Ryan Castillo

@coolprobn If marketing copy is hard, my number one suggestion is to do customer interviews. Check out @mjwhansen's @DeployEmpathy in case you haven't. Record those transcripts and then feed them into AI. At least then you're starting with how your customers actually talk.

Marketing copy was always something that was very hard for me to get right. With AI, at least I am getting copies I am happy with. Context: I am revamping zeroconfigrails.com so I can leverage AI and market it as a starter kit instead of a generator.

@TheCraigHewitt You’re in the market for buying SaaS?

@rmcastil yeah good question, don't know. never done it. but might!

I hear a lot of (and have said myself) that SaaS is F@cked But then seeing that “the smartest people are buying up legacy SaaS as fast as they can” and then are AI-ifying them. How can both be true? Honest question, not trolling. Exit Multiples that we’ve seen are the lowest I’ve ever seen them. Do acquirers know something that sellers don’t? Or are those buyers wrong? cc @jonhainstock @JesseTinsley et al

@mattwensing We built two startups that 70% of other founders wish they had brings me no satisfaction.

Okay, so my last startup did fail .., but made it to the top 5%.

@mattwensing lol. Other draft of that reply was "I know you love your kids, but savants?"

@rmcastil Ha! Definitely not myself although I have shown poor judgment. But yes, extremely skilled junior folks are directionally the same as Claude.

The similarity of managing Claude and managing an eager savant with very poor judgment is incredible. It's the same skill.

@bzagrodzki 1000%

@rmcastil On the other hand you can spin up a few agents each one questioning you and each other 😉

The hardest part of building solo isn’t the work. It’s backing your own judgment when no one’s there to validate it.

I get all that. Maybe we’re different because we were good friends first but we’ve barely seen any of those issues. Granted there is still drama but we try to keep it private. It’s still a net positive as it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and whose strengths cover what the other lacks.

reason +1 for my solo founder mode: no cofounder drama in public no credit fights no “who really built this”

@WolfyBlair @DanKulkov AFAIK it’s only on desktop. A couple of our tools will also force the download since we use their interface if you want to check them out knowatoa.com/whats-chrome-s… sendcheckit.com/email-subject-…

@WolfyBlair @DanKulkov It ships with it. Are you on the latest?

mildly infuriating: chrome tabs are blocked by ask gemini

@jessethanley @aarondfrancis @MathiasHansen Got the Philippines in December. Didn’t want to try and squeeze in Japan at the same time. Definitely on my list to spend two weeks there and visit you.

@rmcastil @aarondfrancis @MathiasHansen Jealous! I wanna hang with them! Come to Japan next year!

Current status: learning what Laravel is whilst I eat soup curry.

@jessethanley @joshcirre Warms my heart that you two have linked up. Both good dudes. Funny that I’ve known Jesse longer but have met Josh IRL.

@joshcirre Go here for dinner samurai-curry.com/shop_tachikawa/

@jessethanley We had that same experience when we went to the one in Dallas. Just good vibes all around. It helped that we knew @aarondfrancis and @MathiasHansen.

@rmcastil I’m here to eat food, make friends, and soak up some of the positive energy in this community. Already met lots of lovely people and it hasn’t even started! No goal/didn’t sponsor so just learn.

@tibo_maker A lot of those are long tail informational queries. Those are the ones getting hit the hardest by AIs. Is Lemon Sqieezy’s CTRs holding up due to DA? Or is that part of their moat eroding?

I analyzed Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy's SEO 😱 Stripe: ~4M organic visits/mo Lemon Squeezy: ~11K/mo Stripe: 94 DA Lemon Squeezy: 91 DA 370x traffic gap but just a 3 point DA difference 🧐 Lemon Squeezy is 82% organic. they've built a pure SEO moat 👀 and they rank for keywords Stripe wouldn't even compete on: - "into design" (33K searches/mo) - "sell digital goods" (5K/mo) - "gtm strategist" (3K/mo) - "selling digital items" (4K/mo) these aren't blog readers. these are buyers searching with intent the tool I used even flagged moves for Stripe. keywords Lemon Squeezy ranks for that Stripe doesn't, with ready-to-go action plans and that's the playbook for small teams beating giants at SEO - find what they're too big to care about - then own it 🎯 found all this in 90 seconds with a free tool we just shipped 💥 drop two URLs, get a full breakdown with a ranked action plan link below 👇

@asmartbear Got it. My misread. Thanks for always sharing!

@rmcastil I was specifically talking about leadership, not management. Leadership is expecting. Managing is executing.

Leadership isn’t 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 people do stuff. It’s 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 people to do great stuff. Either showing what that is by example, or praising and holding up great stuff when it happens. Editing, not writing.

@asmartbear Agreed. I think I was being nitpicky. I would have said "it's optimizing people to do great stuff" rather than "it's expecting people to do great stuff".

@rmcastil If they consistently don't meet expectations, that's always the manager's fault -- they either didn't hire someone who can do the job, or they did and aren't letting them, or they're not helping them get better.

Measuring AI visibility isn't an exact science. We see people get paralyzed trying to figure out what to track. Others get stumped on how it compares to organic. SEO trained us to think in exact terms: rank, position, keyword. AI doesn't work that way. There's no "rank" for "best CRM." There's a probability the AI mentions you, shaped by what it's seen across the web. The response is to become omnichannel. Showing up on YouTube, Reddit, review sites, or wherever the AIs are sourcing from.