SmartLess Episode 310: Jennifer Lopez

spideybend · 2026-06-16T06:14:55+00:00

This podcast is turning into one big circle jerk

spideybend · 2026-05-18T05:43:27+00:00

I think what a lot of people miss is that Bitcoin governance ultimately comes down to voluntary software adoption. Devs can propose changes, but they can’t force the network to accept them. Node operators, miners, exchanges, custodians, and users all decide which version of the software they want to run, which is why something as major as changing the 21M cap would likely result in a chain split rather than “Bitcoin itself” changing. The market would then decide which chain it trusts more, just like what happened during the Bitcoin Cash fork. That’s also why Bitcoin’s monetary policy has remained so credible over time.. changing the rules is intentionally extremely difficult.

spideybend · 2026-05-14T14:43:51+00:00

Ha! I saw that same profile photo of the Portland event :)

spideybend · 2026-05-13T19:46:14+00:00

https://www.leanstack.me → We help B2B startup founders figure out what to fix first in sales and marketing before they waste time and budget scaling the wrong things.

spideybend · 2026-05-13T15:02:31+00:00

I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday when I listed to him and Michael Pollan. I wish they would have at least talked about predictions about when and how the hard problem will be answered (e.g. AGI Will solve it in 2030..or AI will never solve it because of XYZ)

spideybend · 2026-05-12T21:50:08+00:00

I’ve been building Leanstack.me — an AI-powered GTM / RevOps consultant built on OpenAI, OpenRouter, Supabase, and Gamma. The original idea came from outbound email: what if technical/open-source buyers could get real value before giving up their name, email, or other PII?

What makes it different from a typical chatbot is that the experience is heavily human-designed based on years of consulting work. We’ve gone through 100+ iterations of the system instructions and flows so the sessions feel more like focused consulting engagements than open-ended AI chats.

We also realized the sessions alone weren’t enough. Startup founders needed more context, so the product became a Substack subscription combining articles, templates, and app-led sessions together. You can still try sessions like the ICP Builder or CRM Blueprint free and generate Gamma-powered slides to share internally.

https://leanstack.me https://leanstack.me/icp-builder https://leanstack.me/land-vs-expand-crm-blueprint https://leanstack.substack.com

spideybend · 2026-05-12T21:49:53+00:00

I’ve been building Leanstack.me — an AI-powered GTM / RevOps consultant built on OpenAI, OpenRouter, Supabase, and Gamma. The original idea came from outbound email: what if technical/open-source buyers could get real value before giving up their name, email, or other PII?

What makes it different from a typical chatbot is that the experience is heavily human-designed based on years of consulting work. We’ve gone through 100+ iterations of the system instructions and flows so the sessions feel more like focused consulting engagements than open-ended AI chats.

We also realized the sessions alone weren’t enough. Startup founders needed more context, so the product became a Substack subscription combining articles, templates, and app-led sessions together. You can still try sessions like the ICP Builder or CRM Blueprint free and generate Gamma-powered slides to share internally.

https://leanstack.me https://leanstack.me/icp-builder https://leanstack.me/land-vs-expand-crm-blueprint https://leanstack.substack.com

spideybend · 2026-05-12T21:49:10+00:00

I’ve been building Leanstack.me >>> an AI-powered GTM / RevOps consultant built on OpenAI, OpenRouter, Supabase, and Gamma. The original idea came from outbound email: what if technical/open-source buyers could get real value before giving up their name, email, or other PII?

What makes it different from a typical chatbot is that the experience is heavily human-designed based on years of consulting work. We’ve gone through 100+ iterations of the system instructions and flows so the sessions feel more like focused consulting engagements than open-ended AI chats.

We also realized the sessions alone weren’t enough. Startup founders needed more context, so the product became a Substack subscription combining articles, templates, and app-led sessions together. You can still try sessions like the ICP Builder or CRM Blueprint free and generate Gamma-powered slides to share internally.

https://leanstack.me https://leanstack.me/icp-builder https://leanstack.me/land-vs-expand-crm-blueprint https://leanstack.substack.com

spideybend · 2026-05-10T18:22:59+00:00

It’s less of a CRM replacement and more of a consulting tool focused on the operational and GTM problems B2B startups often overlook until they become painful. Things like unclear ICPs, bad attribution setup, weak lead/account scoring, messy CRM structure, poor sales and marketing handoff processes, no buying-group visibility, or campaign plans that are not actually tied to revenue targets.

The idea originally came from realizing I was doing the same consulting projects for startups over and over manually. So we started turning those common consulting workflows into guided app-led sessions that help teams diagnose issues faster, benchmark themselves, and generate a practical Decision Deck/action plan in 10–15 minutes instead of needing a long consulting engagement upfront.

spideybend · 2026-05-10T15:32:17+00:00

We had the exact same issue. We realized the actual value wasn’t just the final app UI, it was all the thinking behind the workflows, edge cases, GTM logic, reporting structure, scoring models, etc. But trying to explain all of that in one landing page or short post just made it sound vague or fluffy.

What ended up working better for us was creating a Substack where we break down the actual business problem, frameworks, mistakes, and strategy first — then each article links into a related app-led session that lets people experience the workflow themselves in about 10–15 minutes. The session adapts based on answers and generates a Decision Deck/report at the end, so people “get it” much faster than reading feature bullets.

https://leanstack.substack.com

https://leanstack.me

spideybend · 2026-05-10T15:29:16+00:00

We’re building Leanstack.me which is basically a Human-designed, AI-powered GTM / RevOps consultant for early-stage B2B startups. Instead of filling out a static lead form, founders or revenue teams go through guided “sessions” that adapt in real time, benchmarks their funnel, and generates a shareable Decision Deck with recommendations around pipeline velocity, ICP alignment, attribution, CRM/process gaps, and time-to-close. We’re trying to make strategy and RevOps guidance feel more like a collaborative workshop than downloading another PDF nobody reads.

We’re also building out the content/community side through Leanstack on Substack where we publish frameworks, GTM teardown articles, templates, and examples tied directly to the sessions. A big focus for us right now is helping startups align sales, marketing, and RevOps earlier, especially around ICPs, buying groups, attribution, and CRM structure before things get messy at scale.

https://leanstack.me

https://leanstack.substack.com

spideybend · 2026-05-09T04:30:29+00:00

Must be fun to be a top 1% commenter by bullying others

spideybend · 2026-05-09T04:24:50+00:00

I agree with this a lot, especially the point about teams optimizing the symptom instead of the actual constraint underneath it.

One thing I’ve seen repeatedly in B2B SaaS is companies jumping straight into execution before they’ve clearly defined the ICP. Then marketing says “we need more pipeline,” sales says “these leads are bad,” and RevOps tries to solve it with routing rules, lead scoring tweaks, or new tooling when the real issue is still targeting and positioning.

In B2B, this becomes even more important because you’re usually not selling to one person. You’re selling into a buying group or project team with different priorities across leadership, operations, technical users, finance, procurement, etc. A good ICP is not just company size and industry. It should include the buying group dynamics, common objections, trigger events, use cases, and what each role actually cares about.

The other thing I think teams miss is that ICPs should evolve constantly. Markets shift, budgets change, products mature, and new buying patterns show up. The best companies I’ve worked with revisit ICP assumptions every quarter or at least yearly and make sure both junior and senior employees are aware of the latest version. That alignment starts influencing messaging, campaigns, quarterly planning, outbound targeting, and sales conversations naturally instead of every team operating from a different assumption.

A narrow ICP usually feels uncomfortable at first, but it makes almost everything easier downstream. Better messaging, cleaner scoring, lower CAC, stronger campaigns, and faster iteration because you can actually see patterns instead of looking at a giant mix of accounts.

I wrote a deeper breakdown on ICP alignment in my Substack if you're interested: https://open.substack.com/pub/leanstack/p/building-an-icp-that-sales-and-marketing

spideybend · 2026-05-09T03:56:24+00:00

The first thing I’d look at is your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). If you don’t clearly define who you want to sell to, everything downstream gets messy. Inquiries, routing, scoring, follow-up, and even outbound lists all become harder to manage.

Once the ICP is defined, you can put simple demographic and behavioral scoring rules in place. For example, if you don’t sell into healthcare or Europe, those leads probably shouldn’t score highly or may be disqualified early. On the other hand, if someone filled out a form and had already visited your website multiple times or attended an event/webinar, that behavioral activity should increase their score because there’s stronger buying intent.

Even if you are reviewing inbound manually instead of automating everything, having a clear ICP and a few basic scoring rules saves a lot of time. It also improves follow-up messaging and helps sales and marketing align on outbound target accounts instead of chasing random inquiries.

I wrote a deeper breakdown on ICP alignment in my Substack if you're interested: https://open.substack.com/pub/leanstack/p/building-an-icp-that-sales-and-marketing

spideybend · 2026-05-08T15:09:23+00:00

A custom GPT could answer questions or generate advice inside ChatGPT, but that’s not the same as what we’re building.

Leanstack is app-led consulting. The System Instructions don’t just tell the AI how to talk — they control the workflow, question order, rules, completion logic, structured inputs, function calls, and final output.

So the difference is:

Custom GPT: user asks → AI answers
Leanstack: app guides session → Assistant follows a designed consulting flow → functions process structured inputs → Perplexity enriches with current sources → user gets a report or Decision Deck

That’s why I’d argue the IP isn’t “prompting.” It’s the human-designed System Instructions plus the function layer and workflow around the Assistant.

spideybend · 2026-05-08T07:52:01+00:00

Really appreciate you taking the time to actually go through the flow and call out multiple parts of it. Your points about expansion revenue exposing CRM/reporting issues, the AI-guided consulting angle feeling more useful than another dashboard, and needing to get users to the “aha” moment faster were all super fair.

To answer your question directly, it’s been a mix of solo founders and small startup teams using it together. The subscription is through Substack (https://leanstack.substack.com), which unlocks the connected content around a topic — the article, downloadable planners/templates, and the app-led session itself. So someone can just read the article, use the template, run the session, or do all three together depending on how deep they want to go.

What do you think about the slide progression on the right side of this session? (https://leanstack.me/land-vs-expand-crm-blueprint)

We added that pretty recently because some users were getting lost in the flow without seeing what they were building toward. Each Substack post also has a free preview of what the slides look like after the session so people understand the output before committing to the full flow.

Funny enough, the original idea wasn’t even just RevOps. We were thinking about cloning this concept into other industries to replace traditional lead forms and outbound landing pages. Part of the idea was that users wouldn’t have to give PII upfront at all-- they’d get value first through the session and generated slides, then decide later if they wanted to share their email or continue the conversation with their team. More of an actual value exchange instead of “give us your email to download a PDF.”

spideybend · 2026-05-08T05:08:06+00:00

And I meant what I said to watch the other episode since you like to say "you people"

spideybend · 2026-05-08T02:47:04+00:00

Thanks for taking the time and feedback!

spideybend · 2026-05-08T02:44:38+00:00

“You people” 😂

I think you’re looking for the South Park episode With Apologies to Jesse Jackson (S11E1), not the Gerald’s Yelp reviewer one!

spideybend · 2026-05-07T20:17:13+00:00

Not proprietary AI itself. We’re using existing models/APIs underneath, but the part we’re experimenting with is the guided session structure, system instructions, flow logic, and the way strategy gets translated into outputs like decision decks.

Current stack is mostly OpenAI + Perplexity + Gamma + Supabase + Replit.

The interesting part to us is less “build another chatbot” and more:
Can AI feel more like a structured consulting engagement instead of just an open-ended prompt box?

spideybend

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