Michele: Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to software social.
I am so excited to have a longtime
listener, first time caller with
us today to talk about, the
projects he has going on.
Um, you've probably come
across him on Twitter.
Vic Vijaya kumar.
Thank you so much for coming
on software social today.
Vic: Thank you for having me.
This is fun.
Michele: So,
Vic: to this.
Michele: So me too.
So we actually, we talked
like a year ago, right?
Cause you were one of the
interviews I did for my book.
And we talked a little bit about
how you, I guess for some context, I
guess we should, we should set this.
So you have a full-time
job that's is that right?
Vic: That's right, I am a
staff engineer at event bright.
Michele: Awesome.
You also have a side project
called every Oak, which is
like software for preschools.
Is that right?
Vic: Yeah, I it's a preschool
that my kids go to, went to.
One goes to, I help them with
their admissions and stuff.
Michele: And now you're managing
software for them forever.
Vic: Exactly.
There's no getting away from this.
It's
Michele: It's like the worst PTA ever.
Vic: Exactly.
I'm the F I'm forever.
Like the computer
knowing parent, you know.
Michele: Oh, gosh.
Okay, well.
Vic: help them with their emails.
Michele: Oh, do you set
up their wifi to like,
Vic: Thankfully now, but you know, it's,
it's only a short call away anytime.
Michele: Um, so then you also recently
started building another SAS in
public called Hey texting, which I
understand is like a shared inbox for
SMS text, like if you're texting with
customers and stuff, is that right?
fun, but for text messages.
Vic: I mean, yeah, that's basically it
that's my that's going to be my elevator.
Michele: Okay.
So what led to that?
Like why.
Vic: We're not talking about
the preschool anymore, right?
We're talking about, hey.
Michele: No, no, it feels, it feels
pretty clear that you got roped into like
being the it person for your preschool.
And like, there's like, you know, this
can be a thing, like I can do this.
And yeah.
Let's talk about hey texting.
Vic: Sure.
So uh, this actually ties
back to the preschool.
Michele: Oh no.
Are they sending you so many text
messages and you're like, I have
to have a way to manage this.
Vic: Yeah, because you know,
schools do this thing right.
Where they're like, you know, give
us one number and they will text
that number and say, carpool is
going to take a long time today.
Or, you know, today the bus is going to
be late or there's no bus route, come
pick up your kids is a thing they will do.
But they will message, you know, one
person and that person's out getting
a haircut or something and so this
started to get really annoying.
And so I was like, I mean, surely
there's gotta be a way where you
just have, you know, one, it kind
of like a, like an email address
that goes to multiple people.
I wanted to a text, you know, a
cell phone number that forwarded.
Michele: Like, like where they sending
the text message, like to the room
parent, for example, I mean like, so
people who don't have kids, I remind
kids in the us are going to be like,
what the heck are they talking about?
But like, there's usually like one
parent in the class who is the like
representative of the parents and also has
to, you know, like organize the Halloween
party and everything for the class.
Would they like that person, that
there was a school bus delay or
was it like they text one of the
parents, but you actually need both.
Vic: one of the Yeah.
they texted one of the parents.
Michele: Of the parents in the class or
like one of the parents for each child.
Vic: One of the parents for each child.
So basically they have like a contact
email and a contact phone number
for each parent, for each child.
Yeah.
And so the email I just want is simple.
I just give them a shared email address
that we have that forwards to both of us.
Great.
You know, so now we get to see when the,
you know, in the bake sales are happening
or whatever, but then they one of us.
I mean, and we, I mean, I like to be as
involved in my kids lives as possible.
So I will, you know, I do drop off and
stuff often, but it's like, they just
text, my wife, will be uh, you know, away.
So then.
I was like, you know what?
They used to be a thing for this
weirdly enough, it used to be called
grand central and then Google bought
it and turned it into Google voice
and then sort of abandoned it.
Um, It might even still be there.
I don't know.
So I made this thing though.
Originally was just like, use the
Twilio API and you could text it and it
would forward the text to both parents.
And then we were like, but
what if we need to text back?
Because they use an app on
their side, which texts us.
And sometimes we need to reply back to
the teachers that, we got this message.
We will come get our kid.
And so I figured, Okay.
I'll, you know, I guess I'll
build an interface for us to
be able to write back to them.
And the next thing you know, I have,
you know, a web app basically that is
doing a real-time processing of text
messages going in and out using webhooks.
And I'm like, well, I may as well
at this point, just add Stripe
in an authentication system.
And, and, you know, and next
thing you know, you have hey
Michele: Do you have customers?
Vic: I do not.
I am the only customer.
Well, actually this is funny.
Uh, I give about this last night but
I went to a conference last week and
I was sitting next to someone and
he said something like, what have
you been working on or whatever?
And I said, hey, I just launched
this micro SaaS call hey texting.
And he went to, and he said,
this is exactly what I need.
I'm going to sign up for It right now.
And then, uh, the whole lot of pressure,
I felt a whole lot of guilt that he
felt pressured to signing up for it.
So I said, no, don't do that.
Don't pay for it.
It's the beta product.
Michele: It was terrible.
Please don't know.
Vic: Don't do it.
Then.
It's like, ah, why did I do that?
And, but, you know, And
I say, you know what?
I would love for you to use this, but
I'm just going to give you, just like a
free, you know, Stripe coupon or whatever.
So you can use it until,
you know, give me feedback.
And then I tweeted about this whole thing.
And then I've had several
people sign up this.
Uh, They're not, paying members yet.
And all right.
It's like this weird building
in public, marketing, and public
tweeting, in public about a thing.
But even when you tweet your failures,
people go, Oh, why did you do that?
That was a terrible thing.
Also the exciting.
So I've had multiple people sign up, you
know, in the last actually I would say
15 minutes ago before we're recording
this podcast, and I haven't figured out
yet if they are, they're paying for it.
It's not a freemium product.
You have to pay for it to be
able to use it because the cost
me money when people use it.
Michele: Right.
Oh, because you're using a Cleo API.
So each text message.
Vic: Exactly.
Exactly.
So I've had, two other people sign
up this morning and I need to just
make sure what's going on with that.
I just get BCC when they
get their welcome emails.
So that's why I know they signed up.
Michele: Well, okay, so there we have
it, you know, we said we're not a
podcast you come to for, you know, your
annual top 10 tips on SAS marketing.
But here you are, there is a concrete
SAS marketing tip, right there.
Show people your product.
Don't let them sign up.
If they do somehow still sign
up, tell them it's terrible.
And then if they offer to
pay, you don't let them.
Three highly actionable things.
Basically reverse psychology, right?
Like I have this product and now
you can't, sign up for it, but like.
Vic: Yeah, this is just going to get
people to do more and more of it.
Michele: Don't sign up for Vic's service.
Seriously.
If you're listening, don't just stop.
Don't even think about it.
Um, I mean, I feel like that's also so
relatable is like you spend all this
time building something and you're like,
oh my God, is anyone going to buy it?
Why am I spending all
this time for nothing?
Like, and even something you like
needed yourself, you're kind of
like, oh, but I've done all this work
to do a Stripe and, you know, user
administration, all this kinda stuff.
And then someone actually signs
up and you're like no, it's awful.
Don't like, it's terrible.
Like, why would you do that?
What is wrong with you?
Vic: I mean, I thought it was
a huge leap for me to, you
know, push it to production.
And, you know, I, did tweet about that and
then, you know, no one signed up and I was
very glad that they didn't sign up 'cause.
I was like, you know,
there's, weird issues here.
You know, it doesn't do like, you
have to hit refresh when you go to it,
because it doesn't automatically show
new text messages as they show up.
I'm so glad they're not signing up.
And then when someone actually wanted to
give me money, I'm like, no, don't do it.
It's not ready yet.
Michele: Put that wallet down uh, is
over, you know, it reminds me of like
when we launched Geocodio, we are
like, nobody's going to pay for this.
This is terrible.
And we were so surprised that
anyone wanted to pay for it.
That like we had, Stripe set up,
but we hadn't actually written the
code to tell Stripe to charge people
by the time the D like, cause we
were doing it once a month charges.
And we're like, oh, we told people
we're going to charge them today, but we
didn't expect to have anyone to charge.
Like crap.
We need to like write this code right
now, charge them before the day is out.
It was.
Vic: It's weird, the
anxieties you discover when
something is about to happen.
I would have told you that, yeah, of
course, I want people to sign up for this.
I want people to give me money and
then when this person was about
to do it, I got really anxious.
They were going to discover the
bugs that I've just tolerated.
That I was fine with.
But I didn't want them to find them.
Michele: Yeah, it's almost
like you're going to get like,
called out for it, I guess.
Right.
Like know.
Vic: Yeah, it's only the reply to
this tweet saying, you know, don't.
You should just let them sign up.
And if they hate it, refund them
their money or it's entirely
possible, they actually like it.
Like.
Okay.
That's a sort of way of looking
at things that they might like it.
Michele: Yeah.
I mean, you know, I, almost feel like,
you know, so I know this is a thing for
people with ADHD, they call it rejection
sensitive dysphoria, which is like the.
Um, yeah, there's kind of like
overwhelming fear basically
of rejection and criticism.
I think for people who are, neurodivergent
like, we're just so used to be criticized
as kids and, you know, it'd be like, pay
attention, sit still, like, don't do that.
Don't do that.
Why are you bouncing off the walls?
We're like just constantly
criticized that.
I think in, especially like, as
it comes to like business where
like, you know, it's like, oh
no, it's not good enough yet.
I'm going to, criticized again.
It doesn't have every feature yet.
You can't pay for it yet.
It's not good enough.
Right?
Because like, we have this, I'm
just speaking for myself personally.
Like we have this deeply rooted feeling
of things not being good enough.
Right.
And then like overcoming that and
like, realizing like somebody can
pay for something, even when I don't
think it's good enough or I don't
think it's feature complete, is okay.
Like we didn't have the ability for
someone to reset their own password for
like six months, after we launched,
like, like there's all these like base.
Yeah.
There's all these like basic things are
about how it might work, that we feel
like we have to have, we throw those
barriers in front of us because we
don't want that feeling of rejection.
Vic: So a funny thing there.
So Every Oak, which is my other
thing that is like actually used a
by hundreds of parents who are very
happy and they never write to me to
tell me that anything's wrong with it.
It's still doesn't have a
change password feature.
It just doesn't exist because I
kept kicking the cane down the
road because it's like, I don't
want to deal with this right now.
I'm just going to launch.
It still doesn't have a
change password feature.
A fun thing I discovered with
that was that I was just kind
of looking at postmark emails.
And I wouldn't notice that during, you
know, sort of, I know we're still in
a pandemic, but really in the like six
months ago, when the school used to
require status checks for everybody.
Every kid that got dropped off, you'd
have to open up the website and you'd
have to fill out this form that said,
you know, they don't have a fever, but
while they don't have know they're not
vomiting or anything like that, you'd
have to fill out this form and you have
to log in, so we knew who your kid was.
And that would notice that, roughly
at carpool time, there was always a
huge spike of emails that went out.
And I was like, that's really weird.
You're not emailing anybody.
Why is this happening?
Right.
And I went in and looked at all these
emails and parents had found a really
weird way of using the site, which is that
they no one remembered their password.
And they had probably, I don't know,
probably set a random password.
They couldn't reset it,
but they never wrote to me.
So what they would do is at carpool,
they would ask for a magic link to log
into the site and then they would use the
magic link to go in and fill out the form.
And then they would just
do it again the next day.
And so I had, we were sending just
hundreds of emails every morning to just
people using the magic link feature.
And they probably thought of
this as a feature, not a bug.
Michele: Right.
Vic: don't have to remember a
password it's passwordless login.
The things that we think are
like incomplete features are
probably things that other people
think are complete features.
Michele: Yeah, I guess it was cause
there's like some services where you,
like, I think for some of my notion
accounts, I don't have a password.
I never know which ones.
So you did build a magic link thing
though, Really, but like this basic
thing, like resetting a password or
changing your username or, you know, like
in our case, when we launched Geocodio,
actually placing the point on someone's
house, we didn't actually do that.
You know, it was in the middle of the
street in front of their house at best.
So it's, I, I'm curious, when
you look at Hey texting and you're
like, this isn't good enough for
anyone to sign up for it yet.
You know, I've got the equivalent of
like my dirty laundry strewn all over
the floor and there's a broken window.
What are those things that
you feel, if you fix them, you
would deserve to be for it.
Vic: Let's see.
I had a few people actually not text me.
They'd been DM-ing me on Twitter
to say, Hey, this is really cool.
Is there a plan for X and those
features so far are I would love
a, I mean, here's the thing, right?
These are missing features they
see, but there's all the secret
missing features that I have in
my head that I know don't work.
Right.
So for example, there is currently
no, and I just thought about this.
There's currently no self-service
way to buy a phone number.
And I just realized that.
So, you know, they sign up on
the website and I currently
just assign them a phone number.
The minute they pay, I just
assign them a random phone number.
And there's no way for them to look for
a vanity number or anything like that.
And most people would
probably find with that.
Yeah, they're probably
totally fine with it.
Someone told me that they would
love to be able to have an address
book on the site that they could
import their contacts into.
Instead of right now, you just,
you have to type in a whole phone.
And similarly, when a message comes
in, it tells you what the number is.
It doesn't tell you who the person is.
So I said, I was like,
okay, that's a cool feature.
That's something that I use.
I just remember everyone's phone numbers,
so it's not something I currently
actively need, but that's a cool feature.
And then I spoke to a friend yesterday who
I, you know, I was telling him, oh, that
thing that I was working on is finally.
And he said, oh, can I have a feature
where I can push a button on my
stream deck, and it will send an
annoying text message to my wife.
I said, okay.
It seems why does he need to do that?
I don't want to ask questions about the
exact place of their marriage, but it's
sounds like I was like, so it sounds like
you would like API access so that you can.
You would like to send the text
message to someone it's like, I can.
Michele: That's like a real
customer energy interview,
like you just do right there.
Like someone says, I want to be able
to send my wife and I knowing text
message, and you can rephrase that.
Not as, so it sounds like you need
counseling and instead you go, so it
sounds like you want API access, right?
But that's kind of the
underlying need there.
Right?
Like
he wants to build his own little thing
on top of it, which is API access.
Vic: Yeah.
I was like, okay, so that's, you know,
you have a stream deck, you want to
push a button and I know that it's going
to make, possibly make a curl call.
Okay.
I guess I can create an API for it, which
is actually two people now who have said,
I would love to have API access to this,
so we don't even have to use your UI.
And I'm like, okay, that's nice.
Cause I just spent all this time
building this really beautiful user
interface that no one cares about.
They just want underlying access
to be able to send and receive.
That's nice.
Michele: That great when
you spend time on something
Vic: It's so pretty too.
Yeah, it mimics the iMessage interface
on, you know, if you have an iPhone,
the beautiful bubbles, no one cares.
They're like, cool.
Can I use curl to send messages?
Okay.
Michele: So what is the other
stuff that's like in the back of
your head is the secret missing
stuff that nobody has actually.
Vic: What else?
I mean, we talked about the
inability to change passwords.
That's okay.
I guess,
Michele: But has anyone asked
you to change their password?
Vic: No, I mean, no, there's
like two or three users, right.
And no one is asked to change
their passwords and they they're
both using login with Twitter,
so they don't even care.
Michele: Okay.
So like you say that you don't have
password reset, but you have provided
other ways in your services to access
it without resetting your password.
Because like honestly, no one
actually wants to, or really
can remember a password.
I mean, in this day and age, like two
factoring into stuff and everything.
So if you can use login through
Twitter, login through GitHub,
Google, whatever, like, you know,
there's risks involved with that.
If that goes down, which has happened,
but like, that seems actually a pretty
reasonable, approach on your side so
that you didn't have to build, you know,
user management and and stuff like that.
Vic: Okay.
I like how you reframe this as a feature.
Yeah.
Michele: It was a smart decision
on your part, not an oversight.
Vic: That is what I will put
in the, oh, I don't have a
privacy policy or any of that.
My legal pages do not exist, which
is a, just a thing I need to fix.
I should probably just copy over what
I have on every Oak, which themselves
were a fork of what, you know,
automatic, the WordPress people have.
Um, oh, They have like an open source
repo where they say here, take this.
Michele: Yeah, this is what we did to.
Vic: Yeah, replace the, I can
replace all the places where it
says WordPress and automatic with
your thing, so that doesn't exist.
And I feel like that is a, it's not a
feature, but it's definitely a, a blocker.
Michele: I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, especially with texts
messages, I wonder if you need
to have some language around like
anti-spam laws and stuff like that.
And especially if you're using it with
schools is like, what is it called?
Is FACTA the, or what is the student
privacy, it's like GDPR for students
that already exist in the UAS.
I think, it's fact isn't it.
That's something else.
Vic: I mean,
Michele: Um,
Vic: to say FAFSA, but that's
Michele: No, that's not fast.
It's some other government acronym,
but it's something with an F for
like student privacy compliance.
Vic: FACTA is fair and
accurate credit transactions.
Michele: Yeah.
This is something that I have as an
ex-pat I have to deal with, so that's
why he's on the top of my head.
Um, No, it's something else.
Okay, well, let's this turn into the
Michelle and Vic, try to remember
government acronyms podcast.
That's just uh, I'll have to
send it to you afterwards.
Um, Yeah, I think that's probably worth
putting some time into, because you just
want to make sure that you're, you know,
you might need people to like check a box
Yeah.
You're compliant exactly.
And says, like, I, you know,
these people, I have permission
to send text messages to these.
Vic: Yeah.
So the, I want to,
definitely get those done.
I'll probably have those done
soon-ish since people are signing up.
And then, yeah, and I wa you know,
I bet you someone, and no one has
asked for it yet, but someone's
going to say, I want to be able to
import and export things from CSV.
It's almost always the first request
people make which is not crucial.
So I would say probably address
book and the ability to self
serve, purchase a number.
Michele: Has anyone
Vic: that's really
Michele: please purchase a number though.
Vic: No.
Michele: Okay.
So maybe, that should be
on like the later list.
Let's see if anyone asks for it.
Vic: of the Yeah.
Post someone paying for it.
Okay.
Post Yup.
Okay.
Where we're doing product
management here and I like it.
Michele: Sorry, it's
Vic: That's really about it.
Michele: default.
Vic: Honestly, that's honestly it.
Michele: I was so lucky
I terms of use, right.
In terms of using a privacy policy,
making sure that people are not spamming
people with children's phone numbers that
they've illegally required, like acquired.
Um, So that would be important.
And I mean, you said people have, asked
about API access, which is interesting.
So I would put that above buying your own
phone number as a, as a thing to explore.
Right.
Vic: I
think so since that's actually
a thing someone asked for.
Yeah.
privacy policy to the probably
first.
Yeah.
Right.
Right above everything else.
And then the API access, since that's
an actual ask and the being able to
purchase and search for phone numbers is
not something anyone has actually asked.
It's just something
that I think they want.
And so I should not.
Michele: Yeah, I think so.
Vic: I like how we have done my PM-ing
here and I've written those down.
Michele: Uh, Is there anything else
that you feel like it's missing that you
would need in order for someone to pay.
Vic: No, in fact, you can pay for.
Stripe stuff already works.
Michele: Well, but will you
Vic: that over.
Michele: someone pay for it?
Vic: Yes, I will let people pay
for it, if I have a legal policy.
Michele: Yeah, I mean, I think
Stripe might even, I don't know
if they require that or they
Vic: They do, they do require.
Yeah.
And I linked them to a page
that doesn't exist yet.
Michele: Oops.
Vic: Yeah.
So I should take care of that right away.
Michele: So in this trial, you've
given people, is that like a one
month thing or is that unlimited or.
Vic: It's just one month thing.
Um, figure if they want to keep
using it, they can let me know.
And it's just a way for me to kind of like
put a cap on the amount of, I don't know,
bituminous texting, they can do, I guess.
Michele: Did you already
figure out the pricing for it?
Vic: Yeah, I did.
You know, there's a lot of competition in
this market, so it's, it's good, right?
This already exists.
Yeah.
there's a market, that already exists.
So I looked at what their pricing
costs and I also looked at what,
you know, Twilio charges me.
And I kind of like roughly multiplied
it by, you know, the number,
there's an allowance because it's
a product that uses as an API.
Can I have to do that math on
like, what is it going to cost me?
So I kind of math that and then
multiply that by 1.5 or something.
So it's probably not the best pricing,
with, this is what I've ended up.
Michele: So are they charged then on a
transactional basis or do they get like
Vic: No, I give people fix it, pressing
Michele: $5 a week?
Vic: That's exactly it.
So it's something like, you know,
I have to actually go look at my
pricing, but it's something like you
can do either one time or you can do
a monthly subscription sort of thing.
And if you did a one-time plan, you could
pay me $5 and get 250 text messages,
or you could pay $15 a month and get a
thousand text messages and you could pay
$50 a month and you can get, you know,
2000 text messages and five phone numbers.
Yeah.
Michele: Interesting.
So I want to go back to something.
So you mentioned earlier when I asked
you what this is, that it is a shared
inbox for texting with customers.
And the use cases you have described to
me are first you and your wife, having
a way to jointly receive messages from
the school and reply to them and your
friend for unclear reasons that we will
not dig into um, annoying his wife, why,
other people wanting to sign up for it.
Vic: Ah, so I don't it's okay.
So I looked for services where parents
would share an inbox and it doesn't exist.
And I don't know that.
I think that's one of those
things that parents are happy too.
I mean, it's annoying, but they don't
want to necessarily solve it with money.
But when I started looking for shared
inboxes, the thing that kept coming
up over and over was businesses that
want to do text message marketing.
And therefore need to use a shared inbox
for the people that you know, that
are doing the customer support.
And so I'm uh, I'm on the user side of
that where I get a lot of text messages.
So actually during the recording of this
podcast, I just got text messages, alerts
that my local farmer's market produce
box just got delivered outside our house.
It's okay.
My wife will pick that
up, and I can write back.
I can text back and the person
who is currently doing the
route will write back to us.
And I know that's not her personal
cell phone number, probably because
she's also called from that before.
So the market actually exists for this,
and I figured it was better to, you
know, try to compete in that market
where I don't need to educate anybody
on, on what this is, instead of trying
to find, trying to educate parents on
needing to have a shared phone number.
Michele: Right.
Vic: So that made more sense to me,
even though I'm going to be using it.
So, but for people like me and
hobbyists, who wants to annoy
their wife, there's the, really
cheap, much more limited plan.
But you could also do just like
a one-time payment and just not
have to, you know, get into a
subscription that you don't want.
Michele: So I'm going to ask you a
very blunt question that might sound.
I mean, but it's not intended that way.
Why would somebody sign up with
yours, the service rather than
something that already exists?
Vic: That is a solid question.
And I have wondered that.
That's why I'm building it on the side.
It's not something that I intend
to make money off of right now.
And so I'm using this as a way for
me to play with and build features
on, and I'm already a user, right?
Uh, I am a little bit competing on price
because it's a much better price product.
And I'm doing things like API access
to try to kind of target the niche of
developers who want to use something
like this, but they don't get API
access for as inexpensive as this is.
Uh, I don't know why else.
Michele: So that's interesting.
You just told me you're not
trying to make money off of it.
But first of all, you're
spending money and time on it.
And I feel like with this kind of thing,
you either have to make a decision
of, do you want to make money on it
or do you want to spend money on it?
And it sounds like you have actually
decided you want to make money.
You have Stripe integrated, you
have pricing plans, all set up.
You did your research on the competitors.
You just gave me two reasons, why
somebody would use this because it's
cheaper and more developer friendly
at the price point than other options.
And yet you told me that you
don't want to make money on it and
downplayed it, I find very interesting.
Vic: That's because I went into a
not trying to uh, feel rejection
mode by being okay with rejection.
Uh, I don't yet know the
exact niche I'm targeting.
Right.
Is that how you say the
word niche, niche, niche.
Michele: Yeah, but I think you niche, have
people know, talking about doesn't matter.
Vic: I still haven't figured
out that exact niche.
Right.
It's uh, I mean, is it shared
text messaging for people that
are delivering produce or is it
share text messaging schools.
So I, I said to you earlier that,
you know, this is a little bit
stemming from the text messages
we're getting from our school.
And the other thing is I was also
going to go back to the preschool.
Our, one of our kids still is in
and do it as an add on for every.
Um, I have been letting that school
use it a little bit that way.
Uh, They don't use the interface and the
new product that I built, but they can
actually send a text message to a list
of parents and the message does go up.
So I was going to try to talk to them
about it, and I know they use some
sort of weird commercial, Verizon
product or something like that
that recently raised their rates.
So I have kind of a, I don't want to
say, oh, I have an in there, but I was
going to talk to other preschools about,
you know, all the texting and they
do, but I don't know if like that's
necessarily the market I want to target.
Is this texting for people who run
preschools, that seems really specific.
Michele: I think in the early days
of a company or a SAS, if you are
building something in a market
that is already validated, right?
Like you're not the first
person who is building a shared
inbox, texting service, right?
Like, you know, that
market has been validated.
Your niche is people who
are willing to pay you.
I think that's as much as you need to
focus on at this point is simply, are
there people who are willing to pay.
Serve them for the beginning.
And then, like, I don't think I knew
what our niches were for geocoding
for at least two or three years, or
even like really had a sense of them.
It was just like, holy crap.
These people are willing
to pay us like amazing.
Let's make sure the servers stay on and
like, you know, and we stay ahead of it.
Right.
Like, but we didn't focus on stuff like
really, really deeply understanding
those niches at all, because it was just
like, is this even a viable business
that's worth spending our time on?
And you know, if you were running
ads behind it, I think that's a
different story, but you're not right.
Cause then you need to know
some more information about
industries and stuff like that.
But I think there's also kind of this
interesting opportunity for you there,
which you said you, you don't want to sell
to people who don't know that they need
it, which is you know, a great approach.
It's so much easier to sell
something to someone when they
already know that they need it.
They're already looking for
alternatives to this random
expensive Verizon product, right?
But being a, an API integration
that just plugs into somebody
else's product that they're selling
and then when their product does
well, then they use your product
more that's a great place to be in.
Like you said, parents don't
know that they have this problem.
And I think that's a, sometimes a really
big challenge with B2C products, but
instead you go, we have a little B to C
sleeve for people to play around with,
and for some reason, a annoy spouses,
but you know, maybe more than that.
Maybe there's like a B2B direction here.
That is, I mean, like B2C is a valid
path, but B to C, B to B sometimes
is just so much easier cause
there's so much less convincing.
Vic: Except for when you have to sit
in a room with the lawyers and go
over lines of your privacy policy,
which I've had to do before for area.
Michele: Yeah.
Yeah, but I mean, like, you know,
you can also, like, I think we didn't
even really negotiate with anyone.
I mean, for, you know, this
is just my experience alone.
Right.
But, for like, two years in
really, like, we never had to
deal with lawyers for a long time.
If you're dealing with companies,
that'll give their developer a
credit card for something and, you
know, just accept your terms of use.
There's plenty of those
companies out there.
You don't have to go straight
to, you know, enterprise and
lawyers and everything like that.
There's definitely a lot of companies
out there that will just accept the
default terms and pay with a credit.
Vic: Um, the $5 like one-time
payment thing I have, I think
that is probably the B to C plan.
Like you could I'm not leaning too
much into this, but you know, you
could, this could be the, oh, do
you need a phone number to text
people on Craigslist or whatever?
You know, you can pay $5 and not
even need to own a cell phone.
Right.
So
that's totally, I think you could do.
But I look at that a little bit more
like, oh, you want to try this out?
You can pay me $5 for it of, you know,
getting a free trial sort of thing.
Michele: Yeah.
And I think there's value in that.
And, you know, I thought, I think a lot
about what Ben from Tupelo said a couple
months ago, about how, when they started
out, like you had to pay like 500 or a
thousand dollars to, to have access to it.
And people are doing that on
their personal credit cards.
Vic: Yeah.
I remember that episode.
I CA I couldn't believe that
that was actually a thing
that people were happy to do.
I
Michele: Right.
Yeah.
Vic: talks about their, you
know, how good their product is.
Right.
Michele: Yeah, but I think he like
requires like a little bit of you
know, of buy-in, I'm literally, right.
The other thing with us is like, it's
actually costing you money every time
somebody sends these text messages.
And I think if you have a side business
that it's only costing you money.
It's not a business.
It's a hobby.
Vic: That is what my
accountant will tell me.
Michele: This is you have an accountant.
That's actually, that's
that's a good step.
Vic: Yeah.
It's uh, it's
Michele: accountant will tell you that.
Vic: She exists.
I have yet to have her do this year's
taxes, but oh, I mean last year's taxes.
Yes.
I know.
It's
Michele: yeah.
Vic: It's fine.
Michele: Well on that note.
Vic: Yeah, I want to go back
to something you said, right?
Where, Okay.
I do want to make money with this,
but I am kind of taking this uh, this
approach here where it costs me very
little to run, unless someone uses the
product and, and I want to kind of help.
And I'm trying to minimize the possibility
that they will stop using the product
that they haven't started using yet.
So.
Uh, But I do want, I do
want this to succeed.
I do want it to make money.
I have been learning things
while doing it as well.
But yeah, that is my goal.
My goal is for this to succeed
for people to use it and for
people to be happy using it.
But yeah, it's really fresh.
It's really fresh right now.
Michele: Sometimes it's hard as you admit
that to yourself, when you've, you don't
even have anyone paying for it, right.
Like
Vic: Yeah.
Michele: let yourself have the.
Vic: Yeah, it's different from the
preschool thing, because there I went
and found someone that had an existing
pain point really embedded with
them and solve the problem for them.
And they were, you know, they
were willing to pay me for it from
the very moment that I met them.
And here it's a completely different leap
of faith of, oh, now I have to market and
I have to like tell people this exists.
And then I have to convince them why they
should give me money instead of some other
big established venture funded company.
Work.
Michele: Yeah.
It's like, is it good enough?
I mean, I definitely felt that
in the beginning of like, you
know, somebody says, why would I
use you instead of Google maps?
And we'd be like, yeah.
Why, why would you like uh.
No, of course.
And now I, you know, now I knew why, and I
actually knew why in the beginning, right?
Because our pricing was better.
Our terms of service, people could
actually store the data like that was
better, but like the initial reaction was.
Because our pricing and our
terms of service better.
It, was, yeah, I really don't
know why you would right.
It was, it was like an emotional reaction.
It was not a reaction based on the
reality of the product and the market.
Vic: I'm glad you're past that now.
Michele: I think it's okay
that you're there right now.
I think that's very common.
Vic: Okay.
That's good to know.
Michele: Yeah.
I don't think you're the only.
Vic: me feel better.
That makes me feel better.
Michele: Well, maybe on this
note of making Vic feel better,
we should wrap up for today.
If you feel similarly to Vic or you
have been there, I'm sure he would
love it if you reached out on Twitter.
Because we do have a wonderful
community around this podcast.
And speaking of that community
around this podcast, I would like
to take a moment to thank them.
So huge thanks to all of our
listeners, who've become software
socialites and support our show.
You can become a supportive for $10
a month or a hundred dollars a year
at software social.dev/supporters.
Chris from chipper CI, the
daringly handsome Kevin Griffin.
I don't think I'm ever going
to get through that one with.
Uh, Almost laughing.
So thank you, Kevin.
Mike from gently used domains,
Dave from recut, max of online or
not, Stefan from talk to Stefan,
Brendan Andre of bright bits.
Aaron from Tuple, Alex Hillman from
the tiny MBA, Ramy from memo.fm,
Jane and Benedikt from user list,
Kendall Morgan, Ruben Gamez of
sign well, Corey Haynes of swipe well
Mike Wade of crowd sentry,
Nate Ritter of room steals,
Anna Maste of subscribed sense,
Geoff Roberts from outseta,
Justin Jackson of MegaMaker.
Jack Ellis and Paul Jarvis from
fathom analytics, Matthew from
appointment reminder, Andrew Culver
at bullet train, John Kostor,
Alex, of corso systems, Richard
from stunning, Josh, the annoyingly
pragmatic founder, who actually wants
me to read that, Ben from consent kit,
John from credo and editor ninja, Cam
Sloan, Michael Koper of nusii proposals,
Chris from URL box, Caeli of Tosslet,
Greg park from trait lab, Adam from rails
auto-scale, Lana and Alex from recapsy,
Joe Masilotti of railsdevs.com,
Proud mama from Oplnet LLC,
Anna from Kradle,
Arvid Kahl, James Sauers of castaway.fm,
Nathan of develop your UX,
Jessica Malnik, Damian Moore of
audio audit podcasts checker,
Eldon from nodle studios and
Mitchell Davis from recruit kits.
Thank you to everyone
for supporting our show.
And Vic, thank you so
much for being on today.
If people want to hear more of your
building public updates about Hey texting
or every oak or more about every Oak
and Hey texting, where should they go?
Vic: My Twitter is where
I talk about these things.
It's at Vic, the Jaya Kumar.
Michele: Awesome.
Well, thank you so much for
coming on today and I look
forward to following your updates.
Vic: Thank you so much for having me and I
look forward to how much longer your list
of sponsors is going to get a few months
and you needing to read them out loud.
Michele: I look forward to it as well.
I it's, still kind of surreal that,
that many people are supporting us.
So all right.
Talk to you guys later.
