Scaling with intention

Interview Summary

The Pursuit of Joy and Success

00:00
Brett reflects on the paradox of feeling pain during the entrepreneurial journey—yet also feeling joy in the pursuit of purpose and success.

From Road trip to Founder

01:24
Brett shares how a post-college RV journey interviewing 300 people about their careers led him to build platforms that elevate everyday experts.

Building featured.com and Reviving HARO

04:22
The origin story of Brett’s mission: creating meaningful outlets for people to share expertise—and how HARO became part of that vision.

Smarter AI Starts with Manual Work

06:07
Before automating anything, Brett recommends founders fully understand the process by doing it manually—then applying AI to support, not replace.

Customer Conversations Drive Strategy

09:34
Brett speaks with 20+ customers weekly, using their feedback to validate ideas and avoid wasted time, energy, and development costs.

Lessons from a Failed App

18:36
A deep dive into Brett’s early failure launching iPhone apps—and the lasting lessons he gained about market size, margins, and model fit.

Finding Joy in Customer Success

24:16
Joy, for Brett, is seeing a customer succeed using what he’s built. That sense of impact renews purpose and drives the next chapter.

Transcript

Brett Farmiloe

So I think that customer conversations is the validation that could guide all the efforts and saves you a ton of pain and agony. Like I say, you know, I mentioned that I'm from Sonoma County. There's never been a bad day wine tasting. There's also never been a bad customer conversation that you've had.

Barrak Alzaid

You're listening to Joy of Business, a collection of audio essays, timely discussions, and stories featured on digitalentrepreneur.com.

That was a clip from Brett Farmiloe, founder of featured.com and new steward of the iconic platform Help a Reporter Out (HARO). In our conversation, Brett speaks candidly about the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship—where joy often hides in the hard work, setbacks, and daily grind.

Keep listening to hear how Brett built platforms that help amplify the voices of everyday experts, what he learned from a failed app business, and why talking to customers might just be the most underrated growth strategy in your entrepreneurial toolkit.

Barrak Alzaid (00:00)

Hi Brett, and welcome to the Joy of Business. I'm so happy to have you on.

Brett Farmiloe (00:04)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Barrak Alzaid (00:05)

The first thing that I'm curious about I'd love to hear from you. What does joy is the new success mean to you?

Brett Farmiloe (00:12)

I define success differently. I think what I'm going through right now as a founder is pain, agony, and very little joy. And yet I feel like I'm on the cusp of success, or at least in the hot pursuit of success which gives me joy.

Barrak Alzaid (00:27)

So that process is what is driving you forward and also fueling you towards that anticipation of that joy of that completion.

Brett Farmiloe (00:35)

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Like it's, always feels good to be in pursuit of something and to be building. And, know, I think the mantra that we've got internally as we have acquired and revived, help report her out is, you know, email by email, day by day, we're getting better. And it feels like that that's a good thing to, to, get behind in terms of, you know, adding joy to, to that pursuit.

Barrak Alzaid (00:58)

Yeah, I think finding satisfaction in those small moments really helped pave the way to that bigger success. So can you just back up a little bit and just start by telling us a little bit about yourself? What is your background? What led you to start featured.com? And you mentioned also this recent big acquisition of Help a Reporter out. just give us, us a picture of where you started and where you're at now and how you got here.

Brett Farmiloe (01:24)

Sure.

Yeah. So originally from Sonoma County, California. So shout out to all the wine that's out there in the world. That always gives me a lot of joy that that any restaurant I could go to any grocery store, there's a there's a piece of home there. So but now I'm in Arizona. Went to University of Arizona down here, majored in accounting. first job out of school was a corporate auditor. I was auditing financial statements and I wasn't really sure about that career path. So I bought an RV and recruited three friends to go across the country and interview people about their career paths and document their stories on a career education website for other college students to learn about. And so we traveled 16,000 miles, went to 38 states, interviewed more than 300 people, documented all these stories. And it was very enlightening and very foundational for what the rest of my career would look like and also what I'm doing today. My biggest takeaway from that road trip after talking with 300 people is that everyone needs a meaningful outlet to share their life's experience and their expertise. It's a huge tragedy when you don't get the microphone and you spent 25, 30 years working on your craft and you don't have anywhere to share it. And so everyone has a fundamental need to share that expertise and make it meaningful for the end recipient. And so that's why I think a lot of people sat down with four crazy college kids in an RV and shared their life secrets. After that, based on the Career Education website,

was acquired, went to go work for that acquirer for a number of years. Started another company that would launch mobile applications, which was a failure. I underestimated the market size, the margins, and then my ability to execute. So, wrapped that up in about six months. Moved on to the next thing, lucked out, ended up launching or helping launch a charitable coffee company with the actor Hugh Jackman.

And that was ultimately acquired by Keurig. That was a really cool, cool experience for me to work with a barista, couple founders, including Hugh and get that off the ground. And that really just like gave me the legs to start my own digital marketing company. And so over the course of a few years, I got a few clients, was a freelancer, got the website to rank on page one for the term digital marketing company, and then actually started a digital marketing company. And so I scaled that.

where we had more than 500 small business clients, about 20 employees. And the big problem that we repeatedly ran into was that these small business owners had an abundance of knowledge to share, but nowhere to share it. And they needed to promote their business online to connect with customers. Their biggest asset was their knowledge about their business. And so we launched a platform that allowed them to answer questions and get their answers featured in articles. And that ultimately became what we're doing today. And so what we're doing today is we run featured.com. We recently acquired and revived Help a Reporter Out or HARO, which is kind of the legacy brand in the space that connects journalists with sources for stories. And so that's the mission that we're ultimately on and that's the journey that I've been on.

Barrak Alzaid (04:22)

I love that and I also love that you refer to these people as experts. They have a deep knowledge, this deep well of knowledge that they built over years and years and years and regardless whether they're a scale up or a local business, it's really important to uplift these folks and their voices because they have something to say and they deserve the platform to say it.

Brett Farmiloe (04:43)

Yeah, that's the motto that has guided Haro since day one and has guided featured.com is everyone is an expert in something. And it's just a matter of connecting people with the right questions and the right opportunities. And that's a lot of what we've worked on over the last few years is we've got thousands of media opportunities, thousands of questions that go on to featured.com every day onto Haro. And how do you connect those questions with the right person? And that's.

That's really where we feel like this is the perfect time to launch something with all the AI analysis that can happen behind the scenes where you have a huge database of folks who have answered questions, who have job titles and work for companies and have this accumulated experience. How do you connect a single question from a single journalist to the right folks and make it so that there's not a whole lot of waste in that process of answering questions and not having that expertise be used?

How do you make that match efficiently? that's really what we're focused on.

Barrak Alzaid (05:38)

That's really great. And I think you're tapping into something that a lot of entrepreneurs are facing, which is how to leverage AI in their business. You know, they're bombarded with so many solutions and so many apps and so many ways to incorporate AI in every facet of the business. So is there any advice that you'd give for digital entrepreneurs who may be trying to figure that out or feel really overwhelmed?

Based on your experience, how did you navigate that? What lessons do you have to share?

Brett Farmiloe (06:07)

So I remember when I hired my first software engineer and it was I think about 2017 and I was overzealous. I wanted to automate everything and basically looked at him as a way to say, can you automate this? And he gave me some really sound advice that I think applies to AI today, which is you got to do it manually before and figure out all the kinks before you can ultimately automate it. And so what I would suggest, you my advice for AI in approaching that is like, you've got to learn all the different kinks and do everything manually to really get an understanding of the standard operating procedures or the SOPs before you could automate certain portions of that SOP or that process. so AI, like once you get into a repetitive process where you're doing the same exact thing over and over and over again, that's where you could look to AI or automations to help support that workflow and maybe not entirely replace it but definitely be supportive within that analysis.

Barrak Alzaid (07:04)

That makes a lot of sense. And the platform that you've built is really fascinating because it serves two very real and complementary needs from two different but overlapping intersecting groups. So for publishers, for journalists, they need to generate high value content. And for business owners, they want to get featured in that content. They want a platform for their expertise to be disseminated.

It helps promote their business. So it's what you've created is win-win for both parties. And you want people to keep coming back. You want people to keep using the platform. And in a way, you're almost gathering people together in a kind of community. People show up, they contribute, everybody benefits. What have you learned about giving people a sense of belonging getting people to really invest in this very important platform that is serving their needs.

Brett Farmiloe (07:59)

I think I know what you're saying. What have I learned about this community and why is it a community versus just a transactional thing between a journalist and a source for information? And the reality is that the right sources are really hard to find, which is why platforms like ours exist. So we've been doing featured.com for three and a half years with Help a Reporter out for about a month. We're a month into it.

Barrak Alzaid (08:00)

Yeah, go for it.

Brett Farmiloe (08:24)

It has really accelerated the learning of being in the HARO community because what happens is, Harrow sends out a newsletter three times a day with the summary of all these different requests from journalists. And that goes, that same newsletter goes out to this, you know, the, all of the subscribers that we have. And so what happens is, and it's like this old antiquated thing. was created in 2008. It's exactly the same as it is in 2025. And the reason for that is when these newsletters go out, the person who's receiving it may or may not be the right source for one of those queries. But the power of community makes it so that a journalist can access almost anyone on the planet very, very quickly. Because all of these subscribers receive it. Everyone knows someone who might be able to answer it. And then you connect the dots, and that's the power of the community that makes Harrow work.

Barrak Alzaid (09:14)

And I'm also curious when you're running a digital purse business, there's this temptation to do it all. You talked about automation and how to prioritize when and what to automate. But you're just one person. And I'm just curious, how do you decide what to spend your time on, what not to spend your time on? And is there a system or a boundary you've set that's really paid off?

Brett Farmiloe (09:34)

Yeah, I think that at the end of the day, talk to customers. Talk like I try to talk to at least 20 customers a week, which is, you know, about two and a half hours a day of hopping on Zoom calls and doing screen shares and saying, hey, this is what we're thinking about internally. What do you think? Oh, you're off on this. You should really think about solving this problem that I have. OK, like, tell me more about that. So I think that customer conversations is the validation that could guide all the efforts and saves you a of pain and agony. like I say, you know, I mentioned that I'm from Sonoma County. There's never been a bad day wine tasting. There's also never been a bad customer conversation that you've had.

Barrak Alzaid (10:12)

It's fabulous. And I think the idea of actions that don't scale are still really important for businesses. I think we've gotten away from that one-to-one human interaction. And it's so valuable. And I'm curious if you could talk more about how it's informed or shaped your product. You talked a little bit about, this is working. This isn't working. But was there ever a moment where you were like yes, this thing, it's so great. And then you talk to a few customers and just really have to pivot or reconsider.

Brett Farmiloe (10:45)

Yeah, I think fortunately, if you follow the process well with the, you know, you've got this great idea and then before you build it, go talk with customers and see if it is a great idea and see if it does solve a real problem. so you, you solve a lot of challenges and a lot of, uh, you avoid a lot of unnecessary development just by showing a screenshot or showing. And now in 2025, you got vibe coding.

and you're throwing in a prompt into the tool that we use is v0.dev. Shout out to Versel for doing that. You can like take an email from a customer. Here's my problem. You could put that into v0.dev or Firebase from Google and it will literally spit out a functional prototype of exactly what the customer described. And then you could go back to the customer and say, is this what you want? And they could say, yes, that is exactly what I want.

Great, one validation. I'm gonna send this to another person who has the same exact customer persona as you. Hey, does this solve this problem? Yes, it does. Okay, now I got two validations. Now I'm gonna go to my development team and I'm gonna say, hey, how hard is this to build? it's super easy. All right, great, let's do it. Like, let's get this out the door and by tomorrow, I'm gonna go back to that customer and say, hey, that thing that you described via email to us yesterday, it's live. You could use it now. And it's like,

Barrak Alzaid (12:06)

And I think that's also an important way to keep your customers involved as community members, giving them the opportunity to give feedback, to challenge your assumptions, and then also see the fruits of your labors in real time. I think that's really amazing.

Brett Farmiloe (12:23)

Heck yeah.

And just to add on to that point, I mean, look, you don't know anything. as, you know, and, and yeah, you think, okay, yeah, Brett ran a digital marketing company for 10 years. He sold it. He knows the problem. Well, he knows about the solution, but you got to go into these customer conversations, like very much not with a blank canvas. And a great example of this is I was talking to a journalist yesterday. She's 67 years old, writes for Washington post, NPR.

other outlets and she's like, look, you know, I've, I've spoken with other companies and they think that they could do their job, my job better than I've, I know my own work. Like I've been doing this for 30 years. Like don't come to me with solutions and push the solution down. Listen to what I have to say. And so, it was one of my favorite conversations that I've had this week with her yesterday. I've just like, what is your problem?

What tools are you using now? How is that working for you? Where's the opportunity? And you just listen.

Barrak Alzaid (13:21)

It seems like even though it's a very simple idea, you've really dug in and work to shape and customize it based on these conversations, based on these interactions with people. How do you know how far to go down the rabbit hole? Like you're refining, retooling, developing features. How do you keep that zoomed in look and also keep that zoomed out overall view of like, this is where the business needs to go. This is my vision. How do you toggle between the two?

Brett Farmiloe (13:52)

I think you have different stakeholders in this. you could like one go down that rabbit hole as far as it goes with customers, with those, that conversation. Then you've got another set of stakeholders, which is your team. And there's a, there's an important distinction to have a big separation between the founder who's very much zoomed out, thinking about vision, where we need to go with the company. The founder needs to set the strategy that has the team working on that this week, this month this quarter, heads down, focused on this and executing. Then the founder can, and the most important tool that I have is the Brett backlog. The Brett backlog is the stuff that the team does not need to see to get distracted because I've learned that when you share an idea with the team, all of a sudden that idea starts to circulate and it replaces the stuff that's important for the business and deters the ability for the team to execute. And so the Brett backlog is a place for me to play. It is all the customer conversations, it's all jotted down into a huge backlog. And then that backlog can be shared with your board, your board of advisors, you know, and you know, the official board that makes, you know, the company decisions. That's where a founder can now start to like, make sure that they're not insane. Basically have a good sounding board to make sure that this is the right company strategy. And now you can develop the Q3 strategy. Here we are halfway through Q2.

We've got to have the Q3 strategy already to go. The team doesn't need to see it yet, but it needs to start to really get solidified and validated by the people who are really close to the business and making decisions. So I think that it's different sets of stakeholders. Customers are immediate. Let's go down that rabbit hole as much as possible. Team, let's stay focused on the things that needs to move our business forward. Foundry gets to play. Foundry gets to bounce those ideas off of things. And then the whole thing starts to circulate back again.

Barrak Alzaid (15:40)

And for people who are maybe solopreneurs, have freelancers as employees, you know, that are working with a kind of more fragmented ecosystem. I'm curious to know how you imagine that these strategies, which are very generative for the business and also very fulfilling for the business owner to be having these, yeah, to be working in this way.

how might you scale it so that a solopreneur or somebody working with a of a fragmented or remote team could have those conversations and also implement it into their business?

Brett Farmiloe (16:13)

Yeah, I think that when you're a solopreneur, it's the same strategy. just, or the same process. It's just on a smaller scale. And by smaller scale, you typically have one solution that needs to solve one problem and do that really well. And so the whole concept of let's now add like add new products and services. doesn't make sense when you're at a solopreneur stage. It's really about how do I scale this one solution to this one problem and grow that as quickly as possible and as a solopreneur you're also the one of the executors if you've got some you contractors who are helping you great but it's really about how do you scale that one idea really really fast so that you can now add other employees you can now add other products and services and then you can start to get into you know the phase of business that we're in right now where you know I'm not not the executor what I'm focused on is people, strategy, and capital. That's it. And so I'm not doing the day-to-day as much. It's really around how do I set the strategy, how do I get the right people in place, and how do I make sure that we don't go out of business and we make money.

Barrak Alzaid (17:16)

sounds like for people working on a smaller scale, it really is also about using the editing eye. So rather than having multiple pots on the stove going with different things, that they're just working on just the sauce or just making that perfect omelet. And then once they have that set expanding.

Brett Farmiloe (17:34)

Yeah, pretty much. I'd say that the, yeah, the more you can have a defined standard operating procedure and the better the output is because of the challenge as a solopreneur is you're going to be the best executor there is. You're going to get in and service the heck out of a customer. And what happens the minute that you need your first employee? What happens when you start kicking the, the client service responsibility over to a contractor?

It gets all messed up and you gotta have a playbook for your business that teaches and scales your ability to serve as a customer.

Barrak Alzaid (18:11)

That makes a lot of sense. And obviously there are moments where you face a big challenge. And since you're iterating so much and experimenting so much, I'm certain that there are things that have flopped, whether it's a feature, an idea. You have marketing experience as well. So it could even be a campaign that you ran. Could you share something that really bombed and

What did you learn from it?

Brett Farmiloe (18:36)

Yeah. So I mentioned earlier that I launched an iPhone app company back in 2010. And so you think about iPhone apps in like 2010, it's very much like what AI is today. Like apps are going to change the world. And they did. they, and they have AI is going to change the world. And there's all these different applications that are going to change the world with it. Okay. It is. However, there's distinct things that you need to think about from a business planning perspective.

The iPhone app business failed in six months because I launched an app. it was a success. And I thought, well, if I could take that and try to make it a business, maybe it'll succeed. The thing that I underestimated it was, it was basically the app was, I mentioned that I'm from, from, Northern California, big San Francisco giants fan. had just won the world series in 2010 and I was camped out here in Scottsdale, Arizona. And I was.

like kind of mad that I was away from it all. I didn't get to go see the World Series trophy. I didn't get to celebrate it. So I felt alone. and so I launched an app that allowed you to augment your photos and take a picture with the World Series trophy and like put Giants gear on you and do all this stuff. And and so like I launched in apparently there was thousands of people who felt like me and downloaded the app and created all these photos and it's really fun. And so was like, well, why don't I do that for for professional sports teams? Why don't I?

launch a customized app for every sports team. And so what I did was found that minor league baseball teams especially lacked technical resources to launch apps. And so I approached every minor league baseball team, said, hey, here's what we've done. We can develop an app for you. And the shortcomings in this business and the reason why it went out of business in six months was number one, the market size. There's only 300 small minor league baseball teams that exist. And so if you sell 10 % of those, great, like you've got 30 customers. So there's not a huge market. The margins, I couldn't build iPhone apps myself. I had to hire a developer. So boom, 50 % out the gate. So I wasn't going to make money. And then just the model itself. There was no recurring revenue in this business. It was a one-time build an app and get the check and then move on. And so all of this stuff was going to be a huge failure.

What I learned maybe like a year or two after that is there's this great tool, Steve Blank Business Model Canvas. The Business Model Canvas is a one sheet business plan that right in the middle has value proposition and right on the side has customer segment. Product market fit is finding the connection between your value proposition, that first quadrant, and the customer segment, that second quadrant. If you could do that well as an entrepreneur you found product market fit. Then there's like seven other quadrants, know, your, your partnerships, your revenue streams, things like that, that you got to fill in. But the whole beauty of the business model canvas is that you could do it all on a post-it note. You could one day think that your value proposition is this. You go talk to 12 customers and say, you know what? I was wrong. Tear down that post-it note, put a new post-it note on there.

And keep working through conversations until you've found fit in all these different quadrants, and then you'll have a good business. So my big learning lesson is, you gotta build on paper before you build in public.

Barrak Alzaid (21:46)

There's so much learnings that we can gain from failure. We also hear all these stories about founders and entrepreneurs who, you know, through sheer grit and through, sheer stubbornness, they plowed through and were able to achieve their success. Obviously experiencing failures on the way, but somehow that they were able to keep that, vision and execute on it despite all of the resistance.

Do you think that failure is necessary or is there a way to kind of push through and make little pivots in order to continue, executing on that original vision? is there a point where you just have to say, you know, this is not feasible?

Brett Farmiloe (22:29)

Yeah, I think it goes back to the business model canvas. Like you should fail most of the time because if you've got a business model canvas and you have a post-it note and you say our value proposition is this and you go talk to five customers like, no, it's not. You failed, right? But it's a small failure. It's a small failure on a post-it note and you've saved yourself the financial burden of going and hiring a developer to build something. You've saved yourself three months of the grit and working through that. And so like, yes, you should fail as often and as fast as possible, but make it a safe failure that doesn't have a lot of strings attached to it. So the more often that you fail, yes, it's a necessary ingredient to find success because you're not gonna get it right the first time, you're not gonna get it right the second time, you're not gonna get it right the 20th time. You have to keep going until you have got it right.

Barrak Alzaid (23:19)

How do you take a pause, reflect, reevaluate, and move on from that failure?

Brett Farmiloe (23:25)

think it's conversation by conversation, connecting the dots, identifying the commonalities, getting away from your computer. And I think that that honestly, where I have some of the biggest breakthroughs is you might have like back to back zoom calls for five or like for two and a half hours. And then you're like, all right, that was a lot. Let me just get up and let me walk out the door and let me just go. I'm here in Scottsdale and in the Fashion Square mall, it's a nice mall. I walked to Dior and back. It's an eight minute walk. All right, so like I go do that and then I come back and I'm fresh and you're able to get some clarity on things.

Barrak Alzaid (24:00)

Yeah, giving your mind a chance to rest, to process is really key. I actually have just one last question for you.

A digital entrepreneur, we're big on reconnecting entrepreneurs with the joy of business. When things get hard, what helps you get back to feeling joy in life and in business?

Brett Farmiloe (24:16)

Well, I think it's customer success. When it's, there's nothing more fulfilling for me than seeing a customer use what you've built and succeed in their business as a result of that. So when you can go off, into a dark area and be like, man, I don't know if this is working, you know, what do I do? The best thing to do is go talk to some customers. I hate to be a broken record, but man, go talk to some customers who are using your product and finding success with it. Find out where they're having success with it. Double down on that area of success. Get away from the rest and just keep building. And there's huge amounts of joy, even like solopreneurs. If you've got one customer, like go move in next to them. Get a freaking office next to where they're at and be so annoying in that sense that you're so close to them and like basically do the thing that doesn't scale. Like even if it's not that profitable, they're paying you a couple of grand, you know, a month in retainer or whatever it is. And you're like, man, I'm losing money working this job. Like you got to be able to get to that customer too, as quickly as possible. And the only way that you're going to get to customer two is find out what customer one deems to be successful and why they pay you.

Barrak Alzaid (25:30)

really great advice and that human connection again is just really key to feeling satisfied with the work that you're doing. Thank you so much for joining me today, Brett. It was such a pleasure. Your passion for helping people do their work better is really, you know, I really feel it. So I really appreciate the work that you do.

Brett Farmiloe (25:49)

Yeah, thanks for having me on. Thanks for the shout out. And if anyone wants to learn more about what we're building, you could go sign up for a free account on featured.com, set a couple of keyword alerts, and you'll get notified when there's relevant opportunities. And I'd also say go sign up for Help a Reporter out at helperreporter.com. You could put in your email address and start to get these email newsletters, see if anything sticks, be a part of the community and start building your brand online. So yeah, I appreciate you having me on again.