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This week, we talk about how both patience and impatience are important when hiring, how to learn new things, and more.
Two founders talk about how to build software businesses that are meant to last. Each episode includes a deep dive into a different topic related to starting, growing, and sustaining a healthy business.
00:00.84
Rick
What's up this week Tyler
00:01.21
tylerking
Um, ah it's a short week for me I'm flying out to tell your eye in a couple days to go do some snowboarding. Yeah have you been to telluride? yeah.
00:07.60
Rick
Skiing and I mean no but I was just thinking like I haven't been on the slopes but one day and that was with you this year. It's terrible like having a kid changes your life.
00:14.25
tylerking
You you live in Utah you got to do it. oh oh right you have an excuse. Yes, forget about that. Um, yeah, so I've been reading this book the great Ceo within have you heard about slash reddit so I I found out about it because someone on Twitter was like.
00:26.69
Rick
I Don't even know about it. What is it.
00:34.21
tylerking
What what should a kind of new like a startup founder that's stepping into the role of kind of manager Ceo what but what 1 book should they read and a lot of people said this so I started listening to it on audible I'm not through it yet. So I'm not quite ready for it. But um, it's so funny because it's not well. let me let me tell a little story. Ah this is going to be. Such a tangent but you and I used to work for Paul Zane pillser he was our boss when we worked together and for people who aren't familiar with him. He's kind of one of these like eccentric serial entrepreneurs. That's he's writing books. He's giving doing public speak. He's doing all this stuff right? So when we worked for him 1 of my jobs. Was not ah, an official part of my job. Do you remember when he had me help him put out his the audio book for his book. The entrepreneurial challenge. Do you remember that he like hands me all these audio files and he's like we need to turn this into a book on tapers I I forget what exactly I was doing but as a result of it I listened to this whole like it's like a self-help.
01:16.94
Rick
Oh my gosh. Yes I do yes I do.
01:31.48
tylerking
Entrepreneurship book and your list did you listen to it or read it.
01:33.73
Rick
I did not ever listen to it. But I know I remember this this story? Yes, yes yeah.
01:37.29
tylerking
You know what? I'm about to say so you're listening to it. It's like I'm going to make this up because I don't remember but chapter ones like how to raise money for investors chapter 2 like how to manage people like all business stuff and then it's like chapter 7 don't drink milk and I'm like okay this is going to be some kind of metaphor for like. I don't know I'm I'm not like I can't guess what this is I listen to the chapter. It's literally just this dude doesn't like milk and he's like I think you'll be a better entrepreneur if you don't consume any dairy products that's like literally what this chapter is about ah so how does this connect to the great Ceo within I feel like it's.
02:06.53
Rick
Ah.
02:15.42
tylerking
Got a lot of good stuff in it and also it's got a lot of just random crap that the author likes to do like it's giving advice on how to sleep? well and like how he manages his task list and I can't decide if I like how specific it is or if I'm like this is not you have he he hasn't created a framework at All. He's just like. Brain dumping how he gets work done.
02:35.85
Rick
Interesting and are you Well I guess the question is are you listening to it and going. Oh that's a good idea. Are you going? That's weird.
02:42.87
tylerking
Um, a lot of the stuff that would be a good idea I've already learned So I think what I would recommend it for someone who very quickly needs to step into management and doesn't have time to learn it the right way. Um, but I think it's yeah.
02:48.29
Rick
And.
02:55.73
Rick
Through Jalan error. What's the right way.
03:00.93
tylerking
Well, it's just really, it's a really shallow book like the right way might be read 10 other books instead of this one. But if you just need like like the chapters are super super short if you just need kind of a very quick overview of the the key concepts I think it's probably good.
03:03.51
Rick
That I catch.
03:12.90
Rick
Yeah I just pulled it up on my Kindle I did buy it in 2020 but I never read it. do you ever? do that do you ever buy books. And yeah, it's like I bet I read like 5% of the books I buy. Yeah.
03:17.61
tylerking
Oh all the time. Yeah I should I should read more anyway. I'll keep working my way through it. But ah, it's a lukewarm recommendation right now I guess.
03:30.98
Rick
Yeah, so are there any takeaways though you could share today that were worthwhile.
03:37.32
tylerking
Um, you know I'm in such a bad position because again there are good ideas but they don't they don't like stand out to me as amazing insights because I feel like I already knew learned it all so like reading something else. But I don't know I think there's a lot of good stuff about It's not going to be helpful on a podcast just like moving fast and not getting distracted and like staying keeping the advantage of like a fastmoving startup rather than trying to turn into a like yeah like a lot of management books are kind of how to manage if you're ah mid-level manager at Procter and gamble. And this book is very much like here's how to avoid all those traps which I like.
04:11.46
Rick
Is it is the idea like once you get to like 15 people type book or is it more like what's the size a company Ceo he's writing to yeah.
04:19.27
tylerking
I think it'd be useful at 15 if you're growing fast. So again I'm at 20 right now but we grew so slow that I could look like I didn't need to learn all this at once. But if you're like just went and raised a bunch of money I think probably like 10 to 100 employees is probably about the right zone. Yeah sure.
04:32.26
Rick
Ah, cool, Interesting. Yeah, sleep's important. That's a good takeaway.
04:39.60
tylerking
Yeah, he he he like gets into like your stock portfolio should be 10 percent this 70% that and I'm like dude move on like this is not what people are reading this book for anyway. What's going on with you.
04:42.50
Rick
Now.
04:49.79
Rick
Ah, that's funny. Um I have a win to report JD added 2 new clients via the agent of record switch at Legup Health last week and that is a big deal because.
04:56.14
tylerking
Nice, Let's hear it.
05:06.73
Rick
First of all, we have this hypothesis that makes the business really sexy about how we can if we could identify all the people in Utah who buy health insurance on the marketplace and just say hey like make us your agent. Um, if we could convert them. That's a really interesting recurring revenue business because it's like signing a piece of paper. Basically.
05:19.77
tylerking
Oh. So are these people. Well first of all congrats that's awesome. Um, were these people he was doing like cold outreach. These people came from that. Yeah.
05:25.20
Rick
Um, and he did that twice last week.
05:32.30
Rick
1 came from cold outreach and 1 came from what was it ah networking he had done in q 4 when his with his network came from ah a referral from his network like brand awareness referral.
05:43.95
tylerking
Cool. That's great. Um, so yeah I mean so how many to hit the goals you have by the end of the year like is this a drop in the bucket is this like meaningful like if you could do this every week every month.
06:00.66
Rick
Too early to say but I mean he's in the low hundreds of reach outs to get to this one client which is I think is amazing like I think it's a little to get to 1 client without you know without iterating on this.
06:01.15
tylerking
How close would that be.
06:07.52
tylerking
Do do you view that as a lot or a little. Yeah.
06:19.66
Rick
Um, this is success sooner than I expected.
06:20.42
tylerking
Okay, cool. Yeah, because for for people who haven't iterated like you just said 2 2 things get better. 1 is you get or jd gets better at doing this and probably you can double or triple the the conversion rate and the other thing is all those other hundred people that didn't convert. They they know who you are now and like you'll never be able to attribute it to what Jd did or maybe you will but like you're kind of building brand awareness while you're getting these actual paying customers.
06:48.55
Rick
That transitions really nicely into my second. Um update which is we had a big learning this week around how important and understanding your ideal customer profile is related to outbound. Um I've never had a business. Had an outbound model that worked and I'm thinking that leg up health might actually work and there's ah, there's a characteristic that makes it possible and it's um, being able to ah create a highly targeted list of potential customers. Um, and then reach out to them and build ah like kind of like market research profiles for them that that assign like a percentage likeliness to convert if you if you like reach out to to them and like very systematic and predictable. Um, we can.
07:31.89
tylerking
We go? oh.
07:40.40
Rick
There are I don't know 3000000 people in Utah something like that I don't know the exact number but um, 200000 ish of them. Ah by a health insurance to the marketplace. It's not just that like it if it was going from 3000000 to 200000 like reaching out to 3000000 people is impossible. But because our ideal customer profile is someone who works for a small business or is a small business owner ah is self-employed a hairdresser like these these particular professions. Um that drive it on a consumer basis. It's not we could probably get a list of 500000 people. You know people that are like maybe it's ah maybe it's a million people we could cut like down that list and some a number of people in Utah that have a 20% likeliness or 50% likeliness to be um in our you know be a qualified ah you know, prospect.
08:30.78
tylerking
Yeah.
08:33.00
Rick
And then all you do is call those people and if you your goal is not as an initial outreach to convert them into a client or even get them the pitch. It's to learn whether or not they're an ideal customer profile so we have this ability to like narrow in on a contact a qualified contact list and then.
08:43.28
tylerking
So.
08:51.12
Rick
Have a success of outreach be profiling them and identifying who are ideal customer profiles at a very high rate and if we get that engine running which Jd's figuring out like he's getting like profiles are a win or worse something. Um, then. Our value proposition is pretty straightforward like and we will have some sort of close rate on pitching people on making us the agent. They just pour money into it.
09:11.78
tylerking
Yeah, right? So ah I'm not I'm not experienced with this sales stuff tell me if this terminology is right? So let's say this works There's kind of Jd's doing 2 jobs here. You'd hire an Sdr a sales development rep to to. Do the cold calling and qualify the leads and then once you say this person you know buys through the marketplace and whatever else then they'd hand that off to what's that other person called like a actual sales rep.
09:37.88
Rick
Yeah, so I mean in a traditional Saas company typically like inside sales is the term for the model you're describing where you have sort of this sales development or business development Representative who is like the lead developer but generally there's people are not profilers. They're calling to like pitch like.
09:52.15
tylerking
Oh.
09:56.80
Rick
They're the crappy spam emails you get where they're like let's set up a let me set up a call to discuss our products with you.
09:59.48
tylerking
Even at like a refine like at a company that's good at this. They're not. They're not qualifying. They're just like looking in the phone book and calling every number.
10:08.21
Rick
I'm sure that they are like they're the term for that is prospecting and they're probably prospecting based on what they think their icp is but there's a significant difference in their approach. Their goal is to book a meeting for the sales rep versus learn about the lead and do nothing else.
10:18.19
tylerking
Okay.
10:24.52
Rick
Um, and so like there's this the the loop that Jd is working on is what is the system we can build to like ingest a list of of potential ideal customer profiles with email addresses phone numbers that sort of thing and then research those people.
10:40.27
tylerking
M.
10:42.29
Rick
Through telemarketing email etc and and and categorize them based on what health insurance they currently have and then there's you get that loop figured out then there's this other loop which is we have a new qualified you know in Customer profile. What do we do with this is it So is it. Um, you know? do we reach out to that person and from a different person or the same person or a marketing message. Do We wait til you you know, open enrollment to do something. Um, do we figure out who they are from a cookie standpoint and you know try to digitally market to them.
11:08.00
tylerking
Or ah.
11:20.47
Rick
Ah, through like an email address lookup. That's the idea.
11:22.42
tylerking
Got you but that that list of these people seem qualified that list would be gold for you and and you could at some point put a dollar value or it's like every person we had to this list is worth $20 to the business or something.
11:32.46
Rick
Yes, yes, and if they like if they close if our goal was to acquire a customer for a hundred dollars and we had a 20% close rate like if you gave me a list of 10. We we believe that if you give us a list of 5 people in in Utah with individual health insurance. We can go get call 5 of them and get 1 of convince of 1 of them to make us the agent today. Okay so that's a 20% close rate which means yeah $20 per lead ah costs a hundred dollars that we convert you know, ah 20% of them. So.
11:51.91
tylerking
Oh.
12:02.22
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
12:05.93
Rick
Ah, yes, that is the idea. Um, but the the key learning here is like I always tried to make outbound work without getting super granular and clear about Icp. Um, you have to be able to like create ah in order to do this like the qualified contact list to icp profile rate has to be Predictable. And I never like connected the dot on that where at people keep what I was trying to do is like I'll just buy like buy list of small businesses reach out to them and just like oh hopefully they' they're a good customer for you know a qualified customer for same benefits but there was no like the the likeliness that a business that was a certain size. Would be an ideal customer profile for people keep it was like ah such a low conversion rate that outbound wouldn't have worked because we couldn't get specific enough about the customer profile from a list building standpoint to have ah a high enough rate of but where profiling made a difference.
12:58.10
tylerking
That makes sense and I think for some businesses like maybe this is a cop out I don't think less annoying serum ever could get there because there's not like like like you have this amazing thing of are you do you have an individual health insurance plan through the marketplace. That's such a great trigger whereas. A lot of Businesses. Don't have such a clear thing that qualifies versus disqualfies someone here.
13:20.83
Rick
I would I would say yes they do and what you're saying is true because it's it's It's not based on their profile. It's based on whether they have a crm currently and are looking for a new crm. There's these. There's a buy event. Yes.
13:31.82
tylerking
Sure Yeah, it's a temporary piece of information about them whereas you have something. Yeah I get I get that Health insurance changes over time but it's more permanent than like are you currently buying a crm.
13:42.24
Rick
If you the similar version of this would be for you is like oh they buying a herem that's great I can get them to switch their crm to me. No, that's actually really hard and if they don't have ah you know in reality it's probably better for you to find someone who doesn't have a Crm which is like Zane benefits approach and then it's like okay well.
13:49.85
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:01.36
Rick
What's the likeliness that this list of any list of people people have no crm and the the conversion rates get really low because it's like situational and like it's a trigger that makes them go on the journey to buy a new Crm which isn't profiable whereas like do you have health insurance is profilable like very very much. Um.
14:11.12
tylerking
Um.
14:17.22
tylerking
Um, yeah, that's awesome.
14:21.24
Rick
Anyway, Um, so I am now like if this works The business gets really exciting and I'm now realizing that I don't know that I want to be in another like being in a business like this is super like it. It triggers my greed Gland because it's like so controllable.
14:37.85
tylerking
Yeah.
14:40.52
Rick
And I've never had anything like this and I just it feels I don't I'm I'm almost thinking this is too good to be true.
14:45.92
tylerking
And yeah, unfortunately it probably is just in the sense that like life rarely has these opportunities that like if you believe in an efficient market. You'd be like well surely someone would have taken advantage of this but not always every once in a while someone does stumble upon like a great opportunity where it's just like.
14:59.61
Rick
Um, me.
15:05.44
tylerking
Wow, There's easy money here. So fingers crossed That's true for you but also like for your own mental health I'd probably assume it's not true until it is yeah yeah, cool. Um I got a lot of stuff going on on the design front.
15:12.80
Rick
Yeah, exactly no expectations. What's up with you.
15:23.62
tylerking
It's you know we our last episode was two and a half weeks ago and a lot can happen in that amount of time. So the first thing I had to say was man I'm I'm feeling a lot of imposter syndrome with design which is partially true but also partially already been solved. So maybe I'll just go through that little roller coast emotional roller coaster. Um. So yeah, as a reminder I'm trying to get better at design. It's partially I want to learn and it's partially I am actually redesigning lessening serum. So. It's like a little practical and a little theoretical so one of the ways I'm learning is I'm taking this course called shift nudge which is like an online design course and they have homework assignments and it's not like.
15:48.45
Rick
E.
15:59.80
tylerking
Lie like I don't know my classmates or whatever but they the instructor has posted like previous classes turned in their homeworks and he's like does little loom videos analyzing them. So I did the homework and I didn't feel great about it I knew like this isn't great, but I'm almost like well this is like. one day's homework like of course I'm not spending a ton of time on this and then I go watch these videos and everyone else is like way way way better than mine and I'm like oh shit like I don't do I have what it takes to do this so I was feeling pretty deflated um for a while. Ah. At that point I basically just had to. So do you know Um ira glass. Maybe I mentioned this in our um, end a year Recap Ira Glass has kind of a little spiel about why learning stuff is so hard. Did we talk about this. He basically says like if you are.
16:48.21
Rick
Um I don't think so.
16:53.84
tylerking
Getting into something it could be cooking. It could be art of some sort. It could be design or programming it kind of means probably you have good taste like you're probably already a consumer of that thing and you already care about it and so you can tell what good is. And the thing that makes it so hard to learn stuff. Is you know it's bad but as opposed to someone else who's like doesn't have any design sense at all and they'd be like well I'm perfectly happy with what I designed even though it sucks. Um, normally if you have the drive to learn something. You can tell it's bad and that's really demoralizing and so he has this. It's it's like a. Sixty second clip but it's like he's just like there's only one solution to this and it's just putting the hours in. Yeah, um, so I kind of revisited that and and tried to remind myself that um and and then yeah like the just that design feels kind of innate but it's not.
17:31.63
Rick
Practice. Yeah.
17:46.00
tylerking
Like there are some skills that like you know you can learn like like I got into cocktails over the pandemic I look at a recipe. It tells me what ingredients to mix together I shake the thing I have a cocktail like obviously you can learn that skill design felt a little more innate to me. But. All the design instructors are just like no you you learn it. So I'm trying to power through. Yeah, right? Yeah so I actually have been but well sorry, go ahead? Yeah so um.
18:07.58
Rick
Yeah I mean I I agree so power 3 man like keep putting in the wraps like I want to see I want to see two fifty on the bench press by the end of the year um yeah yeah, so what you been doing.
18:23.76
tylerking
That little crisis was maybe like right after we recorded our last episode so I've had a couple weeks since then and I spent a lot of time on design. First of all, just like lots of little things like I I've done a little of shift nudge I watched some Youtube videos figma is the design tool that I and most people use. And they put out a ton of great Youtube videos about how to use Figma and not only do I learn the tools but I learned I oh look at how they they really aren't using as many different font sizes as I expected in this you know that type of thing um listening to podcasts following more people on Twitter so I just got like a lot of. Input coming in from all directions right now and I feel like I learned just a huge amount in the last two weeks ah specifically about how to use Figma. Which yeah.
19:08.52
Rick
And I feel like the similarity here for me is I was thinking about when I was learning trying to learn how to code and going through webflow was super helpful, especially when I was looking at other people's websites I looked at yours a lot. Um, it really helped me with my design to see like how other people were approaching.
19:17.29
tylerking
Ah.
19:26.80
Rick
Certain pages and like what detailed decisions they were making around ah headings heading styling that kind of thing is that the kind of stuff you're talking about.
19:33.17
tylerking
Yeah, yes, exactly so I actually I kind of wrote a list of takeaways that I got from this and one of the actually 2 of them are kind of included in what you just said. But I'll run through these um, the first one is like build a list of resources by following links. And what I mean by that is like I fall so I've I've got another update which is this designer I mentioned this designer is making fun of our product on a podcast and we ended up hiring him. He's done with that project. But so I followed him on Twitter and then like he posts something and a bunch of people reply to him and then I look in the replies and I'm like these are all designers and now I can follow some of them.
19:59.23
Rick
This guy.
20:12.40
tylerking
And they're linking off to Youtube videos and now I can go to that and then I can subscribe to that Youtube videos page and like I'm sort of slowly building this web of resources and I have this for programming and I have this for entrepreneurship I just never had it for design which is one of the reasons why I think I felt a little like isolated design wise so that's 1 thing. To what you just said observe the pros like taking a course is 1 thing but just watching a professional at work. It's you see all these little keyboard shortcuts they're using and all these little tricks and stuff like that it. It's just such a good learning experience. 3 and feel free to stop me at any point if you want to comment on any of this. Ah 3 is like just a reminder to myself. How important the tools are if you're learning to code don't just like open up whatever text editor someone recommends and start typing you spend like a week being like I'm going to get really good with vs code or sublime or whatever. It's worth the time. Um, and in this case it was learning figma I I know just so much I haven't learned this much in a long long time and specifically what I learned about is how to use Figma. Um, and then my final thing here specific to design is just copy good work like every time I got stuck.
21:22.60
Rick
Clear.
21:24.79
tylerking
I Would just go exactly what you just said I'd go look at a really good website and I'd be like I'm just going to make my buttons look exactly like theirs and it's not I'm not good yet but it it really helps get you out of like writer's block.
21:33.73
Rick
Yeah, imitate imitating when you're like ah paralyzed is such a like such a good hack whenever you feel stuck just like look at what someone you respect is doing and just like mimic and you and know.
21:48.22
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
21:53.60
Rick
As soon as you start doing it. You'll go Oh that's why they're doing this. Oh and you have all these like takeaways. Um.
21:54.40
tylerking
Um, this probably works in all fields right? Like if you're a marketer and you're stuck do some research on what your competitors are doing and you'll probably get a bunch of ideas from it.
22:03.87
Rick
Oh totally, um in ah in wrestling this was ah a concept. A lot is like Rat wrestlers when you're training and practicing You do a lot of video watching because what you feel your body doing in a lot of cases. It's very technical wrestling videos of yourself. Um.
22:18.60
tylerking
Yeah, like videos of yourself.
22:23.62
Rick
And and but but like also videos of other people teaching moves and that sort of thing. Um but all wrestling starts with just mimicking what a coach is showing you um and then you just start realizing the nuances of the motion. Um and breaking it down into smaller motions and anyway it's making me think like yes like.
22:31.38
tylerking
Oh.
22:42.85
Rick
Everything starts with like basically copying something someone else and then adding your own customer understanding. What's actually happening underneath the hood and then customizing that copy. Oh totally, That's a great example. Yeah.
22:46.70
tylerking
Ah.
22:54.57
tylerking
Yeah I know a lot of people learned to draw by tracing first. Yeah um I can't either yeah one day and then yeah I know I've been doing a lot of talking but Ill I'll wrap this up by just saying so.
23:02.54
Rick
Ah I had done that because maybe maybe I could draw I skied to drawing it is that had worked out for me. Yeah.
23:14.53
tylerking
Thing so Brian Lovin is that designer I was talking about and he offers a service called a crit which is short for critique I think that's what it means which is just $5000 really small project like he he's not like redesigning our site for us. He just I gave him some specific things I wanted help with and he kind of came up with a couple new designs. Um. And so that's done. There's actually ah a he if you look him up on Twitter brian Lovin he kind of published a Youtube video walking through the whole thing but it is. It's a great business for him because he gets paid and gets content to grow his audience with but ah.
23:44.23
Rick
Tyler gets a discount for mentioning Brian.
23:49.74
Rick
Now.
23:53.15
tylerking
It was valuable I Really like the designs he came up with I'm I'm going to change some things because like with such a small project. He didn't have time to really understand all the context but to be honest, the most valuable thing is at the end of it. He sent me his figma file and I looked at it was just my mind was blown I was just like. This is how a professional uses this tool. Um, and so what I'm doing right now is going through and just trying to like I'm taking my old design and doing it using the weird advanced power Features. He used to make his design just to like again, it's like tracing basically um and man it's. It's it's like mind blowing I've been using this tool for years and I thought I was pretty good at it and I didn't I had not even scratched the surface. So I'm feeling pretty excited.
24:33.71
Rick
Are you going to do more creditts with him or do you think that's that's something that is a 1 one off thing.
24:42.33
tylerking
It's a good question I I could see myself doing more but not like what I would want is to kind of accumulate design debt like I think I got what I needed out of this I can go take this and do this redesign but I could see like if he's still doing this two years from now. Like okay we have new features things have changed and like the design slowly got less polished and now let's do it do it again I could see that happening. So yeah, so anyway I'm feeling really like I still feel the imposter syndrome. But i.
25:03.38
Rick
Um, cool. That's interesting.
25:14.86
tylerking
Really really believe I can I can get out of this and like like if I just keep doing the work I think I'm going to accomplish my goal of becoming a good designer this year
25:21.43
Rick
Ah, you're well on your way man, you're beaten my ah all my personal goals that's for sure.
25:27.50
tylerking
Ah, speaking of which what's get what's your next update here.
25:30.35
Rick
Um, well I'll kind of keep it on the personal front and talk about ah a goal So last week I tried working out in the morning that didn't work. Um for lots of different reasons. So I'm gonna stick with working out in the evenings and just try to be better at at doing it. So this might try this I'm just doing a try a week.
25:50.90
tylerking
Ah.
25:50.19
Rick
Related to personal development my my overarching goal here for those of you who didn't miss on the recap episode is that I want to get back to like basic daily habits of reading writing sleeping working out eating better like I lost a lot of those I went through a lot of life changes last year from having a kid to ah you know. New job. Um, bringing on a first team member with my company anyway, it's a lot of change when I get back to the basics. So um, Mike try it. This week is try I'm going to try to make Sunday a no workday. So for the past six months I've had my meet my weekly meeting with j d on a Sunday um, and I've also been sending out my newsletter on a sunday. Um, I also do a lot of like ah like catch up work on Sundays like clearing my inbox personal finance stuff and I'm just going to like get move that across the week and move it out of sunday.
26:36.98
tylerking
So even like personal because I wouldn't thought personal finance would be considered work. You're you're saying like no work in kind of like this is the sabbath like yeah.
26:42.80
Rick
No commitment, no commitment Sunday yeah no, no, ah no responsibility Sunday except for you know watching a kid. Yeah, we'll see if it works. Um, so Jd and are going to move our meeting um to a different time and day.
26:51.32
tylerking
That sounds that sounds great. Yeah.
27:02.98
Rick
I'm going to try to get my newsletter drafted and scheduled by end of day Saturday hopefully before then but anyway um I think it'll help and we'll see if it how it goes this week
27:13.66
tylerking
Yeah, well good luck I I've known you when you're really stressed out and I've known you when you're calm and calm Rick is ah not just more pleasant but like I feel like a lot more effective. So if you can give yourself a day to unwind once a week I feel like it'll. It will be worth it. Even if the other days are harder as a result, um, cool. So back to me I guess huh ah yeah, bing pong. Um, yeah, so we're doing a lot of recruiting right now I don't know what I have oh no I do have something to say about this. So.
27:34.00
Rick
I Hope so too.
27:42.27
Rick
I'll ping pong it back.
27:50.91
tylerking
Recruiting for 3 positions but the most important one like 2 of them are kind of internships and that matters. But it's also like you know it's not the end of the world if you don't do it perfectly. But ah we have 2 full time positions to see arm coaches. We're hiing right now. Ah and I kind of realized last week or ah, yeah, last week that just it was taken too long and this happens periodically where I'm like you know in the early days of the company just we would have been pressing on this. We would have been. You know the moment we have a decision like are you moving on or not we would have emailed the person and just the whole cycle would have moved a lot faster and just as more people get involved and there's more process behind stuff. It's really easy to lose that sense of urgency. Um, so I just had to kind of like hit the reset button with the team and be like. We need to like really really speed this process up. Basically.
28:41.93
Rick
In what's going not going fast. Is it not getting enough applicants or not moving applicants to the process fast enough or is it just an overall lack of urgency to fill a position.
28:47.20
tylerking
Yeah, ah, it's not so I should I should say what's the reason why it's a problem that it's not moving quickly. It's not that we have to fill the position quickly. It's that I think we're going to lose where we risk losing the best talent if we don't move quickly because.
29:02.90
Rick
Yes, one of my biggest takeaways like I've I've read a lot of books on talent acquisition and did a lot of studying over the last six months all the experts like what would I if I if I were going to coach at another company on talent acquisition I would say listen you have to be super patient about identifying the right talent like.
29:05.62
tylerking
They're applying for other jobs right.
29:22.63
Rick
And go through lots and lots of profiles. But the minute you find the right profile you got to go fast as hell and there's just like like there's this patience on the front end and then the speed on the backend. Um, once you qualify Um, that's a very different like it's very confusing to people. Um, and anyway.
29:26.14
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:39.52
tylerking
I You said that in your newsletter this week and I loved the way it was framed. Yeah, you pay patients on one end and impatience on the other. Um, yeah, it's really hard with recruiting be like I think the same concept sort of applies with like product For example, like we're gonna.
29:41.61
Rick
Yes.
29:58.36
tylerking
Brainstorm and give ourselves time to figure out what to do. But as soon as you figure out what to do? Let's go do it. That's easy. The hard thing about recruiting if you're a big company or like we have a hundred openings if you find the right person just move them through but we if we if you have 1 opening or 2 openings and you've got 5 good candidates. How do you move 1 person through fast if the other people's timeline isn't that fast.
30:20.60
Rick
So ah, good question. It seems like it depends the way I would do this in a situation is I would have extremely high like initial qualification criteria that like weeds out.
30:33.43
tylerking
O.
30:37.64
Rick
99% of candidates based on some really like strong rubric and interviewing upfront and that's probably I don't know who can do that interview at your company but you're probably 1 of the few people who can actually do that interview. Um, you could probably train someone to do that interview. Um, and but but they're going to be doing a lot of those. Um. And you don't let many people buy that interview and then I'm wondering how many of those 5 candidates would make it through that that extreme interview.
31:02.84
tylerking
I think we actually this is not normally true when we hire. But this time we have at least 5 like after the first round of interviewing we're like these look like as good of anyone we've ever interviewed. Ah so we've got a really good pool and like another hard thing is like so you.
31:06.97
Rick
Um, in.
31:21.00
tylerking
You move someone through quickly. They're good enough. You give them the offer. What do you say to the other for like oh we're not even going to let you interview you know.
31:25.90
Rick
Well why can't you move them all 5 through to the next process and then go fast with all 5 until you get to the last stage and then you make a decision.
31:29.82
tylerking
Um, we I mean you can try but like people have different schedules and like some people are doing it remotely and some are doing it in person and the remote people can move faster. Honestly, the hardest thing but my biggest takeaways we should ah shut off applications sooner. Because we kept the applications open and then we're like okay so we've got all these first round interviews. This is the thing that I got most frustrated about is I was like that someone interviewed at the very beginning twenty days later we had not gotten back to them and I was like this. that's that's unacceptable um especially because.
31:58.26
Rick
Oh gosh.
32:05.90
tylerking
They they killed it. They did great and it's like we could at least tell them they're moving on right? They were just sitting sitting in limbo. So there's a lot of like easy stuff to do but I still think there's a fundamentally hard challenge of like the last person applied a month after the first person and it's hard to that like. It's hard to give everyone a fast process when that happens.
32:24.44
Rick
Well yeah I mean it seems like you could be at an offer right now for the first person and be happy with it and be done with this so it seems like you need to go fast with all of them and you're not going fast enough.
32:30.39
tylerking
Yeah, it's hard to know, but but so to do that you then have to you have to cut off applications and then it's like well if we get to the final round and we're not as excited about that first person did we just shoot her I don't know maybe this maybe I just need to get out of my head for this. It seems unprofessional to me.
32:41.87
Rick
Why do you have to cut off applications.
32:50.80
tylerking
To give someone a first. It's to start someone in the process and then to reject them just because we hired someone else like we're not even going to give you a chance. Yeah.
32:55.87
Rick
That's I don't think that's unprofessional at all I think that's just like the how it works. Um, like I mean I mean I think that person would like to have an opportunity versus not having up an opportunity at all like like I mean if you're if you're like.
33:07.00
tylerking
Sure, Well yeah, but yeah I mean you can waste. People's time that way. But yeah.
33:13.61
Rick
I think there's a big difference from like hey we're going to make an offer to someone this week. Let's hold off on scheduling your initial round until they say yes or no like that's 1 thing versus like hey we haven't decided to hire any of these people yet or any individual we haven't made an offer. Um, here's where we are in the hiring process. You're coming in late. Do you want to continue.
33:28.58
tylerking
Yeah, telling them they came in late I think is the key here I will say I can do this right now because we've hired a number of this role before and we're calibrated I think it would be hard to do this when you're you know this is your first pire. You're probably not calibrated enough to do this.
33:44.58
Rick
Yes, yeah, and that's that's the hard part about I think moving fast with people is you you really good. Not even good. It's not about good or bad people who are are comfortable moving fast with hiring have such built up Pattern recognition from hiring enough people and interviewing enough people.
33:47.60
tylerking
Yeah.
34:04.39
Rick
You you? you're able to build out this confidence. That's really really hard to teach. It's a gut feeling based on like lots of like signals that you're getting based um, based on ah interactions with someone and it's hard to like teach someone that without them having the reps.
34:06.31
tylerking
Yeah.
34:17.92
tylerking
Okay, so my takeaways from this conversation are number 1 communicate to candidates that they're coming in late so that we don't feel any kind of pressure to them that would take a lot of pressure off us and number 2 in the same way that. Like when you're dating. You can't be like well I don't this person's great, but what if a supermodel is in my future otherwise or whatever you just you can't wait for like like you have to be if someone's good enough. You have to be willing to commit. Yeah.
34:45.55
Rick
Yeah, and I say if you're not willing to commit then they're not good enough like get them out of your pipeline say. No so that's where it goes like raise the bar a little bit more like if you're if you have people in finals that like you're like I wouldn't kind of see the next person.
34:52.40
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:02.13
Rick
That's probably worth being more patient on and they probably shouldn't have gotten through as far as they did but you probably you just like you have yeah.
35:04.69
tylerking
Yeah, and that's not our our problem is not that we're moving people forward that don't deserve it. It's that we have more great people than jobs I'm I'm really jealous of big companies when they're like we can like every good engineer that comes to us we can hire you know.
35:12.51
Rick
Yeah I mean that's a great. Yeah, that's I mean that's your that's amazing like you're in a really envious situation like it's a lot of people to fill a role right now with the Market. You know the way it is from a town acquisition standpoint is really difficult for a lot of growing companies.
35:32.70
tylerking
Yeah, ah this is not an engineering role I think the next time we need to do that. We're gonna we're going to have a tough time I don't think we're set up for that right now. But.
35:41.63
Rick
Yeah, the only thing I would say about your first takeaway which was like tell people they're coming in late is what I'll typically say in that situation as I'll say you're coming in late I'm happy to accelerate the process for you. But you're going to have to like move through this as we can go as fast as you want to go and so I give them the opportunity to.
35:52.41
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
36:00.19
Rick
Like okay, we're going to have our first run out if you pass this, you would have another call tomorrow or Wednesday um, if it's you know if it's Monday so um.
36:01.76
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Well ah sorry to keep belaboing this but that actually reminds you one of the I think mistakes we made is interviewing takes a tremendous amount of time to do it well ah and you know it's like 2 people on our end for even. An hour each. But if we're interviewing 20 or 30 people. That's you know, multiple? That's 2 people's full time time. That's two weeks of full time work right? There? Um, one of the problems is we we are trying too hard to like fit it into our schedule without disrupting our schedule and this' is another thing I said when I kind of got impatient is I was like. We can't do our normal customer service this week we're doing interviews like figure out how to turn the knob down because yeah, like that was one of the reasons we weren't moving fast enough was trying to do other work and and we just have to prioritize.
36:50.25
Rick
Yeah I've seen that so many times recently where ah, an individual you know is a hiring manager for a position but they don't want to allocate. They don't want to say no to other things and so the role doesn't get filled like you can't it takes a lot of time to hire for a role, especially you don't have help like.
37:00.48
tylerking
Oh. Yeah, and that's yeah and that's your most important like if I'm a there are very few situations in business where if you're hiring someone anything you're doing is more important than that.
37:09.21
Rick
Um, if you're if you anyway. Yes.
37:22.46
Rick
It's yeah I mean it's there's nuances. But yeah I mean people when you're a people manager getting the right people on the bus is the most important thing you guys a good stuff I Love So um I'm I mentioned Also when my personal goals is to draft ah some of.
37:23.17
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah, all right? Well thanks for talking through that with me I think I got some good ah good takeaways there. Yeah.
37:40.25
Rick
Some writing on my learnings with town acquisition I have a lot and I think that like 1 thing that should exist is like a 40 to 50 page like guide to town acquisition. Um, for anyone to read that can like there's so much bloated content high noise low signal hiring content out there.
37:56.19
tylerking
Um.
37:58.25
Rick
If there was just like a really solid forty fifty pages here's how you like think about hiring holistically and then here's how you interview I think it would go a long way to helping people be more confident anyway, I yeah that's it' on my list this year on my list.
38:06.54
tylerking
Put a course together. Not anytime soon because you're busy, but one day because I actually think a book is not right for this personally because I'd want to see video examples and I think like a more multimedia type of approach would work better for this.
38:21.15
Rick
You can be in my first cohort um back to me Jade so ja d and I were we have a ah an annual goal this year of getting to 400 clients which is the driving goal and that's 10 x where we finished last year puts us at about 20225
38:24.94
tylerking
Yeah, there we go.
38:40.95
Rick
50000 in errorrr, we we're talking um this past Sunday and we've been discussing this for a while like should we have a short-term goal um like around what Jd is doing now and we ended up setting settling on rather than setting metrics as goals. We ended up settling on um, desire like desired learnings. So I don't know if you've ever done this but like the goal is to learn a few things versus like hit metrics and so what? what we're currently operating I thought I'd share this just so I think it's you know I'd like you to kind of hold me accountable to this learn these learnings over the next few weeks um
39:05.71
tylerking
And.
39:20.29
Rick
But I think it's interesting just because I felt pressure to put metric go in place and then once I realized like that like this is actually more useful, um and valuable to the business and a Jd that we just settled it on this? Yeah yeah, go for it.
39:32.29
tylerking
Can I before we dive into them can I give an argument for metrics as the goal. It's not like I generally don't like metrics goal. But if you have a long-term metrics goal I do think it's helpful to have short-term ones so you can tell if you're not on course because it sucks to have like a 1 year goal and two months in you're like well we're already off track and so that one year goal is completely blown and it's it's serving absolutely no purpose for the next ten months
39:57.17
Rick
I think you're right and we went through we had that we went through that exact same conversation. But we realized like if we have the learnings related to these questions then we will feel much more like we will feel confident about hitting our 400 number and so it was like we full. We'll feel on track. Um.
40:11.72
tylerking
Okay, okay.
40:16.93
Rick
Regardless of how many clients we actually have at that point in time. So this is to for April thirtieth 2022 and we listed out the following questions. The first question is how many consumers do we need to reach out to or we call them contacting them to generate an aor opportunity what and then within that. What do we need to say to that.
40:30.63
tylerking
Great.
40:34.97
Rick
Person Once we like generate the opportunity to make them like want to hear more like.
40:38.35
tylerking
Okay, so there's like the qualification or you have different language but the the initial outreach or some way of collecting information about them. How many of those do we need to get and then once you have that name. How do we reach out to them so that they're willing to like receive our sales pitch.
40:54.30
Rick
Yes, exactly So how do we profile them and then how do we pitch them? Um, second is how many business people startup founders ah owners. Ah, do we need to talk to to generate an employer opportunity.
40:57.14
tylerking
Okay.
41:11.27
Rick
And this could either be a leg up health employer partnership which is free just refer your employees or a leg up benefits subscription which is a $20 per per employee per month per benefit eligible employee per month. Um, yeah.
41:21.38
tylerking
Do you have to can I pause you a quick. Do you have any in your long like long term metrics based goal any guesses as to like what the breakdown between these two is or just however, the money comes is great.
41:32.80
Rick
I don't know we haven't done any we haven't done enough pitching here I got we got we have two leg up benefits customers and really no official leg up employer leg up health employer partnerships. But my guess is. I don't know I feel like ah I don't have any data to say actually I want to learn that um I'm curious like we haven't really targeted businesses in the history of leg up health with a value proposition if we reach out to 100 business owners this year this you know over the next thirty days I got to believe like 10 of them are going to be interested in. Doing something if they don't offer benefits and half of and maybe like half are willing to like pay and half aren't I don't know um and then third is what can we expect in terms of number of new clients from the Utah Association partnership sponsorship strategy in 22 um, this is related to like we're investing in. Um.
42:12.48
tylerking
Yeah, okay.
42:27.40
Rick
Ah, becoming members and sponsors of Utah associations and like what is that leading to let's get to a place where we can say like yeah we think we can get 10 clients 10 clients per organization. We join or something like that if the goal is to be able to answer this question confidently. And then the the fourth is can we get someone to sign an aor online through an onboarding flow without talking to them.
42:49.65
tylerking
How are you gonna evaluate that one. That's it like these other ones. It's like you call people up and talk to them. How do you do this one.
42:55.35
Rick
Um, so we've already had 1 go this way. Um, so the ah the idea would be we we profile people and then um, there's 2 2 pieces people find us online through various. Ah.
42:59.58
tylerking
Yeah.
43:14.89
Rick
Channels right now one is through Google searches another is through word ofmout and they're doing right now we have online signup turned off and so we're going to turn back on the online signups and let that that flow go and ah you know the question is like do people go through the whole flow without talking to us. So driving signups is the is the without through email marketing and through our existing inbound flow is the question there.
43:43.60
tylerking
Interesting I'd I'd be interested in a like a sub question there of like what's the highest in the funnel for our last conversation to be like do you need to talk to them the whole way down the funnel or can you just Like. Do the qualifying call and then be like here's the link. Go sign up. Yeah.
43:59.73
Rick
That that happened with one so the one that was outbound. It was a one call um and then send the link to sign up and he went the the new client went through the entire process without ah, any more conversation. Yeah, so anyway.
44:12.91
tylerking
Great cool I like it.
44:16.86
Rick
Those are the questions that we're focused on and we're not going to like worry about any metrics. Um, like we track we track how many clients we have we track like ja's tracking his calls and like he's tracking activity and reporting on it. But like if we can sit down on April thirtieth and have some good answers to like 3 out of 4 of these 3 or 4 of these questions.
44:34.31
tylerking
I mean you can't answer these questions without putting in a lot of work that that's what I like about these questions there there'd be different ones like 1 of the questions is what's our new logo going to look like and it's like okay sure spend some time on the logo but these you you have to sell.
44:35.30
Rick
Um, be really happy.
44:43.70
Rick
Um.
44:51.51
tylerking
In order to answer these questions that. Yeah yeah I think it's great I I have a I don't want to like move on from what you're saying but can I give a little like tangent which is I think I have this written down somewhere um have you noticed like.
44:53.27
Rick
Yep yep, and so anyway, Ah, what do you think about that I guess just in general approach. E.
45:09.89
tylerking
More and more I feel like the pendulum is swinging away from output towards input as being the thing that people want to measure. Um like I think it probably swings back and forth over time where a while ago. It was more like you know measure the value you offer and you know measure the outcome of the work you put in which is great because that's what matters. But I think more and more I see people on Twitter and on podcast giving the advice of like you can't control whether your sales calls will work or whether this Google ad campaign will work but you can't control the work you put in and if you take enough shots on goal eventually, you'll find something that works I'm hearing more and more input-driven stuff which it sounds like is what you're doing here.
45:44.77
Rick
Yeah, exactly a hundred percent
45:48.70
tylerking
Yeah, so I like it I think it'll It's a great north star for you to stay focused on and I like that it's not just theoretical. The only way to answer it is to get your hands dirty.
45:57.59
Rick
Yeah, and I mean I think it'll be interesting I I really do want you to hold me accountable on this podcast like if I come in in the first podcast in April and I don't have any answers to this question I think JDJD and I are going to have to have good reasons for that. My last.
46:09.64
tylerking
Yeah, yeah for sure, Cool great anything else.
46:15.58
Rick
My last update and then I'll turn it over to you for the rest of of your items. Um I have taken on. Ah this is exciting I'm taking on additional responsibilities at windfall and so I'm really going to get stretch for the next three to four weeks um and ah. I'm like excited about it I haven't been this stretched in a long times like since like people keep days I love the rush I love the like you know, excitement. Um, but I'm ah you know I'm kind of nervous about it at the same time. So um, you know part of the Sunday hopefully my Sunday ah.
46:36.17
tylerking
Ah.
46:48.70
Rick
Try will help and I'll get through it and it'll be good in thirty days but I'm a little nervous about it. There is a significant push related to it that will take 3 to four weeks and then I will get better.
46:52.56
tylerking
Will it actually end in thirty days
47:01.94
tylerking
Okay, because that that would be like as an outside observer Mike might the thing I would suggest you look at you you pay attention to is when you're at people keep you had these same pushes that would have been fine except it went on for like 5 years
47:19.21
Rick
East.
47:21.46
tylerking
And that kind of destroys you sort of um if it actually ends in a month I've got no no doubt that that'll be fine. Yeah.
47:27.00
Rick
I Think so well yeah, yes I think that's a good point like these things these pushes are okay as long as you have recovery time. Um, and it's not like a regular thing. Um, yes yeah.
47:36.71
tylerking
Yeah, this was part of the reason you at least in your conversations with me took it when when we were talking before like in the last run of the podcast. You asked me if or and maybe this was offline. You asked me but you asked me if I thought you should do it and I was like yeah you you love that you love being stretched. So.
47:51.64
Rick
Um, yeah, so yeah and I'm going to learn a lot about myself too through this. So anyway, hopefully it won't affect this podcast. But ah, you know, just a heads up.
47:56.64
tylerking
Yeah.
48:02.45
tylerking
Yeah, cool, um all right I got a shout out here. Are you familiar with the Brand Elgato I Think that's how you pronounce it.
48:13.82
Rick
It's so funny I saw this on the list and I did not pronounce it that way in my head at all I don't I don't think I tried it I think I just skipped it and said Stream deck.
48:16.00
tylerking
How do you pronounce it. It's just a word. Yeah, so it's a company that makes equipment primarily for like Twitch streamers and people like that which I am not to be clear. But I love like gadgets and I I kind of feel like in my adult life. 1 of the ways in which I've gotten boring is I've stopped enjoying toys and I don't mean like g I Joe but like buying a thing I don't want to become too materialistic but like buying a thing that I just am excited to tinker with and play with and they have so much cool stuff. Um, so I just got a new little light for my. Ah. Lighting my face I don't actually have it on here here. We go boom now my face is lit up this is gonna yeah yeah, so the stream deck is a thing with a bunch of buttons on it and you can program the buttons to do whatever you want? Um, so like 1 of the buttons I have to turn on my light and.
48:55.92
Rick
Um, oh Wow is this like a little deck like a little console that you're pushing.
49:12.22
tylerking
Another one like when I'm done with the podcast. You could just use browser bookmarks except a lot of the tools I use aren't web based so I just like have like boom boom boom I hit like 3 or 4 buttons and it opens up all my podcast editing it opens up transistor. It opens up audacity so you can program it to do whatever you want. I'm not It's for like streamers again where it's like you're playing a video game and ah ah someone donates to your Twitch stream and you want to like thank them in chat. But you don't have time so you just push a button and it thinks them in chat like I'm not using it the way it's meant to um, but my favorite thing is I got a new mike stand.
49:40.42
Rick
Um, my gosh. Ah oh.
49:49.29
tylerking
From them. It's a low profile mic stand so it doesn't stick up like most it's just like really low along your desk. Um and I just like push it back when I'm not using it. So it's right under my monitor and when I am using it I pull it out. It's a vice it. It mounts to the desk. But.
49:59.98
Rick
Is it suction cup or is it. Um, what is it of ice. Yeah.
50:08.86
tylerking
Like I don't know how to describe it really it just it it normal with normal Mike stands There's like this arm that sticks up like yours does right now and gets in the way of the webcam and when when you're not using it. It's block it like I have 3 3 monitors so they kind of wrap around me and. Getting something that could hold my mic in the right place without blocking one of the screens is really hard and their low profile thing is great. Yeah, and absolutely and it's only a hundred bucks so anyway this is my advertisement for elgato products. Yeah, absolutely.
50:27.21
Rick
Ah I want I want want whatever you have I want it because I hate this thing. It's like blocking my left eye right now. Yeah, that's not better at all. Teller is also getting royalty there as well.
50:44.46
tylerking
The ah huge audience of startup to last is just waiting to be monetized.
50:45.27
Rick
Yes, report report your purchases back to us so we can hold them accountable.
50:51.31
tylerking
Yeah, ah anyway, just figured I'd mention that um, we got potentially 10 minutes here do you yeah any topics that ah stand out to you to maybe spend the rest of the time on.
51:00.87
Rick
I got nothing man that's it for me this week
51:04.47
tylerking
Um, all right I'm let let me just ask 1 this is from shreyus who's a guy I chat with periodically and he actually designed our ah the homepage of lessoning cm he's kind of he's not a he mostly he works somewhere else but he does some freelancing and ah he asked. And I think you'd be uniquely good at answering that how to start a business when you're older and I should say if he's listening. He asked me this like a year and a half ago so he probably doesn't even remember asking this? Um, but like all of my startup advice I started lessening hereum when I was 24 and a lot of the advice is like. Be single be young have low expenses and just Yolo you know I I don't know how I like my so the approach I took wouldn't work now I don't have enough energy I have too many other responsibilities I can't live off of a effectively no income for as long as I did.
51:42.63
Rick
Yeah.
51:59.18
tylerking
I'm interested just like obviously people following along know what you did like they they followed your story but are there any like key abstract takeaways that you think like if you're in your thirty s forty s fifty s are different from if you're in your twenty s starting something. And I'm springing this on you I didn't warn you about this in advance.
52:17.69
Rick
I mean I don't know I feel like the concepts are all the same. It's just like the the main difference is Runway is a lot harder to come by like when you start a business you you need runway right? um in Runway In this case means.
52:30.67
tylerking
Um.
52:35.36
Rick
Time to focus on the business that you don't to worry about finances. Um, and so when you are a single and and energetic and young like your your runway is you need less runway. Um, and that gives you more more time to to. Work on the startup. Um, you need less sleep I don't know like I felt like I could sleep less when I was younger and I didn't have any of these dependencies and so um, like I can't afford to have a bad night um of sleep not just because like it'll affect my work but I don't want to be a bad husband where.
52:58.85
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
53:13.40
Rick
So it affects like there's all these like it's like time is more precious. Um as well as ah as as money like and um.
53:20.35
tylerking
Do do you think you're at a disadvantage like like like if you could let's say you don't care about any other aspect of how it to affects your life or whatever are you more likely to succeed now starting a business and let's say you were going well, you're able to go full time if you want like versus when you're 24 25
53:39.55
Rick
Gosh you know it's funny I I feel like I'm more likely to be successful now. Um prior I mean part of that is like I don't think I would hire of hired Jd if like you know if I were in a younger.
53:47.10
tylerking
No. You just have done gone and done it yourself.
53:54.67
Rick
To myself and I would I think I think I'm in a much better situation with Jd than without him. Um, as an example for leg of health I also think I'm wiser um more thoughtful I you more empathetic. Ah I think more focused. Um. I don't know. There's lots of it's very like very hard to pull off the tradeoffs.
54:15.51
tylerking
Yeah, let me attempt as you're talking like what occurred to me is so wisdom. Let's just use wisdom as a placeholder for all that stuff. Um, that's what you have when you're older, you probably have less energy and maybe you have more money to depending but it does it. Do do you agree with this statement.
54:22.86
Rick
Um, me.
54:34.75
tylerking
That if you're starting a company in your 30 s and beyond you probably are going to maximize your chance of success if you start something that can leverage your wisdom which is to say maybe you don't have experienced starting a business but like if you're a real estate agent for 15 years and then you want to start a startup. Don't go start a restaurant.
54:52.51
Rick
Um, yeah, yeah, by that.
54:54.51
tylerking
Like start a startup related to real estate because everyone has wisdom in something as they age right.
55:02.79
Rick
Yeah I mean it's ah what would would There's pros and cons of each situation. Um I think like it's a lot easier to just make the decision to start a business when you're young, right? like it's a lot harder to make the decision to start a business. Um, when you're older, but like.
55:13.15
tylerking
Yeah.
55:20.87
Rick
Because it's harder to make a decision to start a business when you're older you make better decisions. Um, because there's more writing on them whereas like oftentimes like probably when you're younger you make more reckless decisions that don't give you Maybe there's an experimentation advantage there. But maybe I don't know it's a.
55:26.81
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
55:40.54
Rick
Completely like situational question. Um that takes takes into account so many different factors but like I think the best advice for anyone that wants to start a business is just start.
55:40.76
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
55:51.20
tylerking
Yep, sounds good to me all right? Yeah, that's more or less what I was expecting to get out of that. So what do you think? good stopping point. Yeah.
55:57.56
Rick
I Would like to hear about um, let's see Well yeah I don't have time for that either? Um, let's ah, let's let's let's call it. Um.
56:05.50
tylerking
I said we're going to review the lessening serum product product roadmap at some point I don't think we have time for that today all right? Yeah, life's good I I don't know how you're feeling i.
56:16.00
Rick
Ah, you good otherwise like how's life.
56:22.69
tylerking
I'm like more cautious about covid stuff than the average person I think and I'm really feeling like like the weight is being lifted right now both with warm weather coming and we reopened to the office fully as of this week ah and Kate case numbers are really lows say I'm just feeling like. I mean I know this could all change a week from now. But I'm feeling like very optimistic about just being alive for the next six months you know.
56:48.60
Rick
Yeah, but then you know we have Russia invading Ukraine to just like create a whole new problem. That's just it.
56:52.10
tylerking
Right? Yes I don't feel optimistic about that part of it for sure. Yeah, it's so hard when life's going Well for you personally and it's going terribly for so many others like I don't think the solution is to be miserable but like also you feel guilty just like.
57:09.61
Rick
Yeah, totally life's good. Um I Ah I'm just I'm really one of the best things that came from Covid is this whole work from home thing I Really like being able to walk up in the middle of the day when I have a free minute and just say hello to my son or my my wife like.
57:10.80
tylerking
Enjoying it and ignoring everything else I don't know how's life for you.
57:29.31
Rick
I I would be never seeing them hardly if I were had to go to an office. Oh yeah, I like fully remote I like I like fully remote with the ability to come together. Um, when needed ah in person. Um, which does require like a proximity like bit like.
57:32.31
tylerking
Do you think you want fully remote like it if you aren't starting your own company If you're working for s smoothals.
57:42.66
tylerking
Oh.
57:48.99
Rick
Like you have to live within a certain radius of a meeting of a meeting point for that to work. Um I don't know exactly where that meeting point should be for leg up health. But it's interesting but like.
57:50.00
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
57:57.22
tylerking
Well, it's nice and if you're selling at least for now you're selling health insurance in Utah so it's not that much of a stretch to be like your employee should probably be not totally local but they they shouldn't be on the other side of the world. Yeah.
58:07.80
Rick
They should be they should be interested in Utah like and whether that they should be interested in spending time in Utah and that sort of thing but living here full-time I don't have that expectation so I got to clarify what I what I need like but but like yeah listen if if j d for example and I want to get together I'm willing to go wherever he is.
58:17.18
tylerking
Yeah, fair enough.
58:27.62
Rick
And he's willing to come wherever I am and I think we'll make it work gets more complicated when you have more people I do have an update that I should probably just share I do have I did make copies of the comp plan we put together does share that with you.
58:31.81
tylerking
Yes, for sure.
58:42.11
tylerking
Ah, yeah, but you shared multiple documents and I'm not sure which the right one to share is so why don't you slack it to me and I'll I'll put that in the show notes. So yeah, anyone anyone interested in what we talked about was it last time or 2 times ago that was Rick's compensation plan with jd.
58:49.42
Rick
Cool All right see ya.
58:58.94
Rick
Which was mimicked and copied from Tyler's work at less link sum. All right see you later.
58:59.68
tylerking
Ah, well, we'll put those in the show notes. Yeah, awesome. Well I'm good. Let's call it see you.