Arvid Kahl: Today, I'm talking to Rox. His motto is building
cool shit every day until I achieve my dreams and cool shit
he is building. He's behind thumbnailtest.com, a very
interesting SaaS business that competes with YouTube. He
recently had some acquisition news. I'm going to talk to him
about that and about how hard it is to deal with the reality of
giving up your business as a founder. This episode is
sponsored by acquire.com. More on that later. Now, here's Rox.
Welcome to the show. Last time we talked on your Twitch stream,
it was really cool. We turned that into a four hour
conversation. Let's see how long we'll chat today. Rox, what's
happening in your life right now?
Rox: Oh my God. So good to hear from you, buddy. It's been too
long. Two years, man crazy. What's happened in the past two
years, I started and sold thumbnailtest.com, my first big
acquisition. I met my girlfriend who I've been dating for about
two years now. Our anniversary is like next week, Aprilynne, a
legend. Let's see. I worked for Mr. Beast for a few months. I
built a bunch of creative tools that did not succeed other than
Thumbnail Test. I moved out of Thailand. I moved to New York to
Portugal to San Francisco to London for a little bit hanging
out London now. And yeah, I'm negotiating my next big move the
next big business play from Rox Codes. That is I think that's
the big two year update.
Arvid Kahl: That is a bizarre amount of things to do, right?
Any of these things would already be a massive win for
anybody. Right? And then combination, man, that's really
cool. I don't even know what to start with. Like we had
Aprilynne on the show and she's spectacular. Right? So good
choice right there. I am a user of thumbnailtest.com So that's
the spectacular product, perfect. I love Nomad so cool.
Like you getting around. Everything is really cool. But
the whole Mr. Beast thing, maybe we can start with that because
that is something that I just cannot skip. Right? As somebody
who is a YouTube aficionado and whenever, for some reason,
whenever my browser logs me out of YouTube, you know, you go to
the default YouTube page. The first video is always Mr. Beast.
Right? That's always what it is. So how did that happen? Because
I think like working for him and his team probably is something
that a lot of people on YouTube are interested in. How did you
get that?
Rox: Yeah, they found me on Twitter and Twitch. So context,
I used to live stream coding, as you know well. And I haven't
been doing that very much like I kind of haven't done a stream in
probably a year about. But they found me on Twitter like a month
after I put out Thumbnail test like so early. And who would
future be my boss saw me tweeting about Thumbnail test,
then watched me stream building Thumbnail test for like two
hours, then DM me on Twitter and was like, hey, do you want a
job? Want to come work for Mr. Beast? We pay well. And at first
I said no, actually. And I was like, you know, that's like, you
know, I got a bunch. Because it's like, I don't want to be an
employee, you know and I know this is gonna be an employee.
But, you know, we talked about it. We went back and forth. And
I was like, you know, maybe there's a crazy opportunity
here. Maybe I could start like an even bigger YouTube tools
business with them. Maybe we could do this, maybe we could do
that. So they do three month trials. So I decided, okay, you
know what? I can do three months. Let's try it three
months. And I flew out to Greenville, North Carolina,
where only they are until I built you know internals secret
tools for them for a little while, did a lot of experiments.
And at the end of the three months, decided not to stick
with it. That I still wanted to go back off on my own and
continue Thumbnail test, which as we now know, was probably a
good call. But yeah, I mean, amazing people over there, very
smart, very capable. Yeah, but just not what I wanted to do
long term, I think I realized.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that stands out. Right? Like even just your
initial reaction as a founder of I don't know, like other people
jump at that opportunity immediately. Like they would
already be typing yes just as that other person told them the
story or whatever, right? Some people would have no issue at
all with making this their next thing but for somebody who's
building a project, I kind of get it. I get it. You want to
see your own thing succeed, right?
Rox: Yeah. And at some point, it's like, I don't do a lot of
math, but if you do the napkin math, you kind of realize like,
you know, pretty much what I realized with Thumbnail test is
kind of like, I only have to get to so much MRR on a product that
I can then exit to make X dollars. And if I stay here, the
max I'll ever make is, you know, half of X dollars. So even like,
you know, a moderately successful indie hacker or like
medium successful indie hacker probably ends up getting more.
And not to say everything is dollars, but it's kind of just
this thing of like, well, how much am I using my potential, I
guess? You know, am I going into a place where I will be 100%
like of my, you know, I guess potential like, 100% of what I
could ever do is going to happen here? Or is it going to be you
know, 10% or 20%? You know, like if I were there, I was going to
be coding, you know. I was going to always be coding and I was
going to be like, leading coders at most. And, you know at some
point, I had realized even like I don't want to code all the
time in the long run. Like, I actually got pretty burnt out on
coding. And so even things just like that, you come to those
conclusions, you know and like, you probably know Paddy
Galloway, potentially, who's a very, very, like, probably one
of the best YouTube consultants in the world for those who don't
know. You know, I chatted with him when I was going to work for
Jimmy and the team. And he had pretty much come to similar
conclusions. And he had basically said, like, you know,
he worked with them for a while and had also decided to go off
on his own realizing, you know at some point, it doesn't always
add up, which isn't to say that Mr. Beast doesn't pay super well
or that they don't have like good incentive structure or any
of those things. For 99.9% of people, it's an amazing
opportunity. But I have this weird thing in life if I keep
accidentally living other people's dreams. And I'm still
trying to get to the point of living my own, you know.
Arvid Kahl: That's funny. Yeah, that's the story of employment.
Like in a nutshell, that's really what it is until you
realize that you could also live your own dream, which then it
becomes a nightmare kinda situation in which we don't want
to find ourselves in, right? That's yeah. One thing stands
out here. Or, of course, several things stand out, like the fact
that you stopped streaming kind of feels related to burnout in
coding. But we can dive into that at some other point. What I
kind of want to dive in first because you were talking about
being a nomad and traveling from place to place. You were saying,
like, you have to get to a certain point of MRR for you to
feel this makes sense to build or to exit to be acquired with
then that is a strong enough case. Did that change depending
on the location that you were in? Because living in San
Francisco requires a totally different amount of money to
make from any project compared to somewhere in Thailand or
other places in Southeast Asia?
Rox: Oh, yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean,
for sure it changes how you do the math. Because, you know, I
sold for let's say, like low to mid six figures, right? That
after tax after lawyer fees after giving a chunk to my dad
because he was with me the whole time. After paying off all the
bills, I accrued from two months of not getting paid because I
cut my own income because acquisitions are weird. After
all that I'm ending with maybe enough money to pay for like my
girlfriend and my expenses for like, a couple years out here,
you know, a few years if we're generous, right? Which is, it's
some freedom. It is and I don't know want to like, you know,
misjudge that but it doesn't feel like that much more freedom
than I've ever had. Right? I didn't make millions, you know.
I'm not sitting on enough money that for the rest of my life, I
don't have to worry. But if I were in Thailand and we're
spending $1,000 a month, yeah. Okay, I could probably have
bought myself 5-10 years or something. Yeah, so it is
different. But I think it's always in context, right? I've
realized that the life I want happens to be out here. Like,
it's just this is the place for me. I love San Francisco so
much. And I love the people out here and the opportunity out
here. And that's worth every penny to me. And I'd rather
spend a lot and live where I want to and live the life that I
want to as opposed to live cheaply. And then you know,
hunker down on every dollar I have, you know. Yeah
Arvid Kahl: That feels like a slightly opposed to the common
Rox: Yeah, I got burnt out on the traveling stuff. Like I
indie hacker, digital nomads kind of theme that you find a
lot on Twitter, right? And nothing against either choice.
really I think I'm kind of over the Nomad life. And I think like
Obviously, a personal choice is a personal choice. But you hear
Pieter Levels is an example, right? Telling a lot of people
that it's very easy to go to, I don't know Bali. I don't know if
Bali is still the case. But you know, a place in Southeast Asia
where it's kind of cheap. You have a lot of other founders who
have the same dream and want to do the same thing. Make those
same thing happen. And you live a different life, you live a
very inexpensive life. And any business you build very quickly
is not just revenue positive, like profitable but it can
actually sustain you. Whereas that number is quite different
if you go to the United States, Silicon Valley in particular or
even Canada where I live, right? It takes a lot more money to
make money on a project like this just from the living
expenses that you have. So did you choose San Francisco for the
people or what was it? Because that is an expensive place.
Pete has the numbers. I think the average Nomad is like, two
or three years. So I did it for like, a couple years or like
maybe a year and a half. No, actually, yeah, like a couple of
years. And so I think I hit pretty standard, you know, time
when I wanted to exit, so I knew I wanted to be somewhere. But
yeah, I think the big thing I realized was like it's always
been the people. Like, even when I went to Thailand, it was to be
around Pete. It was to be around Javi and Andre and everybody out
there, you know. And then when I went to Portugal, it was the
same thing. But like, meet them all again and be around them all
again. And I think I identify a little bit more with the SF
world than with the indie hacker world. Like, I love the
bootstrapping and I love the you know, just ship it kind of
mentality and everything. But I think I also have, like
aspirations that are beyond, you know, make a million dollar
business and then like, life's good and then I do nothing, you
know, which isn't to say like, I don't want to minimize indie
hacking to that. But it is to say most people's aspiration
with indie hacking is to pay their bills. Like, that's
generally where you start and then like to live a better life
by continuing to pay your bills and then maybe an exit. For me,
it's you know, indie hacking was always supposed to just be a
stepping stone to playing the bigger games and trying for the
bajillions of dollars. And you just you come to SF and you go
to a random party and you meet guys worth hundreds of millions
to billions of dollars, you shake random hands, and all of a
sudden, like your whole life can change in a conversation. And
that didn't feel as true when I was doing all the Nomad stuff.
And as a guy and I think this is maybe like a perspective you
really get when you're in content on is like, it's just
that you're one video off from your whole life changing, your
one partnership off from your whole life changing, you know.
Like, any one of these things could completely shift
everything for you. So that net opportunity is just so high. And
the people here are all trying so goddamn hard. Like it's not
even like Thailand, where it's like, oh, there's the indie
hackers. And then there's everybody. It's like,
everybody's the fucking startup people here. Like, it's crazy.
So, yeah, it's just like, it does wonders for the mental. And
it does wonders for the opportunity, you know. Like,
I've met people with channels that have 14 million
subscribers, just at a random party here. And then we became
friends. Now I text them sometimes, you know and that's
just like, sure Thumbnail test has also brought me that but
rarely in real life, you know. But yeah, it's just, I just
haven't found anything else like this. Yeah. So this is the place
for me.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, makes perfect sense. You chose the potential
of opportunity, right? Like the fact that just through
serendipity, you might run into the right person at the right
time, that also has not only the intention to make it big but
also is themselves in the network that allows them to get
to that point. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Honestly, my
story with Silicon Valley is quite similar. I was there like
2012-2013, my first ever, like real thing that I did after
university where I dropped out twice, great skills right there.
Like was finding work for a company in San Francisco. And
even though I worked remotely for them from Germany, it was
still I visited on occasion. And the first time I was there, like
two days into my first visit, I was sitting on a couch just
having beers with like a Product Manager from Facebook, which was
bizarre. Like for somebody who grew up in Germany and having
had no contact to this community of people whatsoever, being
thrown in there. And then just like chilling and talking about
their Africa expansion, you know, that kind of stuff, it
felt surreal because it was. Like this is access that nobody
really has. And if you get there, you have a chance to
maybe have that kind of access. So I very much understand this
serendipitous thing that you're moving into, makes perfect sense
to me. And I guess the whole stepping stone approach, in
particular, Rob Walling was on the show here and explained the
whole stair stepping, right? Where you start with info
products or services or something or you build
pluginsand then you go to your own SaaS. And from there, you go
to something much bigger. It's taking little tiny steps that
build on top of each other at a time. So that being said, what
is your next step here? Like what is the step after building
and exiting a SaaS business with the numbers that you just
mentioned? What's the next thing?
Rox: Yeah, great question. So I am pursuing something I've
wanted to pursue for a while. Being in creator economy for a
long time, you really get a sense of the potential of
distribution, which we've seen a lot with physical products. Mr.
Beast sells Feastables, Logan Paul and KSI have Prime their
hydration drink. And Chamberlain has Chamberlain coffee. So many
of these businesses doing millions 10s of millions,
hundreds of millions, literal billions in the case of like
Prime. I want to try and endeavor to do software in the
same way. So creator led software or you know creator led
brand that is software. So I'm currently negotiating the exact
terms, but with intention to partner with a very large
creator to build software to sell to their audience and
beyond not to sound like Buzz Lightyear. But to see if I can,
in a matter of months, replicate what has previously taken me
years. And like you said, those kinds of like stairstep levels
in creator economy, it's very similar, where it's like AdSense
is 100, you know, the like, course level it's like 100 level
is AdSense. And then 200 level is, you know, you sell some kind
of like, course or education. 300 is like coaching personal or
community. 400-500, you start to talk about a brand that could be
acquired like 400 is a brand and a product. 500 is a product that
could be acquired. So it's a product separate from your name,
that happens to use your name. And that's the space that I
really am trying to play in is can I build software that is
multiplied by the people I partner with? And then still,
stand alone is valuable, is powerful, has legs and is a full
business that can then be sold. And can I go from making
hundreds of 1000s to making millions in life by taking that
and then maybe over the next 5-10 years taking it to its
absolute, you know, 1,000,000% and maybe get to the crazy
numbers I'm hoping for in life, you know.
Arvid Kahl: That's so awesome. What an interesting idea. Like,
that's something I've literally never thought about, like doing
this kind of which is probably great for you because otherwise
you would have some competition.
Rox: Let me hear.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, this is a wonderful idea because I do know
all of these brands you just mentioned, right? The physical
products, the Feastables and the Prime and all that stuff, you
just cannot escape this because these creators are so strong in
putting out the word. So in a world that more and more becomes
digital, I mean, let's just look at the whole apple vision pro
thing and how it's perceived, right? We were all laughing at
VR headsets for the longest time and all of a sudden, people find
actual use cases for this. And people are still laughing
because Vitriol exists on the internet. But there are more and
more people who are willing to give this a shot. And anything
in that world is effectively software. So I'm not saying you
should do VR stuff all the time. But I think there's a tendency,
right? The people's adoption of AI, people's adoption of VR, it
becomes a thing that people use because it's actually useful for
the very first time and approachable. So you building
something there. It's interesting, I kind of want to
ask you more about it. I just, it seems like you're kind of
hesitant to tell me the details, which is fine. Because if you're
still working on it, but where's that going? Like can you
exemplify it, maybe?
Rox: I'll tell you my like 12 month plan on this. I'm
partnering with a creator who has a little bit of a wider
brand. So they're not too niche down. And I'm treating it as a
product studio with the intent of basically creating like a
validation engine that just figures out if something could
sell to his audience, could sell pass his audience, right? And if
those things are true, then it's the thing that we pursue, right?
So a lot of early testing, a lot of like, you know, A/B testing
on landing pages and pre sales and this and that all that. I'm
starting with bass hits. So the creator has sold products
before. We're going to try and digitize those. And that's going
to be you know, the first couple of months and see how much
revenue we can pull from that. And then use that to fund the
next projects. I'm not writing the code for this. I have an
amazing engineer friend that I brought on, who is functionally
my CTO and who's gonna get a bunch of a good deal, let's say
excuse me. And hopefully, if all goes well, the idea is kind of
like have him build MVPs. And like V ones, put those out into
the world. If they start succeeding, bring on another dev
to run and maintain that, keep that going. And as that makes
more profit, it becomes its own business. And then my main guy
goes on to the next one and starts building on to the next
one. And we just keep launching and seeing what works and if
something really starts to break out then we'll devote all the
resources back to that kind of thing. But I'm treating this I
don't want to treat it like I have a bunch of VC money right?
Like I want to break even on the year, that's the plan. But I
want to try and like spend a million and make a million, you
know, that's kind of like the outline of it. And if I could
pull that off and have broken even on making a ton of software
with very expensive software engineers in several different
products, that's a huge deal. But it's tough. There's not a
lot of like case studies to follow here. It's a little bit
like blue ocean or Greenfield or whatever buzzword you want to
use for it.
Arvid Kahl: Take another color and another noun
Rox: Orange, meadow. But honestly, it's really exciting
to me because I would love to feel like I was one of the first
to pull it off. Well, and I'm sure someone in the comments is
gonna know. They're gonna be like, oh, but you know, insert
guy did its thing. And it's another guy did this another
thing. And this fitness guy did this fitness app. And it's like,
yeah, that's 300 level. But it's just, it's so interesting to me
because it intuitively feels like it should work. But I've
already found there to be a lot of complexity even just before
I've really gotten sprinting on it.
Arvid Kahl: What kind of complexity are you talking about
here?
Rox: Finding the creator, way harder than people think, A.
Getting a good enough idea that will actually sell to the
audience, very tough 9 out of 10 times and you end up boiling
down to it just being education again, most of the time.
Building a thing that is not education is the hard thing, the
evaluation of products. So like that iteration, like what that
looks like without incidentally, burning the audience, you know,
on trying to sell them too much or ask them too many questions.
You know, you only get so many hits and you know, email lists,
Telegram group, YouTube channel, each thing. Again, they are
finite resources to some extent because if you post 100 YouTube
shorts advertising your product, everybody's gonna unsubscribe,
you know and you can kill yourself. So the brand risk
overall is a big thing. The quality bar, you can't really be
super indie hacker about it. You can't just make the first
version really crappy and put it out into the world. It's got
millions of followers worth of brand tied to it. So it has to
be good. So if you usually can launch it, like a 5 out of 10
quality, you kind of need to be hitting a seven or an eight
before you can even be out the door with this, which sucks. So
it means it's a little more expensive. You need a little
more of a design eye or a designer. So I'm finding that to
be tough. Yet, there's just a lot. There's a lot of little
pieces and a lot of big pieces, but the biggest one I found was
finding a creator who's going to care, you know, finding someone
for whom this isn't just like a course, that goes out. And then
it's their, you know, your worst nightmare is you work on
something for two months with some guy, you soft launch it to
like, let's say just their newsletter or they just tweeted
out, the reception isn't great. And they cancel the whole
project and you lost two months of your life. Yeah. So that's
why we came into this with the product studio mindset. Because
that way, like the failure is baked in. The throwing away of
things is baked in. And so again, it's like slowly as I
find these things out, I shift and I adjust. Like initially, I
wasn't going to do the product studio concept. It was just
going to be hey, let's build X together. Like let's just decide
on a thing and let's build that thing. But we moved to this, you
know. I've pitched a lot of creators. You know, I've been
doing this for like the past year. I've been lately pitching
creators that I know on this concept. And it wasn't until you
know, a few months ago that I really found someone where I was
like, okay, I think you have the right priority. I think you will
care, which is my number one thing. Yeah, so it's just
complicated. You're not in nearly as much control. And you
know, coming from indie hacking, when it's like I am the
everything going to cool, somebody else is going to be how
this gets to the world to some extent. I'm going to need to
kind of, you know, be on the same page with them and keep
them excited and like maintain this other person's energy about
a thing, stuff.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's an interesting point, like the kind
of psychosocial part of this where you need to actually
motivate somebody who's not necessarily a software person,
right? To care about software because of the implications that
it might have for their audience. Let's maybe talk about
risk a little bit here. Because you just mentioned brand risk is
one of the big things. How much risk do you have as the person
in your partnership, right? As the software, the maker? Is
there more risk than an indie hacker would have or even less
like, it kind of feels like you have some kind of cushion in the
sense that that creator has budget that you can tap into?
Even though you still build these kinds of bootstrapping
things inside of that it kind of feels like that, but it's not VC
money, where you can just frivolously spend it and hope
for mass market domination. So what's the risk distribution for
you there?
Rox: That's a great question. It's gonna be if somebody else
tried to do what I'm doing, I don't know that they would have
the same conditions I do. Right? If you approach a different
creator with a different deal, all of this stuff, like again,
if you call it green field or whatever, is very like, there is
a precedent very much. There's these guys that have done like
some of the fitness apps in the world and everything. And
they're walking around going to creators and saying, we'll fund
the whole project 50/50 if you'll launch it to our
parameters, like, we'll pay the whole thing. They'll pay for
100% and then split equity 50/50. So that's probably like,
the bar to compare yourself to. That's what like the big dev
shop guys who have tried, maybe like more than 400 ish level of
what I'm aiming to do. That's what they've done. I am in a bit
of a better scenario. So I don't have much risk. And even if I
did have more risk, I just sold Thumbnail tests. So as a human,
my risk is relatively low. But I will say, I, in some ways, have
chosen to take on more risk for the potential of more upside.
But I think by most metrics, most people if they saw the
details of the deal would not say I was in a particularly
risky scenario, like I should be fine. I'm not getting $0. I have
given myself a non trivial salary. But it's also not really
being treated as investment. Like there's a reason I want to
break even, you know. I want to basically be able to have given
everything back and feel like we're just, you know, executing
on profit. I don't want to draw down too much. And anything that
I take will eventually be paid back, can say that much. So it's
very much not investment, it's more of if anything, like is a
closer comparison to the kind of structure that we'll have.
Arvid Kahl: So from a founder perspective, what I'm curious
building this product studio, like how tight are you to that
creator? Like, just, you know, how do you avoid the whole whale
situation where you have like, just this one person that gives
you work? You know? And you really have to make it work for
them? Do you expect to kind of branch out? Or do you want to
really focus on this creator for now?
Rox: That's a great question. Focus on this creator, for sure.
I am 100% in on this, on this one person. And I'm comfortable
with that, based on everything I said earlier of me thinking this
is the right person to partner with. And the, sorry, repeat the
second half of the question.
Arvid Kahl: Let me think what I asked.
Rox: Classic
Arvid Kahl: It's like, how do you avoid like being over
dependent on that particular?
Rox: The framing of our partnership is reversed from
what one would expect. I bring ideas. We both have to agree on
an idea before it goes out. Right? So I can say no to an
idea they have, they can say no to an idea I have. And but if we
both agree on something, that's the thing that goes through. So
and that's obviously because you know, they don't want me to go
build, you know, a porn website and then put it onto their
brand. And then it would just be fair. And obviously, I don't
want to be at their whim. Right. So I'm not being treated like a
dev shop. I am, you know, their entire product arm as far as
digital products could ever be. And you know, depending on how
it goes, future creators, if I did work with them might end up
coming in under this. Because there's also like a very well
connected creator who might bring in more deal flow there.
So that structure is going to be interesting. So that's a little
bit TBD on how that goes. But like, I am comfortable enough
and confident enough in this person's brand. And in
particular, the growth I think their brand will continue to see
over the next year five years, that the opportunity for me of
having the right to all of the digital products there is a big
deal to some extent.
Arvid Kahl: That's interesting. This sounds like a new gold rush
mentality in a space that and I mean, it's in the best possible
way, right? There are new claims to stake in this for software
entrepreneurs like now that craters are starting to
understand that there's value not just in making chocolate or
energy drinks, or sorry, hydration drinks, just be
precise. You know, like there's also value in creating products
that keep an audience engaged and keep an audience virtually,
in the influence fear of an individual creator. I wonder if
you're gonna set some kind of standard with this. I hope so
certainly for you, or at least that you are a subject matter
expert in that field of being a software entrepreneur that works
with creators. That is a really, really interesting thing. I'm
mesmerized by this. It's really cool.
Rox: Thank you. I don't know how much I'll be able to build in
public. That's the only tough part.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, I was wondering about that, like you
are, in some ways, you already kind of retracted a little bit
from streaming and that kind of stuff, which we should maybe
dive into why you stopped streaming, but this is going to
be so much harder, even in the kind of secretive world of
creators making choices, right?
Rox: Yeah, I hate keeping secrets. Like, I as a human, it
feels like lying to me. And I'm so used to just like, I've
always lived with my heart on my sleeve. And, you know, my
numbers on my fucking website, you know, like, everything's
just open, open, open. And like, you know, even with the
acquisition, like the fact that I'm not allowed to say some
things like, honestly, really hurts. Like, it's very difficult
for me, emotionally. And I think, like I don't think being
100% open is like this necessity in life. And I honestly do think
like, there are some downsides. And it's probably good to get to
a point in my life where I have to get more mature about what I
share, in general. But it's definitely like, it's personal
growth that doesn't feel great. It's personal growth, by
necessity not by preference. Which, yeah, it's just rough.
Like even all of what I've said about the deal so far, I already
don't know if I'm maybe saying too much about that. And I can't
know because we haven't struck the entire deal. Like right now,
it's still conversations. There's no paperwork, I don't
know what's gonna happen. And when I know, I'll know. But you
know, it's like I don't imagine a lot of creators are going to
share their exact numbers until those numbers are so insane that
it's, you know, non relatable. It doesn't matter if Mr. B's
tells you he made $100 million selling chocolate, doesn't
matter if Logan Paul tells you he made a billion dollars in
sales on sorry, he sold a billion dollars of prime, not
made a billion dollars. But those, like outside of that
there are people who say they made millions. There's people
like Ali Abdaal, who will still like share their full year in
numbers, which I think is beautiful. There's just as many
who like, don't tell us all, nobody needs to know our
numbers. And it's weird because I feel like it's normal to share
numbers. But the reality of business is it absolutely is
not, you know, like 99% of people don't share anything.
It's just you keep your numbers and you're happy with them. And
life's good. That's the whole thing. And Twitter's not your
main market.
Arvid Kahl: That's the thing, right? Like not only is building
in public seasonal, like it works for a certain stage of
business. And it kind of stops working the moment you grow to a
size where your competitors have too much of an eye on you.
Right? And I would perfectly admit the fact that building in
public is not for everybody at all times, obviously. Right?
There is no silver bullet for anything in business. It's a
constantly evolving space. But particularly if you're not in a
space where building in public is normalized. And I think
YouTube is occasionally that but most of the time not. Right?
There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that is still
heavily choreographed, right? It's not real behind the scenes,
it's behind the scenes as content, so there are layers to
this. So if that is not a space where you are expected to
operate like this, operating like it will confuse people to
the point that for some reason, which is so weird, they don't
trust you even though you are extremely transparent, right?
There is so much more reason to trust you. But the fact that you
put trust so forward in a secretive world can quickly flip
around. So that's an interesting observation, particularly also
around exits and acquisitions. I remember that too. Like, we have
stipulations in our contract that I cannot talk about
regarding our exit, even though I would like to. And I was also
quite surprised by this. And I'm not going to talk about it.
Because you know, I want to keep the money, but it's a bizarre
thing to see somebody else's fears or somebody else's risk
judgment impact your own life. This is fear for you. Right? It
sounds to me like you went through an acquisition, which
was great. But it was also not that great. Can you tell me
maybe more about your emotional state as it were and as it is?
Rox: Dude, it's been so tough. I'm like, I'm the guy who gets
sad, let me be clear and I personally feel like I have this
problem. My friend has described it as catastrophizing my own
life. So like, you know, I don't go from 0 to 100 in terms of
happy, but I quickly go from 0 to 100 in terms of sad, right?
So like, if something's bad in my head, it's very easy for it
to become very quickly, very bad. You can say I kind of round
up, round down. So like, if it's under a 25, I can keep it to a
zero. If it's over 25, it jumps to 100. And just like, selling
Thumbnail Test, man, every piece of it was just so stressful.
Negotiations were so tough. I felt like a bad person
sometimes, like I owed it to people to be making a certain
deal or to not make a certain deal or to do something this way
or that way or structure it this way or that way, even when I had
options. Like, it made me feel like a bad person sometimes,
like just for even negotiating. And I think that's just because
it's hard for me to differentiate like, business
discussion from like human discussion. And they all like a
lot of these people also, I will say the build in public really
paid off in the acquisition because people trusted me
inherently more so because I shared stuff. The only thing
that they didn't trust so much was that I wouldn't share stuff,
which is like, yeah, okay, pretty fair actually. I think
it's a really good read, is I have trouble about here and
stuff, but I'll try. Yeah. But, you know, then once the deal was
signed, you know, realizing I had agreed to things that were
like, going to be tough, you know, from signing the LOI to
signing the actual contract was probably like a month. And that
was my decision because I wanted to get lawyers, but like, even
getting lawyers, it's like, you realize, oh, if I'm not the one
who wrote the contract, I'm in a position of weakness by such a
long shot because now I'm suggesting changes, right? They
get to be the default. And that makes the life that much harder
with the contract. And so then there's all that emotion. And
then, you know, I spent like, eight grand on lawyers. And if I
hadn't been very aggressive and very careful, I would have spent
like, 20. And that's like, you know, almost like that's closing
in on, yeah. Let's just say a sizable percentage of the
acquisition at that point. Right? Which sucks so much that
like, you know, a whole number digit percentage of my
acquisition went to paying lawyers, which evidently,
supposedly a regular thing, but usually that's on the size of
billions, the size of hundreds of 1000s. So that horrible and
then you send them all the changes and then they feel
terrible about it. So then they're like, oh, hey, the deal
is gonna go sideways because of paperwork, you know and it's
just like, oh, fuck, okay, like let's figure this out. So you
figure it out, you get all the terms agreed to. But then you
finally sign. And then everything that you think this
contract is got to have everything in the world and then
the next day, when you start the process, immediately you realize
there's 10 things you don't know how to handle that are not
clarified in this contract. And all of a sudden, like what was
really tough for me, it was like I still had all the costs on my
credit cards, but I wasn't allowed to take revenue out
because the revenue is actually there. So the costs are also
technically theirs. But until I had finished transferring all
the accounts, obviously, they couldn't magically
instantaneously update all the credit card info and everything.
So you know, they paid me back later. But for those several
weeks and months, I had also been making no money because I
couldn't take money out of the business starting when we signed
that contract. So you know, overnight, I went from having
like an income that paid my bills and more but I don't have
savings and I don't live like that, all back in and all that
good stuff. I was like poor for what did I have? Two months,
like I was caught, like I pulled every dollar out of every
backup. So I pulled every dollar out of my Bar Mitzvah account
from when I was 13, which is the thing you're not supposed to
touch until you're like 30 plus. I'm about to turn 26. And I had
to like take a loan out against myself, which I've now paid back
I finally got paid, thank God. But like, it felt like
everything that could be bad was bad during it. And that's just
me talking about the logistics and the money. But like I would
get angry. I would get into a deep dark hole of depression. I
would constantly think every day watching the business grow while
I could take no money out of it and the sale had not finalized.
Like every single day during the acquisition, I regretted it.
Even now I feel like I still regret it. And it was it's just
so tough because it's like there's some aspect of it that
was like this tool was my baby, right? My whole life changed
because I built this tool. Mr. Beast thing happened because I
built this tool. I've gone to all these conferences this whole
YouTube world knows about me. It's all because of this one
tool. None of that happened without this. Right? And I
didn't realize that until I finally like signed the papers
everything but like selling it really, like, felt like I just
sold a piece of myself. And so much fear and doubt have come in
since. I am sorry. It's been so tough to think that I've like,
sold my soul is kind of what it felt like, you know, like
everything that I built all these relationships are no
longer mine. This tool is no longer mine. A lot of these
people who buy the tool based on me based on like, oh, this guy
worked for Mr. Beast, I trust him right like to have removed
that now, in some way feels like just inherently, you know, like,
am I betraying people by doing this? Like, am I selling out?
You know, I know I didn't want to keep working on Thumbnail
Test forever. But it could have become a side thing. I had hired
an engineer. I was only working on it for a few hours a week,
really. And few hours a week to pay my bills and have marketing
budget was pretty crazy, actually.
Arvid Kahl: That's not too bad
Rox: It's not at all. It was growing. It's growing like 10%
month over month by itself. God bless. And so all of a sudden,
it was like all my friends who looked at the numbers, you know,
back before the acquisition finalized and I was still able
to talk about them. They were like, you're crazy. Like, purely
based on MRR and profit and multiples and all that. But you
know, the tool is risky, right? So I was okay with taking lower
numbers like I don't treat it like your usual SaaS exit.
Because you know, YouTube's putting out AB testing. So the
core functionality of the platform, the core feature that
everything is based off of is hilariously competitive.
Arvid Kahl: With the platform you're building
Rox: With the platform itself. Sounds like yeah, okay. Fair
enough, I'll probably not get any crazy numbers out this guy.
Arvid Kahl: Dude, I think you made the absolute right choice
like and this is my personal opinion, obviously. Right? And
first of all, thank you for sharing this in such emotional
candor and depth. I feel it resonate with a very, very deep
part of myself as well because I had the exact same experience
selling Feedback Panda. Like that was our baby. That was the
thing that we built relationships with. It's the
thing that allowed me to be part of a community and to have
something to show for. And through that, you know, the sale
it was very taxing emotionally, just like what you explained.
And it was taxing in a grieving way. There's grief in losing
this, in selling it and giving it to somebody else. And I don't
know if this is going to help you or not. But I still
occasionally feel it, that grief. But I look at it, I look
back at it. And I see where I am now because of it not because of
the business. But because of the sale and everything beyond that,
that came from moving up one step. Right? And that shows me
that I made the right choice. And I think you are at the
precipice of this with the project that you're working on.
And give it a couple months. And you're going to look back at
this, hopefully and see oh, yeah, that's the step. Now I can
see the step because I'm one step above, you know. I very
much understand how you feel right now. And what is the
situation that you're in because it is a weird thing, like
whoever does this kind of stuff, right? Whoever built something
from nothing, that is uniquely it's an identity thing, right?
It's a part of you. You built this. You are it for a while and
then you give it away. It's like ripping out a part of your body
and handing it to somebody else. But in a way, it is not. And you
only see that after the fact. So for everybody who's listening or
watching and feeling the same way, my personal experience
shows me that it is a stage that just like all stages of
everything you overcome eventually, but it is a very
emotionally taxing stage. Did you ever get to a point where
you were like, I'm gonna revert this. I'm going to cancel and
scrub the whole thing.
Rox: Yeah, three minutes before I signed the paper. The guy
acquiring it, he was like, oh, dude, film yourself. Like when
you sign the paper, like you'll be so happy
Arvid Kahl: Just crying
Rox: I signed it. And I didn't say a single I only felt bad.
And that's the thing this whole time, I've only felt bad. And,
you know, for a long time, it was kind of easy to understand
why, especially when I had no money and I hadn't gotten paid.
And it was like, yeah, I haven't gotten a single dopamine hit.
And it's like, yeah, for the first time in my life, my bank
account has a six digit number in it. Yeah, doesn't start with
a crazy digit, but it's a six digit. But all it feels like, it
feels more like some relief from the pain I was feeling as
opposed to like a victory, you know and that's the thing, like
it doesn't feel like a win. And I don't think it'll ever feel
like a win. Like, it feels most like an escape. And I think I
had two months worth of graduation goggles on it, you
know, because it also like, only started blowing up right as I
went to sell it, you know. So for the longest time, the
decision to sell is based on it not blowing up and everything
and then go back and forth. I could read you. I wrote this
whole thing that I didn't post because I wanted to like, you
know, work on it more. But I wrote this, like deeply sad, you
know, plan for the Twitter thread of like, why I sold
Thumbnail Test. And I'll tell you the first six words in why I
sold Thumbnail Test, it says how I feel awful, heartbroken,
destroyed. Those are the first six words in the post that I
wrote. Yeah, hugely. At some point, it says am I an idiot? I
think so. Yeah
Arvid Kahl: Honestly, I get it because that's also the thing
with being an indie hacker or a founder that doesn't have like a
massive team. I mean, you had opti that's the developer,
right? And you have your partner, she also gets the solo
entrepreneurial life. It's hard because it's all on you. Like
the choices are all on you, too. That's the thing, right? You
have to make all these choices about things that you just have
no idea about, what's the future gonna look like? What's YouTube
going to do? Like are they going to eat it? Or they're going to
buy it? Probably not, who knows. But then you have to deal with
all these things as well. Man, I think that's what I mean with
looking at it in retrospect, a couple months from now. It feels
while you're in the trenches, it feels incredibly stressful. And
it is stressful because it's literally creating physical
stress that is also my experience, but somebody has to
make these choices and stand behind them. And you don't
really have much of guidance that you can take anywhere.
People look at your MRR and tell you you should keep doing it.
That is really not advice that makes any sense at all, right?
Because there's so much more to a business than just the numbers
and where they're going. There's your physical and mental well
being that has the potential of something happening. You know,
Feedback Panda, what happened to the business like six months
after we sold it? It just flatlines because China
introduced regulation that forbade people from teaching
English online in China, that if they were not in China
physically, so all those people that we sold our business to or
we sold our subscription to our SaaS to who were employed by a
Chinese company, who sourced English speaking teachers from
all over the world, they lost their job. And with losing their
job, they lost the need for our product. Nobody could have known
this. We sold at a point where I thought like, oh, man, this is
growing again, 5 to 10% month over month. We could keep doing
this and running for another year. And then we would have
like twice the amount of money and you know, all these
thoughts, you probably are having them right now at this
point. But we sold, we were pretty heartbroken as well
because again, it's even in our case, it was literally me and my
girlfriend building something and giving it away. Right? That
the whole baby analogy is very viscerally felt at that point.
Like we built this over, you know, 15 months. It's a bit long
for virtual pregnancy. But you know, it was something that we
built together and nobody else was part of this. It was our
thing. We gave it away. We got money for it, which is weird.
And then we saw it crumble at some later point. And we were
like, wow, that was a good choice. Right? Because you never
know what's going to happen.
Rox: Yeah, and that's like, I keep telling myself that you
know that like
Arvid Kahl: No, I'm telling you too
Rox: Yeah, and like it's sort of this weird emptiness of like
you're just putting everything on the next thing like you're
putting everything into the future. And you know, I had like
a quote in here from God, I don't even know. Don't be afraid
to give up the good to go for the great and that was like
really a lot of the rationale behind this. Yeah, and a lot of
people say like, if you do it once like if you've done it once
you can do it again. Which I want to believe but emotionally
have no way to do so because it doesn't feel like I did anything
to blow up that. It feels like it just blew up
Arvid Kahl: Oh, that's funny that because that's like some
part of you knows exactly that you're completely wrong with
this, right? This is all you're doing.
Rox: That guy made a video.
Arvid Kahl: Without the tool the video would not have been made,
right? It's like without, I watched you getting the shoutout
by Ali Abdaal, about the tool as well and getting some traction
from that, like there is so much of a rat tail of decisions and
things that you have to do before those things happen. And
these are all the things that you did. And these are all the
choices that you made, like without you and your capacity
and your action, none of this would have happened. So don't
sell yourself short on that part. I get it like giving up
this thing feels like you have this Tabula Rasa moment where
you're standing in front of nothing. And now you have to do
it all over again. I remember this moment in 2019, after we
sold, like I was like, you know what am I going to do now. So I
kinda went to wordpress.com and started a blog. That's where it
started for me. I just started writing because I didn't know.
I'm not gonna build another SaaS. I was just burned out from
SaaS. I was burned out from coding. I'm not gonna code
again. And here I am right now building two SaaS at the same
time. But you know, that's a different story. Like it comes
back to you when it needs to. And it's hard to be able to wait
for that moment because that's also a thing. I don't know how
you experienced this right now. But like, in building the
business, you spent 24/7 building that business. And then
you have this acquisition period where you spent like, what is it
like 48/7, you know, you spent two days worth of time every
single day, both in running the business and making it
acquirable. And then you hit this wall of the exit, you give
it away and then you have nothing to do. How are you
dealing with that?
Rox: Well. I mean, it helps to like be jumping right into the
next thing. But again, there's like not paperwork. So it's
like, I'm jumping into the next thing. But the foundation is
shaky right now. Yeah, like it's very tough, you work with a big
creator, like I don't want to, it's just that attention thing,
you know. Like, when things are nascent, less time is spent.
When things are like less visible, less flashy, less time
is spent, you know and there's a lot of why I kept like flying
out the craters in the UK, like I flew out to London a few times
because I very cognizant of this like, you know, busy people have
very have a lot of difficulty with object permanence, you
know. If you're not in front of their face, you kind of don't
exist. And so you gotta just keep finding a way to be right
there, you know and so there'll be in the US soon, so I'm gonna
fly over there. And I'm just gonna, you know, everyday I can
get in front of them is a valuable day. But it's very
close. And I think speed running to my next win is like the only
thing I can emotionally do, which is even become tough
because again, like a few of those things that like weren't
super clear in the paperwork on like, the acquisition or
something like, how much I'm allowed to talk to my existing
customers, like reach back out and things where it was like,
originally, I thought we were going to do one thing, but now
it looks like I might be able to do all those things. And
technically XY and Z like, which maybe affects my future
businesses, which really sucks. So again, it's like it's a lot
of blows, you know, it's a lot of hits. But you know, again,
it's my decision. Like, I chose to do this, you know. I signed
the paperwork. I'm not like, woe is me, I made a bunch of money,
you know. But, yeah, it absolutely feels terrible across
the board. Like, I feel no victories. And I think the only
way I will start to feel any sort of victory is by just
building the next thing and building it very quickly. And so
like, I have a couple, like one or two YouTube tools that I have
in mind, where I'm like, okay, cool, I have the audience now.
It should be much easier for me to get a product out into the
world like this. And you know, start selling it to that
community and I can make something higher price. And you
know, even if it's like a month or two from now, I'm sitting on
three or four KMRR, it's like, cool, something's there.
Something's growing, something's happening. And I'm not losing a
bunch of money on it. Like, because in this moment, I am
without. In this moment, I am empty. And it is a deep, deep
darkness that comes from this. And all I can think about is
what I left behind. And all I can think about is what I've
lost because currently, all I've gained is a number. And that
number hasn't magically changed my life. And I don't feel
particularly comfortable going and spending a bunch of it
because it's all I have.
Arvid Kahl: Oh, man, 100% exact same experience, maybe a
different number, but same experience. I remember that,
like we looked at the bank account and we're like, so do we
have to buy champagne now for some reason? Because we didn't
want to and then we bought like the cheap stuff because we're
gonna keep that number. And it's like, yeah, the purpose, the
lack of purpose that you describe, I know the void. I
know the feeling of the void. And I know that the fear of what
next. I think, I mean, if your character is I need to jump into
the next thing to find that meaning again, that's what you
got to do. And I'm obviously I'm not a therapist and I can't
really help you with this. Well, although I wish I would. But
even just in hearing you talk about it, it feels like you need
to make, you need to do, you need to build, you need to find
people's feedback. And what I've seen you do in the past is you
just do it in public in front of people. So you can feel the
resonance. You can feel the community, gathering steam
around topics, projects, products, whatever it is and I
think your 16,000 followers on Twitter or X as the cool kids
call it now. I think that is a sizable audience that you should
just keep tapping into for these things. They're there, people
are. And that's the thing, people don't judge you for
selling your business. Like everybody who follows you
probably wants to sell a business like you just did.
Like, you will not be judged for this and you will also not be
judged for being just honest with people and telling them,
hey, I don't know what to do. That's fine. Like most of us go
through life in the state of I don't know what to do. Right? So
this being a setback, I get it. It feels like it. It's not, but
it definitely feels like it. So just keep doing this, man. Just
keep building the things that you're interested in and are
legally allowed to build, I guess at this point. And do it
in front of the people who already care a lot about you, me
included. I love watching you do these things. And I've loved
watching you code. So if you pick up the stream at any point
building whatever, I'll be there, right? Is that in the
future for you? Are you gonna get back to streaming at some
point?
Rox: Probably not, I might get back into content. I think
streaming made a lot of sense when I was programming. But
streaming is also kind of this giant build in public. So if I'm
especially going into a phase where I don't get to build in
public as much with as many things, probably a lot less.
And, you know, I gotta be careful because I have a
tendency to talk, you know. I'm like, Tom Holland with Spider
Man, you know. I gotta be real careful not to say this or that.
And I don't ever know what I can or what I can't and try to be
good at that now, which sucks. Again, it sucks. So much does my
least favorite thing in the world. But, you know, if I go
stream, I'm gonna want to do that. But what I might do is
like, you know, my old streaming buddies, we've been chatted
about, like, maybe getting back together for some like events or
doing like skits and stuff. And so you know, there might be fun,
funny things coming out from me, but probably less of the actual
coding actual, like long stream anything. But you know, I think
about streaming like most people talk about World of Warcraft,
you know. You never really quit, you just take longer breaks.
Arvid Kahl: Oh man, you're hitting the nail on the head
here. Like I occasionally log in every week to do some elevar get
some stuff going. But yeah, it is the thing that you just
cannot shake, right? Like you can't shake like the act of it
because it's just enjoyable and I enjoyed watching you.
Honestly, I enjoy you wherever you are, right? On the podcasts
that you go to, your Twitter stuff, anything you do, your
work is just a spectacular thing to watch. So, I will keep
following you. I will keep supporting and motivating you
even through this valley of darkness that you're in. It's
there, it's real. And you're also there in real and you're
gonna get through it. I know and I'm going to help you as much as
I can. I'm gonna watch you go through and come out, shining
armor on the other side. If people want to get to follow you
as well and join you on your journey towards the next thing,
where do you want them to go?
Rox: Twitter is my number one @RoxCodes. If you want to do me
a huge favor, Google the word Rox, Google Rox and then scroll
until you see my Twitter and then click my Twitter. I'm
really trying to get that SEO so that I want to be the first
thing or like the second thing when you Google Rox. One of
them's a charity, the charity could be number one. I'll still
be number 2 in every country. So please google Rox and then by
Twitter RoxCodes. Yeah, I mean, genuinely, that's it. Like I'm
on Twitter all the time. I tweet pretty much every day unless I'm
actively in a period of being acquired and negotiating stuff
where I'm not allowed to frickin talk about anything, man. So I
gotta go dark, but yeah, yeah. And if you got cool stuff, reach
out. My website is rox.codes. So you know, there's an email out
there. If you ever want to pitch me on anything cool. And yeah,
you got any cool YouTube tools, ideas, let me know.
Arvid Kahl: I really appreciate you sharing all of this with me
and going to dark places going to light places, going
everywhere all over the map with me today. I really appreciate
it. And again, you get this. You get through this and you're
gonna come out a very, very cool trendsetter in the software
entrepreneur/creator world that is even just starting to blossom
out there. It's really cool. Thank you so much for sharing
everything today.
Rox: I'm so man, thank you. Great chatting, as always.
Arvid Kahl: Of course, appreciate it.
And that's it for today. I will now briefly thank my sponsor
acquire.com. Imagine this, you're a founder who's built a
really solid SaaS product, you acquired all those customers,
and everything is generating really consistent monthly
recurring revenue. That's the dream of every SaaS founder,
right? The problem is, you're not growing for whatever reason,
maybe it's lack of skill or lack of focus or play in lack of
interest, you don't know. You just feel stuck in your business
with your business. What should you do? Well, the story that I
would like to hear is that you buckled down, you reignited the
fire and you started working on the business, not just in the
business and all those things you did, like audience building
and marketing and sales and outreach. They really helped you
to go down this road, six months down the road, making all that
money. You tripled your revenue and you have this hyper
successful business. That is the dream. The reality,
unfortunately, is not as simple as this. And the situation that
you might find yourself in is looking different for every
single founder who's facing this crossroad. This problem is
common, but it looks different every time. But what doesn't
look different every time is a story that here just ends up
being one of inaction and stagnation. Because the business
becomes less and less valuable over time and then eventually
completely worthless if you don't do anything. So if you
find yourself here, already at this point or you think your
story is likely headed down a similar road, I would consider a
third option. And that is selling your business on
acquire.com. Because you capitalizing on the value of
your time today is a pretty smart move. It's certainly
better than not doing anything. And acquire.com is free to list.
They've helped hundreds of founders already, just go check
it out at try.acquire.com/arvid, it's me and see for yourself if
this is the right option for you, your business at this time.
You might just want to wait a bit and see if it works out half
a year from now or a year from now. Just check it out. It's
always good to be in the know.
Thank you for listening to the Bootstrapped Founder today. I
really appreciate that. You can find me on Twitter @arvidkahl.
And you'll find my books and my Twitter course there too. If you
want to support me and the show, please subscribe to my YouTube
channel and get the podcast in your podcast player of choice,
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see and leave a rating and a review by going to
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would like it to be just helping other people learn and see and
understand new things. Any of this will help the show. I
really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. Have a
wonderful day and bye bye.