Michele: Hey, Colleen.
Colleen: Hey Michelle.
Michele: You excited for a little bit of fun today.
Colleen: Oh yeah.
I love having fun.
Michele: So we asked people for questions on Twitter.
Colleen: Okay.
Michele: Actually it's about, I don't know if people, um, also sent you questions,
but the ones that people tweeted at me.
Colleen: Perfect.
Michele: And I thought it'd be fun if we just take some time to run through them.
Colleen: Yeah, let's do it.
Michele: The first one, and most pressing question that I think all of us have
had for a very long time is for you.
It comes from pressed on tech, if you ever do a Q and A episode,
what's leeny burger, and is there a
Colleen: my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
This is so bad.
Okay.
Have I never told this to.
Michele: No.
Colleen: Okay.
So it's not actually so bad.
It's just so ridiculous.
So when I started to learn to code.
I dunno.
When was this like back like 2015, literally did not know what GitHub was.
Right.
Literally had never used Twitter in my life.
Didn't know what Twitter was.
And so I was trying to get up and running quickly and I try
to get on GitHub and Twitter.
And of course, Colleen is, and like most variations of Colleen are taken.
And so I thought this was like a name I would never use that
would fall into obscurity and it was not going to be a big deal.
So I just, do you remember, you're probably too young, but, uh, do
you remember aim for those of us
Michele: Yes.
Oh my God.
Yes.
I used AIM, please.
Colleen: So, anyway, when I, and the olden days had aim my handle or
whatever you called it back then was leeny burger, I thought it was like
a funny play on the name, Colleen.
Right.
Michele: Okay.
Colleen: But again, like I got on GitHub and Twitter and I never ever thought,
this name would follow me around for all eternity, but now it's everywhere.
I can't change it.
Michele: Wait.
So this is like a screen name, you name you made at
Colleen: When I was like 12.
Michele: just stuck with you since.
Colleen: Yes.
And it has, since I didn't put any thought into it because I, again, didn't think
it would follow me around the internet.
And so I was just picked something and I remembered that from like aim.
And so I just picked it and now I'm stuck with it.
So not ideal.
Michele: So if we had a software social conference and we had to
serve food and there was a leeny burger on the menu, what would it be?
Colleen: Oh dude.
Oh man.
It would be a hamburger like real meat, not an impossible burger
with blue cheese and tomatoes and those French fried onions.
That's what it would be.
Michele: I think people would like that.
I think that would sell.
Yeah.
Colleen: Like that.
Yeah, it is kind of funny though, because it's like super embarrassing
now because people are like, why isn't it like something clever, like code
with Colleen or, you know, why did I think about it for more than 30 seconds?
Michele: I as unique though, right?
You're not leeny burger one 50, right?
You're leeny burger.
You are leeny burger.
Colleen: I guess I got to take what I can get, but yeah.
So that's that story.
Michele: So that question was actually, brought back to our
attention, by Julian Simione, who actually had another question for us.
Which was, and I think this one might be for me, best and worst parts
of running a small company, we're founder, citizenship and business
operations may span multiple countries.
I think it, it adds a complication to it.
I would say, like first and foremost, that.
You know, we have multiple countries laws to deal with.
So we have a company, both in Denmark and in the U S we joke that we are the world's
smallest multinational corporation, though I do know somebody who was a one
person multinational corporation as well.
And they were at, and they're actually a corporation.
We're just, uh, well, I guess we're technically, this is the thing,
we're technically a corporation in Denmark, a work company in
the U S because we're an LLC.
Um, so that gets kind of complicated.
There's no real complications in terms of like citizenship and so
far as I have to have permission to live in Denmark, and to work here.
So that was a little bit complicated, at the beginning.
But it does make it a little bit tricky, but like, you know, when dealing with
things like taxes, for example, like I'm the person who would sort of run points
on getting everything ready for tax prep.
But I can't really navigate, the Danish tax system quite as adeptly as
I can in English for the U S system.
But then, you know, time zones are also the biggest challenge.
I mean, in this calling, this is something we talk about all the
time that like, you know, my whole work day is like pretty shifted.
And that stuff I have to be doing, you know, nine, 10:00 PM calls
with California and stuff like that, that definitely wears on you.
Colleen: Because your workday starts 3:00 PM to align with the us east coast,
I think you said you start at 3:00 PM.
Danish time.
Michele: No, no.
We started at 8:00 AM when our daughter goes to school.
So we basically work from eight to, so we work from at least eight to two.
She gets out of school like somewhere between like two and like three 30.
It's flexible when we pick her up.
Um, and she might have activities or whatnot.
So, I will usually work from eight to two.
And then phone calls usually start around two or three, with,
the U S and Canadian east coast.
Sometimes people are early risers and they, they do, 2:00
PM, which is 8:00 AM for them.
But it's pretty, it's pretty common that I would, you know, work from, like we work
at our desks without too many phone calls.
Unless I have to record something with somebody in the UK or
something or elsewhere in Europe, but that's pretty unusual.
And then if I have a phone call, it said like, you know, it's, in that three
to four o'clock block, which is really tough because those are like the hours
when, you know, customers are waking up.
So my inbox is filling up, I'm on forgotten, I'm on calls and our daughter's
getting home from school and it's just like, everything is like really busy.
Um, and then of course can't work through dinner hours.
The couple of times I've had stuff at, you know, 6:00 PM, it's
7:00 PM, it's really a challenge.
And then, any calls that can't be fit into three and four have to be
at 8, 8 30, 9, 10 o'clock at night.
Um, so I try not to do phone calls every day of the week, because it's
just like logistically, so conflict.
Colleen: That is a long day.
Michele: Which is something I've talked to other like friends who are,
uh, working from Europe with, you know, North America based customers.
And it's just, rough.
Like it, especially if you have kids, I mean, I mean maybe if like
you don't have kids that it's easier for you to not have boundaries.
So I don't know if that's necessarily better, right.
Cause I could have a 6:00 PM phone call.
But I'm interested actually forced to take a break.
So maybe that's a good thing.
But yeah, this is a shared struggle, with no good solution.
So, okay.
So, this one's for both of us, how do you switch between work mode
and mom mode, when the work is never really done as a founder,
unlike a traditional nine to five.
You want to take that one first?
Colleen: Sure I'm thinking about it.
Cause Saturday I worked for five hours.
Maybe it was only four hours.
Michele: You're like just trying to squeeze things in before like lacrosse.
Colleen: Right.
I don't know that, I've tried a lot of different things to make this work.
And I don't know that I have settled on something that is perfect.
I think for me, the biggest thing is like what I'm working, I'm working.
And when I'm with the kids, I'm with the kids.
And I think just like the mental space that puts me in
helps alleviate frustration.
That I can't be working on the thing because the work
will literally never be done.
So this weekend is a good example because I have been really busy as listeners of
this podcast will know working a lot.
And so I worked for like four hours this morning.
And I'm sorry, this was Saturday.
This was Saturday morning.
But what happened was we had scheduled out this time that we'd blocked
this time for me to work and I was going to be done at like, I don't
know, 10:00 AM, but I hadn't solved the, and it was a technical problem.
So I was really, really annoyed that I had to stop working at 10:00 AM.
And so for the first, like from like 10 to 11, I'm like trying to
figure out if we can reorganize the day so I can get more work time in.
And then, you know, I was thinking to myself and I was like, this is silly.
Like.
I have time, right?
This is, again, this, we talk about a lot though, but like, this is my life, right?
I don't have to solve this problem today, Saturday or tomorrow, Sunday,
this is a self-imposed deadline.
It's something I want to do.
But right now I'm just going to let it go and be with my family
and we're going to do family stuff.
And so that, although I'm doing the same physical thing, the mental shift.
Now his work time, now is not work time.
That helps me a lot, not stress about not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Michele: Yeah, I feel like you have a much better, sense of boundaries and being able
to turn those things on and off then I do.
Colleen: Yeah, I think I do.
Michele: even when I had a nine to five job, like those
were never nine to five jobs.
Like there was always overtime and weekends and stuff.
And so I think the shift for me with when I had, when we started,
geocoding was like, I was still working at night or on the weekends.
But the difference was was that, getting all of the money and benefit of that.
And like had all of the, you know, freedom to shape the direction of it.
I have never been good about turning work mode off.
And that's something that is, is just a constant thing, I'm working on,
like, I think it's just really, I both really enjoy my work, and really like
the sense of relief I get of seeing, you know, an empty inbox or whatever.
I like feeling that everything is all squared away and I just, I just
love the kinds of things I get to do.
So, I find it really hard to turn that off.
It's been something I've been working on a lot over the past year.
But for a long time, there really were no lines.
And that was, that was difficult.
Like I was never fully out of work mode.
I think for us turning off live chat, which we did last winter, that was really
important because otherwise we were getting live chat stuff at all hours.
And so whether it was dinner time, or you know, 10 o'clock at night
and you're sitting in bed, we were always replying to stuff cause we
just wanted it to be like cleared out.
And I think that was pretty unhealthy.
And we were pretty scared about turning off live chat.
But it had, no, it actually had no impact on the business.
We still grew last year despite turning it off.
So, yeah, I guess that's a challenge for me and especially
with the time zones, right.
Because all of my customers are aware.
Colleen: Right.
Michele: school gets out.
And
Colleen: It's way worse.
Michele: it just, Yeah, so like those hours of like three to like
8:00 PM for me are just kind of, everything is happening all at once.
And, the weekends are really the only time that I actually truly get to disconnect.
And when I was working on the book, I was doing a lot of that writing like
in the morning, but it was only when, our daughter was at like activities or
um, so I think I have better boundaries around the weekends than I used to, but
weekdays are still, they're still tough.
Colleen: Right.
Well, I, I think too, something that has helped me, which is both
good and bad, mostly good though, is my husband, unless he's flying, he
literally cannot bring his work home.
So I imagine if I had founded a company with my partner, the pole to work at 8:00
PM at night would be there every night.
Cause we were working on a common shared goal and we theoretically, both loved it.
But because my husband and I are in different fields, different
industries, it's annoying to him.
If every night at 8:00 PM, I'm like, I'm going to go work for two hours.
He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Like this is not, you know, this is not what we're doing here and he's right.
And so I think that that really helps in the evenings for me.
You know, so I think I've told you, we pick, I work like one or two nights a
week right now, which is a good balance.
But you, in that time zone problem, man, I mean, that is like, what can
you can't do anything about that?
Michele: it's intractable.
Yeah.
And I've tried like, okay.
I can pack in all my calls for the week on one day, which I did a couple weeks ago.
So I was on the phone basically from like two to like nine or 10 o'clock, uh, after
working from, eight to two as well.
And I was just so tired.
Like that's, I think it was the episode 1 0 1 that we recorded
that the end of that day.
And I feel like I sound just like really loopy.
Um, they're just so intertwined with one another, right?
We started our business because we couldn't afford daycare.
So there's no, like we started, you know, the company, we launched when
our daughter was like four months old.
So like these things are just there.
It's just so intertwined to me that really hard to, to have a time when we pull it
off and to not talk about work at dinner, we're we're not good at that, honestly.
Colleen: Yeah.
I think something that works really well for me.
Um, like this weekend, thinking back to this weekend too, is like,
I'm really into physical activity.
So Saturday I was super annoyed cause I couldn't solve this
problem in my four hours.
So I took all the kids and we went for a hike, like getting out of the
house, getting away from the computer.
Cause I believe the original question was like, how do you shift into two?
Like physically removing myself from my computer and like doing
something physical really helps me.
Cause the kid, my kids are old enough that they're really into that too.
So it's something, you know, now that the kids are old enough that
we share the same interests, it makes it more fun for everyone.
Michele: That's a good tip.
We should try that.
Uh, right next.
Let's do the next question.
I guess this is the, there are two questions that are kind of
related, which was, basically from Matt and Brian Cottingham
asking about, do geocodio hiring.
So Brian's question was why is geocodio moving to hire employees?
Why now?
And Matt's question was, would be interesting to learn more about
how you decided on what this role entails, and who'd be a good fit for.
So the first, um, answer to that is first as we are hiring employee, not
employees, uh, it's not like we're, it's kind of embarking on this of like,
yeah, now we're going to be a huge company and have 500 employees and an
office building in some tower, right?
This is we're hiring one person.
So it was not a super, it wasn't like we went into 2020 saying we're
going to hire somebody this year.
It was more just kind of happened.
So, there's somebody that, uh, Mathias used to work with, who, he saw on LinkedIn
had recently completed, Flatiron school, coding bootcamp, and he's like, oh,
that's like, that's really interesting.
You know, he, uh, so this, the person we're hiring was a customer support
manager where Matias used to work.
And apparently he was just, he was such an awesome guy, like, and I'm
really good at handling customers.
And he said there were times, you know, if there was a really hard call, it
would be handed to him and then like the whole office would be huddled around his
desk, listening to the call and then like start cheering when he like talked
the person down off, you know, off of a cliff and like got it calmed down.
And, and he was kinda like, you know, if we were gonna hire someone to help
us with support, you know, it would be, it would be like him because I know
that he has the same approach to it.
And so we, we like kind of thought about it.
We also thought about how I think it really, really hit us that like,
to what we were just talking about.
Like, we have not had a work free vacation in over eight years.
In fact, vacations used to be our time to get more, do geocodio work time.
So it was like, you know, it'd be nice if we could even just like somebody
covering the support queue, we can like actually take, so, uh, we ended up
connecting with him and had a chat with him and we're like, you know what, maybe
he can do some freelance work for us.
Maybe he can do some support as a consultant, just to kind of, you know,
basically help him out as he's trying to build up his resume as it develops,
transition out of being in, exclusively support roles, get his feet wet, and
being a developer and, um, and also see, you know, just how does it work?
You know, like remotely, cause he's in the U S and we're here.
And it was just working really, really well.
And then we kind of had a thought a couple weeks ago, it's like, okay,
like we've spent this time, like training him and kind of getting him
on board with things, and, but we know he's looking for a full-time job.
So like, what if he goes to get a full, and so, one thing that made it that
easier for us to hire him I'll say is, is using, deal, which is what's
called a PEO, which is basically a company that they, you basically
pay them to hire somebody for you.
So it's like deal is technically, his employer, employer
of record, they call it.
But it means that we don't have to have a company set up in Maryland.
You know, they go out and they get health insurance.
We just pay for it, which is just so complicated.
Just getting health insurance as, as one person or as a one person,
like a small organization is really complicated and expensive.
So, um, between the fact that, it was really easy for us
logistically to hire him, and that it seemed like a really good fit.
We decided to make him an offer.
And so, he's going to be doing a combination of contents and like
technical content and technical support.
So basically helping one, you know, people have, questions
about using the API, writing tutorials, writing sample projects.
He already has one up on our GitHub.
You know, basically creating sort of developer focused content, and support.
But so that's kind of that, and it's not like a big, formal strategic thing.
It's more, it's like, Hey, like this is actually somebody who's just a
really right fit, in terms of how we want to treat our customers and what
we think would be useful for them.
And also, you know, something that, you know, that takes some
work off of Mathias's his plate.
Cause I've gotten help with bookkeeping and my VA and like, I have a little,
group of contractors that help me, but so, this is a way to really lighten
the load for him, but also, for me.
Colleen: How long was he contracting for you
Michele: the
Colleen: before you?
Oh, not long.
Michele: No, no, but we knew he was looking for a full-time job.
And so it was like, a thought we had when we, made him the consulting
offer was basically that like, effectively an informal trial.
Like, I don't think we ever really said that, but that was kind of
how we were thinking about it.
Even if we didn't really communicate that to one another, until later
it, was just kind of funny.
But that was
Colleen: You, So Mathias really pushed for this.
Michele: Now that would have a us pushed for it.
There was no, like we got to do this and here's the numbers of why it makes sense.
It was more than, hey, like I saw this on LinkedIn today and
like, he was a really awesome guy.
Like
Colleen: Right person at the right time.
Michele: Yeah, we just love to like help him out.
And you know, in January I started hiring people freelance to make tutorials.
I like developer focused tutorials, so, and like, we would love to do more content
engineering stuff, like building like tools, to show what it does and stuff.
So, it was like, oh, like maybe, yeah.
Maybe that's something like, he could do so.
Colleen: So it sounds like it was more the right person at the
right time and opportunity was there and you guys jumped on it.
Michele: Yeah.
yeah.
Colleen: Sounds good.
Michele: Yeah.
I feel bad that I didn't make it clear in the episode that, like
it wasn't an open position that we were currently hiring for.
I had been quite flattered by the resumes I've been receiving.
And also I feel terrible that it wasn't clear.
Colleen: Yeah, you didn't make that clear at all.
Michele: Sorry, I didn't realize that I didn't make it clear.
Colleen: Like, I I feel like, okay.
I feel like you did a disservice to the pod, Michelle.
Not because you didn't make it clear, but because I feel like
you hired someone without like telling us as the process went,
Michele: It was just, I mean, we just spend so much going on.
I think I put, I put it in slack, you know,
um, that we like
had a
Colleen: Like you didn't.
From the beat, like you just never talked about it.
So I think we were all like, wait, what?
I feel like I've been trying to get you to hire someone for a hundred
episodes and then you just did it.
It was like, wait, what just happened?
Michele: Yeah, well, well, I mean, I wanted to like, wait to like, tell
anyone about it being full time until contract is actually signed.
Colleen: Yeah.
Michele: You never know, what's going to happen.
But also for a consultant, like I've hired, you know, hired consultants
without talking to before.
Colleen: Uh, you need to run all of your decisions by me, obviously like de
Michele: Yeah.
I guess it kind of moved quickly and we have so much going on.
Like it's hard to, yeah, This is just a lot.
All right, next question.
Colleen: Next question.
Michele: Next question.
Oh, this is a really fun one.
I'm actually super excited for this.
Okay.
So I totally stole this idea for a Q and A episode from our friends, Matt
and Peter at out of beta podcast.
And Ruben Gamma's asked them if you traded places and had to take each
other's products, what would be the biggest thing you do or try differently.
And Michael copper wants us to answer this question.
Um, I, so I feel like we should first put guard rails on it.
So
Colleen: Oh, we don't have to put guard rails on it.
Go
Michele: No, no, no.
In terms of like, which businesses are we talking about?
Right.
Because I have but then I, I guess technically my book is, is a business.
And then I mean, I'm literally sitting here in a hotel room.
I'm going to give a workshop on it at a conference tomorrow.
And then I guess this podcast is technically a business, but
I feel like maybe I think we should just limit it to geocodio.
And I don't know for you, if we want to do it for both refined slash hammer stone
and simple file upload or one of those,
I don't know if you have thoughts on that.
Just hammer stone.
Colleen: Yeah.
I mean either way or you can just take over my life and yeah.
Michele: Uh, I want to hear what you would do with you.
Colleen: Oh man.
I think what I would do with
I mean, you just, the first thing I would've said would, would be, I
would really put time and effort into hiring someone and you just did that.
So I think, yeah, I mean, that would definitely be my first move.
I think you guys is, I feel like I've said before, but probably not for awhile.
You guys have all the things, uh, yet you kind of seem perpetually stressed out.
And so I think that is a factor.
A part of that is you're, you know, you haven't been able to
take a vacation for eight years.
So if it were my business, I would buy a house in California
because I could afford one.
That's the first thing I would do.
And then I would try to get a highly technical person in.
And try to start deliberately structuring the business in a way that enabled me
to and my family to go on vacation for a week and be able to actually disconnect.
And that's probably more than one person and that's probably
like, that's a long game, right?
That's not going to happen in a month.
That's probably a six month to a year process, but I would start
tweaking the business to structure it in a way that I had to be less
involved, that I could step back.
Michele: Yeah.
I think the challenge we're running into right now, which I've
seen other people talk about is like basically hiring too late.
There ends up being so much, you have to do in order to
automate, someone or people and it
And you're already so busy that you don't really have time to devote to that.
And so I think that that's kind of something we're we're feeling right now.
And also, you know, we hired someone who is.
So, you know, for the foreseeable future, like for example, won't be working on
the geocodio engine, It'll be support type stuff that does not directly relate
to working on the geo-coding engine.
Of course, you know, we, we would like love for him to grow into that,
but, um, it's also rare that like an issue with a geocoding engine is
something that like, is like critically on fire when we're on vacation.
Say more often than not.
It's stuff with like servers.
I can't tell you how many theme parks Mathias has, you know,
he's been standing in line for a ride, like SSH into a server.
Um, it's like, like at least Sesame place, universal, um,
Lego land, multiple Lego lands.
Actually we like Lego land.
Um, yeah, so.
Yeah.
That's, that's still kind of work in progress for us.
Okay.
So I am answering for your actually I kind of want to add, I want to talk
about simple file load for a second.
So you're making what, like 1400 a month, right?
Colleen: 15, but
Michele: 15.
Okay.
And how much does it cost you to run it?
Colleen: 200 bucks.
Michele: Okay.
And then how much are you spending on the content?
Colleen: 500 bucks a month.
Michele: So then you are netting without taxes, $800 a month.
from it.
Is that right?
Colleen: Sounds about right.
Oh, Heroku takes 30%.
So drop that down to, I don't know, 500 bucks a month.
Michele: Okay.
Um, that's interesting.
And then we have refund going and you are pounding the pavement on sales.
So.
I personally, I tend to defer to making it easy for someone to figure out what
something does before they, like, so they can figure it out on their own basically.
They don't have to talk to someone and they can find it, um, on their own as
they're trying to figure something out.
So I would just, I would use the same playbook we used for geocoding basically,
figure out a way to do some sort of, you know, freemium plus subscription.
And really hit on SEO.
Like be all over stack overflow and read it like anytime anybody is
posting something that's remotely related to, um, refine, right.
Wherever you can find those people like, astroTurf the hell out of it.
And like posted like, Hey, like, oh, like try this thing and try that.
And just, be in all of the forums and which is also not only building eyeballs,
but also building backlinks and then have some content that's like here.
It's, here's how it is.
Here's how you quickly get it going.
Like now I know your business is different because you're targeting
like managers rather than developers, but I think it's important to
have the developers, um, onboard.
And you could maybe even double track that with doing the, sort
of more like outbound sales model.
I mean, quite frankly, I would, you're investing in content for simple file
upload and given the changes in the industry and that CloudFlare is now.
Um, no, it's not cloud flare it's, um, Cloudinary.
No.
What is it?
Cloud Cloudinary is in that space.
I would put that money that you're putting into content for simple file.
And instead spend that money on refine.
Colleen: Refine I've thought about that.
Yeah.
I've thought
Michele: Cause I think that's where your growth is.
Like, I think it's great that you're making $1,500.
Well, let's say you're making, if we don't spend on content $800 a month, right?
Like, you know that that's 800 bucks a month that you didn't have before.
That's a nice little cushion, like, but basically regard that as something that.
Gives you a little base of revenue to like, basically just like, just
save that money so that, you know, when you, um, want to be full-time
on refine without the client, which is coming up three months from now,
you have at least, you know, maybe.
A month or two of salary saved up So that it's at least a little more
comfortable, to be going full time.
And I would probably keep consulting for longer than you're planning on.
But again, you have much better work-life balance, uh, boundaries than I do.
And I, do not hesitate to sign myself up for working long days, but that's not how.
So, I don't think I should advise anyone to do it.
That's probably what I would actually do.
But like, I'm not saying like, I would not advise you or anybody else to do that.
Colleen: So you think we should lean into SEO for refine?
That's interesting because it's
Michele: may I just make, make it possible for people to play
with it without having to buy it.
Colleen: This is okay, so this is what we're talking about.
This is hard because of what it is.
It's hard.
Um, but Aaron and I have been talking about that and I think that
is, going to be a big, a big thing.
Once we figure out how to do that.
Michele: Even if it's just not, not for like SEO purposes, but it's
for like, like for you, like sales enablement might be more important.
And so if you're going to spend $200 a month on content, be spending that.
on, you know, nice PDFs.
You know, people can forward to their managers about why they should buy
it and tools that help people see it.
Like even just having like a, you know, a live demo that someone can go into.
So not necessarily they're getting to use it in their own app, but
they're just getting to see like, oh, this is what I can just play around
with this and Nova, or I can play around with this in a rails backend.
And then here are all of these white papers and one pagers and stuff that.
They can download or that you can send, you know, it makes it super
easy when you're following up with someone after a call, right?
Investing in content doesn't necessarily mean SEO.
It also means other things.
Colleen: I like it.
That makes sense.
No, that makes total sense.
Michele: But I feel like, refine is really where your growth is and that's, you know,
Colleen: too.
Michele: in the growth.
Colleen: Yeah.
I like it.
Michele: Um, oh, there was another one.
Okay.
Oh, this one I think was for me, or I guess both of us, if universal
healthcare existed in the United States, what effect do you think
that would have on entrepreneurship?
Colleen: That's more for you go.
Michele: Is it C I think it will.
I mean, I guess you, so you have health insurance through your
husband who is in the military.
so.
you are like covered in terms of health insurance.
Um, I mean, I think maybe it's, Y you know, a lot of the founder couples,
I know we're actually not in the U S come to think of it because to have
both of you, full-time requires buying your own health insurance, and that's
just both complicated and expensive.
Like, there are a lot of states where a founder only married couple
founder company can't buy company health insurance, which is, you
know, way better and, you know, like orders of magnitude cheaper than
buying individual health insurance.
Like I think when I looked at it, it was like $4,000 a month
for buying it on the individual market versus like 1300 a month.
So.
I think it would be a massive boon to entrepreneurship in the us, quite frankly.
Um, it it's really amazing for me, like looking around, Denmark and seeing, so
many people becoming entrepreneurs and not necessarily tech entrepreneurs like us.
But like, you know, people can start their own, you know, landscaping business
or, you know, like doing something in trades or just having a store or.
Um, with crafts or like just all sorts of things at much younger ages, and
also like, with, less, um, less risk, because they don't have to worry that.
Yes, of course they have to, you know, they have to bring in money and they have
to feed themselves and their families, but like, they don't immediately have a, you
know, 10, 15, $20,000 bill at minimum to start with in order to start their own.
I think, it would be really important.
And you know, it, I mean, it feels very appropriate that the reason why, uh,
health insurance is tied to employees in the U S is because of Hitler, right.
Like that's just the only way you end up with such a bad
system, um, because of war II.
Um, so
Colleen: life.
I think we've talked about this, this American life has a great podcast
episode about that, by the way.
It's from yeah.
It's from years and years ago, but I remember I was, it's like fascinating.
Michele: Yeah, because, so they basically, they didn't want,
inflation to increase during the war.
And so, health insurance was a way to, attract people into
jobs instead of raising wages.
But I, I think it would be super important and, super helpful.
I don't know if anyone knows.
But disagree with that.
Quite frankly, like I think the only people who like the U S health insurance
system are health insurance companies.
So, uh, yeah.
I'm not getting into what exactly that solution would look like, but Yeah.
Okay.
I think, did you get any questions directly?
Colleen: Nope.
Michele: No.
Okay.
So I think.
I think that might have been the, um, the questions that we got.
Um, Yeah.
This was kind of fun.
We should do this again.
So as I mentioned, so I'm at a conference or two conferences this week.
I am at go-to all hosts and, mine, the product in Hamburg.
And then, you're on vacation next week.
Is that right?
Colleen: That's right.
Michele: And then I'm on vacation for two and a half weeks after that.
And then I think you're on vacation again.
And so basically like travel is sequential for the next like month and a half.
But we will still be here.
So, I've talked to a bunch of other people, had some really fun
conversations that I'm excited to share.
I know you're going to keep talking to Aaron.
And so there'll be a little bit of like hammer stone, pods or social
crossover, over the next couple of weeks.
But you know, our, and I know actually you kind of, uh, you kind of ripped
me for this sometimes Coleen, but I feel like we have like a promise to
people that like, we're going to be in their ears when they're walking
their dog or mucking stalls or doing the dishes or driving their kids
to school or camp, uh, every week.
I think you kind of
Colleen: Oh, I have thoughts, but you go ahead.
Michele: that I'm like standing here cracking the whip about that.
But yeah, so, so, so it'll be a little bit different for the
next month and a half or so.
And then I think we're both home and everything at like the end of July.
I remember correctly.
Yeah, Yeah.
So, and then, and then basically you're at your deadline for refining.
Colleen: Okay.
And yeah, I mean, but also it's not like a hard deadline, but
yes, we are working towards that.
And I think it will be fun because the next time we talk about this a lot will
have changed in the next month and a half.
Michele: Do you have a five calls scheduled for this week?
Colleen: No, dude, I just talked to you like three days ago.
Michele: Get those calls scheduled, those podcasts out Colleen job job.
Colleen: Yep.
I'm on it.
Michele: All right.
Let's us, thank the wonderful people who support our podcast, which by the way,
I've been meaning to do this actually.
But I, I wanted to add up like how much our podcast, how much
revenue it brings in now that we are supported by the community.
How much it was when we had, like pre-roll sponsors.
I almost wonder if it's going to be higher.
Plus we've added the new tier of like doing somebody like a company can do a
sponsored episode as a special thing.
So, I, but I feel like it might actually be higher.
Okay.
So huge, thanks to all of our listeners who become software
socialites and support our show.
You can become a supporter for $10 a month or a hundred dollars
a year@softwaresocial.dev slash.
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Thanks everybody.
Colleen, I will talk to you at the end of July.
Colleen: Oh, okay.
Talk to you then.
Bye.
Michele: You're so ready.
You're so ready for this break.
Colleen: Oh man.
Michele: All right.
So yeah.