00:00:00 · Cletus McKeown, Andres Figuera
[00:00:00] S0: There's so much AI out there. The only thing that people really believe is social proof, case studies showing, like, how you've actually helped, and the rest of it's just kinda noise. Hey, [00:00:13] S1: everybody. Welcome back to another episode Marketers of Technology. My name is Andres Figuera, and this show is brought to you by Front Lines Studios, Silicon Valley's leading podcast production studio. If you're looking to launch your own show, we offer a full podcast as a service experience. You just show up and host, and we handle everything else. And with that said, let's dive into today's episode because I'm here speaking with Cletus McKeown, SVP of growth and marketing at Bridge, an AI driven financial platform transform... Transforming how hospitality developers and retail suppliers access capital. So, Cletus, a pleasure to have you on the show, man. How are you doing today? [00:00:48] S0: Good. Thanks for having me. [00:00:49] S1: No. Super happy that we were able to make this work and that we're hosting this episode for you. And just so that we can hit the ground running, Cletus, would you be able to tell us further about your background, man, and how you came to become as VP of growth and marketing at Bridge?
00:00:49 · Andres Figuera, Cletus McKeown
[00:00:49] S1: No. Super happy that we were able to make this work and that we're hosting this episode for you. And just so that we can hit the ground running, Cletus, would you be able to tell us further about your background, man, and how you came to become as VP of growth and marketing at Bridge? [00:01:01] S0: Yeah. I went very circuitous, started working in entertainment, was at Comedy Central, produced a lot of the stuff you watched. And then traveling around the country with comedians is fun, but at a certain point, you want to make more than minimum wage. So started working at ad agencies, found my way into tech. I was working at this company called Flowcode that did the QR codes that you saw in all the Super Bowl commercials. Did one of those. Like, I don't know if you remember the floating QR commercial for Coinbase. Made that one for Coinbase. And then from there, kinda got a little bit of a name for myself in the SaaS game, did some, like, freelance. And then when I had my second baby, my wife was like, get a real job. So I ended up at... I ended up meeting the guys from Bridge, and now I'm running their kinda, growth and marketing side. [00:01:41] S1: Okay. That's crazy, man. And in terms of like Bridge per se, could you explain to us in your own words what you guys do? [00:01:48] S0: Yeah. We do business lending. So if you own a business and you need debt, which is usually the easiest way to grow, we provide loans for that. [00:01:56] S1: And any type of industry? I think I mentioned hospitality there, but can anybody access Bridge and ask for a a loan?
00:01:56 · Andres Figuera, Cletus McKeown
[00:01:56] S1: And any type of industry? I think I mentioned hospitality there, but can anybody access Bridge and ask for a a loan? [00:02:03] S0: Yeah. We do a lot, but, like, our main focus is on hotels and consumer brands that are in retail shelves. So we have, like, a lot of corporate partnerships. We're the financing partner for, like, Hilton, Marriott, etcetera. And the other side, we do Walmart. So the Walmart brands. So that's kind of where we spend most of the time. [00:02:18] S1: Okay. That's amazing, man. And then in terms of working with a lending company per se, how is marketing for a company in this style been for you? Because I feel it must be a lot more regulated in what you guys do since it's financial. [00:02:33] S0: Yeah. It really is. It's a different game coming from, like, fun, crazy sass into, like, bankers. Right? So it's... What I've noticed is just, like, how much every word matters. And not just regulation, but, like, also, you're targeting... You're not targeting other marketers now. I'm targeting, like, CFOs. Right? And they could smell out whether or not you know what you're talking about very quickly. So it... Honestly, what I found to be the most successful is, like, going into this new niche. I've been here for about, like, two years, but, like, I still have my, like, head of capital or, like, one of the founders look at most of things I create and like, am I saying this correctly because I'm not a banker and you don't wanna come off when you represent the brand. You don't wanna sound like you don't know what you're talking about.
00:02:33 · Cletus McKeown, Andres Figuera
[00:02:33] S0: Yeah. It really is. It's a different game coming from, like, fun, crazy sass into, like, bankers. Right? So it's... What I've noticed is just, like, how much every word matters. And not just regulation, but, like, also, you're targeting... You're not targeting other marketers now. I'm targeting, like, CFOs. Right? And they could smell out whether or not you know what you're talking about very quickly. So it... Honestly, what I found to be the most successful is, like, going into this new niche. I've been here for about, like, two years, but, like, I still have my, like, head of capital or, like, one of the founders look at most of things I create and like, am I saying this correctly because I'm not a banker and you don't wanna come off when you represent the brand. You don't wanna sound like you don't know what you're talking about. [00:03:16] S1: Of course, man. I can understand that. And in terms of generating demand for Bridge, how are then... How are you then able to gather more qualified leads or then just get more customers or people who want to ask you guys for a loan? [00:03:30] S0: Yeah. Any startup, you throw a spaghetti at the wall until you find a couple channels that stick. Funny enough for us, like, some of the more legacy channels work best in this category. If you think about it, like, money is such a traditional product that you almost don't wanna be getting, like, TikTok ads. Right? [00:03:46] S1: You wanna see because you're not gonna find people through TikTok or I wouldn't imagine it. Right?
00:03:46 · Andres Figuera, Cletus McKeown
[00:03:46] S1: You wanna see because you're not gonna find people through TikTok or I wouldn't imagine it. Right? [00:03:51] S0: No. We actually get a lot through Meta, but it's more mainly retargeting. And... But, yeah, like traditional newsletters, just like, honestly, proof. And my whole theory is like now there's so much AI out there. Like, the only thing that people really believe is social proof, case studies, showing wins, showing, like, how you've actually helped. And the rest of it's just kind of noise. [00:04:07] S1: Okay. Amazing, man. Amazing. And also, do you guys provide lending services? Is it only within The United States or do you have other regions that you work with? [00:04:16] S0: We've done some of The Caribbean, but mainly just The United States. [00:04:19] S1: Oh, okay. Okay. And since you arrived at Bridge, Cletus, do you have any issues that you faced that you had to solve that you can tell us the lessons you learned or any anecdotes you can share with us that can tell us a bit more how the experience has been?
00:04:33 · Cletus McKeown
[00:04:33] S0: Yeah. Trying to figure out that, like, that jump from this different marketing, one to 10,000,000. And then when you're trying to really grow beyond that, you need scalability. Trying to win more in the agentic search game because we were never gonna beat Citibank in traditional SEO. So I was like, alright, let's take advantage of this opportunity a little bit more, and kinda developed an ecosystem where we now rank number one on most search terms that matter for us, and especially in the terms in agentic search where they give links, not just mention a brand, which I think is, like, a huge difference. You could spend a lot of effort being, like, the recommended, but if there's no link, you're not gonna be able to get actual transaction or attributable. So coming up with what we were gonna do, I was building a lot of landing pages, a lot of blog articles, etcetera, and realized there's just gotta be a better way. We're an a... We're an AI centric company. We're like a service as a software. Like, I'm sure you've heard that a million times on this podcast where people are... It's the intel inside who use AI. Oh, I use the Internet. It's the same thing as before. But I was like, yeah, there's gotta be a better way. So I just sat down with one of my engineers. Was like, let's break the seal. Tell me what GitHub is. Like, tell me how it, like, really works. And I feel like there's a lot of marketers out there that are way ahead of me, but there's a lot that are still behind it. Like, I don't really do that. It's just like Google Drive. It's just that you can't, like, see it as clearly. Right? It really is. So what I did was, like, okay, I'm gonna build, like, an AI centric website, and then I'm gonna make it so that way I can create content through whatever the different platforms I have, and it'll just feed live right into my site. Webflow stinks. Dealing with WordPress is a pain in the butt. You change one thing and it breaks the whole site. And I was like, I wanna be done with that. So I built a GitHub, what they call a repository, which is just like kind of a container that has the brand guidelines, what examples of good are, pages I like. And now I genuinely go... I have Cursor, which is just like GPT, just an aggregator of a bunch of different AI tools on it. I type into Cursor what I wanna do. I'll maybe drop in a copy doc.