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Welcome to AutomationTown! A podcast about regular people, building automations for the problems we all share.
First time here? Start with S02E01 "For When You Need A Chatbot"
What are the things you do each day that you'd rather forget?
Chad & Jason explore common pain points for knowledge workers, and track down the people & tools necessary to automate trivial to-do's.
Previously on automation town
doors open. That was awesome. This looks like, um, what is this? Some sort of control room. Check out these pipes. Wow. Some kind utility water maybe. Those guys are bad news. They nearly got you killed in the Grimley Center collapse, and I don't wanna know what they had planned next. It was you who stake me at the park.
That's right. I put you in that row and let's not forget how you ended up there. Thank you, Alex. Paul. Hey, any updates from the Love Boat? I don't know. Uhoh. I'm not sure it's really going anywhere. Is it potato zone? Yay. All my little friends, how I've missed you. Oh my God, that's a lot of, lot of pills Chad making Mutual so happy.
Our very own Chad Charles Davis. He's officially running for mayor of Automation Town. That's right. The runoff elections are coming up after Mayor Goodway resigned, but my main opponent looks to be interim Mayor Jake Mc Kringle Barry at Mayor of Manuel Burke. Jack, can you. Not worth.
Something's wrong. I didn't call an ambulance. Amelia Paul. Whoa. I came as soon as I heard. How is he? I don't know. Your friend takes an anti-anxiety medication called potato Zone. He was prescribed a 20 milligram dose, but what's in his system right now is more in a few hours it'll start wearing off and he'll come.
I had a great time tonight. Even with the fondue incident, especially with the fondue incident, hopefully it washes out or can get it dry cleaned or something. Don't worry about it. It was a memorable first date. It was nice. Good night, Paul. Good night.
Whoa.
Here now for the runoff election for Mayor of Automation Town. With 29 of 31 precincts reporting, we are officially able to call it Chad Davis will become the next mayor of Automation town. Chad's name is a 36 com. Oh, it's all happening now. Cue the montage, Paul and Amelia. It's officially a thing, mayor.
It's so full. Chad's elected mayor of automation. And how do you sell an automation? We talk about the business of automating how and when to productize your expertise and what the landscape of contract automation experts looks like today. All that on a heartwarming installment of automation town.
Good morning, your Excellency . Don't call me that. Good morning, Paul. Good morning. Well, congratulations all around, boy. Seems like everything's coming up. Chad and Paul, it's pretty wild. You still gonna have time to record the pod with us? Lowly surf, sir. Will your new political career take precedent? You know, I love the show.
There's no reason to stop. Does the mayor get like a house? Does that come with being a mayor? Like the White House, but like for a. I don't think automation town is quite on that level. No, I don't think so. But I may need to commission a mayor pad. An RV pad. An RV pad. Well that's gonna look pretty Ba your RV alongside the big marble capital building.
Yeah. I'm not sure that'll work. Paul was just talking to me about this app. Amelia needs the gym one we discussed a while back, right? For booking classes. Yeah. Do you hear Paul's taking a stab at building it? Oh yeah. I. It's kind of got me into automation, like as a business. You gonna charge your girlfriend for this one Aria?
Well, no, but I do need to find a job at some point. And maybe there's other people around town like Amelia who need an app or a website or something. Who's to say I couldn't sell this stuff to them. I like it. I think we got some questions along those lines in the database. So I thought we'd do an automation pod episode around the business of automation, contract consulting and all that.
Yeah. Not only that, but like existing service businesses extending into this consulting I think is interesting. You guys ready to do the thing? Let him do the thing. Pat, let's do the thing. I've created a new view for questions about how to build a business around automation expertise using question embeddings and vector search.
Pat's just showing off now. Bless his heart. I know you are, but what am I? Ugh. Sorry. I've gotta dial that one back. Yeah. All right, we ready? We're ready In three. Welcome in to Automation Pod. I'm joined today by his excellence and supreme leader, Chad Davis. Stop. I seriously stop when you go in and get fitted for your outfit.
What? My mayor outfit? Yep. Your mayor outfit. I'm not really sure that's a thing, but I'm heading in to get the initial briefing this afternoon. So more on a serious note to everyone who voted. I mean, wow. Thank you. It doesn't feel like that long ago. We just started this whole thing, the silly call in radio show just to help people with.
Day-to-day workflow, headaches, and to see where it's gone. It's pretty amazing. It is a credit to what you've done for people. I think you've built their trust and they just want to get behind your vision Now, seriously, it's all very flatter. , but also pretty terrifying. You'll do great, but enough of that.
What are we talking about today? Your Eminence, ? Uh, we're talking about the business of automation, you know, the various ways to sell that expertise you've built because we all have workflow problems. And you listening, you find folks of automation town are really in the driver's seat on this. Is there a higher leverage way for you to apply those skills that you've developed?
Hey Pat, hit us with the first. A question from Tracy. She asks, I'm a social media manager, but along the way have picked up some automation skills and oftentimes clients could really use automation help elsewhere. How do I charge for that? Should I charge for that? After all, I'm a marketer, not a workflow consultant.
Thanks guys. So social media manager picked up automation skills. I mean, that's pretty in demand for some people that have no idea what to do with it. Yeah, I think that's very relatable. Like this is kind of a new thing, not a totally new thing, but like the idea of no code and all this stuff being accessible for more people.
The biggest problem, no. has is nobody identifies as a no-code expert or an automation expert. So Tracy identifies as a marketer. So what business does she have doing this stuff when really like, it's an amazing opportunity and oftentimes just fundamentally higher leverage than the thing that you normally do.
So I think it's an interesting thing to explore. There's gonna be aspects of it that I think you may find that you like, other aspects that maybe you won't like, but the big. , especially if you're coming from a service business, is, is there a way to build in fixed recurring revenue that's largely passive by helping my clients automate things.
I think that's kind of the holy grail to work toward. And if you do have a service business, you know, like Tracy, just remember like you are typically that expert, that deep knowledge of what you know, combin. With a little bit of automation, it puts you on a whole other level than other marketers. So while you can, you know, introduce this passive income level, you could also probably charge more for what you're doing because it might be more beneficial, it might be more impactful.
There might be elements of training that you can provide to people that are. either peers or clients, and sharing that knowledge is another way to make money off of it as well. So it's pretty exciting. The only advice I'd give to Tracy is try not to spend too much effort on things that you may not be able to sustain.
in your current business. Once you do it with one client, it might work out really well. Maybe two, maybe three. But imagine this goes to 15, to 20 to 30 different customers and you've got a lot of things breaking and things to maintain. It's a whole other business. There's a whole other skillset around maintaining this.
As well as the things you're providing in your marketing company, and just be aware of that before you get on to something that's too deep and too committed. Yeah, you gotta think what does the long-term life of this thing look like? It's one thing to make this fun little hack for yourself and put this thing together.
But if you've got a set of clients who have mission critical things reliant upon your automations, and you ever want to go on vacation or sleep at night when it gets dark outside, you have to have a plan for . What happens when those things break? Part of the question we categories pass is how do I charge for that?
I can tell you, in my opinion, this is a good opportunity to. Start thinking about the value of the outcomes that the client is looking for. So if there's this opportunity for you to automate this thing for them, that's gonna save them half of a headcount on, you know, stuff they would otherwise need their employees to do for them, then can you come in at two grand a month and you know, build something for them that makes sense.
That's not another employee that they have to manage and isn't going to be a huge long-term headache for you. You still need to plan for what happens if things. But that's where it gets to be a really compelling opportunity to kind of build up this floor of largely passive revenue. Maybe you eat a little bit upfront on the development of that project.
That's an interesting business to start building and start stacking those projects on top of each other. Only thing I'll add to that is be careful of scope creep. Like what you say you'll build always turns into something more. Yep. They want more. What you want to do is sometimes more. So be very careful about that.
And I think Tracy, if you consider what this does for your own personal growth, it's going to completely expose you to a new way to sell things. Your sales chops are gonna get really, Experienced. When you think about things like upfront charges for development, not having upfront charges for development, maintenance, monthly fees, value pricing, and packaging, versus cost plus pricing, you're gonna have a whole new skillset set, so don't feel like you have to get it right the first time.
You can play around with it, but when you do find something that works, you might wanna double down on that. So I really like that comment you made, Jason, about the, the value stuff. Cuz a lot of people under price when they first start offering up these types of skills. Yeah. Especially in those sneaky scope creep contexts.
But like every single one of these engagements I've ever done, you're opening the eyes with the person on the other side and they're like, if that project goes successfully, they're. Oh, what about this thing? Oh, what about that thing? Oh, I gotta talk to Chad about this other little thing that we do that seems kind of dumb and like it just kicks off a whole thing, which is fantastic in many ways.
If you're ready for it and if you can handle it and like don't overcommit yourself and say like, yeah, no, like quarter. Let's try to plan that. That's kind of like what makes this all such an exciting opportunity to me, but, okay, pat, what else you got from Michael? I currently work for someone, but want to start building a side hustle to explore entrepreneurship.
Where do I. Building products, building services, products or services. Davis, there's no right answer, but there's a trend, right? And the trend is that products scale better than services, but there's a whole bunch of people that need help. And sometimes, you know, the lift of learning a product and implementing it is really hard.
The services is incredibly, uh, attractive to them. So I think the easy lift is services, but you gotta be very careful about the time commitment. and not overextending yourself because you do currently have a full-time job and you don't want to push that into some element of risk. So if it is a side hustle, your lower risk option is either building a product over time slowly and making sure that you can get an audience for it, or it's some version of slowly introducing services so that you don't, you know, put your regular job at risk.
How do you feel about. I think oftentimes you start a side hustle with the ambition of what do I want my life to look like 10 years down the line? And that may be, ooh, having a couple cool software products or having an exit from a successful software product. But the reality is, when you're building a side hustle, or when you're first going out on your own, is the thing that keeps you up at night is how am I gonna pay the bills?
And like building a, a service company is a much, much lower risk way to pay the bills. Depends on a hundred. Like, what's your experience? Like maybe Michael's a pro bubble developer and that's, you know, the highest leverage way for him to use his time. But even a pro bubble developer, like he can take contract work from an agency like in a heartbeat, that'll pay you really well.
So products are high stakes. Even if your ambition is to build products someday, at least coming out of the gate, balance that so do some work for other people while you're doing work for your. Longer term, maybe you can like ideally transition more to that work that you're doing for yourself. So you're building your own assets rather than building assets for other people.
But that's almost secondary to me because when you're going out freelancing, like in the beginning, it's about paying the bills. And to me, the easiest way. To start with that is just helping people. There's this, uh, idea of getting bigger to them becoming smaller, and you can almost be more of an expert being bigger and then than becoming smaller.
And I think with services you could probably get bigger a little bit quicker than you could with products. Just depends really. But imagine you're, you know, you're Michael, you're working for somebody. Your goal here is to like explore entrepre. Entrepreneurship is relationships and it's figuring out what works, what does product market fit look like for either side of this?
And if you can get in front of a lot of people and work for them, you're probably, there's always the stories you hear, but you're probably going to replace that income with services and then kind of figure out what kind of stuff you want to build through those relationships and. From there, either pivot into a product or become a more focused service company.
So I like what you said about the lower risk side of services. I totally agree with it. And as AI becomes more popular for techies and the rest of the world is thinking, Hey, how can I. Use this in my company. They're not going to, you know, have all the answers, but they probably will hire you as a service consultant to think about it and then, and then start building through it.
So it's an interesting time we're in right now and there's lots of opportunity. It kind of comes back to what you said with Tracy's question, so many of these things, Come down to your relationships, down to building an audience and oftentimes getting to a much more compelling product. Idea is a product of having relationships where you can learn what the meaningful problems are that you need to solve.
And solving the problem for that person who could then also amplify the product that you're gonna build, uh, because maybe they've got an audience that's 10 x your audience. I don't think it has to be a hundred percent, one or the other.
Jason, you know what I don't like? Where's this going? Manual reconciliations in the accounting file. Oh, there's nothing worse. It's why I'm so glad this episode sponsor exists. Send Sender. It's an e-commerce accounting software that integrates with over 25 different e-commerce platforms. Pulls all that data together in an organized way and plays nicely with your accounting file.
Shopify, Amazon, E. Blue coms, stripe, PayPal, a whole bunch of 'em, and a big thing. Cinder actually handles really well. You can choose whether you want it to sync every single transaction individually or a daily summary. Yeah, that's right. Sometimes you want all the data, sometimes you just want the summary.
That's right. And if that is a pain in the neck for you, check out Cinder S Y N d e r@cinder.com.
Pat, you got more of these? So much more. Jason, you can give us the next one, pat. Of course. This question is from Lando. Short and sweet. How do I find my first customers? Lando, how do you find your first? What a great question. Who was your first customer? Oh, I went prospecting, I think it was Twitter, LinkedIn, asking friends.
Wow, you were that guy, huh? It was that guy. I was like, how do you find your first one? So I know friends that also just called their friends up and asked them to be a customer. . I don't know. How about you? What was your first kind of like, how do I get people to pay me money? I went to work for somebody else and built relationships.
I kind of leveraged that into conversations that I wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity to have. And so there's like just going to work for people. Examples of that, there's like audience hacking online examples of that where you, you know, make friends with people that have those networks and try to be helpful to them.
But yeah, for me it. Building relationships with the type of people who, you know, had the problems that I wanted to be able to solve? Yeah, I think the same thing, like having a skill in something that people were looking for skills in. So at the time it was a piece of accounting software and like nobody really was doing it.
So like that was the claim. It's like, okay, if someone wants this, there's only a few people that are around that are doing it. Put your name out there and be that person for that. And it kind of has similarities to where we're at today. Automations and ai and like this new wave of tech. There are so many opportunities to be experts in a tool or in a niche type of environment or some type of industry.
That with a little bit of exposure to that audience, you're, you're set up pretty well. So much of it comes back to like just help people, like being helpful. Mm-hmm. , like, I remember when you started your dog walking business, it was you having to go out and do it all the time, but then your neighbor had the same problem and you were like, Hey, you wanna like, should we just do like a kind of a.
Dog share thing where I'll take yours out. You take mine out. And it just, that's like how it started, right? Yeah. Like, no, I just wanna pay you to take my dogs out . And then words got out. You could almost say there was an audience for them. Speaking of audience building, that is one way that you could attract the people that are looking for types of services you have.
So, , what are, what are options for audience building in today's world? I don't know. I don't like the phrase audience building as much as, I mean, that's, that's what it all comes down to at the end of the day, but it's still about how am I helping people? So, you know, you helping the neighbor across the street, walk their dog great.
On Twitter, that probably looks like, what's a problem that I know a bunch of people share. I'm just gonna do a tweet about this. Make a YouTube video, Twitter. Here's how to solve this problem, and the more consistently you talk about those things, Twitter is like putting your bug light out there and attracting all these bugs to you.
It's like being there consistently is going to attract the people that you want to be following you because you have something to offer them. So it's just a matter of turning up. And my mind, honestly, it's always given it away, like sharing the value. There really isn't, to me, a ton of value in like putting that stuff behind a paywall or something like, Just figure out how you can help people and try to attract 'em to that weird bug flame.
I mean, one thing Lando could think about is you also don't have to just help your customers. You could also help, you could call them competitors or you could call them people that are offering the same services that you do. , but a lot of people start their businesses by helping with overflow or with clients that other people can't handle, and they'll either pay for leads or they'll just be a good place that other people can look good to refer work to.
So don't overlook how important it's to reach out to the people that might have clients that you could work with and spark up a conversation, see if there's any way that you can help them out and you never know. It might be a win-win for both. Yeah, in general, think about what are the hubs where these people congregate.
So that could be a consultant that works with a bunch of these people and you have a way to help that consultant on their 20 engagements or a business network online. That probably looks like there's this person who's also building an audience around this topic, and I have this thing that I can do to help them, and I think most people go to.
Ooh, who's the one that's got a million followers in that space? Like no. The better place to go is probably who's the person at a similar size to you who's being consistent and turning up every day, and how can I grow with them? So consider where those people are hanging out and how you can be helpful to.
The people kind of at the center of those hubs. Let's do one more, pat from Alice. Should I focus my expertise on a specific tool or go general on a wide array of tools? Oh, this is a big one. I mean, we've, we've all made, we've all chosen which option, but I, to be honest, I don't know a single person that.
Picked a tool and stuck with it and like that's what they build their business on. Do you happen to anybody like that? Yeah, everybody. That's a bubble nerd. . That's how the bubble people are . I don't, I don't think, but like that is unique to Bubble depending on like what type of tools we're talking about.
There's a lot of Webflow people that are like, I'm gonna build my web agency around Webflow. That's what we're gonna use. So that's true. It's a hard question. It's very contextual. Like depends on what you want to do for people. Like if you wanna design. For people like, great, that's in your best interest to stick with a single stack and just like know the heck out of that.
Get that workflow nailed, build the contractors. It'll make your job easier and all that. A hundred percent. I think in general when you're learning automation, there is value in having a high level knowledge of a basic database system and how to connect APIs and. There's like a hundred level knowledge that you need to have.
But beyond that, I don't really think it's about the tools as much as it's about the people who you're serving and following what's going to be most valuable for them. And then like the tool kind of comes after that to me. Like find the problem and then find how to solve that. Yeah. It's kinda like the last question there.
We talked about with spreading your wings a bit and then. getting smaller and being really good at that one thing. And for me personally, I mean, can't speak for anybody else, but there was a huge unlock when it came from spending time on Zapier and then getting introduced into Integra matter make and then trying out.
N eight N and trying it with para and just being like, oh, there's actually more that you can do in different ways. I had no idea about this. It's like the idea of joining data was really a big unlock in parabola. And with N eight N it was like, oh, if, if I don't wanna pay per operation or per zap then hmm.
Or steps or a tasks, it's uh, it's maybe I can do this unlimited with this open source software. So, okay, that's a cool unlock in these circumstances and. If Alice is looking like for that specific advice, it's consider going a little bit broad in the beginning, in the area that you wanna work on, and then narrow it down.
Just like you said to the tools you think will be the best, and you probably will be better off than just picking one from the beginning, just because someone told you and not because the tools good or bad. , it's because your breadth of knowledge will be deeper knowing what's possible outside of that tool, which doesn't pigeonhole you into certain situations.
So that, that's kind of how I would approach it. Yeah, there's kind of this like foundational level of knowledge where once you hear a problem, you know the tools and how to connect things to solve that problem, whether you have a deep understanding of them. So you kinda wanna get there cuz it's like, say you're working with a car dealership or something like that and they have to send reports to the phones of, you know, the people that are outselling cars twice a day.
Well, how do you send something over somebody's phone? Maybe it needs to be an image. Okay, maybe you look at image generation APIs or you have people. That need to do some really heavy number crunching and formatting. Well that's probably parabola. That's like does a really good job with the formatting of the data and that sort of thing.
Like once you know what's out there, then it's easier to, I guess, connect the dots and say, okay, I gotta go learn this or that more. So I would maybe caution against saying like, Man, I'm gonna become the best person at Airtable on the planet and like go a hundred percent on that because not everybody's gonna have a problem that needs solving with that tool.
There's an opposite way to look at this too, which is like the inverse solution. We always think about specific tools like Webflow or like Flutter Flow or like Glide. , but that's like the world we live in. It's not the world customers live in. You know what world customers live in that really crappy pos from their restaurant.
So true. That auto repair tool that sits as a desktop that they've had since 1994 and you can't get data out of it. Yep. Be an inverse expert. Somebody that can take that data and then turn it into something super useful. That might be a pretty cool way to be, a specific tool kind of expert. Cool. I love it.
Good question, Alice. That's all we got time for today. Thanks y'all for the questions that you keep chucking in to our inbox. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Bye bye. Bye.
And that's a wrap. Pat really stepped it up this time. Pat. Pat, you really come into your own in the last couple episodes. That Pat's really coming. I'm starting to like Pat.
Okay, everyone, mayor Davis will be joining us any minute. Let's look like we know what we're doing. Gary, stop close talking. Phil, and Tuck in your shirt. Who are you? I'm, uh, I'm Chad's. I heard he'd be coming by and wanted to have a quick work.
Wow, what a reception. Mayor Davis, my name is Kat Philmore. I'm the assistant to the mayor and chief of staff. Sounds like you've got your hands full. Chad Gil, if I can real quick, Gil, just real quick. First of all, congrats. Wow, mayor, but let me be the first to throw my hat into the ring for your cabinet.
My cabinet. I think I'm the perfect fit to be director of. But I'm the director of finance. You know, my skillset, I guess I hadn't thought about a A cabinet. Okay, here's the 62nd pitch. With live flow, I think you and I can really streamline the finances of automation Town live flow. Hey, does automation town use QuickBooks?
It does, actually. Okay, Gil. How's live flow gonna help automation town? You are the mayor now, that means stakeholders. So many stakeholders, people want to see different budgets, all these little cross sections of your financial information. And I'm not gonna give those people access to my QuickBooks file.
Exactly. So we'll use live flow to sync data from the QuickBooks file out to Google Sheets. Then you can share those Google sheets with various stake. You can sync out standard QuickBooks reports, even grab the cells from those reports, move them around and the data will keep syncing. So I can build custom spreadsheets for various stakeholders.
That's right. And they have a ton of templates that make getting started super easy. So if you have a ton of stakeholders to keep happy, yep. Live flows a great way to selectively share that data out. That's the key. Without giving them access to their QuickBooks or having to add them as an additional paid user, that's.
Super easy. All thanks to live flow. So do I have the job? I'm still here, Gil. Let me, let me get settled. I literally just walked in. Of course, of course. Appreciate you, Chad. You're the best.
Woo, whoa. Sorry about that. He's, he does that sometimes. Would you like to see your new office? Yeah. , that'd be kind of. The Capitol building is three stories all accessible from the elevator. You'll see down that hallway. Okay, your office is on the second level. We'll head up this flight of stairs. I'll give you an initial briefing of things to be aware of, and we can save further introductions until tomorrow
just through here. Wow, this looks great. From what I understand, this may be an upgrade from your current office. You could say that. What's this tradition in automation town? When one mayor replaces the other, they leave a note for their successor. A note from Jake.
Okay. Mr. Davis, your first mayoral briefing on today, the 11th of February, 2023. First order of business. You'll be sworn in tomorrow in a public ceremony at 11:00 AM in front of the capitol building. While you have officially taken office today, we use the inauguration ceremony as a public acknowledgement of that transition.
Mayor Mccr Bear Barry has informed us he will not be attending the. Huh? In the top drawer of your desk, you will find a card that grants you access to just about everything in town. I recommend you keep it on you at all times. On the back of the card is the number to call if your card is ever lost or stolen in the second drawer is your daily media packet.
A summary of local reporting to be aware of tomorrow. The Center for Little Automators is holding their annual pledge drive. This would be a good opportunity to get you in front. People of automationtown sounds great. Lawrence is retiring tomorrow. She worked for the Capitol Building for 53 years. A small reception will be held in the cafeteria at noon.
Talks are in progress with the teacher's union about renegotiating a plan for 2024. I will brief you on that further tomorrow. Public Works. Plans to go live with a fallback water treatment facility this week. Parks and Recreation has requested that week. Wait, wait, you said fallback water Treat. Yes, a redundancy to prevent the failure we had earlier this year, mayor Mc Kringle Barry, utilizing alternate pipeline from Manuel in the event of further issues with our water supply.
And when did you say that goes live? 48 hours from now. Okay. As I was saying, parks and recreation would like to discuss next year's budget as soon as you get settled. Will there be anything else for now, mayor? No, that'll be all for now. And Mayor Davis. Yeah, we're glad to have you. The last guy, we were worried about the impact he could have.
So am I
to Mayor Davis, the new big man on campus. Congratulations are an order. Here, here, here. Here's the hero of automation town, the local celebrity turn politician. It's the savior of automation town's ideals. I must admit it was a pleasant surprise to have the opportunity to sit where you sit now, to walk the halls.
You'll walk each day to understand how automation town works from the inside out. Goodbye for now, mayor. I see bright things in our Future.
Automation Town is written and produced by Chad Davis and Jason Staats edited by Paul O’Mara. Keep up with the characters of Automation Town on Twitter @automationtown.