

It was pretty easy to challenge that. And I mean, talk to a shop owner, say, put yourself in the consumer's shoe. Do you trust 65 reviews from other users or do you trust that you bought a certificate? I think it's pretty obvious what you would convert the most with um But going into germany that has a little bit of a lower price level We had challenges.

Um And that's also a bit of another story because there's two ways of running a review platform, the open platform. Everyone can write reviews. That's what Trustpilot believes in. That puts a whole support crew into play that costs money. [00:19:00] Whereas a lot of the German players, they had closed review platforms, meaning the same in the UK, there's a few of them that meant that the shop owners could decide which consumers they wanted to ask.

Became pretty easy to get a five star rating then. Um, so we 

Ivor: all surprise, surprise, surprise. 

Thomas: Yeah. So we allowed to say, look, at the end of the day, there's gonna be the winner. It's gonna be the open platform. Do you believe that? Yeah. Now we need a support team to help. If someone flags a review for being wrongly put there, we need to be able to help that, to maintain our trustworthiness that has a price, a premium price.

That's why we are a bit above the, the rest. So that was how we, we marketed that. 

Ivor: Okay, so you mentioned, uh, Germany, and I think that's probably quite a good segue, uh, opportunity. So you talked about before scaling company like, um, trust pilot came with quite a lot of challenges and [00:20:00] expanding into new markets, pay some, some difficulties.

So. Could you speak to that a little bit? How, um, what challenges did you face when you scaled across different markets and how did that impact the growth? And 

Thomas: thanks for bringing this up. This touches upon one of the things that I really, really care a lot about and that I've consulted quite a number of companies about, um, scale as fast as you can when possible.

But be aware if you're doing it in Europe, uh, or in any other, um, fragmented market, when it comes to language barriers and cultural differences. Um, Trustpilot stands out as a special case on that growing scaling challenge, because there was good reasoning behind going into, let's say 10 new countries in a year.

It made sense. There were no competitors. They had e commerce up and running. But what we may not have realized back then, and we were still a young team, uh, the founding team, um, [00:21:00] was that unless you do everything that you did well in those countries where you're winning, you might get competitors who.

Just do their own country, France, Germany, and you will get such hot competition that you may not, may not ever catch a break and you may not become the defacto standard. Uh, and that's what we experienced, experienced, um, Denmark stands out for Trustpilot as one of the winning markets. UK is. Up there as well.

Uh, Netherlands as well, but thinking about that, the millions of dollars put into Germany, France, Italy, Spain, um, and It's still local players that, that has the market, the biggest market share, um, that might change, but that has been an uphill battle and also dissatisfying for a lot of employees that, why can't my market get the same attention as this market over here?

It isn't as easy as say, [00:22:00] well, you speak French. Try to hit up some clients in, in, in France, you need translation, you need support in that local language. You need everything to back it up. Um, and it, it's a hard job being a solo, uh, cowboy in, in a, in a country where no one else than yourself backs you up.

That was the scaling difficulties, uh, where we were fortunate enough to have a lot of funding and a lot of backing. So we could resist it, but that could have been the downfall of TrustPilot going into too many markets too quickly. Um, for those listening to this podcast, I would introduce a thing called like, uh, a critical mass.

So if you're working with something, figure out, is there a critical mass where you can don't rest on your laurels, but you know, if I reach this amount of clients or this amount of users or et cetera, then, you know, you're in a place where you can cool off and maybe [00:23:00] allocate some energy to another market.

But if you haven't reached it, reach it first, if the strategy allows for it, before going into a lot of other markets. 

Ivor: Yeah, I actually have, uh, experience to, to share as well in, in this respect. So I was a head of marketing at a B2B fintech called Tokeney. We had, you know, like most startups, Big ambitions and we didn't just want to succeed in one continent.

We actually wanted to make our mark globally. And I think a lot of this comes from VC funding as well. You've got to take over the whole world. You've got to become a unicorn. And so the plan was to expand into the U. S. Asia and Europe all at the same time and there was quite a big problem and that was, we were quite a small team with limited resources, about 20 of us [00:24:00] and each one of we, we realized each one of these markets had its own challenges.

You know, different events, different communities, and each required its own dedicated resources and strategies, much like how you just talked about. You can't just have a one man person in France, for example. And we found ourselves struggling to gain traction in, in any of them, really growth had been quite slow, disjointed and unsustainable as well.

And so we kind of took a step back and started to rethink our approach and we narrowed our focus down to just becoming the leading provider in Europe first. And as soon as we, Made that shift things did start to change quite quickly. We built stronger relationships with local communities, gain momentum in European market, and we were being referred to in the press as the, uh, European leader in digital asset technology.

So it was a [00:25:00] complete game changer. And what I learned is, you know, sometimes ambition can actually outpace practicality, keys to master, I think one market before moving on to the next. And that focus. Really creates that clarity and clarity creates that sustainable growth, I think. 

Thomas: Yeah, I can 100 percent relate.

And even being the market leader in Europe, that's incredibly difficult because we are such a small continent with so many different cultures and languages, uh, and I get why a lot of people want to go to the U S is one language, it's a huge market, but my God, it's costly. Uh, could be money down the drain.

The competitions. 

Ivor: Usually really, really tough as well in the States. Right. Okay. So let's, let's move on. So after your time at Trustpilot, you've now let's whisper to now. So you've co founded UpdateMeet AI, which sounds like it's solving some really interesting problems around, you know, internal communication and, and reporting.

So yeah. Talk a [00:26:00] little bit about that and how you're kind of approaching go to market with update. 

Thomas: Thanks for asking. And this is a bit of like, it's my partner, Hans Christian and I, it's our baby. Um, and, uh, we're still early days. We're two months in, um, We've got our first eight paying clients. Um, and majority is not even from our network.

It's people who literally had a significant need that they wanted to solve. Um, so very, very short. What we do is we bring AI into play. We attach, let's just say for simplicity, chat GPT to all your internal systems. Um, and we help you send the exact compromised or compressed data to the right people at the right time.

And the use cases typically as companies grow, when we talk about scaling, uh, the founders, the leaders come further and further away from real life customers and what they're saying. And how do we [00:27:00] actually solve if there's problems with your product or your services? So the main thing we're helping companies with right now is that we, um, leach onto their support system and we help bring out a weekly report that AI helps produce.

So no one has to do it in the companies and deliver it to a leadership group. Let's say Monday morning, eight o'clock, which means that no one can forget. No one can be blamed for if it's biased in a way, this is the raw data. This is your clients. This is the essence of your business. Now, leadership group do not discuss whether you need more or less or who wrote it.

This is the truth now get to work on solving it or agreeing not to solve it. And I think this has been huge eye opener for me in getting feedback from clients that they said, We're paying the starter package 19 a month. We have three AI agents. It's brought our leadership team together, working, [00:28:00] having a hive mind rather than a silo thinking way for 19.

It's been the best money we've ever spent, uh, on getting real insight to. What is the true nature of what our customers are thinking? Um, so yeah, really, really happy. Nice. Love it. 

Ivor: Yeah, really cool product. And yeah, GPTs and LLMI think are the perfect solution for analyzing data and coming up with insights, finding the, the patterns in that data, the anomalies.

It's far more efficient using an LLM than. Someone find coming through all that data and missing all the different, um, key points and say, yeah, insights there. So how are you like getting that in front of people? What do you, what's your channel? They usually say, especially when starting out focus on one channel.

So, What do you, what do you focus on? 

Thomas: So we we've chosen, so I [00:29:00] did, I tried to analyze the market and where the richest data is, is in your support channel. So I look, we, we quite early went in and said, we need at least three support software that we have a direct connection to. So we chose, uh, send desk, crisp and intercom.

And currently, and what I'm spending most of my time on is trying to speak to a head of support C level and or product owners in companies that use Intercom. And the main reason for that is that Intercom is by far the most expensive system. At least I've heard that, which gives me an indication about that.

These companies, they take their support quite seriously. They, they, they, they don't want to fail out on having a bad system for support. So that gives us a level of serious seriousness when it comes to that. Um, so practically, practically I've done two things. Uh, I went to WebAlizer and built with. [00:30:00] And help and ask them to help me create lists with companies using this technology.

And, uh, then either through LinkedIn, um, basically visiting a person's web profile on LinkedIn, waiting a day. If they visit me back, I send them a connect request. Um, and if we connect either, I get the phone number in the contact details, or I sent them a message trying to get a conversation going And if they feel they are really getting the, the gist of what everyone is speaking about, not just those who pays the most or yells the loudest.

Ivor: I see so often, um, on LinkedIn or, uh, whatever social media platform that cold calling is is dead. That seems to be a common thread, but I just I couldn't disagree more. Actually, I think. In this era where you're getting tons of these automated emails and you could say. [00:31:00] cold calls, uh, you know, at the cost of getting automated themselves.

But I think you get far fewer automated messages by cold call and it's a real chance to just get straight in front of your, your buyer and make an impact. So what, how do you do that? How do you, um, make an impact when you have that cold call in, in a minute or two before we close off the podcast and I get your book

Thomas: Yeah. Um,

Ivor: If you can fit

Thomas: yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll get a run to that. Um, so basically I'm at the stage where I'm so fortunate to be able to say I'm a partner and a co founder. Now that adds a lot of credibility and I'm asking for, for talk time to both present, this is an AI startup and that we've done some things on the reporting.

Both the content of it and the speed of how we can do it. Um, do you want to kick me off the line or do you want me, or do you want to continue a couple of minutes and then you can say, yes, let's have a meeting where I [00:32:00] see it or no, thanks. That's not for me. So completely upfront ask for allowance to, or ask for, uh, to be allowed to tell basically what you're doing.

Uh, I use a little trick. I maybe it's not a trick, but I very quickly say, Hey, look, this is a sales call, it's now a bad time, or can I get 30 seconds of your time to just explain why I'm calling you? You can decide whether you want to continue our conversations or hang up on me. Is that okay with you? And when I say this is a sales call, I add, but you probably already discovered that and they're like, Oh yeah, I did.

And you're talking to their ego and they are like, they think they have the upper hand and that's okay because I have given them control. Um, that that's the gist of it. And then it becomes a really, really friendly, uh, talk and, and a live demo where we talk into their challenges about, uh, getting reporting done at the right time with the right content.

Ivor: Really, really [00:33:00] cool. Um, I'm going to test that out someday and let you know how it goes. Um, so yeah, something we do to close every episode out is we ask each guest to recommend a book for the next guest with a short reason why. And it's actually quite a funny coincidence as our last guest was. Sakina from Shopify, and she recommended, um, cold calling sucks. And that's why it works. And the reason she gave was to be excellent in sales. You have to be good at cold calling and it's a great book on the topic. So I feel that's quite apt with, with some of the, the things that you've said in this podcast. So yeah, what's your, uh, recommendation Thomas for the

Thomas: Yeah, I, I did a lot of thinking about this and I've could have gone in the direction of sales books sort of like that, but I want, there was one book that I read over the last year that really set [00:34:00] apart or set something different in my mind. Uh, it's Daniel Kahneman thinking fast and slow. And, uh, the reason I'm, I'm highlighting this is.

It helps you analyze your day to day situations on which mindset and how you think about solving problems. Um, and can give you a tool. I know it's, it's not a fair way of making that book that compressed. Uh, but it really added a lot of value for me to not jump to conclusions and which subtle clues in conversations you need to look for and listen for to realize should you use your auto system.

And just get it done, or you should really analyze, say, Hey, look, I don't think I'm equipped to answer this yet. Let me get back, analyze, do a bit more heavy thinking before I say something or do something. This has been a game changer for me, and I would recommend [00:35:00] anyone who want to do something with their career, uh, takes that part seriously.

Um, and if you're not up for reading a whole book, it's quite long. Uh, I believe you can find a compressed version on Blinkist or something. That's a good start.

Ivor: I think in, yeah, it's super relevant if you're working in a startup as well, because you can often be under pressure to get things moving and kind of make a decision, but sometimes when you make the wrong decision, you have to. Unwrangle all of those things that you've built and it can actually take longer.

So taking time and each decision is super, super important and enables you to, to grow faster for sure. So thanks a lot for the book recommendation, Thomas. Um, if people want to reach out to you, how can they

Thomas: Yeah, so, uh, look up Update Mate AI on LinkedIn. You can find me and my partner hands Christian there. We can both be be reached, um, or else, uh, drop me an [00:36:00] email at, uh, it's not the chat g PT, but T WB at Update Mate ai. Um, so it's for Thomas Windberg launch. So Twb at Update made AI. Hit me up there, find me on LinkedIn.

Um, I'm in a state where let's do some sparring on AI and how we can make things better and easier with scaling.

Ivor: Or perhaps someone can give you a cold call.

Thomas: I would love for that and feel free to record it and we can decipher it together with the help of AI afterwards.

Ivor: Said no one ever to I'll give you a cold call. I would love that. But anyway, on that note, thank you so much for being an awesome guest, Thomas. Guys, thank you for tuning in to Go To Market Tales. If you're interested in the topics or want to be a guest for one of the episodes, then please reach out to us.

Speak next time. Thanks for tuning in.

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