Your product isn't the differentiator anymore (your brand is)

Every B2B product is starting to look the same. Features are converging, AI is making it easier to ship software overnight, and the noise on LinkedIn has never been louder. So what actually sets a brand apart?

David Walsh, three-time founder and CEO of Limelight, joins me to break down why brand, personality, and creator-led marketing are becoming the only real competitive advantages in B2B. We get into the rise of micro-creators, the authenticity debate around AI-generated content, and why most companies are leaving influencer marketing on the table. 

Highlights:

(00:00) Meet David Walsh

(01:18) Limelight's evolution and biggest lessons 

(04:45) How LinkedIn content has shifted 

(05:30) The rise of micro and niche creators 

(07:00) LLM visibility and the new shelf life of content 

(10:15) Why brand is the only moat left 

(12:30) Employee advocacy as the starting point 

(17:00) What's actually performing on LinkedIn 

(18:30) Can you be authentic and still use AI? 

(21:00) How to define authenticity in content 

(24:30) Vibe coding a SaaS product in 45 minutes 

(28:30) What's next for Limelight

Resources:

Hear more from me in the Stop the Scroll Newsletter: https://briannadoe.substack.com/

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianna-doe/ 

Follow David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-walsh-limelight/

Check out Limelight’s website: https://www.limelighthq.com 

Transcript

David Walsh (00:00):

Authenticity is the common denominator of all content. It needs to be you and it needs to be from your voice. So I think the content that performs well just needs to be personal and it needs to be authentic. I can tell you the amount of marketers that I speak to who say that they're very interested in edgy content, edgy marketing, and then when you put it in front of them, they kind of pull back. Don't be like a filtered version of yourself. Be your true self when you're creating content. And I think that's more important than ever given what AI is doing to the content ecosystem.

Brianna Doe (00:31):

Hello, I'm Brianna Doe, and this is Stop the Scroll. So let's get into the content that makes us stop, click, and care. Okay. I am so excited about this because for those of you who did not listen to the first season, David Walsh, one of my favorite people, was also on the first season. And I believe you were only maybe a year or two into Limelight at that point. And so it's like we're coming back full circle, which I love. For those of you who don't know, David is a three-time founder and the CEO of Limelight, a B2B creator marketplace that is just revolutionizing influencer marketing for brands. So thank you so much for joining me today.

David Walsh (01:05):

Thanks for having me on again. I'm so excited that you decided to launch season two.

Brianna Doe (01:09):

I know. I'm pumped about it. Only took like two years, but we did it. We're here. So first and foremost, can you just give some context on you, Limelight, how things have maybe shifted since we last chatted?

David Walsh (01:22):

Yeah, of course. So for those who don't know, my background has been in sales and marketing. This is my third company. My first was a watch company in 2017, launched an e-commerce company, used influencers to grow it. So I growth hacked Instagram and grew the company pretty quickly. And then I launched a HR software company, did everything wrong, raised too much money, hired too many people, got to 250 customers, and then was like, oh my God, this is such a headache. I ended up selling that company to a consulting business and then I started Limelight. Well, I kind of fell into this, Brianna, if I'm honest with you. I started posting content on LinkedIn. I was very deliberate on what I wanted to focus on, which was B2B marketing leaders who needed a more efficient way to grow. So we launched as a referral software.

(02:02):

And then I started posting content on LinkedIn every day. That's how I became aware of you. I'm pretty sure I DM'ed you on LinkedIn being like, I have this huge idea for creators in B2B and I would love you to be part of the journey. So I'm so blessed to have you as part of the journey from day one. We have evolved quickly. We're still figuring it out as all other early stage startup companies are. But for those that don't know, we do influencer marketing, we built a marketplace. And the theory was influencers in B2B who have large trusted audiences across LinkedIn, newsletters, podcasts, YouTube, Twitter haven't really monetized effectively yet. So let's help them monetize. And then on the brand side, let's help them find creators, manage the messy process and measure the results. Super fun and exciting place to be. I would say I'm having the most fun I've ever had building technology for lots of reasons, some of which we were talking about just before we hit record.

(02:51):

But thanks again for having me on. I'm excited.

Brianna Doe (02:53):

Of course. No, it's wonderful having you here. So this is a very big question, but what would you say have been some of your biggest learnings since you first launched to now?

David Walsh (03:03):

Oh my God, such a great question. I think the things that we did well was moving quickly, shipping products fast, getting into the hands of users and not being concerned with it, not being perfect. And now today I get lots of DMs on LinkedIn being like, "You just sent me 10K or you just sent me 10K." I'm like, "I have no idea who you are, but it's awesome to see that you're getting paid through the product that we built." The things that we did wrong, probably not staying close enough to customers. You have to be this close to them on calls consistently. We launched a marketplace that we made it self-serve, so full product led, get as much creators, get as many brands as we can, get them to use the product. And I think what we missed the beat on is a lot of customers needed handholding.

(03:44):

We needed a customer success function. We needed to support them post-sale. I'm a sales guy, so I would just get them in, sell them and then be like, "Okay, now you're good to go. " And the reality is they needed more support. So we built out a customer success function, which at the start of this year, which is a big sigh of relief, I think, and allows me to go back to selling again and be confident in the sale process. So that's the first thing that comes to mind. I could probably go on about the mistakes that we made along the way, but I'm pretty proud about how we're operating the business and the achievements that we've had. I still think we're so early though. And the opportunity is we almost have too many directions that we could go with the business. And so a lot of my focus is like, let's get really crystal clear on who we are, what we do and stay focused, which is sometimes a challenge.

Brianna Doe (04:28):

You should be proud of what you've built. I mean, Limelight is ... I think one of the coolest parts about it is that when I first met you and we first started chatting about it, I would tell people about Limelight everywhere I went. And then as I kept going to events, more people were asking me if I'd heard of it. And I just loved seeing that transition. You really carved out a space in this space that I think is really needed and really impactful. So it's been fun watching the company grow for sure. So question for you, also a very big open-ended one. How have you seen LinkedIn content kind of shift since launching Limelight? Everybody talks about the algorithm and how unforgiving it is, but have you noticed anything interesting?

David Walsh (05:07):

We could go on for days about the challenges with the algorithm and how it evolves quickly. I think what's really exciting of what I'm seeing from a brand side. So we work with the likes of HubSpot, Webflow, ZoomInfo, Bill.com, pretty large enterprises, all the way down to early stage startups. And we're trying to help them get good return on investment and set the right expectations on what to measure and what to manage. And what's really interesting for me, Brianna, is a lot of these big enterprises are now realizing that they want to partner with smaller niche creators as well as the big creators. I think at the beginning, you all want to partner with the people that you know and that you recognize, but what you realize it's actually better to have a multi-tiered approach in strategy. So I'm always educating brands on working with small niche creators at scale is really powerful.

(05:51):

And those people are early in their journey, so they're trying to figure it out too, and they love getting brand partnerships. So I would say what I'm seeing on the brand side is an interest in micro and niche creators more than ever. I think the type of content has evolved pretty quickly. When we first launched Limelight, there was no real ChatGPT. So there was no AI slop everywhere. And I feel like on social media today, you could just take a look and you're like, okay, nine times out of 10, this is just verbatim written from copy and paste from ChatGPT, which means that there's content everywhere and there's more of it, but it also means it's easier to stand out from the crowd. So what I love to see is personal stories, like examples of with context that couldn't be replicated in just an LLM.

(06:36):

It's actually from your own personal experiences. So it's an exciting and evolving space. I think every social channels is slightly different. You know more than I do, but we focused on LinkedIn to begin with and expanded into newsletters, podcasts, YouTube. I think those other social channels are really exciting for B2B influencers, which is great. And maybe last one is LLM visibility. This has come up more frequently than ever. Every single head of marketing we talk to at least cares about number one priority, LLM visibility, GEO, AEO, whatever you want to call it. And what we're seeing now, Brianna, is there are brands coming to us being like, we've been working with influencers for six months and the LLMs are now citing their content and showing ... Instead of it being just blog posts on the website of the brand, it's articles and content created from creators.

(07:25):

So I think what's very exciting is it used to be like the value of a piece of content would kind of drop off once the algorithm stopped promoting it. Now it's indefinitely valuable because it could be cited forever, which is very exciting to see and a fun place to be.

Brianna Doe (07:39):

That is fascinating. I have so many thoughts. One, I wanted to say when you mentioned the multi-tier creator approach, because I feel like I've been screaming that from the rooftops. There's this debate that we can't seem to escape around the value of smaller niche creators versus larger influencers. And I just think there's value in both. And so it's cool to hear, I'm seeing it with our clients too, that there's an appreciation for that for having a multi-tier approach. No one is better than the other. It really does depend on your goals. I love that. Would love to dive into the LLM because candidly, this is an area where I know next to nothing, I feel very much like a boomer in this sense, but these phrases are getting tossed around a lot like AEO, GEO. And I have seen this debate around this too. Some people think it's just a passing fad or a passing trend.

(08:24):

Others think it's here to stay. I could make an assumption, but I'd be curious where you land with that.

David Walsh (08:30):

I always come back to what does the consumer want? What is the consumer's trend? And the consumer trend is they're learning about products in a completely different way. You used to open up Google and type in, I'm looking for X and Y, and then believe whatever you see that's a blue link that's sponsored and click that first link. I think people are learning about things first and foremost, at least for me, in ChatGPT. And a good example of this is ask my parents 65 years of age, how did you find out about something they wrote to me on WhatsApp? "Oh, I actually asked Gemini or I asked ChatGPT. "I'm like, " Oh my God, the older generation are starting to adopt this as the search. "So it starts with that. I do think that people are learning about products in different ways and that necessity for a marketing leader at a mid-cap B2B company means that they need to think through how to go upstream with their marketing.

(09:21):

It's not just LLMs, it's podcasts they're listening to, it's newsletters that they're reading, it's newsfeeds that they're scrolling. So they're learning about products in different ways and earlier in the journey. And you as a marketeer need to implement a strategy that goes up market and gets into those conversations early. And I think that's here to stay forever. I do think that the traditional channels like paid ads and other things are still very important, but I think you need to take 10, 20, 30% of your marketing budget today and allocate it to more risky strategies that are more forward thinking and experiment. Marketing is an experimentation. So I'm encouraging all companies to experiment as much as possible in today's world. And I think it's a evolving landscape that everyone's just learning. So I'm not surprised that you feel behind. I feel behind. I think everyone feels behind.

(10:11):

Okay.

Brianna Doe (10:11):

That makes me feel better because it feels like everybody else knows exactly what they're talking about. And Claude and I are barely getting acquainted. So I love that for me. And I like how you approach that too. I mean, to your point, tech is ever evolving. We were talking about this before we started recording, but you've mentioned there's just going to be so much software in a couple of years. There are going to be so many options. There's so many AI products, so much tech in general, so many ways to market and speak to your target audience, your ICP. And so pigeonholing yourself into one approach, you're not actually mitigating any risk by doing that, you're just staying behind the curve, which I think is an interesting distinction.

David Walsh (10:46):

Let me actually make a bold statement. I think social media, when it first came on the scene 15 years ago, and let's call it eight to 10 years ago, B2B companies, I want to stay in B2B because that's my realm, cared about social media because it was new and it was important and it was distribution. And then that went out the window and they kind of just forgot about social media. They were like, yeah, we don't really care. Brand, social, they're a team in that department and that part of the business that we don't really talk to. We let them jump into conversations every so often. What we're seeing now is that brand is the most important component of a marketing strategy or a business in general. That's how you differentiate. It's brand, it's social, it's personality led marketing, because to your point, there is more software than ever, and that's only going to explode, which means it's harder to stand out from the crowd.

(11:38):

So features and functionalities aren't going to be the way that you differentiate your product. They're all going to be comparable. How you differentiate is brand, social, and doing things unique and different, and being memorable in the mind of your potential prospected user. I think B2B marketers often forget, or even not outside of marketing, let's call it finance ops, the sales team, they kind of forget. And with that mindset, it's important to be able to bring personality to these corporate brands, and it's an exciting time.

Brianna Doe (12:07):

How do you think influence for marketing plays into that then?

David Walsh (12:10):

Well, I'm biased, but I think it's the first thing I would invest in. I'd start with, what I always tell companies is employee advocacy is really important. Subject matter experts internally at the business are even more powerful if you can activate them because you're basically just saying, instead of it being a big corporate logo and a paid ad that's going to influence somebody to buy something, it's my employee. It's somebody on the team talking about what we're building, sharing some light, maybe showing some insights behind the scenes. I think that employee advocacy is huge and that's just personality content, right? I think extending that to the next stage, which is working with influencers and creators can exponentially grow your own organic content flywheel. And I would say the big statement that we're making internally, I had my team in person a few weeks ago and I was like, okay, nail on the wall, what are we going to hold ourselves accountable to?

(13:01):

And we basically said all companies will have a creator led or influencer led strategy. I would say 90% of all B2B companies can have an influencer strategy, aren't even aware that they could have an influencer strategy. And they probably say like, "Oh, there's not enough people creating content in our niche." That's not true. Absolutely not true. There are people creating content about everything. And so the statement that we're making is every single company will have a B2B marketing motion and we want to be the technology that powers that. Just like you have a CRM, like HubSpot or Salesforce to manage your sales pipeline with marketing, you will have Limelight to manage your influencer strategy. That's our ultimate goal.

Brianna Doe (13:43):

I love that though. So is it safe to say that you're looking to expand past LinkedIn, YouTube, newsletters and podcasts at some point, or is this the niche you want to stay in?

David Walsh (13:52):

Ask my team. Every week, I'm an idea person. I just come up with the new ideas and I'm like, "Why are we doing this? We could be doing that. " And they just get so bored of it. They're like, I'm like, "No, no, no. Actually, these two things are really important. So I need to slow down sometimes and be like, okay, what are we going to focus on? What are we known for? " B2B influencer is our bread and butter. It's where we've built our brand. It's what we're known for. We don't want to separate ourselves from that, but there are so many more things that we can be doing for these B2B companies outside of just Influencer. They're spending a ton of money on different software that's often legacy and they're not even happy about it. I won't name names, but I speak with a lot of brands and I'm like, "What are you using for X or Y?" And they're like, "Oh, I'm using whatever it might be.

(14:34):

" And I'm like, "How much are you spending? Oh, $100,000." I'm like, "Oh my God, you're spending $100,000 on that. Do you like it? " No. I'm like, "Why are you spending $100,000 on that? " They're like, "We have to. We inherited it. We've had it for five or 10 years." So I think there's opportunity to carve out more market share and probably allow ourselves to charge more for our software by adding more value. But I think it's still going to be focused on our ideal customer profile, which is mid-cap and enterprise marketing and growth leaders and just serving their needs and solving their problems. And their problems extend beyond just influencer. And so we're trying to explore what are the other adjacent things that we can ship and build. We started with social listening, which we launched recently, and we're seeing that huge amount of interest in that.

(15:17):

So we're going to continue to explore that along with some other things.

Brianna Doe (15:20):

And so I'm curious then, are you seeing any hunger from B2B brands for influencer partnerships on TikTok or I guess Instagram, or are you mainly still seeing LinkedIn and YouTube?

David Walsh (15:30):

Honestly, it has expanded into those more consumer-focused social channels. I think there's always ... The first thing is there are creators in Instagram and TikTok that are business-focused subject matter experts that create content. They're there. When companies are interested in that space, they're often coming to us being like, "We want that content in there, but we know it's not as trackable or we know it's not as clear cut that they're all our ideal customer profile." So I think the more experimentation or experimental brands and marketeers are considering those channels, we're seeing it pop up more often. I'd say in order of priority, we've got LinkedIn, number one. YouTube has become hugely important for a lot of these influencer marketing managers. And then it's probably, I'd say Twitter, if not TikTok and Instagram. Twitter is a bit of a cesspool. I don't love it, but you get a lot of virality.

(16:25):

So each channel has its own pros and cons and every brand is slightly different and who they target, which is part of the science behind this, as you know, and you know better than me, but we are seeing an interest in those more consumer-focused social channels. And we actually have, I don't know, hundreds, if not thousands at this point, influencers that are on TikTok and Instagram on Limelight.

Brianna Doe (16:47):

Most of our B2B clients are also looking at other channels outside of LinkedIn. They're exploring YouTube. Some are even on Instagram and TikTok because to your point earlier, we're selling to people and we're marketing to people and those people exist on channels outside of LinkedIn, which I think was a revolutionary concept a couple of years ago, but now it's becoming more normalized, which I think is a good thing. So going back to LinkedIn actually for a second, obviously you look at LinkedIn content and performance all day, every day. What are you seeing that's performing really well? And do you think it's what LinkedIn was originally meant for?

David Walsh (17:19):

No, I mean, I've been on LinkedIn for 15 years, I don't know, 10 or 15 years at this stage and I feel like it's evolved. When I first started, it was a recruiting tool and job advertising, and now it's more of a social media newsfeed focused platform. And now it's also educational. And so I think the content that performs has changed a little bit. Obviously LinkedIn made this huge investment into video and everyone was getting hundreds of thousands of views on video. And I was like, oh my God, let's go all in. I created 20 short form videos and then I realized actually maybe this isn't the best use of my time. I would be better launching my own podcast where I can record conversations and share that. So we did do that. And I'm excited about some of those conversations. We'll have to have you on soon, by the way.

(18:00):

But when it comes back to content, look, I think authenticity is the common denominator of all content. It needs to be authentic. It needs to be you and it needs to be from your voice because a lot of people, as I mentioned earlier, just use AI to generate content at scale, and it's just very obvious very quickly. So I think the content that performs well just needs to be personal and it needs to be authentic and you need to be yourself. Brianna, I can tell you the amount of marketers that I speak to who say that they're very interested in, I would say edgy content, edgy marketing. And then when you put it in front of them, like, give me the green light, let's go live, they kind of pull back, oh no, wait, I have to get approval on this or that. So I'm always saying whatever you think you can be in terms of your point of view, amplify that.

(18:48):

Don't be like a filtered version of yourself, be your true self when you're creating content. And I think that's more important than ever given what AI is doing to the content ecosystem. It

Brianna Doe (18:57):

Might be a spicy question. Do you think somebody can maintain that level of authenticity and still use AI in their content?

David Walsh (19:05):

Well, look, let's be honest, let's tell the real behind the scenes. I create content every day. Of course, I use AI for idea generation, for formatting, for examples, for giving feedback on stuff. If you're not using AI and you're a creator, you're probably not a great creator or you're spending way too much time building it. So I think it's about using it the right way. And when you do it correctly, you realize what is AI slop and what's not AI slop. So I think inspiration is really important. I just don't think over engineers and allow the AI to write the whole script. You definitely want to use it to inspire and give you ideas and check what else is working out there. But you definitely, I would say you need to make sure that you're in there rewriting whatever content it shares with you to make sure it speaks your own voice.

(19:53):

But it is getting so good these days. Sometimes it's hard, but don't be lazy is the best feedback I can give.

Brianna Doe (19:59):

Well, I've heard a take on it that it doesn't really matter if you're using AI, to your point, if it sounds like you, because at the end of the day, you're creating content that people can consume. And if it's still going to make them think or if it's going to challenge their perspective in some way, then it's done its job, which whether I agree depends on the day. But to your point, I think it's a good way to streamline your workflows at least or systemize the way you go about it.

David Walsh (20:22):

Well, Brianna, we track thousands of creators' content every week and there are different creators that have different preferences. And some like to create three posts a day and it to be somewhat generic, but informative and tactical advice. And then some like to create absolute bangers once a week. That is just incredibly insightful and personal. And I think it's up to each creator to decide how they want to approach their own content strategy. And I think that's fine. There's different flavors for everything. And some people like to use AI a bit more than others and some people like to post less frequently and that's fine.

Brianna Doe (21:01):

So going back to your thoughts around authenticity, somebody asked me about this the other day and I'm curious about your perspective. How would you actually define authenticity when it comes to content?

David Walsh (21:11):

Oh, such a good question. You're asking me the tough questions today. Look, and this isn't for everyone, and this is just how I do it and what I like to do. I like to tell the good and the bad. I like to be real. I try tell the ups when they're exciting and I try to tell the challenges and the mistakes that we make. And I would say most people lean away from the mistakes. They just want to talk about what's winning. And that's very natural as a human being. When you put yourself out there and create content, I think like default, most people have never created content, try create content. They end up just selling whatever they're trying to sell. They just start with, "Here's the functionalities and features of what I do and how I'm great and you should learn." And nobody gives a shit.

(21:54):

Nobody cares. They want the human behind the scenes. So I think authenticity is all about telling the truth as much as possible and not shying away from those negative parts of building in public or your own personal journey, both professional and personal. You can also go a little bit too extreme where people are creating content on LinkedIn that I'm like, "That probably doesn't need to be on LinkedIn." So it's just like finding the right balance and coming up with a strategy that allows you to tell your authentic story and tells the high and the lows. And look, I've put out content that I'm not proud of. That's fine. Do you know what I mean? You look back and you're like, "Yeah, that one kind of probably wasn't the right fit." But you're constantly learning and evolving and just don't really care what other people think.

(22:38):

That's probably the best advice.

Brianna Doe (22:39):

I would agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that's one of the many reasons I really enjoy your content is that not all sunshine and rainbows. You bring us into the journey in a way where I leave your content feeling inspired or like I've learned something or some combination of the two or motivated in some way. And that's how I try to approach my content too, is it's not just the positive stuff. A career can't just be a picnic in the park all the time. What have you learned along the way? How can I help other people? And so I think to your point, understanding what that line is for you, you don't have to share everything if you don't want to. There's a lot that I don't share online. I'm sure there are things you don't share online. It doesn't make you less authentic because you keep some things back.

David Walsh (23:18):

But you do a great job of sharing behind the scenes. Today I looked at your content and it was your desk and your desk set up and I had desk envy. I was like, oh my God, you must have gone around that desk and cleaned it up a little bit because it was perfect. But that's just a good example of being like, here's my environment. You can only see what I look like when you come to my LinkedIn and scroll. You're actually showing people behind the scenes. And I think that's really powerful in today's world.

Brianna Doe (23:41):

Thank you. And no, my desk actually does look like that. I'm a huge clean freak, except for my car. The car is where dreams go to die. I'm the

David Walsh (23:51):

Opposite. I'm the opposite. Yeah, yeah. My car is spotless all the time. Really? My desk gets a little bit messy because I just throw stuff and I just like ... Yeah, it's a little bit messy.

Brianna Doe (24:01):

Maybe there's a separate episode, but I'd be very curious how you keep your car clean. I cannot. I blame it on living in Arizona. I say it's dust and stuff, but it's not

David Walsh (24:10):

Even dust. This might come off as wrong. I suppose I said I'd be authentic and tell you the real story. I don't clean my car. It just gets cleaned and that's the truth. So there you go. There you have it.

Brianna Doe (24:21):

Authenticity. Sometimes you

David Walsh (24:22):

Got to

Brianna Doe (24:22):

Outsource. We love it. We love it. Well, my husband gets annoyed enough at my car. He tends to clean it for me. So if he's listening to this, thank you, Michael. So what are you most excited about when you think about Limelight and just the B2B influencer marketing space?

David Walsh (24:37):

Okay. So I came onto this call so full of energy because literally last night I was like, oh my God, coding AI agents, I feel like everyone talks about AI all the time. I freaking hate it. Mine numbs me. I'm like, "You have no idea what you're talking about, but yet you're talking about AI." And so I've always steered away from it a little bit because I just feel like people just make shit up. And then I had this enlightenment moment about two weeks ago where I really started to invest in Claude Code and other coworking products. And I was like, "You know what? This is insane if you can set it up correctly." And so only last night I was like, "Okay, what do I want to build?" I won't tell you what I built because it's not ready yet, but I was like, "Let's be more ambitious.

(25:22):

Why are we just staying within Influencer? Why aren't we doing 10 different other things with Focus?" And I decided to vibe code a whole platform, start to finish. It took me three hours to make sure that I had the research done. So I set up the agent to go and research Reddit and find out in a specific niche, what are these 10 companies, what are people saying about their products that are bad and what is the opportunity? And then prioritize the list of things I can ship. I gave up my ideal customer profile, here's who I'm targeting. I gave it what we had today. I took our code base and put it into an AI and said, "Tell me everything I need to tell an agent to write code the right way so that we don't build a Frankenstein. I've done that in the past where you just build something completely different on a different code base, try and merge them together." So I was like, void that.

(26:08):

And then I went to ChatGPT and I was like, "Here's what I'm trying to build. Write the most detailed description of exactly what I need to ship and build and tell the AI agent what not to build because that's often more important in today's world with AI coding because they over-engineer things, another conversation for another day." But basically I went to sleep and started at 8:00 or 9:00 PM, got crystal clear on what we're looking for. 80% of the time was me making sure that I've given the AI agent the right information because if I didn't do that, it just goes on its way and spends a shit ton of money and just builds the wrong thing. So I then went to sleep and I said, "Look, I want you to work all night." I was like, "Mr. AI agent, work all night and deliver me this product." I click send and I thought to myself, this is going to be a six-hour build.

(26:54):

It's going to take six hours to build this product end to end. I couldn't help myself. I was sitting there and not able to sleep curious about what was happening. About 45 minutes later, I went back to the agent and it gave me a full update and it said it's 80% of the way there already done. 45 minutes it took to build a SaaS product end to end. Now it's not perfect, don't get me wrong. I hate the people that are on social media saying there's a SaaS-pocalypse right now. HubSpot is dead. People are going to vibe code your product. You should just vibe code your CRM. I don't agree with that. I think that's stupid and dumb. But I do think that today you can build product so quickly that's actually incredibly good. And so I had this agent go into our product to make sure all the designs and UX and UI flow was consistent.

(27:40):

And right after this podcast I'm sitting on, I haven't told my CTO yet. So I'm about to go to our CTO and co-founder, Youngjae, and I'm about to be like, "Hey, by the way, I vibe coded something. And I want you to know you're still important to the business. You're not going anywhere, but I can't talk about AI coding without doing it myself." And I feel like too many entrepreneurs today are talking about things that they don't actually do themselves. And so I did it myself. I'm blown away. I'm full of energy. I feel like we've got this huge product and my engineer's probably going to be like, "Okay, Dave, great that you did this. Taper it in. Okay, let's see what we can actually do here in real terms." But look, it's just such a fun place to be. And it comes back to technology is not the most.

(28:24):

Features and functionality is not the most. Everything is going to be even and parallel. You're just going to have products that are so good and you're going to replicate other products really quickly. What is the most is brand, social, influencer, employee advocacy, personality led marketing. I could speak, I'm so passionate about this that I think that is where people will differentiate. That's what consumers need and want. They just expect features to be great and there's just going to be more software than ever. And anyway, I'm full of energy right now. I'm going to go vibe code the rest of this product, probably think about 10 different other products I could build. But yeah, it's a fun place to be right now.

Brianna Doe (29:00):

I love it. I'm so excited for you. I'm excited to learn more about it. You've inspired me, by the way. I'm going to try and vibe code my own product, which we talked about before this. I can't wait for you to officially launch this and announce it. And I can say, I knew before David's CTO.

David Walsh (29:13):

Well, listen, I'm going to put that right back on you. You had some idea that you were sharing with me and you walked me through it and I'm like, that is 100% what you should do. So we'll hold ourselves accountable. If I don't see your product getting launched, you said nine months. I'm going to give you nine days. Oh my gosh. So you better get going.

Brianna Doe (29:31):

Okay. I can do that. I can do nine days. I'll take your nine and raise you 12.

David Walsh (29:35):

Okay, fine. Perfect. It doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be perfect. Just slap a beta logo on us. Don't worry about it. It's beta. It's fine. Low

Brianna Doe (29:44):

Time. That's true. I don't need to build it all from scratch. See, you bring me back to earth. I appreciate it. So thank you so much for joining me today. Where can people find you? How can they learn more about Limelight? All the good things.

David Walsh (29:55):

Yeah. Website, limelighthq.com. Go to LinkedIn, Look up David Walsh, Limelight. You'll see all my cringey posts that I post every day, but I love it. It drives revenue. Yeah, so those are the two places I'm most active. And yeah, definitely go to our website and check it out. And yeah, I really enjoyed this. Thanks for having me back.

Brianna Doe (30:15):

Oh my gosh, thank you. We'll have to do it again in less than two years, but we'll have to do an update and see where things are at next year.

David Walsh (30:21):

Can't wait.

Brianna Doe (30:22):

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for stopping by. And if you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more on what's shaping the definition and demand around all the content we consume, you can sign up for my newsletter, Stop the Scroll. Link is in the show notes, and I'll see you in your feed.