Early Wins with Brian Carlson, Co-Founder @ Storytime AI
Hey. I'm Vince Beese, the host of the Early Wins podcast. And on this show, we interview startup founders to uncover their secrets to success closing their first customers. During this ten minute, three question episode, you'll gain insights and lessons to help you land deals, find market fit, and chart your path to scalability. Our guest today is Brian Carlson, a cofounder and CEO at Storytime AI.
Vince Beese:Welcome to the show, Brian.
Brian Carlson:Thanks for having me, Vince. Real happy
Vince Beese:to be here. So before we get into the questions, tell us a little bit what you're up to these days and and, what journey you're on.
Brian Carlson:Sure. I'm on my second startup. My first one was acquired in 2020. My first one was online education business that was working with colleges and universities and, eventually, k twelve's in the corporate space for online learning. My newest one is, and that was a b to b play.
Brian Carlson:This one is a b to c play for right now. Eventually, I think we'll pivot to b to b as well. And the new one I'm working on is called Storytime AI. We're working on personalized on demand books and videos for kids on an app. Here's a guy representing my shirt here, Shaq.
Vince Beese:You're gonna have to send me one of those.
Brian Carlson:Absolutely. Get you some swag here after this, man.
Vince Beese:Well, cool. You know, we're trying to impart wisdom on on on folks out there that are going through a similar journey. So first question for you is, can you recall back could be your current company or or previous ventures that you started, your first big customer win, and and what made it happen?
Brian Carlson:Yeah. Absolutely. I think I'll talk about my previous, venture that we had the exit on, You Think Education, now Open LMS. I think that, the first big win we had was, was a university out in Washington called Saint Martin's University, out in Lacey, Washington. And the win we had, was was early on in the business.
Brian Carlson:It was one of our you know, it was an important one for us so that we could start to have some referenceable clients. I think the the way we got that win was we had deep relationships there. Myself and the founder had come into the business, and prior to that, we'd worked for another company that did complementary services for colleges and universities. And because we had relationships with that college previously, we had a deep understanding of their pain point. So when we when we got in there, I think that there was, you know, an existing competitor that we were going head to head with, which was Blackboard.
Brian Carlson:And there was a couple of different pain points that they were having. One of the one of the ones was related to was technical integrations. And we certainly leveraged that to find a solution that would address that pain point, not only, at a much better technical solution, but also at a much lower cost.
Vince Beese:K. So deep relationships there led you to understanding really the deep pain points. Compared to your other deals you did, was it a big revenue type deal, or was it just about the logo acquisition?
Brian Carlson:It was it was average at the time. It was it was good for us, but it certainly wasn't our biggest deal. And that was cert that was definitely a part of our strategy. It was to get some small ones at first and and work our way up from there.
Vince Beese:Were you able to leverage that relationship for case studies or references?
Brian Carlson:Unquestionably. I mean, that was a big part of when we signed that deal. We actually pretty much had a handshake agreement that they would be, available for a a lot of marketing related, initiatives that we were working on.
Vince Beese:So that was one of your first marquee accounts. Now think about, like, going to market and landing your first five, ten customers, whatever that number is that really helped you fine tune your your product market fit and your offering and your pricing. And tell us a little bit about what you learned going through that journey of the first, you know, whatever number of of of new customers it was. What did you take away? What did you change about your go to market motion, your product, all that stuff?
Brian Carlson:Yeah. Yeah. I I think it's very similar on both journeys. My first business and now my second one, Storytime AI. On the first business, I think that the big thing we learned was flexibility and pivoting.
Brian Carlson:We we took a lot of feedback from that first college and found out that there was a number of other pain points we weren't aware of that we could integrate in to the solution, things that we weren't initially set out to do. We iterated based on their feedback. So we were open. We were flexible. Some examples of that were they had online education, had had also, you know, sort of just started at that point.
Brian Carlson:So they were taking a number of the other processes through the university and wanting to integrate into the online experience, things like student evaluations, things like assessment, and sometimes there were standards they'd have to align with the curriculum. Those were a couple of the solutions. We found other solutions that we were also able to integrate in. But it wasn't our initial intent to do that, but we were certainly, you know, kind of encouraged by that initial institution and then some of the other, first couple that we got in the door. With that, we sort of built a set of differentiators, and then we're able to take that to the market because we listened to the client, and iterated accordingly.
Vince Beese:What mistakes did you guys make early on?
Brian Carlson:I think initially, and I I'm probably making this mistake a little bit right now with Storytime AI as well and almost purposely making it right now, is that we priced too low in the very early stages. I think that's a common mistake. And I think we we sometimes because we were going against a competitor that was overpriced and we were in the in the previous business, we were the lower priced, more of an open source option. And right now with story time, because we're trying to get traction, with our personalized on demand stories and we want the price point to not be a barrier to entry, we wanna get lots of clients in so we get lots of feedback. So So I think we're deliberately doing it right now, but I know that we're going to have to change that soon, is that, you know, to some degree, we're selling on price.
Brian Carlson:It's a debate I have right now with my founder, Scott Quinlan, on story time, probably weekly, that we, you know, we, you know, we really need to be able to get margin to reinvest in the business. We're bootstrapped right now. I bootstrapped the last business prior to exit. You know, we may go out and and get funding on this business at some point, which would sort of change the ability for us to get user acquisition maybe upfront at a little bit more of a loss, but we can only do that so much right now. So I think we we underpriced in the beginning of of that business, and now I'm probably doing it a little bit now.
Brian Carlson:I think I'll I'll I'll alter that course sooner in this business because I think I think it it will change the trajectory for us specifically if we're able to, and we're starting to do this, reframe the conversation away from price and moreover to value. For what we're doing right now, you know, the value we have is, you know, multilingual support, personalized learning.
Vince Beese:Yeah.
Brian Carlson:You know, things that I think that are very unique. And I think we're trying to define the category right now. So we're trying to get a lot of user acquisition in the door upfront. But at the same time, you know, you need you need to be able to make sure you're you have healthy enough, margins right now. We're we're sort of breaking even on any Yeah.
Vince Beese:There's certainly something to be said getting your early adopter customers, though. Right? Like, you know Yeah. You gotta get some revenue, but the revenue on your first ten customers isn't vital. What's what is important, which is what you're highlighting is the learnings you get from that, the usage that you get from that, the logos to be able to say we have customers.
Vince Beese:Because you could always adjust after a year. Right? Like, there's you could make it very clear to these early adopters that I'm giving you a sweetheart deal for the first year. Right? And thank you for joining us in this journey, but we're gonna normalize the pricing after year one.
Brian Carlson:Yep. That's exactly right, Vince. Yeah. It's it's it's an interesting lesson. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, struggle, you know, with the the pricing conversation.
Brian Carlson:We're doing experiments on pricing for Storytime AI right now pretty much weekly. You know, and we have different ways with our paywall of setting, you know, different prices, for, you know, the same the same audience and split it. So 50% are getting 50% are getting the other.
Vince Beese:Pricing's pricing's so funny, though. It's because it's like, when you get to that point, right, that's where the rubber hits the road. And it's there's anxiety of, like, should I say 500 or say I say $30.50? It's like but the point is I've been doing this my whole life. It's like, you always start high, and you could see someone's reaction.
Vince Beese:If you get no pushback, guess what? You priced it too low. Right?
Brian Carlson:Right. Right.
Vince Beese:You say a thousand and they're like, oh, oh, a thousand? Well, what did you think it was going to be? Oh, $7.50. Okay. We might be able to do so.
Brian Carlson:You know
Vince Beese:what I mean? So that's the thing I think founders need to recognize is, like, if you start high, you can always go lower. You're not, you know, they're not just gonna run away. You gotta get the feedback on it. Right?
Vince Beese:Test it
Brian Carlson:a little bit. Yeah. Consumer behavior and the psychology is so interesting because there's perceived value. And I think that, you know, when someone sees something that's too low, they think the value isn't there. And when they when you put it higher and then maybe down the road, you can offer them a discount if you don't convert through retargeting.
Brian Carlson:And, you know, if you have that ability, what that's that's great. And and we're setting a lot of that up right now with what we're doing. But when people see a low price upfront, sometimes you get a lower conversion rate. It's completely counter Exactly. What you would think would happen.
Vince Beese:So parting words for founders that might be going through a similar journey. What could you share?
Brian Carlson:Yeah. I mean, it certainly I think both of the journeys I'm on, you know, we've touched on a couple of interesting points. I think one of the things is is is land and expand. Right? You you want to if you're you're getting that you're talking about small clients in the beginning.
Brian Carlson:We've talked about lower pricing in the beginning. I think that is important. I think you need to be careful. A lot of entrepreneurs, they go out the gate and, you know, they they're going for the big client. And I think that what I found is you need to start small, get a foothold if you're going for a big client.
Brian Carlson:Maybe if it's in my previous business, it would have been get a couple of teachers involved, get a free pilot in there, get a department. And then once you've shown value, you can certainly, you know, can certainly go from from there. I think that's one of the big pieces of advice that I've learned over the years. The other piece of advice I think I have is the openness to pivoting. I think everyone talks about, you know, the need to get client feedback, and there's only so many hours in the day it's very difficult to get that.
Brian Carlson:We've probably pivoted 40 times already in the in the storytime AI business over the past year and a half. So I think that it's important to be very open that your original thesis is likely not completely correct on why you think people are going to like your product. And you're gonna need to look for other value adds. You're gonna look for other niches and use cases that you weren't aware may be smart or may be able to be, you know, your application can be used for. So you would definitely wanna be very open and and flexible, ready to pivot.
Vince Beese:Great advice, Brian. I really appreciate you coming on the Early Wins podcast with us today.
Brian Carlson:Vince, happy to be here. Great great talking to you today.
Vince Beese:Alright. See you later.
Brian Carlson:Alright. Thanks.
