Marketing in a Zero-Click World with Rand Fishkin

assumption or theory about what's

disrupting marketing right now is that

it's something to do with AI right that

that AI is somehow uh overturning the

industry maybe it's replacing jobs maybe

it's putting people out of business

maybe it's responsible for you know this

destruction of value and all these

agencies and and Consulting world uh

maybe it's what's causing CMOS to have

such short ten yearses I don't actually

agree with that I I think that what's

really going on behind the scenes is uh

sort of three things the first one

[Music]

is hello and welcome to marketing speak

I'm your host Stefan Spencer it is my

pleasure and honor to have Rand fishkin

with us again he is a repeat guest and

uh just a brilliant and amazing Soul

he's the co-founder and CEO of spark

Toro and of snack bar studio he's the

author of lost and founder co-author

with me on the first two editions of the

art of SEO he's husband to an

award-winning author Geraldine dartier

and uh just yeah like I said an amazing

human so Rand it's so great to have you

back and I'm really excited to hear what

you have to think and say about this

crazy stuff that's happening in the

world and and not just in marketing but

in the big monolithic companies like

open AI and and Google and Microsoft and

so forth and how this is all going to

play out for us business owners

marketers and uh consultants and all

that so welcome to the show thank you

Stefan I appreciate you having me on and

yes I have I have much to say have many

passionate thoughts on this matter yeah

so let's start there let's start with uh

you know maybe the existential threats

that you see are credible and real and

those that you think are mirages and

what we should do about it yeah so

interestingly I think that the let's see

I would say that many people's

assumption or theory about what's

disrupting marketing right now is that

it's something to do with AI right that

that AI is somehow uh overturning the

industry maybe it's replacing jobs maybe

it's putting people out of business

maybe it's responsible for you know this

destruction of value in all these

agencies and and Consulting world uh

maybe it's what's causing CMOS to have

such short ten years I don't actually

agree with that I I think that uh what's

what's really going on behind the scenes

is uh sort of three things the first one

is macroeconomic the covid what I'm

going to call bump and slump so this is

essentially that during covid tons and

tons of companies saw massive adoption

of the online world and the digital

world digital marketing as a result got

a huge bump every business in the world

um had that wasn't online had to get

online everyone that was online got way

more customers the world just became

internet Centric and as a result many

people overinvestment

and

2018 that's what realistically the last

few years looked like with this outsized

bump and so now that slump is causing a

ton of businesses to retract their

investment and simultaneous to that the

second big factor is the end of cheap

money right so I'll give you an example

so Stefan spark Toro is a weird kind of

Company the company I run one of the

companies I run the other one's weird

too but but Spar Toro had we had about

three qus of a million dollars in the

bank and I talked to my co-founder Casey

and we were like well should we try and

make these Investments maybe we should

take a you know uh a risk on hiring

someone new and perhaps we should put

some money into I don't know

sponsorships or advertising or uh trying

to get some new data and then we looked

at the interest rates on the bond yield

US Treasury bonds right which basically

zero risk boy we can make 40 Grand this

year just by throwing that into a a

t-bond you know what let's do that

because we're an LLC you know the

profits slow directly us let's just put

the money in a t Bond and then we'll

we'll we'll figure out our strategy at

the end of the year and see if we get to

a place where we really want to make

those Investments and a ton of companies

are like us they are putting their money

into this safe interest earning Place

whereas before they would have been

spending it in the economy this is

obviously intentional right the fed and

the government and and the Biden

Administration they want to slow down

consumer spending they want to slow down

economic growth because inflation got

out of control it looks like it's having

some success although obviously there's

always challenges with this kind of

thing so that is slowing things down

number two and then number three what

I'm going to call uh the rise of the

zero click Universe zero click

everything every single platform

Facebook Google Instagram uh Reddit

YouTube LinkedIn Tik Tock mastedon you

know well maston's the exception but all

threads all of these places all of these

places have biased against links Google

gole answers more and more queries

without requiring a click Facebook and

Reddit and Instagram and Linkedin and

Twitter and threads they all have

algorithms that bias against links you

put a link in your post on threads it's

going to do worse than if you put no

link in there this universe of zero

click everything is really dragging down

a ton of marketers who spent the last

quarter Century being trained to measure

and invest based on the traffic they

could drive from each source

that that is creating a ton of

frustration and a ton of misattribution

and a whole bunch of problems as well in

my opinion those three things not the

rise of AI broadly are responsible for

what we're seeing in the marketing world

right now interesting yeah we'll have to

dig deeper into that but first what is

your position on AI is it an existential

threat or is it one of the best things

that could have possibly happened to

humanity you know anytime a big new

technology launches let's say the mobile

phone or social networking or the

internet um the answer is always a

little from column A and A little from

column B right I mean I would I would

say that the

internet disrupted many businesses but

but it didn't really destroy economic

value it gave many more jobs all over

the world it sort of reduced friction of

Commerce and nection um it created

plenty of problems no argument but it

also solved lots of problems AI is

probably pretty similar to that um I've

I've argued that AI is a lot like the

rise of spreadsheets in the

1980s like it it just takes a ton of

work that was manual and awkward and a

pain in the butt and and took particular

kinds of skills and slide rules and

graphs and you know whiteboards while

blackboards and and made it much more

automated much more high quality uh much

more efficient I think that's what AI

well large language models and and

generative AI broadly speaking do they

they make a whole bunch of kinds of work

potentially uh more

efficient is that transformative yeah I

think it is for a lot of people I use

some AI things I I'll be honest I uh we

we use AI a little bit well open AI um

API anyway inside spark Toro for some

types of queries where we can't get a

good match on an audience and we try to

use open AI to essentially broaden that

audience to understand who the people in

that group might be and then use our

normal heuristics to apply that data um

it's handy for that we use it I think we

use it on about one in one in 10 to one

in 20 queries that are unclear you know

that come from a user it's great really

solves that problem uh I use it for

content classification it's nice for

that mhm and to be honest I've tried to

apply it to a whole bunch of other

things someone emailed me yesterday

stepen um they were asking about

restaurant recommendations in Seattle

and they were like hey chat GPT told me

that these are good restaurants to go to

uh for a big group and Geraldine and I

both looked at the list and we were like

oh my God this is awful like this list

is horrifying some of the restaurants

would technically accommodate the group

but most of most of what the problem is

is that large language models show words

that commonly come after other words and

if you would like a good restaurant

experience you probably don't want

restaurants that are most commonly

mentioned on the internet when

associated with a city right you're

looking for something unique something

really high quality and so chat GPT has

just given terrible answers um anyway we

we sent them a good restaurant list if

you want if you want a good restaurant

list I'll send it to you so

transformative yes I existential threat

I don't think so um best things in

sliced bread maybe for some people well

I think uh we're going to be blown away

by what's coming my P perspective on

this is to maintain a level of of

positive expectancy because you create

your own reality and so if you can look

at this as a positive thing and not as a

just a ticking Time Bomb you're going to

end up with a a happier time yeah I

think that's I think that's reasonable I

mean I think of it a lot like do you

remember mobile apps I remember we were

at all these conferences right Stefan

and and you and I had this conversation

probably years ago but the rise of

mobile apps in like 2008 to 2010 11 and

there was always panels and talks at

these conferences tons of content about

how every business needed a mobile app

now you had to get a mobile app and the

reality was that that was pretty dumb

like 99 % of businesses don't need a

mobile app the average consumer only has

about 40 apps on their phone ever uh

most probably use three of them maybe

four and they and they probably use

three of them and most apps should be a

really good mobile website right but for

some reason app world and app adoption

was just was just massive and my

suspicion is AI is a lot like this many

businesses can benefit from using AI to

solve the problems that AI is best at

solving should everyone completely adopt

AI for every one of their processes no

right the way the right way to think

about any new solution that comes out is

what are my biggest problems can that

solve my biggest problems is it the best

solution for my biggest problems if so

great prioritize it if not what what are

you doing I don't think this is nfts but

the hype cycle around it sounds a lot

like nfts and that scares me do you do

you own any nfts

thank God no I did not buy into that

hype cycle I'm glad to say so what's

your position on threads and and on X or

you know formerly known as Twitter yeah

so well Twitter I I think Twitter and

threads the nice thing is there's

there's data there I don't I've seen

some of the estimates that say threads

already has more active users than

Twitter I don't think that's correct the

data that we have access to which is uh

we buy clickstream data from Do's panel

they've got a little over 10 million

devices in the United States you know so

good coverage right it's we're talking

about a significant number of devices

and um that's fairly representative from

what we can see of the broader internet

world uh it has its biases of course

like any data set but you know similar

to like what commcore was doing a few

years ago or what similar web has and

what I see is that threads has got about

somewhere between a third and half the

daily active users that Twitter does um

but it is growing whereas Twitter is

obviously shrinking right so you can you

can see that the activity the the number

of daily active users the sort of number

of pieces of engagement right that your

posts might receive on Twitter uh

especially if they contain links is

dropping uh pretty dramatically and down

about 35% from uh November uh 20 was

that 2022 when uh Elon bought it so I I

mean I think the the answer there is

within a few years if current patterns

continue threads will

be the primary or dominant um text based

social network uh blue sky and Mastadon

I love Mastadon I wish Mastadon was

winning I think it's the best one but

it's not much as much as I might like to

Hype it over the other ones it does look

like you know Facebook really knows what

they're doing here and and the fact that

they can insert threads into Instagram

where they already have over a billion

active

users you know of course that's just

that's just an unfair competitive

advantage over everyone else and in

Twitter you know the the owner is

obviously just kind of melting down and

going off the crazy rails and you know I

go to my feed um I log in about once a

week nowadays whereas I used to log in

multiple times a day and like all my

notifications are coming from like I

don't know Tucker Carlson and people who

think Jews shouldn't exist and I'm like

huh I I don't think there's a platform

for me anymore I don't know why these

notifications are in here I don't follow

any of these people um so it's it's a

strange strange Place uh I I suspect

it'll continue to last for a while

longer because momentum and brand are

extremely powerful incredibly powerful

but eventually if continue as they are

it'll enter the death cycle um I will

say threads is a good place to early

adopt right I get um when it comes to

link sharing for example if I share a

link on threads and on Twitter I have

one 100th the followers on threads that

I do on Twitter so about 5,000 to about

a little just under 500,000 on Twitter

and I get more clicks uh more um

visitors from a a link shared on threads

but then you you said you are you're

getting demoted by the algorithms when

you share a link regardless of the

platform so what's your work around

there yeah so you know with regard to uh

playing the link algorithms and this

this goes to kind of how zeroc click

marketing as a whole can work one of the

things that I try to do two things one

is

share uh content without the link first

so I might take a screenshot of a piece

of content that I've written or of a

video or of an article that I want to

share um and I will post that with no

link and after it starts getting some

engagement I will reply to that uh post

with the link and this tends to help

Drive some of that yeah basically as a

as a reply to my own you know thread or

or or tweet on Twitter I don't know if

he's still calling him tweets but

whatever he calls him now uh and the

maybe those work pretty well same sorry

maybe a zit I don't know I don't think

he's dce maybe yeah anyway um LinkedIn

LinkedIn Works kind of the same way uh

and this can go quite well you can see

people doing this on Reddit where

there'll essentially you know I follow

for example a lot of people in the uh

Indie Games subreddit and you can see

that what they do is they'll post a

video of their game um and then someone

will ask for the steam store link below

and then they'll reply to that steam

store link with oh yeah here's the URL

if you want to sort of you know check

out the game very smart right you you

play to the the algorithm and the system

and the user preferences and you sort of

give that link after it's been requested

um the other thing that I do is is

something called engagement streaks and

I would recommend this to a lot of folks

as well which is essentially get the

algorithm to prefer your content so you

know might post three or four things

that I know will be relatively High

engagement or or I suspect and hope will

be relatively High engagement and then

after the algorithm is like oh man you

know Rand is on a rooll his content is

getting high engagement now I'll share a

link and the algo preference will still

show that link to a substantive number

of people much more so than if I had

just shared that without that engagement

streak running first so do you have a

couple of examples like case studies of

zero click marketing and engagement

streaks in your marketing for spark Toro

or in clients customers users of spark

Toro who have shared strategies with you

yeah interesting so the second one not

so much because you know full disclosure

spark Toro's um value proposition the

thing that helps people with is audience

research more so than you know zero

click content which which I think would

be a tough thing to help someone with

from a software perspective it's really

more of a consultative uh type of

relationship that probably helps with

that but uh yes if you if you look at

nearly all the marketing that we do for

spark Toro you can see these two tactics

in tandem being heavily engaged with we

also use some tactics in our uh email

newsletter so we try and essentially

provide the value inside the newsletter

without requiring The Click rather than

making our email newsletter traffic

driving Centric right you can you can

get let's say 75 80% of the value in the

newsletter without ever clicking on a

link and this is something Amanda has

intentionally done over the last couple

of years sort of turning the wheel

towards zero click value in all of the

content that we

produce we we also do this my most

effective tactic for this Stefan and you

can see this in my LinkedIn feed quite a

bit uh is videos so I will film one to

three minute long videos uh I will put

them on usually LinkedIn some sometimes

Twitter as well uh threads mastedon

other places and those videos will show

off a a marketing tactic or a strategic

idea they'll analyze someone's website

someone's audience they'll use spark

Toro sometimes or or not um sometimes

it's just kind of uh hey here's this

valuable way to think about solving this

marketing problem and when I share those

videos the full video is online

and it's in the feed it requires no

click to YouTube or to a Wisa link or to

the website um for folks who've been

following me for a long time uh you

might know that I used to run a company

called Moz and for about a decade there

I I ran a very popular video series

called whiteboard Friday and I would

argue that today whiteboard Friday would

not work so well um it is 10 to 15

minute long videos those videos live on

uh video embed

on moz's website it's it's tough to

drive traffic there unless you already

have tens of thousands of subscribers to

the blog and the Whiteboard Friday video

section which which Moz does right that

was something I built up over the years

I was there but nowadays launching

something like that really difficult

right we're in a new age of consumption

preferences and those consumption

preferences are short Snappy give me the

value right in my feed don't make me

click on something sadly I would say

even if all the social media algorithms

did not bias against links even if they

were super link friendly people prefer

content in their feed they want it

delivered right there they don't want to

have to click they don't want to go off

the site um you get the security

warnings you get the accept all the

cookies you know all that all those

kinds of barriers and friction people

want to see it right in the feed and so

that's that's what we create and what we

instead rely on what I rely on is

someone's going to watch watch that

video and if that thing appealed to them

they might Google spark Toro or go right

to spark toro.com they'll type it into

their browser and they'll try out the

product the frustrating part is I can't

measure it right or I can't attribute it

I can see a lift in oh more people tried

spark Toro this week than last week

people tried this particular section of

spark Toro okay that's probably tied to

the video I put up yesterday or last

week great but what I can't say is aha

LinkedIn drove this many signups Twitter

drove that many signups threads drove

this many signups that's um that's just

the new reality so what's the reality

now in terms of you used to espouse 10x

content pieces and having I don't know

if skycraper is your techology or

someone else's but having something that

is markedly better than everything else

on that same topic out there that kind

of stands above and apart from

everything else so much better is that

that still a valid strategy these days

God I wish I could say

yes I I wish the answer was yes but man

I mean if you look at what does well and

what's popular uh you will not see 10x

right so I think I think it would be

disingenuous to recommend that as a

tactic it it used to be a really good

way to outrank your competition in

Google like producing things that were

way better quality uh way more in-depth

way more data way more

richness uh you know way better

visualized all those kinds of things

used to drive a lot of better rankings

in in

search that that is not the case anymore

right you can see analysis after

analysis essentially now Google is a Big

Brand preference so if you really want

to succeed put your mediocre to crappy

content that you didn't need to put much

effort into on a big powerful website

that ranks well for lots of things in

that sector already you're going to do

pretty well um that sucks it's you know

it's sad and frustrating I also think

it's a risky Vector for Google

themselves I think they're I think

they're opening themselves up to some

significant risk that something whether

it's whether it's an AI driven search

engine or something that some other

solution right like you know people have

been talking about how younger

Generations use social media primarily

Instagram and and Tik Tok especially to

find answers to questions rather than

going to Google I don't think that's

nearly as popular as popular media would

have you believe right that the

statistics don't bear it out but I do

think it's a real phenomenon that does

happen sometimes and I don't know if I

were Google I'd

be I'd be nervous about that I would be

too and and I think that it's a really

challenging time for marketers to

compete and do SEO properly but not um

give give up on their ethics you know so

if you if you want to play the game

dirty you can win you can find those uh

High Authority sites and become a

regular contributor to and create tons

of mediocre content and get that to rank

but then uh sites that have amazing

content and are very Niche specific will

get buried yeah I mean I'd argue that

the the right long-term play is produce

that

high quality stuff but don't just think

of it in terms of quality I think that I

think that quality is the wrong bar I

think what's really what's the right bar

to get content marketing that that works

well is a combination of quality yes but

also resonance with the audience that

you want to reach so deep understanding

of the audience what kinds of content

they want where they like to consume it

how they like to consume it what

problems they're looking to solve with

it and uh and a lot of classic SEO ese

you know if you watch my old whiteboard

Fridays on 10x content you will be

misled you will be misled into thinking

that the the quality and depth and

amount of content and the you know

whatever amount of research that you put

into it and detail and data that those

are the things that are going to drive

your marketing and I would argue that's

not it today it's what does my audience

really want and care about what's likely

to be amp implified by them what are

they going to share with all their

friends put in their feeds uh put in

their email newsletters and and the

specifically the proportion of your

audience that are

amplifiers those are the ones that that

really matter and can you use spark Toro

to identify the amplifiers in your

audience let me just slip you a $20 bill

there

um yeah I was just reading off the card

you gave me yeah

thanks man appreciate you um so yeah I

what What spark Toro is you know

designed to do is basically you you

input a an audience based on what they

search for or their website or uh words

that appear in their bio their job title

that kind of thing and Spark Tor will

tell you these are the websites they

visit these are the keywords they're

likely to search for these are the

social accounts they're likely to follow

and engage with these are the podcasts

they listen to these are the YouTube

channels they watch And subscribe to uh

these are the subreddits that they

follow all those kinds of things so it's

behaviors and demographics and so for a

lot of folks this is this is the primary

use case for spark Toro is to say I want

to understand where I can reach my

audience that's not just you know how do

I rank for some keywords in Google so

give us a a case example or two sure

yeah um friend of mine emailed me this

morning uh he is a culinary inventor and

he's he's inventing a new device that he

hasn't hasn't quite announced yet but uh

he is working on kind of the marketing

strategy for this and so signed up for

spartor this morning and essentially

described his use case to us which was I

need to understand where I can reach the

audience that might be likely to not not

just buy my new culinary tool but

amplify my new culinary tool like where

can I go to get

press and media coverage but in in the

new world of sort of All Digital sources

of influence rather than just you know

whatever the New York Times and Better

Homes and Gardens and that kind of thing

um and Spark Toro uh gave him some very

nice answers to exactly that question

which he then took to his marketing team

and they are brainstorming essentially

the what is the content and branding and

positioning uh and Outreach plan to

reach all of these sources of influence

so that we can have a very successful

launch um I think the launch is planned

for early next year but they're they're

obviously doing a lot of their planning

now and I think this is a phenomenal use

case right like that's that's exactly

what you should be doing anytime you

have a launch is to say how is this

launch going to successfully reach the

audience that I need to reach and and in

order to convert them and the answer to

that question is usually through the

sources of influence that they already

pay attention to because for any given

launch what you cannot rely on is you

cannot rely on people to have already

heard of your product and go to Google

and search for the generic thing and

then you to rank highly for that that is

just not how any launches work um I

shouldn't say any there there are it a

microscopic few where that can be

effective you know if you launch a new

landscaping business uh in Seattle where

that thing is dramatically in demand and

there's almost there's you know 10 times

more demand than Supply you can launch

you can probably get um almost no

sources of influence to mention you and

so long as you have availability and are

somewhere in the Google Maps listing

you're going to do okay right but for

for most other types of things where

supply and demand is at a more even

Cadence uh very difficult very very hard

so what what have you done to

leverage your own tool in your own

marketing to find those uh those

amplifiers to then Market to them create

uh some irresistable offer for them

perhaps and uh assist them and becoming

ambassadors yeah yeah this is going to

blow your mind but I I did a search for

uh my audience uses these words in their

profile

um director of

marketing and I scrolled down on the

podcast list and I found this one called

marketing speak hosted by stepan

Spencer yeah funny I'm not kidding by

the way you you do come up in the list

of podcasts that are followed uh by

folks with particular marketing titles

um especially like like mid-level

management agency marketers that kind of

thing so I was like hey this is great

stuff stuff is in list I'm gonna I'm G

to see if I can get on his podcast no I

full disclosure friends um Stefan

reached out to me but we've known each

other for a long time right we have we

have uh a long friendship but um this is

this is exactly the the kind of thing

that we've done uh with spark Tor what

one of the other use cases that I

actually really like and I don't think a

ton of people use it for this but I I

might recommend those who do think about

it we have used spark Toro to identify

specific influential voices people um

and websites in in the mark marketing

world that reach our audience and then

invited them to do webinars with us like

hey oh um Laval Chichester uh great

great example phenomenal marketer uh he

he worked at a a SAS business for a

while I think in Nashville now he is um

running the uh growth skills agency

and we you know we saw him show up in

the in the sort of rising social

accounts that were followed by a lot of

our audience and we were like man this

guy's great so we we uh invited him to

be a speaker at our digital event I

think last year maybe two years ago uh

sparked together it was great like he he

was incredible he did such an an amazing

job that then we we ended up featuring

his presentation and excerpting it and

using it in other places and he you know

he was sort of showing off how he was

using spark Toro to do some of this work

that he's been doing it it was just a

perfect match um and I you know if

you're a podcast host and you want to

reach a particular audience the guests

you should invite are probably at least

some of them the people who reach the

audience that you want to reach they're

going to bring their audience with you

right like you know that whatever if you

invite

um Asia arangio or or uh Ann Handley or

you know people like that right names

that reach the audience that you already

want to reach I'm I'm spitballing but

spark turo could actually tell you

whether those are the right people then

they're going to bring audiences that

are likely to like subscribe listen to

amplify the marketing speak podcast and

the same is true whether you run a

webinar or an in-person event or you

know a YouTube channel all those kinds

of things now you did a sponsorship with

Jay OK aanu okeno yeah but he reached

out to you but you would have uh known

from doing your research with spark Toro

that he was a good fit that his audience

and your audience your ideal target

audience was a a pretty significant

overlap right yeah in fact we did that

research previously and had invited him

to speak again I think he was a webinar

speaker for us so he did the the spark

Toro office hours which Amanda and I

host um every month or two and did a

great job there uh resonated with our

audience it you know obviously that the

spark T data showed that a lot of our

audience had a had a big connection to

him as well and so uh when he reached

out and said hey I I want to help you

kind of promote spark Toro V2 and here's

this plan um yeah we we loved it he he

was he's launching a new sort of a video

and podcast series and as part of that

wanted like an inaugural sponsor and um

it just made good sense we we haven't

done that before this is our first ever

uh Partnership of that

kind again you know it's tough Stephan

it's tough to

attribute how many people actually will

come from that but what we what we can

say is we know how many people we've

reached right we can look at the you

know um episodes and the videos and the

engagement and following and and sort of

you know listen to hours and and watched

hours uh from Jay's podcast I believe he

says his last name aonzo um and and Jay

you know shares that data with us which

you know is great we can sort of get a

sense for can we reach people scalably

through that in the future if that goes

well I think that in the next quarter we

might consider doing more of those um I

know that who was I talking to oh I was

getting interviewed by um Tim suo from

uh AA

TRS and he said that this was a big part

of their uh sponsorship and promotion

strategy the last few years that they

basically made this investment into

sponsoring sources of influence in their

sphere um and looking for the lift from

that but not trying to attribute every

single visitor that came and I think I

think that's a smart strategy yep yeah

speaking of ahfs U maybe there might be

an

acquisition a t a target for you might

be a target for them acquiring uh

another tool it's POS it's possible I

mean you know we're we're in this weird

position Casey and I had a chat about

this so we um we have this strange

funding structure at spark Toro where

essentially our investors put in 1.3

million um we spent a little more than

half of that to sort of get our product

launched and then took another six

months to to kind of hit break even

profitability and then we kind of built

up our cash reserves and we paid our

investors back their original 1.3

million in and now every few years we we

can pay dividends right so the dividends

go out prata to the the shareholders so

our investors own about uh 26 27% of the

company and you know Casey and I had

this thing where we were like look if

somebody offers us you know 10 times

revenue for spark Toro or 20 times

Revenue yeah you know we'll probably

we'll probably think about it pretty

hard but if someone offers us the normal

multiplier on a SAS business 3 to

6X you know we're we're GNA make that in

dividends in the next five years anyway

why would we why would we ever sell like

what what's the incentive to sell the

business we love running it we love

operating it may maybe that'll change at

some point you know get old all this all

this will go gray and white and I'll be

like okay I gotta get out of the game

but until that time

happens yeah it it's going to be tough

to buy us we just you know we have a

very very founder

friendly uh model and I don't know I'm

I'm hopeful I talked to you about this

before we started the show I'm really

hopeful that more people will consider

funding their businesses in this way

because I think it's so much friendlier

than what I used at M you know which was

Venture Capital classic VC model um in

which you know

0.9% of companies kind of beat their

investment rate of return and everybody

else has a bad time this is not to say

you know Tim if you want to make an

offer you're you're

welcome you're welcome too like don't

let me stop you yeah and and don't you

offer like some sort of templates or

some information about how to implement

this Indie funding model that you used

with spark Toro for somebody who wants

to kind of replicate it yeah yeah so

we've open sourced our docs we we paid

our attorneys extra to basically make an

open source version of the documents so

that anyone can use them you'll I still

recommend an attorney but you won't have

to um design all your paperwork from

scratch and a few companies uh have

already used this to to build their own

rounds uh the accelerator and and um

fund Tiny Seed which which Geraldine and

I ended up investing in uh they use

spark Toro's model as the basis for

their funding structure as well um so

yes I I I recommend this to a lot of

folks I think it's just super friendly

we obviously don't get anything from it

other than

a sense that the world is a slightly

better place slightly more fair for

entrepreneurs uh but the uh those docs

are online if you Google spark Toro

funding you'll find uh a link to all the

open source docs and if you want to get

more detail on that after you go through

those I have some of the

other documents that we didn't open

source for for variety of of legal

reasons you can email me randpark

toro.com I love helping people with that

awesome and we'll include the links to

the various things uh that are publicly

available in the show notes for this

episode so that's very generous of you

and also I think it's important for our

listener to understand that when you

wrote that book lost and founder it

wasn't just um you know a a cautionary

tale or sour grapes or whatever you

really did want to shift the industry

and uh make make a positive dent in the

world and this is just an example of

that kudos to you yeah thank you I

really appreciate that yeah what you

know I think my my editor and I my

editor from from penguin Nikki um and I

really didn't want lost and found come

off as just complaining or just a hey I

got screwed by this you know system I

didn't right MZ was a an incredible

career building move you know it it

established a reputation for me and it

you know I got to kind of ride the wave

of of the growth of search marketing and

um I I know we both did right and you

know there's so many lovely people

who've come into my life including

yourself um through that

experience I I just think

that Moz could have and would have been

a smashing

success if it had raised capital in a

different fashion and and what I want

want what I want other people to

have is an opportunity to do that you

know Stephan whenever we people talk

about kind of older Generations um

whatever in in the economic world or or

in the world of of politics or in the

world of business they talk about how

older Generations seem to be pulling up

the ladder behind them right that that I

could afford a house in college and you

know to build a business but but you

can't because those things have become

completely affordable for most people in

in younger generations and I I want the

opposite of that I want to build

staircases and escalators and elevators

so that so that people can come up more

easily than than we did um and you know

this is this obviously is a very small

way to do that but um I think it's a way

that I can contribute that we can

contribute um I hope it helps folks yeah

and it's uh it's really intentional and

great force site and very considerate

yeah good good stuff I know we're about

out of time so if our listener or viewer

wants to learn more from you try out the

amazing spark Toro tool which is now in

V2 version version 2.0 or 2 point

whatever is uh you know big leap forward

and an already amazing tool so if they

want to try that out where should we

send them to yeah so uh anyone can

create and use the free account as much

as they like uh at spark toro.com I

think we we've got a few 100,000

marketers who already have which is

great uh it's forever free there's no

it's not a free trial there's no credit

card to put in you just go put in your

website put in your you know key Search

terms put in the description of your um

audience and click go it'll it'll kick

you right off uh if you want to follow

more of the sort of broad other stuff

that I talk about I'm most active on

threads and Linkedin these days um Rand

derer my my wife's last name on uh on

threads because of of Instagram and uh

Rand fishkin on LinkedIn awesome well

thank you Rand and uh yeah you're a

light in the world so keep keep doing

what you're doing it's amazing what

you're up to oh right back at you Stefan

thanks for having me yeah and thank you

listener now go make it a great week and

we'll catch you on the next episode I'm

your host Stefan Spencer signing off