“My whole hope for the AI revolution … is that AI should make it so people have to work less, but make better decisions around the things that people are good at and let machines do a lot of the busy work.”
That’s one of the reflections from Seattle entrepreneur Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToro, on this episode of Shift AI, a show that explores what it takes to thrive and adapt to the changing workplace in the digital age of remote work and AI.
Fishkin previously co-founded and led Moz, the SEO and marketing software company. We discuss his experience as an entrepreneur, insightful perspectives on the potential of generative AI, the challenges faced by VC-backed businesses, and the importance of prioritizing the lives of founders and team members.
Listen below, and continue reading for highlights from his comments, edited for context and clarity. Subscribe to Shift AI and hear more episodes at ShiftAIPodcast.com.
First paying job: My first paying job was for a year in college at the Wizards of the Coast Game Center. I worked as a secretary and front desk receptionist. I met a ton of interesting characters, folks who came to play Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon. I also used my employee discount to buy Pokémon cards and resold them on eBay and Craigslist. I saved as much of my paychecks as I could, so I could stock up on the cards and then sell them online.
Favorite job: By far my favorite job is now at Sparktoro. Rather than requiring high work intensity, it instead demands high-quality decision making. I would much rather put my labor into making the best decisions I can, and being rewarded based on that decision making, versus putting in lots of hours. That optimization can apply to a lot of tech, leadership, management and product jobs.
Early business experience: Moz was originally a blog I started called SEOmoz.org. That happened after I left UW and was designing websites with my mom during the early days of the internet. We were subcontracting SEO work across early search engines and were faced with a few early struggles. Moz then went from struggling, to growing to $30 million in annual revenue with tens of thousands of customers. I finally made the decision to step down as CEO of Moz in 2018 after a battle with depression, and the day after started Sparktoro.
Lost and Founder: The main goal of my book Lost and Founder was to share honest and vulnerable stories of what it’s like to run a VC-backed business. I wanted to pull back the curtain and let people know what this type of world actually looks like. The book tells painfully honest stories of the reality of being in those trenches; what went well and what went poorly. Ultimately what I learned was that my experience was tragically better than most.
The myth about venture: My biggest frustration with venture capital is it’s marketed and sold as the only game in town. Either you’re a bootstrapped business or you’re a “real” venture-backed business. That binary is wrong and it’s a story sold by people who desperately need entrepreneurs to build in their ecosystem. Their model needs 500 failed entrepreneurs before one succeeds which is fundamentally wrong and can be a really bad bet for many founders.
Chill Work: Sparktoro has an informal philosophy we call “chill work.” The chill work philosophy is that you optimize for business that requires high-quality decision making, rather than high amounts of hours and work input. It’s a business that indexes for the lives we want to lead, rather than for growth at all costs. We believe, in serving our customers and our team first, that we build the highest-value version of our company that is more likely to maximize investor returns in the long run.
Advice for startup founders: Marketing is so unique to every business, customer set, and audience. If someone advises you to do something very specific, they’re probably wrong, and universal advice is almost always terrible. You need to invest in marketing channels and tactics that are at the intersection of three things.
- Have personal interest around a certain sector and find the 1-2 places you have the most passion.
- Pick a channel that reaches your customers’ segments and focus on that one channel first.
- Make sure that you have unique value in that sector that no one else is providing. What is something they can get from your channel that they can’t get anywhere else?
AI’s marketing effect: When artificial intelligence started to grow rapidly, there were a lot of skeptics who assumed it was an overhyped bubble, similar to previous hype cycles. Generative AI is a very powerful and extremely useful tool, despite being somewhat overhyped. There was a massive adoption curve for the first few months, and then we’ve seen a decline across the past few months from 50-100 million users to 20-30 million users. Despite the decline, the numbers are still massive. If you’re a programmer not using AI, you’re probably missing out. However, in marketing, generative AI integration is pretty generic. It’s difficult to get unique insights, and most of what works well in marketing is unique ideas.
Remote work culture: The 20th Century model for work culture was tied to socialization, personal identity, and value in the world. Over the last 20 years, this has shifted into a different mentality around work. Remote work is a natural extension of that social trend given the physical reality of how difficult we’ve made commuting, real estate, and the general cost of living. Today it’s also hard to find the same loyalty with employees. Remote jobs recognize that you’re going to contribute your labor in the ways that work best for you and your life responsibilities.
The future of work in two words: “Different for everyone.” The whole concept of work serving people instead of people serving their jobs is a beautiful thing. You should be able to have the experience that works for you, your life, and your family situation and you should have the freedom to put your labor where you want. The trend with big business and late-stage capital has been going the wrong way, and we need to turn it around and make it better for everybody.
Listen to the full episode of Shift AI with Rand Fishkin here.
