8) Signal in the Noise

Behind-the-scenes building Vambrace AI, a company on a mission to forge stronger relationships with users. Subscribe to follow along or visit the site here:

(typos are to make sure you’re paying attention)

Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, The Old Man and the MVP, I explored some of the background considerations that went into preparing to launch the MVP. I ultimately was able to launch the fully functioning MVP last Monday and so have had it out in the world for about a week now. The biggest lesson for me from last week’s post was making sure I spend adequate time to nail the development flow so that I can iterate quickly and effectively without jeopardizing customer information or the fidelity of the platform. I also think I’ve started gaining some appreciation for how difficult user acquisition can be, both psychologically and strategically. And that leads us somewhat coherently into today’s topic:

Signal in the Noise

Part of the joy of being a founder is that I can pursue creative endeavors that I do intuitively believe will support the company’s mission but that lack clear ROI. This past week I definitely did something consistent with that mandate by creating an 11-track music album that takes the listener on a sonic sojourn through the customer journey that we aim to address.

First, the album, and then I’ll go into detail on how I’m thinking about brand- and world-building (even within a B2B saas context), where I think we could benefit from these initiatives in terms of early user acquisition, brand resonance, etc., and how I made the album.

The Album: Signal in the Noise

Listen here

In his debut album, Walter Vambrace merges heartland folk with atmospheric techno to take us on a journey from interview chaos to insight clarity. Some highlights of the album are: Interview Blues, ICP Waltz, and Vector Space, Lullaby Pearl.

Inspiration & Outcome

For me (Luke), the inspiration was really quite simple. I was going on a long drive this past Sunday and I was listening to Rufus Du Sol’s latest album, and I thought that it would be pretty cool to have my own album. And then my dad is also a musician, so I think I’ve always appreciated the emotional resonance made possible by music, and I’ve witnessed firsthand a pretty regular album creation process—and I also really believe in the power of albums as storytelling mechanisms.

And so I was in this position last week where I was fumbling around with different sections to add to the website to discuss the platform and its business impact, etc., and I couldn’t get anything to feel quite right, and my frustration compelled me to pursue songs as the main marketing method of our platform (for now). And so I used Cursor and Suno to come up with an album concept and then had a full-length album probably in about 4ish hours or so. The tracklist follows and you can go to the album page HERE to see lyrics, listen to songs, etc., directly from our site.

From there, I started to flesh out the brand universe that I want to create, all centered around this singer, Walter Vambrace, and his love interest (I think), Pearl Vambrace—and of course Pearl is the name of our chatbot. So in this album Pearl is featured on two songs, and then I created this sort of brand mood as told through promo pictures of Walter and Pearl and through the actual songs of the album (this brand universe is on the /listen page of the website).

I know all of this is really silly but I just really wanted to do it, and had so much fun creating it, and it spring-boarded this exercise of revamping my website and making things look a little better so that I can more easily promote who we are and what we’re about, etc. So I think it was a worthwhile effort. And that brings us to maybe how I’m thinking about some of the value and how that feeds into broader beliefs around brand- and world-building.

Utility & Approach

Now, some of my thinking behind marketing, brand-building, and the value of these activities below:

Brand- and World- Building

By way of background, most of my time in venture has been in a consumer context, and so I have a pretty good feel for broader consumer marketing trends and have an appreciation for the importance of brand building within the context of consumer brand success. Now, within a B2B context, “marketing” takes on a whole different meaning (trade shows, LinkedIn outbound, cold emails, etc.). But one of my beliefs is that consumer marketing and B2B marketing will start to converge and that marketing will become increasingly important for B2B companies especially as software becomes increasingly commoditized. So I do want to be proactive in creating a brand universe and establishing brand ethos, even if I am building business software.

It’s also just super fun to start to flesh out a voice and universe into which we can bring customers, employees, advisors, investors, supporters, etc. I think emotional resonance will rise to the fore as AI displaces pure-intellect resonance (whatever that means), and so I’m kind of consciously thinking about how we want to make customers feel when they use our platform. That also sets the standard for product development and really all facets of company building, because now I have this idealized feeling and journey that I need to deliver on with the platform.

Culture, Hiring, and Authenticity

Companies are scaled expressions of the collective identity and ethos of the individuals that make up the business organism. And so it’s silly but especially in the early days the “culture” of Vambrace AI is really an expression of who I am, what I stand for, how I act, what interests me, etc., and that informs what I want the company to be. And I’m a big believer in being the most authentically-me version of myself, and the most authentically-me version of myself thinks it’s hilarious and so much fun to create a super weird musical universe for a B2B saas company.

And so as I think about hiring and culture-building, I want to lean into the things that excite my soul and liberate my spirit and unleash the best of me, so that I can plant my flag in the ground and let it wave up as high as possible. And the hope is that this allows me to attract and retain individuals with similar attitudes and interests and from there we can do the whole 1 + 1 = 3 type of thing that everyone talks about.

This is all generally consistent with my broader belief that, as AI becomes more ubiquitous, the things that make us uniquely human—like empathy, creative expression, and mindset—will define who we are and help drive success. And so I want to find people that see the album we made and think, “That’s weird, but also so funny, and what if I pretended to be an intense music critic from some hoity-toity music magazine and became Walter’s biggest critic.” Like that’s amazing to me! And then I think you layer these playful expressive creative pursuits into legitimately challenging, exciting, and difficult business problems around the future of language analysis and interview automation and synthetic populations and you might just have the skeleton of a cohesive, high-quality, and authentic company.

And, ultimately, I do mostly think that people will increasingly want to purchase software (or anything) from companies that align with their values, and who they can form some kind of true relationship with. I suppose the only opposing dynamic there is agentic consumption, as in if eventually agents are procuring user research software for software companies then that might complicate things a big. But even then I believe that these types of wacky and whimsical marketing tactics will generate a digital footprint that would eventually support generative engine optimization and agentic software procurement (ChatGPT: “Vambrace AI Signal in the Noise”).

Business Communications

This is maybe a semi-surprising piece of the whole endeavor, but if you actually listen to the album, or even just a few songs on the album, you would have a pretty accurate understanding of what our software does and the pain we aim to address—honestly much better than any 6-box static web content could ever do. And so I do think there is something to be said about the communicative capacity of music as a storytelling medium.

On top of that, I legitimately think the songs are actually pretty solid, and so there’s this added sense I think of, this is who we are, this is how obsessed we are with our product and our customers, and this is how committed we are to creating an environment and platform that deliver results to our customers. Again, I acknowledge that it’s all a little silly but I also think it’s absolutely fundamental to the type of company I want to build and the people I want to attract, and so I’m not going to be bashful or embarrassed about these types of endeavors.

Fun

Maybe the last thing I’ll mention here—which is maybe the most important thing—is that I had so so much fun making this album. I went from idea to implementation to creative output in a matter of days, and I really think it’s one of the most authentic expressions of self that I’ve experienced in years. I don’t know where that will take me or the company, but I do believe that those feelings will take us in the right direction. I have some pretty fundamental beliefs around the pursuit of fulfillment and doing things that we enjoy and that blur the lines between work and play, and this was definitely one of those things.

Looking Forward

The excitement around brand-building this past week took away, somewhat, from the lack of user development—and I think that’s just part of the journey. I’m proud that I was able to launch the product, but then I wanted a more compelling story to tell and a better site to share as I try to drive traffic to the platform. I’m also gaining an appreciation for just how scary it is to actually tell someone to use this thing you made. It’s like a perfect canvas upon which to project any and all insecurities and feelings of inadequacy I’ve ever had in my entire life.

But, I know these uncomfortable psychological dynamics must be addressed, and that growth lies on the other side of the fear. So I think I’m going to make a slightly more vigorous push for early user acquisition this week and then will spend more time discussing distribution and learnings next week.

If you’re still here, thanks for reading! Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Luke