Andrew Capland [00:00:00]:
There's always a person who your experience is valuable to. And the story that I told myself in my head is every time I had that self doubt start to creep in, I would try to interrupt it and say, well, why not me? If I don't do this, someone else is going to go out there, they're going to create my business, I'm going to look at what they're doing and their background, and I'm going to feel like one fucking a what an idiot I am for not doing this, because now somebody else has done it, and it could have been me.
Nick Bennett [00:00:30]:
Hey listener. Welcome to 1000 Routes. I'm your host, Nick Bennett. In each episode, we explore the uncommon paths of solopreneurs who have bet on themselves and the reality of what it takes to build a business that serves your life. And if you wanna change your own route, you can check out Full Stack Solopreneur, our 90 day group coaching program that has helped dozens build clear, compelling offers that you can market and sell with confidence. You can join now at fullstacksolo.com. That's fullstacksolo.com. Enjoy the episode. Well, dude, first of all, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've seen you floating around the LinkedIn sphere for a while, but I really kind of first became familiar with you and your work through our mutual friend, John Bonini. The more I read your stuff and the more I learned about you, the more interested I became and what you were doing. Because I don't know if you realize this or not about your path, but so few people have ever been hitched to a rocket ship like HubSpot, ever. And you did it during the boom of inbound as a thing. And then I don't know if you did this one on purpose, but you made it to Wistia, which was another rocket ship at the boom of like video.
Nick Bennett [00:01:36]:
Every year's the year of video, but you did it like at the wave of video when it was like coming up for the first, I think the first time. Then you spent some time at Postscript, dude, what was that like? And how do you feel like? Or did it have any effect on you going solo in the first place?
Andrew Capland [00:01:54]:
Well, first of all, thank you for the kind words. I have been fortunate to be at the right place at the right time a few times, and I don't think I always knew I would. Like, when I applied at HubSpot, I didn't know it was going to be HubSpot, you know, I just applied to a job and it seemed like a cool job. And later I had a few friends that worked at Wistia and I thought that would be a cool job. And later I went to Postscript and I thought, hey, this could be a really cool next step in my journey. But I never applied to those things, thinking, hey, this is going to be a rocket ship. Let me hold on tight. But I think at some point during those experiences, I knew something special was happening and I decided to try to maximize that either by, like, connecting with folks and forming relationships and seeing some people that were graduating out of the company to go do amazing things.
Andrew Capland [00:02:37]:
I just started connecting more. And then I think I also just realized I'm working at companies that are growing quickly and there's going to be a lot of room for failure in trying things. And I wanted to be at the center of that because if one of those things hit, then I could learn even more and accelerate my own journey even faster. So it was never an intention to go join these things that were growing quickly. But I'm pretty grateful that I was there during those times.
Nick Bennett [00:03:00]:
Yeah, man, I mean, they seem like fun places to be, but being there during those booms had to, like, recalibrate, I think, some of your thinking and unlock a lot of what's really possible in these types of businesses. I mean, dude, you're in SaaS, right? And you work with SaaS companies. So there's so many of these companies that never hit those strides. That part of their brain is just, they can't even reach it because there's so many things between where they are today and becoming that. And I think that being exposed to that had to have made an impact on you in some way.
Andrew Capland [00:03:37]:
Totally, dude. I basically got to pattern match off of the top percentage. I suppose. Like when I worked at HubSpot, it was super clear. Like, I joined there in 2011, I think there was just maybe 200 people and company had just hit product market fit. But like, really it was an up and coming, fast growing company, but not something that everybody already knew about. And frankly, the product wasn't that good. It's like before product led growth, but the first time you see the product was after you purchased it.
Andrew Capland [00:04:04]:
And as an employee, it was after I'd already signed my employment contract. And I remember thinking, this is it. All that cool marketing, and this is the product. This is all it could do. Yeah, it was an incredible marketing organization, but the product wasn't there yet. And what I learned is the leaders of the company would get up in front of the whole company at that time when the product was kind of okay and they had just really gotten a little bit of momentum and they would say, hey, our goal is to ipo in the top 2% of all software ipos at all time. Like company leaders. This is in 2011, like years before the IPO, which I think was in 2017.
Andrew Capland [00:04:38]:
And so early on, their bar for quality and for greatness was just so high. And I was like, wow, I don't know if this happens everywhere, but it's pretty cool that we talk about this. And at the time, it was like, I don't know if that's ever going to happen, but fuck it, let's see. And it was just really cool to be there during that time. And that's the thing that I've learned is not every company has that. One, they had incredible leaders and leadership, and two, they set the bar really high, and they set crazy, audacious goals. And I was like, man, that's pretty neat. And that's been something that has shaped my, I guess, my identity, but also my approach in my own business and when I support other businesses is not everyone has grown up in that background.
Andrew Capland [00:05:17]:
And that's been something that's been really helpful and interesting to me.
Nick Bennett [00:05:20]:
Yeah, I think as a solo, we all have this set of limiting beliefs no matter what level of success we achieve. And it's like, the agency that I came from, like, there's a similar example, much smaller scale, but I came from a marketing agency. Before I went solo, we had, like, a ten person marketing team. We spent probably a million dollars a year on marketing as an agency with maybe 60 employees total. And in my mind, that was just what we were doing. That was my first exposure to agency life and agency marketing, all that stuff. I didn't know any better. Maybe I was just naive, but I was like, wow, like, this is really what you got to do to make it.
Nick Bennett [00:05:59]:
And then the more time I spent in that business and I looked around and I met other people in this space, and I was like, wait a minute. They don't even have a single marketer on staff, let alone a couple. They're not spending any money on this thing. I think it's a similar experience where you're like, that blinder is maybe it's, like a little naive to think that, oh, well, everyone can do this type of thing, or every company is HubSpot. They have that culture, they have the means to spend, but those blinders recalibrate your thinking in a way that isn't really possible in any other way.
Andrew Capland [00:06:31]:
Yeah.
Nick Bennett [00:06:31]:
So I think that's cool. And I think that it removes that limiting belief that you can or can do something, because not doing it was never really an option in the first place, right?
Andrew Capland [00:06:41]:
Yeah, I did. 100%.
Nick Bennett [00:06:43]:
So, I've heard you say that your company is your identity for a lot of people. Not you specifically, but just, like, as an employer, right. The company you work for is. Becomes your identity, down to, like, the t shirts you wear, the coffee mugs you drink out of, the t shirt with the logo on it, like, how you show up, your posture, all of those things. So coming from a place like HubSpot and Wistia and, like, these big logos, what is it, like now being solo and, like, not having that, man, this.
Andrew Capland [00:07:13]:
Is such a good question. Well, one, I think when you're in house and you have that identity, you only look at it as a positive, right? Like, when I worked at HubSpot and it was really cranking, when I would travel and I'd go to the airport, I'd always wear my HubSpot hoodie. It was comfortable, one, but, like, two, I'd be lying if there wasn't part of me that didn't wanna, like, swag a little bit.
Nick Bennett [00:07:33]:
Yeah, totally.
Andrew Capland [00:07:35]:
And, like, it wasn't super infrequently. Once in a while, people would come up, and they'd be like, hey, do you work at HubSpot? We use HubSpot. We love HubSpot. And that would make me feel even better, and I would continue doing it. And I think something similar happened at Wistia. Wistia has a big freemium population. Hundreds of thousands of people when I work there use the free product, probably more. And so if I wore Wistia gear, odds were I was going to see someone who was a user or a customer or a customer of a customer or whatever it was.
Andrew Capland [00:07:59]:
And that made me feel good, and I think it's only a good thing until that identity becomes negative. In your mind. Maybe you get denied a big promo or a coworker that you were really close with got denied a big promotion, or maybe they got laid off or they got let go because of performance reasons and you felt like it was the company's fault and you supported the individual. And then all of a sudden, that association that you felt so great about starts feeling a little different, starts feeling a little icky. And so when I went on my own, I knew that I'm someone who was going to be predisposed to tying a lot of my identity into my business, and it's purposely, even though I'm on my own, I'm a solopreneur. I didn't call it Andrew Capland Coaching or Andrew Capland advising or whatever, because I knew that I was already going to have a hard time detangling my self worth and my identity for my business. So I wanted to call it something else. So if the business thrived, great, the business is thriving.
Andrew Capland [00:08:51]:
If the business struggled, great, the business is struggling. And I could try to just have a little bit of separation from my personal identity in the business. And that's aspirational. It's not always the case, but that has definitely influenced my approach here and kind of at least how I got going. Yeah, it was a big part of it.
Nick Bennett [00:09:08]:
Yeah, the pros and cons to all of it. Like, if you name your business Andrew Capland Consulting, and you're like, Andrew Capland’'s revenue is down, you're like, oh, no. Like, it feels. It's just like the words, words matter, man. And if you keep saying those things, you're looking at a graph that has your name on it versus the name of a business. Like, that's separation. That's something I haven't thought much about. I kind of felt this level of, dang, I didn't get, like, nickbennett.com or I didn't get Nickbennet consulting.
Nick Bennett [00:09:34]:
Like, it's been taken. But I think that's a perspective that is, well, we've all been told, build a personal brand. And so it's like this idea that you're tethering your worth to these things in a negative way. And I think there's a positive way to do it too, though, if you're not that deeply tethered to the success. I mean, this is, as a solopreneur, I think this is my life's work, right, as of up to today. And this, and I think you're nodding. So you're saying, I think it's a similar thing if you're not that deeply connected to it and you don't feel that you probably aren't going to make it either, though that level of connection is required in order to deal with the emotional whiplash that is this roller coaster of entrepreneurship. And it feels weird to say that, like, you gotta balance these two.
Nick Bennett [00:10:21]:
It's not even balance. I don't know what it is, but you gotta deal with these two opposing forces, which is like, I am more than my business, but also, like, I need to be so invested in this thing. Cause if I'm not, I'm gonna go get another job.
Andrew Capland [00:10:33]:
Yeah, I separated out from the outcomes. Like, the thing that I'm really passionate about is helping people, is transforming them, is taking them from a place where they show up and needing some services like mine to hopefully where I leave them, whether they graduate. That's the thing that I view as my life's work now, the name of that thing, I can keep a little bit more distance from, but the thing that that business, that entity is solving, that's what I'm deeply passionate about. So that's kind of how I detangle those two opposing forces in my mind.
Nick Bennett [00:11:01]:
Interesting man. So, I want to. Let's. Let's unpack your journey a little bit. We understand you went through these big names, these big logo companies. It is probably really easy for someone in your position to go find another logo and at least get the conversations going on a lot easier way than other people who haven't. But there must have been a turning point for you, where you were like, I'm going to try and do this crazy thing and go out on my own. Walk me through the moment you decided to go solo and not go back and just get another job with another logo or something.
Andrew Capland [00:11:36]:
I think that there's a few reasons that push me to do this. The first is that I come from a family of entrepreneurs and small business owners. My mom's been an executive coach longer than she's been my mom, and my dad has run his own accounting practice longer than he's been my dad, and they both are small business owners. And so I think I saw at a really young age what it looked like to be a successful business owner, both in terms of our parent child relationships. Like, they were at all the games they were at all the practices. They were able to show up for me in ways that I think they couldn't have if they didn't own their own destiny, but also the grit and the ups and downs that come with that. I saw that pretty viscerally at a young age, and so I think I saw the pattern, and it was always inside of me, but I didn't know how it was going to come out. And so, at some point in time, I had hit the goals that I had for my career on paper.
Andrew Capland [00:12:24]:
Like, my goal was to become director of growth at some hot freemium product led company. And I got there at Wistia, like, I truly got to live my dream, and I got that role, and I got the title and everything that came with it, and I was never more unfulfilled when I got there. Right. It's like I'm scrapping my way up this career mountain, and it feels good, and at the next step, it'll feel better, and at the next step, it'll feel better. And then I finally got to the thing, and I was like, man, this feels bad. And I'm anxious, and I'm on edge and I'm stressed, and I don't know if I like this. And I thought it was me. And so somewhere along the line, I hired a professional coach, and I was like, hey, I don't know what's wrong with me.
Andrew Capland [00:13:02]:
I've gotten to this place that I thought I wanted to get to, and now I'm miserable, and I don't know what to do. And my whole identity has been this thing, and I don't know if I want to keep doing this thing anymore, but I don't know what else to do. And everybody knows me as this thing. So now what? And she led me through this exercise where she was like, hey, I just want you to follow me here. And she basically had me do this thing where I wrote down all of the ways I spent my time in a given week and how it made me feel my energy for each one of those things. And so I did this exercise, and it was like, well, I'm in a weekly one on one meetings with my team, and I'm doing planning meetings on Mondays, and then I'm doing this stuff on Tuesdays, and then Thursdays I meet with the CEO, and in between, I do some work, and it feels like this. And at some point in time, I was like, oh. And I I guess I also do this thing where probably once or twice a week, I meet with other mes, other people that have my job or on the path that I have been on that are a few steps behind, and they ask me for advice.
Andrew Capland [00:13:56]:
And truthfully, that's where it feels the best. And she was like, oh, well, there's something there. And I was like, yeah, but that's a distraction from my career, not a career. And she was like, well, dude, what if the next time somebody reached out and said, hey, could I pick your brain that you say, sure, here's my rate, and you throw out some small number that they'll say yes to? And I did that, and that's how I got my first client. And so that was probably back in 20, maybe early 2020, late 2019. And so that's where it was in me. And, like, the seed was planted, and then it was just a matter of time until it came out. But that was sort of the beginning of the snowball.
Nick Bennett [00:14:29]:
I gotta give you credit for. It seems like you realize you knew something was wrong and you asked for help by way of hiring a coach. I don't know many people who are really willing to admit they need help or even, like, go out and try to find something. It's a combination of things. I don't know. It's whatever it is. If it's a self awareness, if it's just, like, you've been exposed to entrepreneurship long enough, but, like, knowing you needed to ask for help, I think, sounds like a pretty big turning point because this coach unlocked this part of your brain that you were like, I never connected the dots between where I am and that and being able to earn a living talking to people like that, but you. So you do this thing.
Nick Bennett [00:15:10]:
You start, you meet, you got your first client, but there had to have been a moment when you were, like, going from one client to more clients to considering scaling back, or you're at post script at the time, you're thinking you're considering the scale back, but I'm imagining, I mean, I went through this, and every other solo I know went through this is that you start second guessing yourself. So I'm curious, what were the things that you were questioning, and how did you work through that shift?
Andrew Capland [00:15:39]:
Yeah, I mean, I questioned all of it, man. It was like, is this a thing? Will other people pay me for it? You know, I'm getting paid. I forget what I was getting paid. $200 a call or something, you know, $200 a month for, like, these two sessions with these people, and I didn't have any systems or process. I was kind of just showing it up and dancing.
Nick Bennett [00:15:55]:
You're like a growth therapist?
Andrew Capland [00:15:57]:
Kinda, yeah. It was like, it wasn't as much mindset stuff at that point. It was more like, hey, how do you run your meetings? How do I do this? How do I set up my strategy? Does this look like a good strategy based on your experience? What's it missing? That kind of stuff. So it was a little bit more tactical, but I was like, man, I don't know if I'm even providing that much value. And so I knew that there was something there. I knew it made me feel good, and I was looking for validation or trying to understand, do I have validation? But, dude, the big thing that was scary for me is I was in house, so I was doing it a little bit on the side, and now I've got this side gig that's not really making me much money, but it makes me feel really good. I've still got my full time job. My full time job is paying the bills, providing benefits.
Andrew Capland [00:16:37]:
My wife isn't working. She just had our, you know, our son was just born, so it provided a lot of stability, and I was really nervous about, like, could I really do this? And so for me, I kind of have these two opposing forces between. I'm feeling energy pulling me in this direction, but I'm feeling a lot of stability, and that's important. And it came to a head with me when I had basically, I had a bad performance review at Postscript, and I was totally caught off guard by it. Like, I thought I was doing a decent job. And in retrospect, I was probably going through the motions because my heart just wasn't in it, but I just wasn't ready to leave. So I had this performance review. I get caught off guard, and I was like, this is a sign that I'm not meant to do this because this isn't me.
Andrew Capland [00:17:15]:
This feedback that I just got, it doesn't even feel like me when I'm hearing it. It doesn't sound like the person is describing me, and I don't want to spend too much time as this version of me. I think this is a sign that I'm meant to go do this other thing, and I've had an inkling that it could work out, and I'm gonna fucking go for it, and I'm gonna cannonball in, and there's no way I'm not gonna have it work. If it doesn't work, I'll take work that's beneath me to make ends meet. If it doesn't work, I'll take this path until I figure it out. And to me, that was, like, a really pivotal moment when I had this tough feedback that kind of caught me off guard. And I just decided, I'm not going to stew in this. I'm going to use this as a rocket in a different direction.
Nick Bennett [00:17:55]:
That's, like, late 2019 or, like, early 2020.
Andrew Capland [00:17:59]:
I went on my own June of 2021. So that was probably May 2021. Cause I pretty quickly afterwards left.
Nick Bennett [00:18:07]:
So it wasn't like, you got $200 for coaching someone on an ad hoc thing, and you were like, this is the move, and let's go.
Andrew Capland [00:18:15]:
No, I did what a lot of people do, man. I had a couple clients. I was making hundreds of dollars per month, maybe thousands on a good month, but not, like, life changing money. Certainly not enough to replace my full time income. And I was stuck in that place for a little bit, kind of straddling both worlds, making a teeny bit of money from my side gig, making the vast majority of my money from my full time gig, but feeling conflicting emotions about the two.
Nick Bennett [00:18:38]:
When we tell ourselves, I did this to myself, I was like, when I go solo, I'm going to build this thing up, parallel my income. As soon as the boat's close enough to the dock, I'll be earning enough money, I'm going to make the leap, quit my job, I'm going to be an entrepreneur and life will be great. But I don't think that's the reality for most people, right, like myself included, there was a restructure and I found myself without a job. I know a lot of people that a lot of solos that were in that impasse where they end up losing a job for whatever reason, especially in tech, with people with all the layoffs going on that have been going on over the last few years, and they don't have the luxury of a few hundred bucks, right? Like that, just like this, thinking that they can do it. And I think there's something that earning your first dollar on the Internet does to your brain where you're like, this changes everything. I can do. I can do this thing. Versus they're like, compete against 2000 other people for like a director of whatever growth role and or try to make this thing work.
Nick Bennett [00:19:39]:
And so the fact that you had someone in your life that was like, hey, this coach, that was like, give him this, give him, give him the rate. Try to earn some money off of this seems like a massive turning point that if this person didn't tell you to do this or like plant that seed, the whole trajectory is, you're different, you're in a different place.
Andrew Capland [00:20:01]:
Huge turning point in my life. And if you think about it, this coach was an example of that, right? They coached full time. It was not a cheap engagement. I did it because it was worth it and it truly was worth it. But when I realized who I was talking to, I was working with a coach because I needed coaching. But then all of a sudden I realized, wow, now I have this intimate relationship with someone who runs a successful coaching business. So I could also learn from them about what it looked like, how they carried themselves. I started asking little questions like, hey, what are the things that you wished you knew throughout this process? Absolutely, man.
Andrew Capland [00:20:34]:
Changed everything.
Nick Bennett [00:20:36]:
What was the moment when you looked at whether it was like your wife or your coach and you were like, this might work. I might actually be able to pull this thing off. Were you still at post scripts and trying to bring on more clients? Did you make the leap already and you're sitting there on the couch at the end of the day, and a contract comes in. Talk to me about that moment for you.
Andrew Capland [00:20:56]:
The moment for me was probably when I got my second client. The first client was someone I worked or someone who I knew from my past. I didn't work with them. I actually interviewed them a long time prior, and we sort of kept in touch, and they basically said, hey, could we chat on an ongoing basis? And I said, yeah, absolutely. Here's what it would cost. But I already knew them. But my second client was a stranger. It was someone random who I'd never met before who saw something totally random.
Andrew Capland [00:21:20]:
I wrote on LinkedIn, and they reached out to me and said, hey, could I pick your brain? And I said, yes, here's my rate. As, like, my fingers trembled. And when they said, sure, no problem. When can we meet? That's when I texted my coach, and I was like, holy shit, I got my second client. My first stranger said, yes to my rate, this could actually work. And so that was the feeling for me.
Nick Bennett [00:21:43]:
I can relate to that. Just being in that position where you're like, a stranger saw the words they saw and read the way that I see the world and the way that I believe this thing should be. And they felt that so much that they came inbound. And you're like, if there's one person who feels this way, there has got to be at least ten that I can build up. I can build a portfolio here as a solo. So that's. That's cool, man. I think there's a lot of people that'll be able to relate with that one, but.
Nick Bennett [00:22:15]:
So it was ad hoc coaching at first. Talk me through, iterating on what you were doing to become a coach. Like, how long did it take you to get that worked out? How many versions did you go through before you were like, here's a real offer that I can make somebody, and this thing starts to take shape.
Andrew Capland [00:22:33]:
At first, I call it dancing in the moment. It's like, hey, just tell me what's going on, and I'll help you work through it. And then the second iteration was, hey, tell me what's going on beforehand so I can prep and I don't have to dance in the moment, but I can share some stuff, or I can prep some stuff that might be helpful so I don't have to dance in the moment. Then that was helpful. And then over time, what I started to learn, maybe after client number four or five, is that everyone was using different words to describe very similar challenges, and it started noticing patterns in trends. And I started taking that and I would update my sales page and my sales pitch. When I would talk to clients, id say, what about this other thing? Other people I talk to have this challenge? Do you also struggle with this? If so, what does it look like for you to struggle with it? What would succeeding at that? What would impact would that make in your life and in your career? I started to see the patterns and that influenced my offer, and I've iterated off of that a million times. But that's sort of the building blocks to where I've landed at today.
Andrew Capland [00:23:29]:
And then a lot of the delivery you iterate on as well. So again, so I was dancing in the moment at first. Then I was sending folks surveys in advance so that I wouldn't have to dance in the moment. Then I was sending a more formal intake process and more contract and inboarding process to help me ramp up quicker. And then I had some self guided course programs and things that they could work on in between our calls. And so it's just been a very fluid process where at first I tried not to put too much pressure to have anything too standardized, to have anything figured out. I didn't know how often it would be helpful to meet with folks. And I just tested shit because that was my whole job in house.
Andrew Capland [00:24:03]:
Director of growth is you're constantly testing and iterating and trying new things to break through plateaus. And I took the exact same approach to my own business. It was like, well, if I just write down all of the things that I'm wondering about, then I just try a bunch of those things and then I regroup on which ones worked and how they felt and which ones I struggle with, then eventually I will figure out the right answer. And so thats sort of been a core part of my journey here, too.
Nick Bennett [00:24:26]:
Yeah, I think theres this idea that you either have to have it all figured out and try to create the perfect offer right from the start, and that keeps a lot of people from ever taking action. I say if you want to be a successful sole opener, you need to have this irrational bias towards action. Cause a lot of people tend to try to read their way out of a problem. And reading and consuming a lot and consuming content, stuff like that totally has its place in getting you facing the right direction. But it sounds like you had this confidence and this posture about what you were doing that you were like, I can show up here with very little plan. And not to say there was no plan, but you're like, you're dancing and you said dancing in the darkest. How did.
Andrew Capland [00:25:11]:
Dancing in the moment.
Nick Bennett [00:25:12]:
Dancing in the moment dancing in the moment yeah. So you can show up dancing in the moment and still create value for somebody else. And I think there's like, how did you feel confident being able to go into that? Cause I think there's some people who are like, I don't feel like that's possible for me.
Andrew Capland [00:25:29]:
I saw this is what they did at HubSpot. They had a vision of what success looked like, and then how they got there. They remained very fluid on, and they constantly experimented, and they constantly tried to disrupt themselves, and they constantly tried things that didnt work to figure out what did work. And so I saw this incredible example of that in the wild, working in house at startups, and I was like, well, if I just have a vision of what I want to do, which is to support the growth community and to provide value and to help other folks along in their journeys, and I try a bunch of things to figure out whats the best way for me to deliver on that promise or on that premise. Eventually, ill figure it out. And so I think I just had confidence that the approach would work because I had seen that pattern over and over in my past, and I just figured anything I didn't know, I'd be smart enough to figure it out, or I could lean on other people. Like, when I say smart enough to figure it out, I mean, I can gather the resources that I need to figure out the answer. I don't need to put pressure on myself to have it already, whether that's leading on people or things I've read, or, again, the experimentation process, I just knew that eventually that would lead me to my destination.
Nick Bennett [00:26:35]:
I wholeheartedly agree that, like, our job as consultants and coaches and advisors, whatever you want to call it, is like, it's not to have every answer, it's to know how to get answers in some respect and to show up and be okay with that. Like, there's this, again, it comes a lot of things that prevent people from doing this work in a way that will really fulfill them, I think is the fact that there's this limiting belief that I can't do it because I don't have all the answers right. And there's something you talk a lot about in this idea of, like, being the coach to the version of yourself, like, a few years back when you were the head of growth, and this is the limiting belief that they need to be at the summit. Like, you need to be the CEO of a product led company in order to be a consultant for a head of growth at a product led company like this is just so not true. And it's like, I believe in this idea of what you're talking about. I've read about it as the two year test, because this logic applies to everything in our life. The funniest example that I've heard about is. Is like this idea that, like, when you were in high school, your parents are just as qualified to tell you about high school as anyone is, but they're much further along.
Nick Bennett [00:27:53]:
But you. No one wants to hear their perspective. You want to hear from a kid who's a year or two ahead of you, someone who just went through what you're going through. And it seems like this pattern matching thing that you went through brought you to this same conclusion. Cause even though there's plenty of people that could coach someone on being head of growth at these types of companies, they don't wanna hear from them. They wanna hear from someone who just went through, someone who gets them. So I'm curious for you. How did you gain that perspective and not let this belief that you needed to be way further down the line? You need to be the CMO or something before you were ready to do this, and how did you not let that hold you back?
Andrew Capland [00:28:33]:
So what I've learned in marketing is that there's a book in marketing called play bigger. It's actually a book on category creation that was really popular. I think it came out in 2016.
Nick Bennett [00:28:44]:
Right there.
Andrew Capland [00:28:44]:
You got it on the wall.
Nick Bennett [00:28:45]:
Yeah, it's in there. There's their new one, too.
Andrew Capland [00:28:47]:
So it's a little dry, that book, but I've read it twice. And in the book, they talk about to create a new category, and there's no clear winner yet in the space. And who's going to solve this problem? Typically, the person who understands and articulates the problem in the greatest detail is trusted to have the best solution, even if their solution isn't the best today. And this is what I saw at HubSpot. Right. I told you when I started there, my first impression of the product was, this is it all that good marketing and the product is just this? But they did that. That was an example of that in the wild, where they articulated the problem with the old way of doing marketing, and they were introducing a new way, but they hadn't quite figured out what all the details were of the new way. But because they could understand the previous problem so well, everybody just trusted that it was going to be the company to figure it out.
Andrew Capland [00:29:30]:
And that's what I've learned about careers as well. Right. So if you understand the problems that people who are two, three years behind you in the journey are having, and you understand it in great detail because you just went through it, you just made those mistakes, you just had that feedback. You know, you just created four versions of the deck that you're going to present to the board because the first three got bad feedback and you had to keep figuring out. Because I just went through that, I knew that I could be trusted to help other people figure it out. Like in coaching, there's no right answer a lot of the time, and so it's not obvious always what to do. And I knew that I could. If we, if I put my experience next to someone who was struggling with the challenge, I knew I could make them at least 30% more confident in what they were doing and moving forward.
Andrew Capland [00:30:12]:
And that was always my goal, just not to be perfect, just to see if I could provide a little bit more value or give them a little bit more confidence in what they were doing. So I think that was my approach, was, if I understand, if I have confidence, I understand the problem in great detail, I think I can trust and believe in myself to help them figure out the answer. So I think that there's that side of it. And then, like, look, I'd be lying if I didn't say tactically, I was very fortunate to work at companies that had high appetite for risk, and so I got to try a lot of different things. I was exposed to a lot of different things. I got a few promotions in a small period of time, and so I got exposure to different levels of the company that, in retrospect, not everyone had that same experience. So if I sort of combine the experience that I had as well as the confidence to really understand the challenges, I just figured, who better than me to help these people?
Nick Bennett [00:30:58]:
The fact that you didn't just stop yourself short and be like, I'm not the CMO, though, and why would somebody who needs this or that you were like, I get the problem that they're facing, and now it's like there's a whole system. There's a whole thing called the two year test. Basically, that is the premise of what you're, what you did before. It was a framework, and it came from the guys who wrote play bigger. And that's where I learned, learned it. But regardless, it's like this idea that people are way more interested to hear from someone who just went through it, because there's this element of like, being able to, like, this element of resonance that you can have with them that someone who is the CMO will just never, that won't have anymore. And that level of closeness is where you're thriving. And there's the exact same thing that prevents people from doing it.
Nick Bennett [00:31:51]:
And I think I can't emphasize that enough. There's so much value that people have, but they're like, oh, well, I'm not far enough along. It's like I don't have the experience. One of my good friends who's a solo and he's in his early twenties, and he was like, I think I'm going to close up shop. And I was like, he's like, I just don't feel like I have the experience to like, guide people on this stuff. And I was like, you do have experience. You're just trying to guide the wrong person. Like, you don't need to guide CEO's of this whatever of tech companies or agency founders or whatever.
Nick Bennett [00:32:24]:
You need to guide the version of you a few years back who's trying to go clear all the hurdles that you know how to clear. They don't need anybody else other than you. They need you. And you have that experience is super valid and people are definitely willing to pay for it.
Andrew Capland [00:32:41]:
I noticed this pattern when I talk to other folks who are thinking about going off on their own is they always have a reason why not. I haven't done this thing yet, and I haven't had this exposure yet, and I will be much more valuable after I do these other three things. And what I've realized is even the people who I talk to who are like 20 years into their career, they also say that. And so it's like, well, if everybody feels like they don't know enough, then maybe we all know, well, one more than we think we do, and maybe we all know enough. And maybe that's just a normal feeling to have that you are never satisfied with what you know. And truthfully, anyone who says they they think they know it all usually doesn't. They just haven't identified the stuff that they have yet to learn. And so there's always a person who your experience is valuable to.
Andrew Capland [00:33:26]:
And the story that I told myself in my head is every time I had that self doubt start to creep in, I would try to interrupt it and say, well, why not me? If I don't do this, someone else is going to go out there, they're going to create my business, I'm going to look at what they're doing and their background, and I'm going to feel like, one, fucking a, what an idiot I am for not doing this because now somebody else has done it and it could have been me. And two, I'm probably going to be skeptical of their experience because I think that my experience is pretty valuable to some folks. And I would feel like if I saw someone else building my business that didn't have the, you know, the companies that I've worked at and the problems that I've had the opportunity to solve and the leadership, you know, that I've been able to kind of build along the way. I would feel cheated or I would feel bummed out. And so every time I started to feel that self doubt, I would just say, well, why not me? What if it did work? Fuck it. Let's find out. And honestly, like, when I started working with, with a coach, they would ask me, or I started working with a business coach at one point to help me build my solo business, because I just needed help and I wanted someone to be an accountability partner with me. They kept asking me all these questions, what if your business didn't grow more? And what if this didn't happen? They were trying to uncover the pain that I was going to hire them to solve.
Andrew Capland [00:34:31]:
And what I articulated to them is, look, I think I could build something great, and I need to know if I can do it. I need to know what the limit is on my potential. I need to know what's on the other side of the fence. And if I don't build this business and if I don't push it as far as I can, I will always wonder if I did enough, if I maxed out my potential or not. And so I just try to interrupt those limiting beliefs with, why not me? And what if it does work out and how far could I take it? And I try to have a little fun along the way. But the mindset part is the hardest piece, right? Because by default, our mind goes to the negative stuff. Like in psychology, they talk about automatic negative thoughts. Don't quote me on the number, but they did some study back in, like, 2005 or something, and they studied the amount of thoughts that the average brain has in a day, and it's like 80,000 thoughts.
Andrew Capland [00:35:16]:
And 80% of those 80,000 thoughts are typically negative. And of those that are negative, the vast majority are the same, repeating thoughts over and over. So it's like the way that we're built as humans is to think negatively is to tell ourselves over and over I can't. I can't. I can't. And so I try to be aware of that so that I can at least try to just balance it out 5% with some more positive mindset and beliefs and self talk.
Nick Bennett [00:35:39]:
You know, you listed off a bunch of reasons why, when you're like, why not me? Like someone else who can run this business in an older universe where you didn't do this, and there's someone out there who doesn't have the leadership or the skills that you've acquired over there, I think all of those things are great. But the thing you left off that I have learned in this conversation and what I've gathered just reading your work and stuff is, like, there's an element of compassion here that, like, back to this two year test thing, too. There's an element of compassion here that, like, you get it all the leadership in the world isn't going to make somebody give a shit about helping these people through whatever they're dealing with. So people say, why not me? Well, I don't have the leadership. Why not me? Well, I don't have, like, the resume or I don't. I didn't acquire these skill sets of these. I've never used these tool sets or whatever, all the mindset in the world, but, like, without the compassion piece that you have for the people who are doing this work and, like, understanding, like, just how exhausting and stressful it can be, or it often just is just like, that's just the way the. That is what it comes with the job.
Nick Bennett [00:36:50]:
I don't think that you would be you. Right. Like, you wouldn't be in this. In this spot. It's interesting to hear you say some of the reasons why you think, why not me? Versus from the outside looking in, it's like, that's what makes it powerful to the people you help.
Andrew Capland [00:37:07]:
It's the energy and the compassion to lift others up.
Nick Bennett [00:37:10]:
Yeah. I mean, because otherwise, then you're back in this space where I need to be the CMO before I can start coaching marketing managers type of thing. And, no, you don't. You need to be a marketing director if you want to coach a marketing director, because, and you need to have been gone through that role. And that's, that's really it. And it's. You only get that level of compassion by having gone through it. The leadership skills can be acquired, I think.
Nick Bennett [00:37:35]:
I mean, I have. I have clients and I have friends who have been career military people, and they have plenty of leadership skills, but it takes more than that right. Like, it just. That's nothing. You can acquire those skills. You can read plenty of books and try to acquire those types of skills, but you're not going to be able to just show up and understand the problem better than anybody else in the world. Being able to articulate it faster and more effectively than anybody else without that other piece.
Andrew Capland [00:38:01]:
And then your third point, which is, it's got to be authentic to you. So, like, for me, when I did that exercise with my coach, she helped me to identify. It gave me the most energy to help other people and to help them problem solve and to lift them up. And I think that's maybe been a key part of this as well, which is. I mean, at the beginning of our call, you said, I think this is my life's work. And that's how I feel, too. Like, when I describe to people and they say, hey, how's your business going? My business has ups and downs, but I feel like the universe put me here to do this to help other people. And I feel that way on the inside.
Andrew Capland [00:38:34]:
Probably bleeds out a little bit. And how I communicate and the passion that I bring when I work with folks and anything that. I don't know, I just think, who better than to help these people figure it out than me, because I want to, you know, I want to help them figure it out.
Nick Bennett [00:38:46]:
So you brought up play bigger. There's a whole concept in that book, in category design, that is this missionary versus mercenary mindset. As a mercenary, it's like, if you see an opportunity to make a bunch of money, you go into coaching heads of growth at PLG companies. As a missionary, you're like, there's a huge problem in this world that ahead of growth, that the heads of growth, the PLG companies, are stressed out. They are under a ton of pressure. They're getting fucking chewed out by people. Whatever. The thing is, I don't know anything about what it's like to be that.
Nick Bennett [00:39:18]:
Yeah, but they're getting. They're going through it, and you're like, this is a huge problem. And they need support systems. They need people who get it. And that being on that mission versus just seeing an opportunity to make money is the difference between companies who and people who I think make it and people who don't, people who just give up. You can't wake up every day, put your feet on the floor and be like, I'm gonna go help these people and, like, do this work every day and have it amount to something and be fulfilled by that. If you're just doing it to try and make some money. And we talked about being so deeply tethered to, like, the success of this work.
Nick Bennett [00:39:53]:
I think all these things are connected in a whole bunch of different ways.
Andrew Capland [00:39:57]:
So true, man. When I chat with other folks, I do coaching, and I also advise some SaaS companies. And when I talk to other solos, they're like, well, how much do you make doing this? And how much do you make doing that? And I make more as an advisor. Right. Company outcomes are worth more than individual and career focused outcomes. And they always say, well, why don't you just ditch the coaching and only do advising? You'll make more money. Because to me, there's the mission behind it. Right? It's not just about making the money.
Andrew Capland [00:40:23]:
I would be less passionate to wake up every day and to solve these hard problems if I was only solving them for businesses. So that's a portion of what I do. But that's why it's not a bigger piece of the puzzle, because the mission is ultimately the thing that powers you through the ups and the downs, because there's no part of this journey that's easy, right? There's moments where it feels great, there's moments where it feels bad, and then most of the days have a mix of all the feelings. It just depends on what you're thinking about, what you're focusing on, and what's going on. And so if there's going to be ups and downs, the thing that you need is something that you're, like, deeply passionate about to push you through.
Nick Bennett [00:40:58]:
Totally, man. I think that's that emotional whiplash that comes with the job, because you can go from the worst morning ever again, told, no, whatever. Clients are canceling, going through this. And it's like, to not just want to be like, screw this, and start updating your resume versus in the afternoon, all of a sudden, how many contracts come back or you get a bunch of calls booked or whatever. The thing is, a client has a win, you're jazzed up again, and you're like, the ups and downs are just like, it's hard, man. And it takes a while to equalize that inside of you where it doesn't become so jarring. I don't know if I'll ever get 100% used to it, but it's like, it's okay. That's normal, right? We should be normalizing that part of this experience, because, one.
Nick Bennett [00:41:44]:
I mean, you're on your own, and you got to eat 100% of it versus having a leadership team around you or anyone around you to help bear the brunt of those types of things. So.
Andrew Capland [00:41:55]:
And the second you think you got it figured out is usually it's like this every time where I've been like, oh, business is pumping. I think I just passed the next plateau. Sky's the limit. Every time I get to that place, usually I'm about to have a downturn. And it's like, you just. It's like the second I feel that way, it's like, what do they call it in the stock market? Like extreme exuberance or something? Like once. Or rational exuberance. Like, once you get to that point, like, you know, it crashes probably coming.
Andrew Capland [00:42:20]:
I have found the same to be true in my own business, where the second I think I got it figured out, I usually don't. And when I'm at my lowest and I'm like, oh, is this journey over? It's never over. And you just kind of need to double down. And that's part of the deal. You ride the ups and the downs. And when I went on my own, I got great feedback from Wes Bush. So Wes is the founder and CEO of ProductLed.com. They do product led growth education cohorts, podcasts, et cetera.
Andrew Capland [00:42:45]:
He's become a friend over the years. So when I went on my own, he was like, dude, if you're going to work for yourself, make sure you fucking love the job. Don't say yes to things that, like, maybe will pay well or that other people want you to do that you don't want to do. So he was like, start by writing down the things that you're really passionate about, that you really want to do, so that you say no to the right things and yes to the right things. And that has been a part of this as well for me, where it's been easier to power through some of the downtimes because I'm still focused on what I love and I haven't sold out too much that, you know, sometimes you say yes to things that are on the fringe to make a buck, but by and large, I think if you have that as your compass, you're doing pretty well.
Nick Bennett [00:43:22]:
Yeah. I mean, sometimes you just don't have the luxury of saying no to certain situations because it is also, it's still your livelihood. Um, my son is 18 months. He's a year and a half now.
Andrew Capland [00:43:35]:
That's the best age.
Nick Bennett [00:43:37]:
He's a looney tune. And I got another one on the way. I know you do too. Congrats. But there's like a parallel here to you're like all that. When you think you have it figured out in business, turn guess what? You don't. So all my friends that are having their first kid and my unsolicited parenting advice to anyone is the same thing. The second you think you got this kid figured out, you don't and don't believe that you do, because what got that kid to sleep tonight won't get him to sleep tomorrow.
Nick Bennett [00:44:07]:
And what they eat today, they are not going to eat tomorrow, or like all of those things. I think that logic in mindset applies to so much more in life than just business because I was thinking about my, as you were saying, I was like, this is exactly what I tell new parents, like my friends who are about to have kids.
Andrew Capland [00:44:27]:
I use the same analogy for both where I think about parenting and running your own business like a game. And every time you unlock a new level in the game, maybe your kid starts crawling instead of not being able to crawl, they start walking instead of only being able to crawl. Or then they can start communicating what they need instead of being able to just say a few words, the game changes. And, like, what you need to succeed at that level of the game is totally different than what you needed at other levels. Some levels are multiplayer, and you got to figure out how to kind of rock things that way and run your own business is the same way. Right. What gets you your first client is a totally different thing than what gets you your 10th. What gets you your 10th is different than what you need to five x that from there.
Andrew Capland [00:45:05]:
And so you're constantly kind of checking in and seeing what game am I playing? What do I need to succeed at this level? How do I get to the next one? So, yeah, there's like, a ton of parallels there.
Nick Bennett [00:45:16]:
Yeah. And, like, unlike gaming, unfortunately, there's no screen that pops up that reminds you or, like, notifies you of the level up. So, like, one day your kid unlocks new skills and you're like, oh, shit. All right, man. So I've heard you say this one before, too. You've mentioned we talked about the stress and the anxiety that comes with working at these high growth companies. But being. We also know being a solopreneur has its own set of stress anxieties.
Nick Bennett [00:45:42]:
I know a lot of people romanticize going out on their own, and they romanticize being the head of growth at a company like Wistia and all these other big logos. How does this experience kind of compare and contrast for you?
Andrew Capland [00:45:57]:
The stress that I felt in house was stress that other people made me feel. Meaning, like if I was at work and the company wasn't growing enough and I had to get in front of some group of my peers or senior stakeholders, whether it was the board or c level folks or whatever, I would feel on edge. I wouldn't sleep. I'd be thinking about that. It's silly when you think about it. It's not my business, it's not my livelihood. I'm getting a check regardless to help problem solve and to make the best decisions I can to help the company break through plateaus. But I always felt on edge.
Andrew Capland [00:46:29]:
And it was typically from the pressure either I felt from other folks or I imagined other folks were putting on me. And then when I went on my own, there was nobody else. And so then all of a sudden it becomes stress to grow your business, to provide for your family, to manage your emotions up and down. Maybe you lose a client, a client gives you some tough feedback, and then all of a sudden you're trying to figure out what to do. Is the game over for me? Type of stuff. And so it's been that, that's been the biggest challenge going on my own is the stress that the pressure that I put on myself and then the ability to detach my business ups and downs from my personal identity a little easier when you're in house, right? You might feel pressure like, oh, I have a big meeting and the business hasn't been growing. But it's not like, hey, the business hasn't been growing. Are we going to be able to buy diapers next month? But when you're on your own, there's a little bit more of that pressure.
Andrew Capland [00:47:18]:
And because you're, for me, I'm so low, when the business has gone great, I'm telling everybody about it, I'm swagging, I'm feeling good, I'm chatting with folks like you, telling you all the answers to the test type of thing, but when things aren't going so well, I'm feeling really down about it. And sometimes it's carrying more into my family life than I would prefer. That's been the biggest challenge for me is because I'm on my own finding support systems, people like yourself, people like the community that we're starting to build here on slacken and mantras and things that I can say to myself to try to stay steady throughout the whole experience.
Nick Bennett [00:47:53]:
Yeah, I totally feel that one. Because when things get weird in business, I try to throw myself at it in terms of just my mental energy my physical energy by working more hours, trying to stay up late, maybe to wake up a little bit earlier, try to stretch my work day a little bit, work on the couch when it's supposed to be family time. It's like you try to figure that out in these other types of ways and that makes you feel good. It makes your brain feel good. Scratches the itch that you're trying really hard. But I've found that creating the space is the most effective way to have that breakthrough, whatever thing you're trying to figure out. I think Rand Fishkin posted something about this recently where he was like, when you're not thinking about work, you're doing your best thinking about work like you are most effectively solving problems when you're not thinking about the problem. And I was like, this is the most true thing I've felt because all of a sudden I'm like walking the dog and I'm like, oh shit, that's like the thing that I need to do this other thing.
Nick Bennett [00:48:58]:
And you're like, I've been trying to, I've been staring at my screen for so long and it's like you don't need to stare at your screen to get to the answers. I think is like really where so many people in our position feel like the answers are inside the screen and they don't have to be like they could be. Sometimes they are the but they're not always. And like normalize the fact that you can do a bunch of different things. Like you can go take a shower in the middle of your workday and get that thought and be like, this is the breakthrough I needed.
Andrew Capland [00:49:26]:
One of the best things I started doing is last year I started doing a four day workweek. So I would take off basically every Friday when the weather was nice. I live in Boston, so like, you know, winter's cold, so I work winter Fridays, but in the summer, spring and fall, I take Fridays off and I would go golfing with a friend of mine. Hes another entrepreneur. Hes a small business owner. Not an online business like what were talking about, but a different type of business. And we would just golf and like when were golfing wed kind of shoot the breeze and wed talk about work and business and stuff. And I would always end up at the end of the round with like a bunch of notes on my phone.
Andrew Capland [00:49:57]:
It was like, oh, hes working on this thing. Fuck. I wonder if theres like an application I could think about that might help my business. Oh, he just hired this person to support his business. I wonder if its time for me to bring on like a, you know, an exec assistant, that type of stuff. And so I love that. Right? No, no, good ideas come at the end of a 16 hours workday. They come when you're unplugging.
Andrew Capland [00:50:13]:
You leave a little bit more slack in the line. So everybody has a different version that I like golfing. I try to work out every morning after I drop my little guy off at daycare. I try to get at least a walk every other day with my wife. Every day. We can't do it, but at least every other. And it's usually in those times when you leave a little bit more slack in the line that the good stuff comes.
Nick Bennett [00:50:30]:
I love that, like, the way you describe, like, slack in the line. So many businesses run on things like eos and scaling up, and they have these, like, whatever meeting cadence is where you have to do like an eight hour meeting every quarter and it's like, no one is doing anything productive by like hour two of this meeting. So. Yeah, I feel that one.
Andrew Capland [00:50:49]:
Yeah, man. I mean, that used to be my life, right? Presenting in that meeting. I don't miss that for a second.
Nick Bennett [00:50:53]:
Same like, as I was director of demand, and it was a similar thing where it's like, you got a guide, a portion of this meeting, and it's at hour six, you're like, everyone is fried. It's like, how, how are we supposed to get to where we're trying to go? So it's tough. I mean, like I said, though, as a solo, you don't realize we're doing the same thing. When you're trying to work a twelve hour day, to try and, like, you know your life. Like, you have kids. Like, if you have kids, you're like, I need to buy diapers. I need to pay my mortgage. Like, my wife doesn't work same as yours, and she's a full time.
Nick Bennett [00:51:22]:
Well, she does work. She's a full time mom. But you're like, I gotta figure this thing out sometimes. And especially in those early days, and you try to throw yourself into it, and I mean that your answers aren't always going to be where you're looking for them. And it's okay to pull back on it, create slack in the line because that's where you find it.
Andrew Capland [00:51:42]:
One of the, you talked about operating systems, one of the things that I took from my former life that I still do today that I think has been helpful to make that slack in the line is once a month I'll do a business review with myself, I almost put on my hat. Like, I wear two hats during the meeting. I put together a deck like I would have done when I was director of growth. Like, I just pretend I'm director of growth for Andrew Capland’'s Coaching business called Delivering Value. And I'm analyzing it quantitatively with my observations and my ideas, and then I review that deck with Andrew Capland, the business owner. And I analyze those and I see if I've missed anything. And I do it myself. I do it once a month.
Andrew Capland [00:52:17]:
I make a formal deck for it. I used to do it with a coach that I was working with, but now I just do it on my own. And I find that even just carving aside, like, 20 minutes to do that by yourself and just to create space to think and think high level about your business and, like, what assumptions do I have? Am I spending time on the things that help me achieve the goals that I have set out to accomplish? To me is a huge unlock. Just because your time is your most precious resource to make sure you're spending it in the right things. Doing the right activities to achieve the outcomes that you've set are important and not just staying busy because it feels good.
Nick Bennett [00:52:49]:
Bingo, man. Let's look back. You've been on this ride for two and a half years now.
Andrew Capland [00:52:55]:
Yeah. Coming up on three years in June. Yeah.
Nick Bennett [00:52:58]:
So you are ahead of the mass migration to solo. I think over the last, like, I would say, 18 months, there's been this, like, huge shift because of people. Like, you were doing it, and people see and they're like, that doesn't seem so crazy anymore. Right?
Andrew Capland [00:53:16]:
Yeah.
Nick Bennett [00:53:17]:
But we also know that, like, it's all not sunshine or rainbows. So, like, looking back, what's something that you would have done differently?
Andrew Capland [00:53:26]:
There's a million things that I wish I did differently, but I don't know if I would have gotten to the same place without it. So early on, I said yes to fill my client roster to folks I probably shouldn't have worked with. Like, many folks, there were people that wanted to work with me that didn't fit into one of my packages. Like, they just needed a little bit of help from me. But it wasn't, like, going to be an ongoing engagement where I was going to be with them on a steady cadence. They kind of wanted, like, a quick fix type of thing. And in an effort to fill my roster, I would say yes to those. And what happens is you end up with crummy clients because you think clients are better than not clients.
Andrew Capland [00:54:00]:
And so I said, yes.
Nick Bennett [00:54:02]:
Diapers are better than no diapers. Yeah.
Andrew Capland [00:54:04]:
Yeah, for sure. Right? And it's like, it feels good to have people that want to work with you. And I did the thing that West Bush told me not to do. So I took on some clients that I wish I hadn't. And if I look back, I wish I had put more guardrails on that. So that's an easy thing for me to point out and be like, well, that was a mistake. But because of that mistake, I formalized who is a good client for me, and I wrote it down, and then I took that, and I applied it to my messaging and my positioning, and I took it into my sales, and I try to help people to self identify out of my funnel if they don't meet that bullseye. And so it's hard because that led me to a good outcome, even though it was a painful thing.
Andrew Capland [00:54:38]:
Like, it was my son's birthday. He was turning one year old. I was six months into my business. I had taken the day off because my wife's family flew in from North Carolina to celebrate my son's one year birthday. And I'm, like, literally pissed. Typing emails, like, firing this client, mad at myself for getting into the situation in the first place. But that's how it is. Everybody makes a mistake like that.
Andrew Capland [00:54:58]:
If you don't, probably you're not pushing it enough. You know, you have to find the line. Sometimes that means stepping over the line, and sometimes that hurts. But it led me to a good outcome, and so I don't view it as something I wish I didn't do. I just. I just wish I didn't have to learn it in the same way.
Nick Bennett [00:55:12]:
Yeah. Because then the downstream effects are, like, you have to have this, like, awkward and, like, shitty experience of firing a client, or you have to work with someone who isn't as successful as, like, a. Like, you're. That's your reputation. And when that work doesn't amount to what you believe that it should, that hurts. Like we said, it's your. It's like, your life's work. So, yeah, I totally feel that this is, like, a similar question, but posed in a different way.
Nick Bennett [00:55:42]:
It's not that what you have done differently, but, like, what do you wish you knew about this entire. About being a solopreneur that you didn't know or that you wish you knew before you went solo? I think the conventional wisdom of life is don't take on bad fit clients. And you're like, that would be really nice if I had a whole bunch of good fit clients in front of me. So today we're going to take on a bad fit one and we're going to just figure that one out because I have a family. People are in that position more often than they like to admit. But it's a very real, it's a very real situation. But beyond that stuff, what do you wish you knew or what do you wish you knew beforehand about doing this?
Andrew Capland [00:56:24]:
One of the things I wish I knew is that the connection is really important. The connection is maybe the most important thing. If I'm coaching someone and helping them work through whatever they got going on, they need to feel comfortable around me, they need to feel vulnerable around me, they need to trust me. And typically people hire me, I think, because we form a connection at some point in the experience. And I didn't know that until I would survey folks at the halfway point of our engagement, at the end of our engagements, and I'd say, hey, what do you like about working together? What things do you want me to keep doing? What do you want me to stop doing? What should I continue? And all of my clients who are the most successful said, I usually feel way better after our sessions. Like, the way that you make me feel is better. And that's important to me because I'm usually coming to you because I'm not feeling so good about something or I'm trying to feel better about something. And so what I started to do was to weave in more about me so that people could start to build that connection before I ever met them.
Andrew Capland [00:57:17]:
I'll be more specific. So in my social stuff, I try to be really vulnerable because what I find is the more vulnerable I can be, the more great clients I attract who value that vulnerability in my sales process. So if you book a call with me, you can book a call on my website. I send you an email before the call, and it's not, hey, we're talking on Tuesday at three. Don't forget. The email is like, hey, before we chat, here's a little bit more about me and my journey here and why I do this work and why this work is important to me. And here's a photo of me and my family. Like, it's a big part of me and who I am is this part of my identity.
Andrew Capland [00:57:48]:
And if we're going to work together, you're going to get to know the whole part of it. And what I've learned is that that is super important and that people generally won't hire you if they feel like they haven't gotten to know enough of you. And so I try to share that both in my marketing and in my sales process, because I've learned it's important.
Nick Bennett [00:58:04]:
I don't think anyone that I know has considered that about anything in this process. Like, we get that being vulnerable or being personal or personable is important, but the tactical, like, hey, this is how you help people get to know you before they show up. And that is a massive like, that adds a lot of power to your magnet to pull in the right people to work with you. I struggle with this myself, and I think plenty of people do, which is how do you get out of this mode where you even feel okay doing stuff like that? Like sharing a picture of your family type of thing is tough. I don't know. There's some, there's like a mental, there's a limit. Maybe it's limiting belief. There's just like some roadblock that a lot of people will feel between being able to put stuff like that out there or just trying to just toe the line where they see home.
Nick Bennett [00:58:54]:
Well, hey, this person's got 50,000 followers. They looked successful and all they do is crank out how to content on LinkedIn all day and they get 10,000 likes. And so, like, that feels easier or more attainable than just sharing a picture of my family with someone who is going to be a really good fit to spend some money to learn to help them solve problems.
Andrew Capland [00:59:14]:
You know, if it wasn't for clients giving me the feedback and telling me it was, it's really your brand, right? There's a million people. They could get tactical advice from that. They could get leadership advice from that they could learn growth strategy from. They could read block articles and get all that. And why do they want to work with you? Well, part of it is that they want to work with someone in a one on one way. The service is a fit for the offer, or the need is a fit for the offer or the delivery of the offer, but a lot of it is. Do they connect with you? Do they feel like you would really get their problems or you like them? Are the challenges that you've encountered like them? It doesn't mean like, you have to only work with people who are just like you or only hire somebody who's just like you. Right.
Andrew Capland [00:59:52]:
Diversity in many different ways, but understanding the challenges and the journey that youve had is typically the connection that theyre looking for. And so I got the feedback from clients and then I saw it as a consumer of content online, theres people who I followed, who had large audiences that I thought were robots, they just pump out content. Heres how to do this slider on LinkedIn for that. Seven steps. Heres how I did it in less time. Type content on Twitter threads. I followed a lot of people like that, and I started to hate those people. I started to resent them.
Andrew Capland [01:00:22]:
I started to look at them like, I don't only want to have that part of me, even if that's what success looks like.
Nick Bennett [01:00:28]:
It's too transactional.
Andrew Capland [01:00:29]:
It's too transactional. And it just didn't feel authentic to me. It's not the connection that I want to have with the world. And so there was a few of those people who posted family photos or they shared something personal, like maybe a photo with their partner or their wife or whomever it was doing something outside of work. Maybe they just bought a house or something like that. And I was like, man, that's just like me. Geez, that is like me. Joe, we're trying to buy a new house, too.
Andrew Capland [01:00:49]:
We're like, that's how happy we looked when we first bought our house. And we took that cute photo in front of it, standing in front of it, kind of like weirdos. And I never shared it, but that's really cool that they're going through that. And it helped me to build affinity and connection with those people. And so I think I got the feedback from clients and then I saw it myself as a consumer of content and how it helped me build affinity. And I just decided it'd be worth finding out. And so, like anything, you can't overdo it. But I try to.
Andrew Capland [01:01:12]:
I try to weave in some vulnerability and some authenticity and some background of me so I can bring the whole version of me when I'm getting to know folks or presenting myself online.
Nick Bennett [01:01:21]:
Love that, man. It's like, just, there's the hustle. Culture world is like, hey, you got to work either 1000 hours a day or you got to work 10 hours a year. And if you don't build your business this way, then it doesn't work. And this idea is like, I don't want to build that way. Yeah, I think that's incredibly powerful just to, like, believe in that you can even do it in the first place, because like we said, right, there's so many limiting beliefs that we have about what we can do, especially if you don't see people doing it. And I think that's why, like, I love what I'm doing here with this show is being able to hear, like, how are people doing this stuff that is not just, like, you don't need to reach 2 million people every time you post something to be doing something really great. So.
Nick Bennett [01:02:03]:
All right, man, let's. Let's wrap it up, because I got one last thing for you, and I want to know, what do you want to build that you haven't built yet? Right? What is the future of Delivering Value look like?
Andrew Capland [01:02:15]:
I'll give you the answer, and I'll share why. So, what I'm really looking to build is more of a media arm to my business. So I also have a podcast. I interview people who have led cross functional growth teams about the three toughest moments in their career. Not like, hey, we struggled to solve this work challenge, but themselves personally. Times when they've had self doubt or imposter syndrome or gotten tough feedback or felt like they were unworthy of their I success or accomplishments. And I would love a future where that media division of my business is 80% of my income and my coaching business is 20% or my coaching advising business is 20% of my income. And today it's about flip flopped.
Andrew Capland [01:02:53]:
And the reason why is because I had, objectively, a very good year last year. I've been very fortunate. I've been at this a couple of years now, and last year, I doubled my full time salary when I was in house as director of growth to now being on my own. And I got to this place where I was like, well, sheesh. If I keep increasing my prices, I can make a little bit more money, but at some point, I price out the people who I really want to help. So I'm hitting the ceiling there. And my other lever, if I want to continue to grow up, my income is have more calls. But I kind of feel like if I have more than two calls a day, I lose the magic, right? I can be a little bit less present or I might do a little bit less prep, and that impacts the client experience and ultimately their results.
Andrew Capland [01:03:35]:
So I don't think I can take on more calls. And so when I think about ways that I can reach more people, which is my ultimate mission, and increase my revenue and increase my income, which is important to me as well, that's the way to do it, is to try to detach my time, trading my time for money and seeing if I can create something that's a little bit more scalable to reach more of the universe. And so that's where I'm headed. That's what I'm looking to build.
Nick Bennett [01:03:57]:
Dude, I love that you said, making sure you don't have push out the people who you really want to help. I can't tell you how many people I've talked with who are like, I want to work with tech companies. And I'm like, why? They're like, because they got big budgets. And I'm like, but, okay, do you care about tech companies? Have you ever worked at a tech company? Like, what do you know about them? They're like, it doesn't really matter. They have big budgets. I can charge big fees. And they're like, but I really love, like, these mom and pop retail shops, but they can't pay my fee. But are they highly motivated to see success with what you're doing? Are they highly motivated to work with you? Do you really get them in a way that other people don't like? Whatever the different sectors and whatever are, and I think it's important, and I love this lens that you're bringing, which is incrementally raising your prices over time is a way of trying to build something towards the future, but not at the expense of, like, if you can only end up working with the head of growth at HubSpot because they only.
Nick Bennett [01:04:51]:
They have enough money to work with you and everyone else you want to work with has to be pushed into your digital course, you lose the magic, right? Like, you lose the whole reason that you started doing this. And I think there's an important thing there. And what I'm hearing you say is, if I can make more episodes of this show and make their voice heard and normalize their experiences and make them not feel so alone, so that there's a head of growth out there at a series A or seed stage or whatever, pre backed. And they hear that and they're like, that's fucking my life. Like, I just dealt with that. Someone just said those exact words to me, and it's like, that is way more impact than trying to coach a hundred people a day or whatever, because now they have a place to be, right? Like, now they have a place that they can go to not feel so alone.
Andrew Capland [01:05:46]:
100%, man. Well said. That's exactly how I think about it. Place of belonging.
Nick Bennett [01:05:51]:
It's cool, man. I appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate you sharing all that you've shared. We don't have all the answers. Right? Like, it's easy to have this conversation and kind of feel like what we're building or what we're doing was the right thing, or maybe it wasn't. Like, and there's plenty of other people building in different directions and in different ways. But I. It's what you built and it's what you're doing.
Nick Bennett [01:06:13]:
And I think that it's right for you, man. And I appreciate you sharing that and the vulnerability and just going down the little rabbit holes with me, man. This was fun.
Andrew Capland [01:06:22]:
Hell yeah, man. Well, it's a huge part of it. I think if you have made a living on your own from the Internet in whatever ways, that it is part of your duty to help other folks along the way. And sometimes that's by sharing the real shit. Sometimes it's by sharing answers, and sometimes it's by sharing, hey, I encountered problems too. And just because what you see online, just like when you look at a director of growth or vp of growth or somebody who has a huge Instagram or a huge LinkedIn or Twitter following, it's easy to see them and go, I bet they never had this shit go on. And the truth is, we all do. And that's what makes us human.
Andrew Capland [01:06:54]:
So I try to just share both sides of the coin. Thanks for having me.
Nick Bennett [01:06:58]:
Yeah, man. There's a time and a place for both. And it's like the more chat GPT content that gets pushed out, it's like you can find the tips and tricks and tactics and best practices and all the shit. It's free, it's accessible. Like, we don't need any more people coming on and trying to just like, oh, this is the playbook, like, and just kind of have that conversation anymore. So, yeah, man, I appreciate the vulnerability. I think that there's a lot of people who are going through or have gone through what you're doing and they feel like they're on the wrong track. And I think you help them realize that they, theyre probably not as far off as they think.
Andrew Capland [01:07:32]:
Just gotta keep going.
Nick Bennett [01:07:33]:
Appreciate you, brother.
Andrew Capland [01:07:34]:
You got it, man.
Nick Bennett [01:07:40]:
Hey, Nick, again, and thanks for listening. If youve enjoyed this episode, you can sign up for the 1000 Routes newsletter where I process the insights and stories you hear on this show into frameworks and lessons to help you build a new and different future for your own business. You can sign up at 1000 Routes or check the link in the show notes.