Pick My Brain

Pick My Brain
Podcast Description
Hosted by Alan ‘the nice one’ Jones, Pick My Brain is a Day One show. Day One is the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators, and investors.
Follow Pick My Brain through Day One on LinkedIn
Sign up to get your startup pitches and for opportunities to be featured on the show.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast delves into themes of entrepreneurship, startup pitches, and innovation with specific episodes highlighting topics such as transforming retail with technology and the challenges of investor engagement. For example, the episode with Olivya Munro discusses her startup Zello Studio and the challenges of fitting room technology.

Hosted by Alan ‘the nice one’ Jones, Pick My Brain is a Day One show. Day One is the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators, and investors.
Follow Pick My Brain through Day One on LinkedIn
Sign up to get your startup pitches and for opportunities to be featured on the show.

Episode Summary
Can a 27-second video replace a cover letter?
In this episode, Alan sits down with Luke Marshall, Head of Growth at UseVerb, a startup reinventing the way frontline teams hire with short-form video job applications. Luke shares his journey from big-budget media agencies to lean startup teams, the lessons learned from building and rebuilding UseVerb, and why Gen Z is redefining how we think about recruitment, content, and connection.
You’ll hear why UseVerb is doubling down on portrait video, how they’re targeting multi-location retailers and hospitality groups, and what their experiments in landing pages, email outreach, and TikTok-style branding have revealed so far.
If you’ve ever tried hiring at scale or building a startup in a noisy market, Luke’s insights on growth, product-market fit, and trust-based hiring will hit home.
Time Stamps
02:02 – Childhood dreams, Jurassic Park, and marine dinosaurs
03:12 – From media agency life to the startup world
04:34 – The origin story of UseVerb and what went wrong the first time
07:41 – Rebooting the startup: What’s different now
08:40 – The power of a 27-second video job application
10:57 – Why Gen Z gets video — and how that’s a hiring advantage
12:07 – Who UseVerb is built for (and how to reach them)
14:37 – Why TikTok changed everything for startup marketing
16:46 – UseVerb’s omnichannel growth strategy
18:18 – Creating content for portrait video vs landscape: Lessons from Gen Z
22:43 – Personalised landing pages: Too creepy or just right?
24:39 – How UseVerb uses AI to write emails that don’t sound like AI
29:25 – Why diversity in case studies matters for conversion
31:34 – The heartbreak of bounce rates and browser tab 76
33:26 – Final thoughts + a callout for user research participants
Resources Mentioned
Luke’s Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshwah/
UseVerb – https://www.useverb.com/
SmartLead – https://smartlead.ai/ – tool for cold outbound
Make.com – https://www.make.com/ – no-code automation for landing page generation
Microsoft Clarity – https://clarity.microsoft.com/ – session replay for landing page behaviour
Sponsors:
Pick My Brain is supported by our wonderful sponsors:
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The Day One Network
Pick My Brain is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Disclaimer
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