I put Tobasco on everything plus how brands can benefit from user-generated content with Michael Kamleitner

Eric (00:03.563)
founder Michael Kamleitner. He is the bootstrap founder of not just one startup but two, Walls .io and Swat .io. Walls .io is an all -in -one solution. Walls solution that helps you turn your user -generated content into an important part of your sales funnel. And Swat .io is a B2B social media management tool that helps you with content publishing across multiple channels as well as community management.

Michael is based out of Vienna. Welcome to the show, Michael.

Michael Kamleitner (00:34.798)
Hi Eric, hi everyone listening in, glad to be here, thanks for having me.

Eric (00:39.435)
Yeah, my pleasure. Now, Michael, innovation can be a new method, idea, or product. For example, there is a product called the wine rack. Now imagine this, it's basically a bra that has two pouches and it can hold the equivalent of one bottle of wine. So women, when they are out in the town, they can discreetly bring a bottle of wine with them and not have to pay the 30 or $40 depending.

on where they go and order a bottle of wine. That's pretty crazy, huh?

Michael Kamleitner (01:13.486)
It's pretty crazy, I'm wondering where you're going with that. My first comment to this product is why only for women?

Eric (01:21.959)
Well, listen, there's also a product for men and it's called the tie flask and it's like this tie and it's got it's pretty thick. You can hide a bottle of wine in the flask and the tie flask for men. Now, now when we're talking about innovation, what are some things that companies can do to leverage user generated content for their brand and what sort of innovation does walls .io bring to the market?

Michael Kamleitner (01:49.984)
I'm a bit distracted now and not to start Googling for the Thai Flask. Sorry, sorry. Yes, please do so, Eric. I got to have this one. So thanks for the question. So first of all, how can brands, how can companies facilitate user -generated content? The whole idea behind...

Eric (01:54.283)
I'm gonna send you the link after this so you can see.

Michael Kamleitner (02:13.39)
behind walls .io, what we are doing with our product, and not just our product, but the whole notion of using UTC for marketing, of course, is instead of creating messaging and marketing material on your own as a brand, instead build on what your community, what your customers out there actually are talking about you and saying about you. That can be product reviews, that can be recommendations.

It can of course also sometimes be constructive feedback or criticism. All that is happening out there on social media already. And this is super authentic content that can, when used in a good way, be much more convincing and better selling, better converting than whatever you as your marketing team could ever come up with. So that's the whole idea on how to use user -generated content. Now...

Where does the innovation start and where does this come from? I think the whole idea to use UGC back then when we started was of course innovative because it was a new thing. Social media platforms were just getting started about 10 years ago and the whole idea of collecting these content and using it for your own purposes was of course new and only possible once the social media platforms were opening up and offering APIs that allowed us to...

tech company and our customers by that, to search and pull in all these contents. So there was a lot of technical innovation also necessary to make that happen.

Eric (03:50.411)
How are the majority of brands using your tool, Michael? Is it mostly just for their website?

Michael Kamleitner (03:55.214)
So this is where we as a company need to or can only learn from our customers. And a lot of us, if you're talking about innovation, a lot of that comes from our customers. Because originally when we started out, and that's like eight years ago, the content was actually not displayed on websites, but only on physical screens, on video projections, on displays. We were very much focused on displaying and...

putting out the content on physical screens in physical venues like at a trade show or at a conference and only later we learned, oh, our customers are also interested in putting it out on their websites. So our widget, our embed became a big thing and is nowadays the more important thing. So nowadays it's more on websites, as you just said, but also on mobile apps, of course. So wherever you can put our widget on, it's not just a website, it can also be a mobile app.

And it doesn't stop there. Again, very often innovation is driven by our customers. Suddenly we saw that our widget was embedded on websites that we couldn't access. So actually it was internal websites like intranets or Wikis. So customers were starting to use social media content and our widget for internal communication with their team, with their workforce.

So that's another way where you can put social media content to use and where you can put our widget to use.

Eric (05:24.235)
Yeah, I would have never thought that that would have been a use case or how brands are using the tool. That's very, very cool. Yeah. Now, if they're not using internal communication, how are they using it for people that are doing UGC content? Are they using some sort of search functionality? Are they looking for specific hashtags? How would they use the tool?

Michael Kamleitner (05:46.574)
So again, there's different use cases really. It can start very, very simple. It can start by a company creating a kind of social media newsroom. And what I mean by that is they would basically use our widget and just push in the content from their own company profiles, from their own social media channels. They will take their LinkedIn channel, their X or Twitter account, their Instagram account, and only use this content. We create the widget and they would put it on their...

news section on the website or a newsroom section on the website the idea being that instead of manually updating those newsrooms with more or less boring PR really press releases for example they would automatically use the social media content which they usually invest a lot of time and resources in any way we can make that very simple to reuse this on their newsroom that's what that's a very very simple use case but of course you're right usually

We go one step further and that means UGC and UGC usually means hashtags. Back in the day, we even had a word for it. We usually refer to this kind of marketing as hashtag campaigns. I still remember when I was visiting the States, I don't know about eight years ago or something like that. I was staying at a hotel and was watching TV and suddenly I noticed that almost every TV commercial was ending with a hashtag.

with a prompt for people to use the hashtag. That was super new back then. And that's where the whole hashtag campaigns and hashtag marketing came from. So to answer your question, yes, when used for typical online marketing, usually a hashtag is used to aggregate, to collect the content from all the social media platforms.

Eric (07:32.043)
Okay, what types of companies is this really great for? Like who are your main clients? Is there a specific industry, Michael?

Michael Kamleitner (07:38.702)
So if you fast forward to 2024, what we can see and what we can really say is that UGC can be useful and is being utilized, in fact, in almost any vertical, in almost any industry. There's the obvious ones like e -commerce, consumer products, stuff like that, where you really can market the content of your community.

But there is also sports, there is higher education and universities who have been traditionally one of our strongest segments. But nowadays it really goes into even verticals for industries which you might not consider so social media, social media, not such a good match for social media like old school manufacturing or pharma or financial services. Basically every industry nowadays can use social media content to their advantage.

Eric (08:33.771)
Okay, okay other question for you Michael the other night I hosted our monthly b2b podcasters meetup where me and several other b2b podcasters we get together We share the best practices on how to grow our show For example last season. I published more than 60 tick -tock videos Short clips about my show, but this only resulted in getting about 24 followers And it didn't really attract new listeners that said what tactics have you done that failed?

Michael Kamleitner (08:50.412)
Mm -hmm.

Eric (09:03.467)
that failed in getting traction for either was .io or swat .io.

Michael Kamleitner (09:09.378)
You mean, tactics that did not work out for us and that did fail? I guess there were quite a few, so it's hard to choose. What was the biggest failure, let me think.

Eric (09:13.131)
correct.

Michael Kamleitner (09:28.302)
Well, I would say, I would say we had traditionally always had a very hard time in using, which is kind of funny. We are a social media company, right? A social media software company. And still we always had a very tough time on making paid advertising work on social media. And that has, I guess, many reasons. Of course, advertising on Google is pretty straightforward. You usually have search intent. So people are look, they know what they're looking for. They're searching for social media ads.

They're searching for social media wall or social media hubs. There's clear intention. That's very easy. We found that way harder to replicate and to do on, for example, when advertising on Facebook. So we had a very hard time on getting any return on our paid investments up to these days. Very, very hard. At one point, we of course understood that we need to use some social media platforms like Facebook, like Instagram.

way, way more on top of the fund like to create brand awareness for our company, to also educate people that there actually is something like a social wall and therefore not expect an immediate conversion or immediate return from this type of advertising. Until we figured that out and understood that, I think we wasted a lot of money. So that was that is one thing that comes to mind.

Eric (10:48.747)
Okay, and what tactics worked really well for you Mike?

Michael Kamleitner (10:52.238)
So in the recent years, what really worked out well, especially for walls .io was creating a partnership, a partner network, a network of integration partners. Let's put it like that. We started only about two years ago to do that. Until then, we didn't really bother too much about partners. And that's a shame, actually, we should have started earlier. Why does it make so much sense? Well,

our core product, as you already said, is a widget, like a piece of a piece of content feed that you can put anywhere on the website, on a mobile app into any into any platform really. So this is like a natural fit for for building a partner and integration network. What we did two years ago, we, we sat down and saw the

which kind of software products or software platforms make the most sense to integrate our widget. And we came up with two clusters of companies. The first being event platforms, event management platforms, including things like Hopin or Cvent, every platform that offers an in -person virtual hybrid event experience. And the second cluster was digital signage solutions. So software systems that would allow companies to...

display content on their video screens, TV screens at the office and stuff like that. And we really made a long list of potential partners. They'd reach out and try to convince them to integrate our product into their app marketplaces. Did the integration work, co -marketing, and that really turned out to be a big driver of growth for Walls .io in the last one or two years.

Eric (12:29.963)
Yeah. Were you pretty good at the convincing because previously when I was a partnership manager, companies would reach out to us, either Bonjuro or OptiMock, and they would want to integrate with us. And so I would have them go and create an account on Crossbeam. And so that way we could just see if our audience matched. Did you sort of like present any proof that this made sense, the partnership for you guys?

Michael Kamleitner (12:45.708)
Yeah.

Michael Kamleitner (12:52.526)
Yes, so we very often had to do that. I mean, we were also lucky to some in some in some regards, for example, when talking to the event platforms when we were doing that, that was in 2020 2021. So peak peak COVID and therefore peak virtual events. So all the events were going virtual and everyone was looking for ways to keep the virtual event audience more engaged. And we had the perfect solution for that. So for the event platforms, it was

pretty easy to convince our future partners because very often their sales teams already had like strong signals from the market that people were demanding such an integration, such a solution. It was a bit harder with other partners like the signature systems. And in this case, yes, we used things like Crossbeam to really show overlap in our customer base, show overlap in the leads we are working on. That was very helpful. And Crossbeam and there are similar tools, but Crossbeam I think still is the...

the dominant one is really a great solution when talking about partnerships.

Eric (13:54.571)
Yeah. All right. Another question for you, Michael. So I recently launched the B2B pod pros, which is a B2B podcast network. SAS brands can work with us to sponsor multiple podcasts in the B2B space. We got our first major sponsor and the company made a little bit of money. Yeah. Now, which leads me to a quote you said on the badass in tech podcasts. You told summer Mitchell, the host, that when you're building a business, a hundred percent of your revenue.

Michael Kamleitner (14:10.926)
Yeah.

Michael Kamleitner (14:15.766)
Mm -hmm.

Eric (14:23.371)
has to be invested back into the business somehow. So the question is, how do you know what to invest in and when?

Michael Kamleitner (14:31.31)
Oh, so hi, Summer, by the way, in case you're listening. Well, I mean, my statement was, of course, specifically meant from the perspective of bootstrapping, from bootstrapping founder, just to make that clear. I think for a bootstrapper, for me, it was always...

paramount to really reinvest all our profit. And then I will be honest with you, there's a lot of, there's a lot of trial and error here, like identifying the areas where you, which, where you invest first for me as a bootstrapper and also solo founder, I usually was in a position where I had to do a lot of jobs in the beginning myself. So I started to, started to develop myself. I was a software developer originally. Then I noticed, okay, there are people doing the, doing the development work.

better than me, so I handed that over, then I focused on marketing and then I thought like, okay, maybe I need someone to sell as well, then I did sales. So I did the step by step and every time I moved to a different focus area, different job, I had to invest in people to take over and professionalize what I did before. But it was more like an organic way to do things one after the other, step by step and also like a lot of trial and error.

But I think you have to figure out really what is your go -to -market and then really see like if you're more product -led, then of course, well, for me, like the engineering and product is like the basis. You will have to have a good SaaS product anyway. But then if you go PLG product that grows, you will probably invest earlier in marketing. Whereas if you choose a sales dominant or sales focused model, go -to -market model, then you will invest into your sales team.

before that maybe. So I think that the GTM, the go -to -market really also defines where you're going to invest first.

Eric (16:20.747)
Yep, yep, I think that's gonna be my focus, the sales focus. All right, yep, yep, I'll probably test Google Ads, then maybe LinkedIn Ads, or LinkedIn, what are they calling it? The blog post that you can advertise on.

Michael Kamleitner (16:23.724)
Yep.

Michael Kamleitner (16:36.398)
It was used to be the pulse post, but I think they have now a different name. Sorry, I'm not 100 % sure. Yeah.

Eric (16:42.827)
Yeah, I forgot the name of it too. And I even heard TikTok. I'm not sorry, not TikTok, but Twitter or X is a really good channel now because the inventory is pretty cheap. At least that's what I've heard. So I may even consider that.

Michael Kamleitner (16:48.258)
Thanks.

Michael Kamleitner (16:53.102)
I think it's definitely worth a try, especially for tech products or media products. I think that's a good match still for trying out advertising on X. Yes, I agree. Yeah.

Eric (17:05.693)
Yeah. Yep. Okay. Another question for you. So what are the things I'm trying to do to elevate the members participation in my podcast community is gamify it. So for example, members, they get points when they do certain things to support another member. If they give another podcast or a nice review on Apple, they get points. If they recommend someone who would be a good guest, they get points. Is there something that you do to elevate your customer's experience when they sign up?

Michael Kamleitner (17:15.148)
Mm -hmm.

Eric (17:34.699)
for was .io or swat .io.

Michael Kamleitner (17:39.086)
So, of course, we do a lot to elevate the experience, but we don't have like a gamification element per se, like you have just described. It's a great idea, of course, for you, in your line of business. But for us, elevating the custom experiments usually means we have to shine in direct communication with our customers. That begins with the day -to -day customer service, which we really take a lot of pride and value in.

Of course, it has to do with customer success management, like being good at doing onboardings and understanding the problems that the customer wants to solve, coming up with innovative ideas and solutions when they're creating their first social media wall, advising them on other potential use cases, being really like very close to the customer and understanding their needs. That is how we usually elevate them and make sure that they get the value that they are looking for in our product.

Eric (18:38.603)
Okay. All right. Now we come to the rapid fire section. Just give me the first answer that pops into your head. You ready, Michael? Okay. Before you run for president, you must destroy all evidence of your involvement with blank. Fill in the blank.

Michael Kamleitner (18:41.292)
Oh wait.

Shoot.

Michael Kamleitner (18:55.47)
I guess I would have to look through the early days of my Facebook posts.

Eric (19:01.035)
Okay. All right. Next question. At time you were someone's hero. What did you do, Michael?

Michael Kamleitner (19:08.75)
Sorry, once again.

Eric (19:10.635)
A time you were someone's hero.

Michael Kamleitner (19:15.886)
Oh, well, I don't know if I'm someone's hero, to be honest. I'm blank here. Sorry, sorry. I hope we... Yeah, I'm really blank.

Eric (19:27.179)
Okay, no problem. Next one. What is something that people don't know about you? They're not going to see this on your LinkedIn profile.

Michael Kamleitner (19:34.99)
All right. Oh, well, there's a lot of things that I don't have on my LinkedIn profile. What the public probably doesn't know, what good friends about me know is that I really, really love Greece. That's my favorite country to hang out and I usually spend one or two weeks each year there just relaxing. I love the people, I the country, the food, everything. So this is one of my biggest, it's not a secret, but it's not on my LinkedIn profile.

Eric (20:00.779)
All right, we're planning our first trip there. I've never been, but we're gonna try to go in June, so I'm very excited.

Michael Kamleitner (20:05.102)
Well, let me know once it gets the specific, I can give you a ton of recommendations.

Eric (20:10.475)
Okay, okay next question. What is a funny fear that you have? You know my wife she's scared of spiders. What about you? Are you scared of anything Michael?

Michael Kamleitner (20:16.174)
Yeah.

Michael Kamleitner (20:20.11)
I'm not super scared, but I do have regular... It's funny because I don't have any scare of flying or flights in real life, but I still have quite regular nightmares about flying, like planes crashing and stuff like that. I think it's actually funny. It's not like I'm super scared, but I have these regular recurring nightmares about flying.

Eric (20:44.875)
That's crazy. Okay, last question for you. Alright, what's in unusual food or drink that you enjoy?

Michael Kamleitner (20:45.836)
Yeah, it is.

Michael Kamleitner (20:52.75)
There's not unusual food, but again, this is something that everybody who spends time with me knows. I have a habit to really always carry a small bottle of Tabasco and basically I put it onto almost every type of food I eat. Even in a restaurant, I sometimes pull out my Tabasco and add extra spice almost no matter what type of food it is.

Eric (21:15.275)
Okay, do Austrians like Tabasco or is this something specific to you?

Michael Kamleitner (21:18.894)
It's not something very typical, so it's more specific to me. I mean, I like spicy food in general, but this habit of having like my own extra bottle of Tabasco. I have one here at the office, for example. Sometimes I have it when I go to vacation. So that's more like a Michael thing, I guess. Yeah.

Eric (21:36.779)
You're the first European I know who likes Tabasco. When did you first have this?

Michael Kamleitner (21:39.778)
Oh, that must be decades ago. I think this habit started at least 15 years ago. Yeah, something like that. So forever. It feels forever.

Eric (21:50.667)
Yeah, yeah, okay, very interesting. Michael Kavleitner, thanks for coming on Innovators Can Laugh.

Michael Kamleitner (21:55.498)
Thanks for having me Eric. I did laugh.

Eric (21:58.443)
Yeah, it was a pleasure for everybody listening. This is Michael Kamm Leitner. I'll put links to his LinkedIn profile in his, his companies in the show notes. And if you enjoy this, tell somebody about it and hit that subscribe button. It's how we grow. I'd really appreciate it until next week. This is Eric signing off.