Startup to Last

In this episode, we discuss some changes to LegUp Health, the end of Tyler's sabbatical, and more.

Topics in this episode:
  • Tyler is back from his sabbatical
  • LACRM is getting ready to launch a major redesign
  • Rick gives updates on how the LegUp Health/Benefits plan has changed
  • Because of the changes, we renegotiated Tyler's compensation and involvement in the company
  • Tyler talks about the difference building a product that customers don't expect to use regularly vs and every-day productivity tool.
  • Rick gives an update on working with a marketing coach
  • We talk about Seeyafuture.me

What is Startup to Last?

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.

00:00.88
Rick
What's up Tyler.

00:02.19
tylerking
Hey Rick ah I'm living that post post sabbatical life I'm back to normal life as of ah ricks over there cracking up. Ah yeah, no I'm I'm good I so for people who haven't been keeping up I took six weeks off

00:10.24
Rick
Oh man.

00:19.29
tylerking
My ah day job at lessnoing serum to work with Rick here and ah, that's done Friday was my first day back at less annoying.

00:25.66
Rick
Ah, it's amazing. Remind remind me what is the policy guys have is it every couple years.

00:31.78
tylerking
Every three years anyone can take a six month paid and then if they want they can extend ah sorry, not six months six weeks paid and then extend up to six weeks unpaid so it's between 6 and twelve weeks but if you want to get paid the whole time at six weeks yeah

00:47.26
Rick
That's so cool.

00:48.89
tylerking
Um I think and so every three years means you know assuming people take them as often as they can roughly ah a third of the company is taking a sabbatical in a given year which I'll admit when we made the policy I didn't really do that math because now you know we've got 19 people so something like 6 people a year taking sabbaticals which. Is awesome and also like it. It is kind of a interesting operational thing that we have to be ready for people to leave for extended periods of time but that's probably good for the resiliency of the company.

01:17.86
Rick
Forces Capacity constraint conversations like all sorts of really healthy discussions. Um, and I would argue that people probably for that benefit are willing to work a little bit extra to make it ah stay around.

01:27.97
tylerking
Yeah they're a dynamic at less annoying crm is we probably? We definitely pay customer service people above market rate we arguably I don't want to say we underpay devs but like we're not, we're not playing the game of like let's compete with Google you know. That type of salary. We're paying them fairly for St Louis Software engineers but I do get the impression that you can make up for that. But like how many companies give you sabbaticals like this and various other things like you can use benefits to supplement ah compensation in pretty.

02:02.91
Rick
And I think we've talked about this before but once you pass a certain amount of household income today like you're no longer evenly motivated by additional income. It's like there's like ah like special like motivations that come into play that ah that are triggered by.

02:03.71
tylerking
Meaningful ways I think.

02:16.32
tylerking
Um, earth.

02:22.27
Rick
But that could be addressed by benefits that are less expensive but from a cash comp standpoint but more meaningful to them.

02:29.40
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, at least 2 of the people this year if not 3 are taken the extra six weeks unpaid which is a pretty solid proof that like the money is less important to them than the time off. Um, so anyway, yeah I I got back to work on Friday and.

02:39.87
Rick
Yep.

02:45.40
tylerking
I was expecting like you know after so I don't always say it didn't work for six weeks like I checked slack I responded to some things but I'd say I put in a total of 3 days of work over the six weeks like not much I thought I was going to come back to like lots of stuff to do just things that had come up that people didn't know how to deal with or. I don't know whatever and I honestly Friday was just a very normal calm work day for me which makes me feel all kinds of things.

03:11.77
Rick
I'm sure Um, most ah I think most like ah stereotypical startup founder ceos would be having an identity crisis right now.

03:22.27
tylerking
Yeah, a little bit I mean I ah I think I'm deep enough in this you know at 13 years that um I it should the company should be able to run without me but you also kind of yeah in the back your head you're like but I don't. I don't want everything to be great without me right? because like then what what value am I providing? Um, yeah, there's a little bit of that going on if I'm being honest. Ah well I think the good outweighs the bad is the good thing and also I know that the bad is I don't to say irrational. It's rational, but it's like it's unsavory.

03:40.62
Rick
How are you dealing with it.

03:53.80
tylerking
You shouldn't want the company to struggle without you. It's just an ego thing and so I I can say a I acknowledge. That's not a good impulse to have and B I instead of having a really stressful hectic chaotic day I had a really calm one and what what this really makes me realize is maybe so like.

03:57.10
Rick
If it.

04:12.33
tylerking
Pre Sabbatical I did a lot of work I didn't love doing I on average I Love my job but you know like anyone there's the stuff you have to do and the stuff you want to do and I had a mixture of both and after seeing this I'm kind of like maybe. Post sabbatical like I can just do more of the stuff I want to do because it seems like things ran just fine without me. Yeah, we'll see I I kind of expect it to revert back to the mean but we'll see.

04:33.98
Rick
That's amazing. So.

04:39.63
Rick
Um, are you This may not be podcast material so feel for you to like say? No thanks. Don't want to talk about this but are there any things that you've come back to that are bad habits that have developed or ah new things that are that weren't there but because you were gone came and and that are.

04:55.32
tylerking
Um.

04:57.33
Rick
Ah, combative with like what the company you're trying to build.

05:01.34
tylerking
Like me that like the company went in a direction over those six weeks if that's the case I haven't noticed it yet. Um Friday was in ah Fridays a remote day so I haven't actually been in the office and been around people really yet. But um, no I mean it kind of seems like everything was fine I I do think there's. The topic of like the things you have to do versus things you want to do like ah a leader has to periodically refresh stuff I think um, you have to give people like you have to say what the long term vision is every few ah every six months or whatever or else people forget and it doesn't. It doesn't have consequences within six weeks but eventually it would so I do think like I can't just let it coast forever to be clear. But no I haven't noticed anything like going wrong. It's also the type of thing maybe people will maybe an employee will reach out next week and be like hey actually. Ah. I've got a big problem and I've been waiting for you to come back to say it I haven't heard that yet, but it could happen.

06:01.29
Rick
I'd I'd be very interested in a four weeks from now update on sort of the the long tail of the sabbatical impact. Um there there are 2 potential things I I think there'll be 2 buckets of things 1 is this waited for you while you were out um and shouldn't have waited.

06:07.13
tylerking
In.

06:19.22
Rick
And I'm interested in that bucket and then there's things that are like benefits of you leaving that are getting squashed now that you're back or people feel squashed because you're back and I'd be interested in those things. Yeah, but just so you know like I'll just tell a quick story like.

06:29.26
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, I'll make a note to ah to give an update in a bit cool. Um, what.

06:37.53
Rick
I actually took a long vacation for the first time at at Zane Benefits back in the day and basically I came back to people telling me oh we got more work done than we've ever gotten done. Ah, but they had put me in an office. Ah so that like they moved my desk like it was like ah. I was I was that people were not happy to receive me back. They were like we we we prefer you. We wish you were not the Ceo of this company. So good job of not getting that that welcome back.

07:03.60
tylerking
Yeah, but I mean that's also I mean that means you you put a company together that obviously you wish people were celebrating you a little more but the the worst is you come back and it's like oh the company was in the process of failing if you weren't coming back. That's the worst thing you can hear I think.

07:19.23
Rick
That's fair that made you just made me feel a lot better.

07:23.90
tylerking
You did a bad job as Ceo if you leaving destroys the company. Um yeah I can talk a little more about less annoying or we can move over to you? What do you think? Okay well I mean the thing I like most is product stuff. So.

07:32.43
Rick
No I keep going on this? Um, ah what? what? what is your new job.

07:40.55
tylerking
Um, just coincidentally the sabbatical my sabbatical kind of happened at the worst time because we're very close to launching this major redesign. The the biggest thing we've launched in quite a while. Um and not only is it big big but it's very design heavy and as the main designer like like there are some. Like launching zapier. There's no ui to zapier. It's entirely a technical project. So I didn't really have that much to say there. This is one where like there's just so like we had literally over a hundred notion cards at the beginning of this of like things to do and like what order do you do them in is like a big thing. But so what I did on Friday I just love. And it's it's total bureaucracy I took a look at the notion board and I said okay, we're aiming to launch. This redesign may I think 30 may eleventh I think was the date we had and I looked down I was just like ah half of these things can get pushed towards to after the launch now we're launching may first or something like that.

08:37.30
tylerking
I just moved notion cards around all day and I was talking to people as like do we need this? What's the status of that blah blah blah but I moved launch data over a week um I don't know why I just love fiddling with the the project management of something like that.

08:55.61
Rick
Thinking through all the second and third order consequences. It's it's ah and I I agree. It's really fun. Keep doing that. Let's yeah.

08:58.61
tylerking
Um, um, so I'd like to do yeah I mean it's not the ah the company does not need that every day forever right? It's just because we're in this moment in time. But when we're not doing that then I think the other thing I really want to be spending time on is is the actual designing and thinking through. Ah, this redesign is not the fun kind of design. It's like oh you know are the corners rounded and stuff like that. Um, but the next thing is we want to think through how to build an event invite system into our calendar that needs to be better than what Google and outlook offer. So to the point that people it's worth it for people to click through an email invite to our site to interact with the event in some meaningful way because that's part of our kind of like viral product like growth thing thinking through how to make that product is something I'm really excited to work on. Um.

09:51.87
Rick
Um, mom Yeah, totally.

09:53.18
tylerking
Yeah, so I know there will be management and all that stuff. Ah, but the the product stuff is what I hope I can put more time into in the future.

10:01.48
Rick
Fascinating Um, any other like any other updates related to getting back in the swing of things like are your sleep schedule back to normal.

10:08.44
tylerking
Back to normal. Yeah, it definitely helped that I could imagine a really rough transition if if a sabbatical was like I'm on vacation for six weeks and then you just go back to work I could imagine that being tough because six weeks is enough time for you to lose all your habits and all that. But as we're going to talk about later in the podcast I've been working with you this whole time and yeah I had more flexibility I didn't have to be on slack as much I could nap more during the day but like I was still fundamentally working a normal day most days so I didn't have that much of a adjustment. Yeah.

10:41.94
Rick
That's good. That's awesome.

10:44.84
tylerking
And talk about you and leg up health and me.

10:46.75
Rick
Yeah, so where do we start like I've got kind of 3 big updates related to leg up what we we? we're calling the leg up benefits platform. But now we're just calling out the leg up application. Um, what? what do you? where do you want to start.

10:59.70
tylerking
Yeah, maybe can we start with in case, this is anyone has not been falling along I also think like leg up Health Slash benefits is far enough from a lot of people's wheelhouse that I would guess a lot of listeners never fully grocked what it is can you just give an update on like. What is leg up health what was leg up benefits like what was the starting point before we give updates here.

11:19.72
Rick
Yeah, so probably a month ago ah we leg up health is the company name leg up health was focused purely on serving consumers on Utah marketplace plans. Um, and ah ah, health insurance excuse me. Thank you.

11:34.34
tylerking
Health insurance.

11:39.58
Rick
Um, so think of it as b two c business to to Consumer Health Insurance Services um we weren't we at the health insurance company but we're the think of it as the advisor or like the um age like the the term is agent or broker on the insurance policy and we earn a commission from the insurance company to be. The the person that is um, helping the consumer um and and and we're growing that business that business is the main source of our revenue. Um, it's where we've been focusing. it's it's it's not an easy business because it's um, highly regulated and it's um, also very service-orented and so. Um, and then work. You know the the the ecosystem is ah like lags a lot of tech in terms of what's available. So um, that's that and then you know j d and I had had our offsite ah kind of late february and then we were talking on the podcast about how now that we've. We've built this consumer thing. Do we focus on just consumers or do we start branching out to focus on employers as well because in the United States ah Health Health insurance where you get your health insurance is driven by where you work and what that company that you work at does for health insurance benefits. Um. And so one one change we made was we decided to sell some group health insurance and that's going really well and then we also decided hey we got to build leg up benefits this year and Tyler you reached out to me at 1 point and said what about you know you buying what about me building leg up benefits for you versus you trying to figure out some stranger to build this and.

13:12.88
Rick
I immediately said yes we worked at a short-term ah arrangement to allow you to spend your ah great. A good portion of your sabbatical working on this but it was it was pretty much thinking through like you building this for a year and this ah thing that we were going to build. Um, it was what we were calling legup benefits. And it was a way for employers um to give money to employees to go buy their own health insurance in a way that we would go make super tax advantage in the best way possible that is not what we decided to end up building. Um, so basically what we went into the sabbatical with as a plan. And what we're coming out with both from a partnership arrangement and a a so a product perspective. It's it's not even close to what we thought we were going to do.

13:57.46
tylerking
Yeah, it's it's a great example and we can dive into this more. But I love the quote I think it's a Mike Tyson it's some boxers quote that everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth like we've we we've been talking about this on the podcast since I think January maybe um. And we thought we like I looked at your your product specs and was like this is fully fleshed out like I'm just going to come in and do what Rick said and first of all when I started working on it. We realized oh no, there's like a like as soon as you start working on it. There's a million things to decide and so we immediately started. Tweaking the plan quite a bit and then when I was in Utah because I spent ten days in Utah we just decided to completely pivot what the product is going to be and built built ah a different thing. So um, yeah I should can I pause real quick and just say we're about to do what I hate podcasts doing. I hate podcasts where 2 people are talking about a thing where both of them already know what the thing is because it comes off more like a press release than like an actual honest conversation so apologies to listeners that there will be less brainstorming than normal because we're actually like working together right now. But.

14:59.64
Rick
Yeah.

15:10.79
tylerking
Whatever that is it is what it is.

15:10.97
Rick
Yeah, think of this as context of of like ah ah the hiatus we did for the podcast um that we did all for offline conversations and then we'll go back to our normal brainstorming Raw ah figuring it out. It would have been interesting to record some of the conversations that we had.

15:16.86
tylerking
Um, yeah.

15:25.49
Rick
Um, because they were to they would have been like 1 hour long podcast episodes. Um because we usually like when Tyler was out here. He he he rented a airbnb 2 blocks away and so at like nine o'clock or so I would go over to his place for and we would talk until um, we solved whatever problems in Roblox we count out for the day.

15:25.92
tylerking
Ah.

15:41.20
tylerking
Yeah.

15:44.70
Rick
And the most impactful 1 hour conversation was where Tyler was like what if we like so 1 core feature that needed to be built for leg of benefits was ah payments through the ach network and if you're not familiar with payments and ach is how most of the money moves in the us um, and we um. There are a number of different tools. Ah out there via Apis that you can offload the ach process to to be able to move money from employer to employee if you if you use payroll for example, gusto is ah a big payroll company. They use ach to move money from employer to employees paychecks. We were going to do a very similar thing. For leg up benefits. Ah on Tuesday or Monday when you were here we were like oh ah, we might not get approved for being able to move money or worse. It's going to cost a gazillion dollars to be able to do this or worse. It's not going to work. It's going to take a year or two to develop.

16:22.25
tylerking
Yeah.

16:35.45
tylerking
Um, yeah.

16:39.83
Rick
With the capacity of development that we have and so Tyler was like what if we started asking a question what if yeah, go ahead.

16:44.72
tylerking
Well can we talk What let me talk about the thing let me dive into those a little bit more because just in case, anyone else is thinking about a startup that involves moving money so we were looking at 2 main. So there's plaid. Ah, that's not 1 of the 2 plaid is the company that if you ever gone to like. Ah, mint.com type product and they're like you need to connect your bank account and you enter your login for the other bank and it like pulls down your financial information that's plaid. Um, we didn't even get to the point of trying them out so we can't say if that was good or bad but they don't actually move money and then there was duala and modern treasury where the two we are looking at for moving money right.

17:16.70
Rick
Yes, and plaid does have a beta for moving money So there you might our use case was not supported by that butwaa was the one that we thought came in thought that was going to work for us and then there's a modern modern Treasury's the other one.

17:18.87
tylerking
And.

17:28.88
tylerking
Yeah, and we still may end up doing this one day but like you look at their website and it's like oh yeah, just you feel like it's going to be like stripe and with stripe it legitimately as you sign up make an api call and boom you just made some money with these It's like you can get a sandbox. And do stuff but because you're moving money around I think a it can be used for money laundering b it can be used to like fund terrorism or whatever. There's all this stuff around. We have to get verified First of all which was a much more onerous process than we expected and then anyone who's. In the employer role who once like we're going to transfer money from the employer to the employee they have to do what's called k ic know your customer they have to basically prove that they're not money launderers and stuff like that and we're just looking at this like the actual moving money is not hard but all the setup stuff to be allowed to move money. Was way harder than we expected.

18:21.81
Rick
Agreed exactly and and so you said well what if in forget how hard it was. There was a chance we might not be able to get approved to to do it and so toddler out here. You know he's like I'm going to be working twenty four seven on this for the next x days.

18:31.42
tylerking
Um, yeah.

18:38.99
Rick
I am blocked right now. What if we can't get unblocked what do I work on and that led to a very interesting conversation.

18:46.90
tylerking
Ah, yeah, so yeah, again, we both know the answer. This is such boring podcast. Yeah yeah, so but basically was okay so if we can't move money around what would we do right? what.

18:52.12
Rick
Um.

18:57.90
Rick
Yeah, and I thought this is like um, a massive moment in the history of leg up like ah basically we started thinking through like the ah the plan for handling that scenario and we came up.

19:09.50
tylerking
Have.

19:09.53
Rick
With an entirely better plan and we decided to abandon the original plan and come up with that new plan and that new plan is effectively um for the last few years. We've proven out a no code version of an application like a health servicing consumers and we were planning on basically creating a second app focus on employers. Um. But what Tyler came up with and suggested is hey what if I just built rebuilt legup health and added and um, a simple a simpler employer offering to that. Um, and you ended up with one app that um, you know basically was more capable going forward. And that is ultimately what we decided to do.

19:47.42
tylerking
Yeah, um, so like ah some things I took away from this. Um, why couldn't you build Legup Health so again lego health is the consumer like I'm an individual person who needs to buy health insurance I want to use leg up health as my like agent but it also has this kind of. App this no code software. So I can like see my policies and stuff like that you built that with no code why couldn't you just build the employer thing with no code.

20:12.89
Rick
Um, good question. First of all, um I think there's a separate question whether or not I should build anything with no code ever again based on what I learned ah from yeah yeah, yeah.

20:23.68
tylerking
That's when it can we go down to rabbit hole here because one of my topics for this podcast I want to ask you about is now that we've done this experience because we talked a lot about no code over the last couple years. Um, you've been a big proponent of it I have 2

20:32.77
Rick
Yep.

20:35.80
tylerking
What do you? But now we're replacing your nocode app with a full code app like what? what do you think about? no code now.

20:38.64
Rick
Um, so I think I'm amazing. Once once you sort of were able to go through and see what we were doing. Okay, how do I explain this I'll answer your first question First. So Legup benefits no code is harder than leg up health no code because a leg up health no code is just. 1 user per account. Um, legup benefits no code required an employer admin account and then the the ability for that ah person to that user to add multiple people to their account with different permissions much more complex user management and ah ui ah dynamic ui based on the user so that that was why. It was hard but like to your the the more interesting question which is like why should you build an app on nocode and I think the answer is yes to prove validation. But what I what I am learning from this experience is we stayed on the no code version for way too long. Ah, we proved this out and then.

21:33.79
tylerking
Um, so.

21:35.83
Rick
Maybe maybe in hindsight swing 20 but like we there the amount of time I spend worrying about product and software development when I'm not good at it is huge and then second we are the the the the processes that we've built. Around managing the nocode tool and the waste of energy that we've developed and like just grows with every client that we had until Tyler started just taking it away and making it not like making showing us like with the with the the with what you're building like hey this could be like just a button click.

22:12.80
tylerking
Yeah I was really surprised because you've done some pretty sophisticated things in no code. But that sorry let me back up one of the the huge benefits of no code I said with the.

22:13.00
Rick
Was pretty significant.

22:22.74
tylerking
With the new thing we were building at first I thought you'd spec it out because we both looked at this notion document and we thought we said it and then when you get in the details you're like oh man, there are so many little decisions that haven't been. We haven't thought of one real benefit to having the nocode app is I'm like you already have a database schema I just logged into airtable and I was like here's all the fields we need I'm just going to move that over to Mysql. Um, and like a lot of the interactions and stuff I didn't like it was almost like a really good specification document for me to base off of which was really valuable but I was also really surprised how many times I'd see something and I'm like I'm you know I'm trying not to offend you and be like you're you're bad at that. But I'm like. This is not how I would design an app like politely. Why did you do it that way and you were like oh I couldn't figure out a way to do it the way you'd think to in no code and it was totally counterintuitive what you could and couldn't get working in no code. Um, yeah, anyway.

23:10.92
Rick
Yep, yeah, and the the amount of like things to get something. There's a lot of human in the loop stuff right? like there's what you show the customer like looks like a real app but on the backend you're cobbling things together. Um and some of the cobbling is you know. Ah J D or I holding 2 you know, links together as hard as we can.

23:32.30
tylerking
Um, Okay so like in retrospect, if you could go Back. You'd say like use no code like if you're a non-technical co So First of all, if you had let's say my level of coding experience probably just start with code. There's not really a reason you see free. Software engineer to use no code.

23:48.20
Rick
Yeah I mean now that I'm seeing how fast you can work within these frameworks that you're playing with ah with was it ph p or Laville um I mean it's basically like I would go low code but you know yes, there's no reason to like ah but but but for a nontechnical founder. Um like me.

23:54.82
tylerking
Yeahlerville. Yeah.

24:04.36
tylerking
Um, yeah.

24:06.10
Rick
Who need who who didn't want to like here's the conversation that I go back to I was explaining this to someone else. Do you remember on the podcast where I was like I want to start a business and I want to hire I want to bring someone on to build the code but I don't want to give up half my business and you're like you're not going to get even good. Yeah.

24:17.50
tylerking
You can't do that. Yeah.

24:22.54
Rick
And so I think there's a huge difference between talking to you about like hey here's an app with we're on track for a hundred k and revenue this year. Um, we've cobbled it together. Can you help me, you rebuild this the right way. That's a very different conversation.

24:33.79
tylerking
Yeah I imagine the same could be true. So ah, the bootstrapers version of this is what you just said I want to bring on a partner but I don't want them to have half the business. The the typical Vc backed models. This I think similar which is like the further you can get before you raise money. The better terms. You're going to get when you eventually raise you might use no code to get a little validation and then get better terms when you raise money.

24:58.32
Rick
Yep yep, um, yeah so I I ah would do no codede again and I think nocode's getting more powerful. Um, ah but but I think um man like until until you just said hey like I could do the things that you're doing right now are things that I have. Thought about for years and not been able to do anything about and the amount of brain power that has been stuck there versus like and part of it's maybe the wrong focus for me like ah here here's what I'm trying to say it's it's it toy if you are going to if you're a non-technical founder going the nocode route. Don't try to. Overthink it. It is what it is. Don't try. Don't worry about making the the 2 year like the perfect roadmap focus on top of funnel and break it as soon as possible I wish I could go back in time and break like make it so that we couldn't support it and then I could have called you and be like I need your help. Ah.

25:43.61
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah.

25:53.74
Rick
And here's a real like here's thing that like it could be 3 or 4 times the size it is right now. Um.

25:55.83
tylerking
Right? because yeah so it's it's not as hard to build the real thing as maybe you were thinking and no code won't scale. That's that's my big take like if all you ever need is something simple like like let's say you're running a content business and you're just selling ebooks like yeah Gum road will work forever.

26:03.45
Rick
That's yes for someone who knows what they're doing.

26:15.45
tylerking
But if if you need if software is an important part of the business. You shouldn't be thinking I'm going to build it on no code and and work as hard as I can to make it work forever. You should like no code should be thought of from day one as a temporary solution and then you could base everything else you do around that understanding that it's temporary. Okay, cool. Um, so to to Zoom back out of the rabbit hole. So I'm in Utah we realize the financial thing is problematic. Ah what if I just rebuild leg up health with full code but add this employer thing. So basically employers can sign up. Invite their employees and the employees get the same leg up health experience. You've been offering to kind of individual consumers this whole time.

27:00.25
Rick
Yep, and then the employer instead of like can give money. But there's no, Ah, it just flows through their existing payroll system. So We don't have to touch the money and there's no tax advantages associated with it for V One. We Basically avoid it. We basically get the same value proposition at the end of the day to an employer which is. Give money to your employees. Add them to this Tool. We'll we'll take care of them without the complexity of having to navigate the ach payments.

27:24.59
tylerking
Yeah, um, so this is it's it's a worse product right? and in a sense like you're you're at the at but you're definitely not getting tax benefits and also it's not like. Moving money and was there any value in us moving money in the first place arguable but it certainly feels like more of a oh I get why this product exists when you can move money so it's it's like a slight downgrade but way way easier to build and in some ways you were when we had this realization. You're kind of saying also easier to sell. Um.

27:55.85
Rick
Simpler.

27:56.84
tylerking
Yeah, like I've always kind of been ah of the opinion that people don't understand taxes and like even if it's good for them to save money on taxes. It's a hard. It's a hard thing to message.

28:07.18
Rick
Oh yeah, um I I totally agree and um I was a little unsure about it. We had this conversation and I was feeling. Okay, we're going this different direction I got to call jd and make sure he's okay with this because this is what we talked about and I called Jd he was like.

28:19.20
tylerking
Um, love.

28:21.77
Rick
That's no brainer. He's like way easy to sell because and Jd's the one talking to employers every day and so when he heard the the hey we're going to simplify this and make it lust about taxes and more about just like all one ah health insurance concierge experience because the tradeoff was either. You can have ach payments maybe um and that's like the product. Or you can basically build a health insurance concierge experience with ah ah, a stipend a small amount of money with no money moving and so Jd was like the health insurance concierge packaging to an employer is way more important than taxes.

28:46.38
tylerking
Yeah.

28:53.16
tylerking
Right? And I'm I'm remembering now even though this is only like a week and a half ago I'm remembering that the original version wasn't going to have any of the health insurance stuff so we were even talking. Okay so someone will have to sign up for a leg up health account.

29:00.97
Rick
Correct.

29:08.52
tylerking
To get our help with their health insurance. But then they'll also have a leg up benefits account to move money around. Um, so yeah, it I said earlier the product got worse. It got better in the sense that it merged these 2 together so that yeah ok I so much has happened in the last ten days

29:21.61
Rick
The biggest benefit though. Yeah yeah, crazy crazy mounts. Um the the biggest I think benefit coming out of this is um, we are going to have one application. Um, ah that supports both legup health. And both consumers and employers on our core service which is the health insurance concierge in Utah um, around the market like the the individual health insurance policy and that's one piece. The second piece is I am no longer going to be involved in the.

29:45.58
tylerking
Um.

29:58.35
Rick
Day-to-day sort of support of the software. Um, and I don't think I realized that was going to be an outcome of this that was not going to be an outcome in the in the v 1 version, but this new version like I actually I have some limited number of hours I can work on this business per week right now.

30:15.26
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, which that was a big when we when we kind of had this idea there were a lot of like it seems about tide the 2 options like try to get the the find the mut moving money around or doing this other thing and then we're like oh j do you thinks it'll be easier to sell. Okay, oh Rick can spend more time on top of funnel. Okay.

30:15.35
Rick
And that immediately shifts to top of funnel.

30:34.83
tylerking
And then there I think there was a third big benefit here. Um, if if I can go self-indulgent for a second here we talked about my compensation in a previous podcast episode and it was based around the idea so to summarize for people who didn't don't remember that. Um. It's basically like you are going to pay me $50000 and then I was going to reinvest that back in the business and get paid out if it works up to 300000 but like more or less you're paying me for building the Mvp and nothing beyond that and then we said we can top it up later if we want to the reason we took that approach is.

31:00.97
Rick
Um.

31:09.98
tylerking
The complexity of that first idea for the product where we're moving money around. It was clear. It was going to need a developer who could devote more time than I could after the spattic lens right? like because it wasn't just move some money around. It was like oh and then we'd like to use plaid to pull down their balances. We can show them the balance of stuff and. Let's add iras to this in four one ks and let's like turn it into a whole benefits platform. So I was like well I obviously can't do that with like one night a week or whatever I'm going to be putting in post sabbatical. So all I can do is be this mercenary come in build the Mvp leave and then you go find someone else to take it from there. This new approach is so much simpler it I I think we both kind of saw like I can just be the tech guy on this forever potentially or at least until we decide to take a more ambitious technical challenge on so we we re renegotiated the the compensation. So now I'm kind of onboard long term which. I'm really excited about as well as one of the side effects of this.

32:07.78
Rick
Yeah, so this is probably the big It's not this is ah the biggest thing coming out of this so I'll I'll say what it is and I'll say why I'm excited. Um, so to when Tyler came I was looking Tyler was looking at himself as a contractor. Coming into this original build I was looking at him as a so a sub partner like not a full partner but like a special type of partner. Um, and I think we hadn't worked together what like this in ten years twelve years yeah so

32:36.25
tylerking
12 years yeah

32:41.49
Rick
I think what we both were interested in learning I can speak for myself I think this is also true for you but like I was interested in like how we would collaborate would it be the same as when we were 20 something years old. Um, and I think it was better in a lot of ways. Um, and what I did it but we got intense like there were some like.

32:56.74
tylerking
Um, we didn't yell at each other. Um.

33:01.39
Rick
We got we we argued but we argued with our our working relationship is is as productive is is as productive as it was in our 20 s but way more healthy and ah and I don't know we're better at what we do right? and ah and so that was like oh wow this is fun like there's like this. Oh this has been missing in my life like um and and I I you know I left every night that we talked like man I wish we could do this I wish this wasn't just this week and then one night you're like I want to talk to you? Um, and you said hey like what how can we make this like more long term and like you basically said I want to be a partner and ah. That was like the best night of my of my year. So um, we worked that out. Um I don't know if you want to talk about the details of of that arrangement. Um, but effectively like what it is is that Tyler is is going to be a a third partner at Leg up. Yeah I'm hundred percent fine with it. Yeah.

33:49.79
tylerking
I'm but I'm always on board with transparency if you are if if you don't mind sharing the details. Let's do it so because we just right before recording this. We finished finalizing stuff. So yeah, you want to you want to give an overview of what the new agreement is.

33:58.31
Rick
Yeah, so um, basically Tyler is going to be the third partner leg up at leg up. He's going to be taking on responsibility for this initial software development build and then the ongoing maintenance as long as he can do it in the time that he outlined earlier like is. Roughly one night a week. Um, and ah we um so so so the arrangement um shifted to something that is is sort of forever and uncapped like and so so we have um, basically ah I'm going to explain it as like. Tyler proposed a tax that I pay him on anything I pay myself and it's actually very creative and works in a lot of different scenarios but effectively um, any. Ah Tyler is is attaching his earnings to me and saying anything that leg up pays. You is. Ah, taxed at 10% I get 10 % on top of that and um, that is true if I pay myself salary it is it is true if I pay myself. Um, ah distribution dividends. It is true in the sale of the business. Um, just think of it like any time any anytime leg up health the the entity ah, generates business. Ah ah, dollar cash for me. Ah Tyler gets 10% of that forever. Um, and you know he's going to get that immediately. I'm not paying myself anything right now. So it doesn't mean anything in the short term but then like the the thing that we had to address is okay.

35:33.60
Rick
This assumes that you are here forever. What happens if you leave and so what we're designing is basically a a long a vesting period that says like at certain if certain criteria are met then you can leave and retain this forever this 10 percent tax forever and ah. Anyway, it's um, that's the gist of it. Um I don't know if you'd add any more details.

35:55.92
tylerking
Yeah, just just the only thing I'll add is there's kind of 2 vesting triggers. So one is ah we need to hit ah like a certain amount of revenue from this new product I'm building so I don't if if we never hit that I don't get anything but it won't matter because there's nothing to share then anyway, um. I get half of it at that point and then there's another from that point that that triggers the rest vests over the next five years so this let's say it takes a year to hit the first vesting trigger we're talking about something like locking in for 6 years here this was a really important part I think for both of us is. There's a whole different way of talk of of being a part of a team when you feel like you're a contractor for a temporary project versus 6 years is not forever but like it's enough that we can just proceed as if like we're partners. We don't have to talk about money. We don't have to talk about compensation. We don't have to renegotiate every year. Just have this locked in for a really long time now either of us can bail at any time and the vesting stops. But it's I think we're both very excited that like we don't have to tiptoe around like I can't tell you how many times prior to this new arrangement I would be like well so here's the plan if I'm still doing this next year this otherwise that we just don't have to have that kind of fork in the road conversation anymore.

37:13.46
Rick
Agreed um I'll just disclaim that like ah there are 2 things I want to talk about related to this one is Jd being like and and like how this impacts him and and also like j d's impact on getting this deal done because I think there's a lot of recognition there that this would not without j d this is not. Meaningful to either of us and then the second piece is I want to talk about like what we've designed will not work in every scenario and I think that I want to just like talk about why so I'll start with a second one. Um, don't do a 10% tax. Ah with someone that you don't trust forever because.

37:41.58
tylerking
Ah, have.

37:48.99
Rick
Effectively, what I'm getting out of this is I am get you. You could look at this 2 ways you could look at this as a liability that I'm accepting for for the rest of my life that or the rest of leg uphelts life whereas like Tyler is like going to be there. Um, and and so like. If I if if Tyler and I ever have a spat like this could complicate things big time but exactly and and but but like there's also this asset which is like Tyler is incentivized to make me money now. Um, and so.

38:10.47
tylerking
Um, as is the case with any founder type relationship. Yeah.

38:23.31
Rick
And then I also like working with Tyler and I want Tyler in my life and so when I look at this I'm going. Okay, so like 1 person might look at this and go this is a bad financial like long-term liability that you're that you're accepting and I look at it and I go. Yeah, it's a long term liability that gets me Tyler my life and him helping me and not helping me more than he's already helping me and um, like he's incentivized to like ah like make me lots of like help me make money so he makes money so I was a big win for me um to like sign up for this like sort of forever. Ah.

38:51.00
tylerking
Yeah.

38:58.30
Rick
Tax. Um, because it's ah it aligns all the things that are important to me. Um, but but that might not be true for other people in a different situation.

39:05.40
tylerking
Right? A good deal is one where both sides should be able to look at it and say you got the better end of the deal and you could look at it through a lens for me where it's like I'm providing a lot of value right now I'm not getting paid anything for the time being and when I you know you could give that argument and you could give the argument. For you. But the key thing is so both of us win and we're aligned both people winning and unaligned. That's how you end up with like ok you get a winner and a loser. Um, but if you're aligned and both people can look at it and say this is unfair like for 1 or 1 or the other. Um. I Think that's a sign of a good Deal. So.

39:43.37
Rick
Yep, agreed the the other thing I wanted to talk about related to this is Jd. The first is like the reason 1 reason I like this is this has no impact on j d's compensation. No negative impact if anything has a positive impact on his compensation because we've got Tyler and his horsepower helping leg up health and so it should lead to. Faster growth of the business and more productivity for jd. Um, and then ah the arrangement with Tyler does not affect. Ah j d's comp at all like his. He's not diluted at anyway. Um his his comp is not affected by being paid tyler my comp is but but j d's is not and that was really important. Ah for me. But I also want to talk about like a big part of our kind of like your interest in doing this was the fact that j d is here and doing what he's doing. Do you want to talk about that at all.

40:26.59
tylerking
Um, yeah, so well. Ah there's a lot to talk about here and maybe if I don't touch on exactly what you're talking about feel free to supplement this but I'll say one of the concerns I've had about this from the even with our original deal was like. I'm I'm a big believer in the business I'm a big believer in you, you're not working. You're not putting in a lot of hours right now and it is kind of like ah a company with a part time Ceo like Twitter. For example, is always a little concerning. Um.

40:53.74
Rick
Are.

40:58.76
tylerking
But what totally kind of mitigated any of those concerns or even just like made me even more excited about the business is J D Rick well and now my partner as well is full time on the business and really I talked to j d I had a conversation before any of this happened and I was like what do you think like your. Role is versus Rick like what's the dynamic between you two and what he explain to me is like a Rick's really good at like big picture strategic thinking and all this and I don't know if you use these words but he was like I'm I'm the in the trenches person like I just like to know what I need to get done and go do it and so it's kind of like strategy versus execution sort of and having someone that. You've worked with him for years prior to this. He's got tons of industry experience and he's going after and executing on the plan I mean that that makes a business so much more appealing. Um.

41:48.50
Rick
Yep, that's exactly right and then and then ah you know the the other thing that gets exciting is um j d continues his role with ah without impact. Um I shift my hours to top a final test so but post supplement Jd but the big thing that like I can't. It'll come out in future podcast episodes. But I don't fully understand the impact of is all the things that we weren't doing with the product and the software because of the no code that tyler' is going to be able to do over the next six months is going to have such an impact on Jd 'S like ability like to to be an iron man and like do more. Ah, with this business like that I don't I can't even like I don't even know what to expect I just think is ah like part of your job I think is like increasing his capacity to service, consumers and employers and I don't have any idea where that's going to go but I know it's going to be crazy.

42:25.87
tylerking
Yeah.

42:39.45
tylerking
Yeah, can I ah just to anyone listening can tell Rick and I are like really excited and we there's a bit of a love fest right now here? Um, if I can depart from that I had a different topic I wanted to talk about that kind of touches on that. Um, so like 1 of the things I got out of the sabbatical.

42:48.96
Rick
But yeah.

42:57.50
tylerking
I'll say a thing that like made me nervous is the perception that is this is this a sign that he's not as interested in less annoying cm um or whatever which it certainly wasn't I think it's very healthy for people to have side projects but 1 of the things it it really helped me solidify why I love lessening serum and why it's the perfect job for me and 1 of the big things is what like. I am the product person in both in both both cases I'm doing product for leg up I'm doing product for listening here. But what that means is so radically different for these 2 companies because leg up health is fundamentally a services company. You've even I think even in the intro of the podcast. It says like a i. What software enabled services company is that how you describe it so like software is a part of it. But it's not really the product that people are buying. The value isn't coming from the software less knowing Crm our best customers log in every single workday and leave it open all day and they're using it potentially forty plus hours a week

43:34.57
Rick
Okay.

43:50.90
tylerking
The user experience matters the design matters they care a lot about features like I know indie hackers always say market more. Don't worry about features. But if you're making a crm the features matter a whole lot It's such a shift to go to leg up health where it's like oh this needs to do the stuff. Like it needs to have the functionality it needs and if it works nobody will ever log into it right? like like we're we're talking about migrating from the the no code system the new code the the new system. Ah pretty soon. We can't move passwords over because they're hashed obviously. We're just going to send everyone a password reset email and you were like oh fewer than half the people will bother to reset their they just they'll just be like oh I I can't log in and that's fine because the value comes from their their service they get from Jd right? Yeah, just they try logging in and it doesn't work and I'm like yeah all right um.

44:38.38
Rick
Yeah, and maybe we shouldn't even send that Password reset email by the way.

44:47.47
tylerking
So what my role long-term ah leg up health is likely to be once the core product' is working is it's going to be automating Jd's stuff it's going to be saying not automating is the wrong word because it makes it sound like we won't do service but like all the things that are manual processes for him. How do we streamline that and make it more efficient. So on the one hand I'm really excited about it being a change of pace for me and kind of flexing some new muscles. But it's also made me like like as a person who cares deeply about building user experience a product where the best user experience is to never use the the software. It's making me realize how much I appreciate my role at lessening crmtwo.

45:21.53
Rick
Oh interesting. Yeah because you're you're designing around lots and lots of users using it Actively, that's interesting.

45:27.57
tylerking
Yeah, like if you're I Guess what I'm saying if if you're a listener out there thinking about starting a company if what you love is product development and you X type stuff. Don't build a business where the goal is for no one to use the product.

45:42.30
Rick
Yeah, yeah, well the the only thing I would say there is like your your cut your your end user is actually Jd um, yeah, and so you like if you if you there's probably you know if we if we ever get to a point where we have 20 coaches using the software every day like that's who you should be thinking of as your primary client.

45:47.20
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

45:59.57
tylerking
Um, um, sorry I kind of interrupted your train of thought to go down there rabbit hole there but ah, what else.

46:00.11
Rick
Um, but yeah I get it.

46:06.62
Rick
I like it I liked it I think I I think we're good on the legup stuff. Um, anyway like we' where Tyler's a partner now we're we're building a new application that's going to launch in may and we're going to conquer the world together. Um, the only other update I have is that i'm.

46:20.36
tylerking
Hell yeah.

46:22.85
Rick
Last last episode I I mentioned that we have a marketing coach. Um that we've hired at Legup and I wanted to just share an update on that. Um, it's going really? Well. Ah Jd is doing um, we were going to take a sort of a we know what we're doing approach and just go out and try to pitch people like on a standard pitch that we developed which. Could have worked like um and now ah Jd. We're kind of going after like there's this thing called customer development popularized by a guy named Rob Fitzpatrick and the mom test. It's very popular book in the indie hacker crowd but like. Basically Jd's going through an and customer interview process with prospective employers in Utah and we've identified that startups and professional service. Firms um, are the the first target verticals we want to focus on I'm particularly interested in professional services and the reason that we're interested in those is typically they're 2 to 19 employees or small local shops mostly Utah people like very localized. Um, it's white collar. Um and that like ah benefits are are going to be an expected ah or important part of compensation revenue per employees high enough to wear budget budgeting health benefits is is reasonable. So it's got all those factors but the exercise that um Garrett who is our marketing coach is putting us through. Is is really really good. Um, and so I'm actually I want my biggest challenge and I want to get your input on this is I want to combine like I feel like we have 2 competing priorities. We've got j d doing interviews um through through this coaching process where we're going through positioning exercise and messaging which is the right way to start a business like it's what I did.

47:48.23
tylerking
Ah.

47:55.97
Rick
But leg up health. Um, and then this other competing priority of like a hundred at bats pitches and I feel like they're competing with each other and not. We're not moving as fast on either of them as we could if we just combine them into 1 thing. Um.

48:05.78
tylerking
So you want him to pitch people. So so there's the customer interview where it's not a pitch. It's we want to learn from you but we're not asking you to buy anything and then there's the hundred pitches you're saying can we can we interview someone and pitch them at the same time.

48:20.77
Rick
I'm saying let's change the goal to something different that evolves like maybe it's just a hundred meetings. Um, but in order for that to work I was rereading I rewrote my mom test notes. Um, ah because I took notes on the book and and one of the things that he says in there.

48:24.10
tylerking
Ah.

48:35.94
Rick
About customer interviewing is like what people get wrong is a lot of people just do the customer interviews. They don't ask for a commitment at the end of the interview. Yeah, and so like I basically I I think as long as we shift our interview process because right now we're not asking for a commitment at the end of the interview to asking for a commitment like an introduction or.

48:38.15
tylerking
Yeah, that was yeah, sorry good.

48:54.98
Rick
Like that commitment can evolve as we learn like to eventually like would you like to sign up then I'm good like making like let's go do like 30 customer interviews and not worry about pitching for for the next until we change the interview without.

49:04.91
tylerking
Yeah, and so people people talk about the mom test all the time and I feel like this is a part of it that gets left out is that there's 2 reasons to task for the commitment and and you kind of touch on this but let's be clear a commitment doesn't mean by doesn't mean by my thing it could be I want another meeting with you or I want you to introduce me to somebody else.

49:14.32
Rick
Um.

49:24.40
tylerking
1 reason for this is if you ask someone like hey you know, not not that you should ask a question this way but like do you want to buy our product like like is this product worth building is kind of the the fundamental thing you're asking a lot if even if they're like yeah yeah, that sounds interesting if you're like could you like put me in touch with 2 other people I could talk to if they won't do it. They're not actually interested. So partially, it's a validation thing right? and then also partially it's like well yeah, you actually do have to sell this at some point so like try to sell it.

49:46.12
Rick
Exactly? Yeah, so do you do I mean are you generally supportive of of combining those 2 efforts into one effort and and aligning them to like the ultimate goal which is to get employer customers at the end of the year

50:00.39
tylerking
Yeah, I'm let me think so first of all I I introduced one person a JD and so I've I've saw what that email looked like and I know he said like I'm not going to pitch you on anything in this. Um I I think you would have to not say that if if we were looking for some sort of commitment. Um, which is fine.

50:16.98
tylerking
I guess my instinct is like how many customer interviews. Do you really need to do like you've been in this industry for a long time like it doesn't strike me like you need to interview a hundred people before.

50:27.60
Rick
I want to stop calling them customer interviews at some point but like I guess right now like here's here's here's some context that I don't think I've given you in our marketing coach meeting this week we do an hour with Garrett every Thursday Garrett I was like guys like. We're making tons of progress in this interview thing. But I just want to call attention like the goal that we have for this project is getting 100 pitches where are we with that and the answer like we we kind of fumbled around it was like 0 like we've we've made 0 progress and it's like so that creates some tension I think healthy tension like I'm not saying the reason I call it out is I want I want us to be like.

50:47.98
tylerking
Right? right.

50:57.23
tylerking
Another.

51:03.27
Rick
Making a tradeoff decision between customer interviews and pitches and but but it created this like oh where we have competing priorities when that doesn't feel right? They're actually the same thing they should be leading does that make sense.

51:12.46
tylerking
Yeah, it does. But so I don't have strong conviction about what I'm about to say but it reminds me of a little thing I said ah 1 or 2 or 3 episodes ago about what how we've kind of changed our product development stuff where we used to say like we've got 5 developers. Ah. Let's you know you work on project day you work on project b you work on project c and we've had a lot of success saying no everyone work on 1 thing and get it done 5 times faster. There are a lot of benefits to that but like to to play Devil's advocate here I might say rather than saying combine the 2 together. What if you said like. No, we're doing one and then we're doing the other I agree doing the 2 in parallel at the same time is not the right move but is the solution to combine them together is a solution to say we're going to do customer interviews until we're done with them and then we're going to do pitches.

52:03.57
Rick
Um, it's possible. Um I I actually like the mom test approach which is what he doesn't say this explicitly but what he's saying is do customer interviews and evolve that into a pitch.

52:18.12
tylerking
Sure.

52:19.87
Rick
And and it's it's all one fluid motion and I would like to have JD thinking like that where it's not like we're going to go to 10 customer interviews and then we're just going to go do 10 like ah 90 pitches I want them to do a hundred customer interviews that eventually the customer interview becomes like a pitch.

52:28.13
tylerking
Okay, that absolutely I think that's okay I that's not necessary that sounds good to me I just would be very clear about where we are like. Like maybe the first one is 100% customer interview and the last one is 100% pitch. Ah well when I first heard what you were saying I was imagining each 1 ne's fifty fifty um and maybe in the middle as you're passing through. It's fifty fifty but like we should be clear about what our priority is because these 2 things have different like. Like Garrett's job might be different and Jd's job might be different depending on where we are on that spectrum.

53:07.10
Rick
I agree. So okay, cool I'll I'll um I'll push on this further. Ah yeah, yeah, the what the next step is what the commitment that we're asking for is what changes but the commitment being asked for is is consistent throughout like the commitment might be hey do you know any other small business owners that you could introduce me to um today and then. Ah, on 100 it's would you like would you like to buy this. Um and I I could probably do a better job of of articulating like the spectrum there. Um and that would probably bring this to life so I will do that.

53:26.72
tylerking
Yeah.

53:36.16
tylerking
Yeah, but I definitely having the 2 things going on and just like informally ignoring 1 of them is definitely not the the way to go. So yeah, sounds good huh um all right? We've got.

53:44.58
Rick
Yeah, cool. Thank you I Just I Just want to Plug. Um I am having an awesome experience with this coach. Ah I I think I waited too long to hire a coach for this area. Um, it's. Especially with how little time that I have on leg up Health he is he is adding he is getting he is maximizing the amount of time I have on leg up health in this area and it's huge.

54:10.69
tylerking
So yeah let's talk about that because I was just about to ask you like we we when we're in person we were kind of talking about what what are your strengths? What are my strengths and so on and you said like 1 of your big ones is top of funnel which is a big part of marketing and yet you hired a marketing coach. So if you were full time. Do you think you still would have but it would still be a good idea to hire a marketing coach.

54:35.18
Rick
I am of it. Yes, Lebron has a coach. Um and I this is new for me I just want to disclaim like this is new I don't know what I can't explain this shift but like I've just had this epiphany where if you want to be the best of the best no matter what like you think you're good at like having someone. Who can help you maximize your potential a coach in other words is is why wouldn't you and it's so yes.

54:57.60
tylerking
Um, yeah I I totally agree. Um I don't necessarily practice what I preach here I don't have any coaches that I know of but um I used to think I used to really roll my eyes at the idea of a business coach because I was like. If the idea is that you know more about this than me, you wouldn't be a business coach. You'd be running a multimillion dollar saas company so you're full of shit. That's always what I thought and first of all, just not everyone wants to do that like some like the same way. Some people are naturally good at teaching teaching and they want to do it. Um, and other people want to be more applied. But also the thing that I was missing this whole time is like no one ever said the coach has to be better than you when you're a kid playing sports the coaches. Ah, it's like my water polo coach was a great water polo player and he would get in the pool and just school us. But there's nothing like.

55:50.74
tylerking
In college we didn't have a coach at all our our water polo team was just totally self-organized. It would have been great to have someone who's never played water polo in their life just to be like hey everyone ah time to move on to the next thing. Yeah.

56:02.93
Rick
It's time to do this and I'm time boxing this and ah J D you're not participating enough.

56:08.32
tylerking
Yeah, so I anyway I I've I've come around on this that I buy the idea that even if you're an expert and even if the coach not not that you know Garret's necessarily worse than you but like even if they're worse than you. It can still be valuable to have a coach. Yeah well.

56:21.32
Rick
And he's better than me and at this at this stuff for sure. Um, yeah I think like 1 thing that has happened that has probably caused both of us to have this negative bias is that there is a proliferation of coaches who have no business being coaches because they want to be a coach not because they are a good coach. Um, and so I think ah. Who you hire as your coach is the difference between this working or not um and it's not It's I think it's hard to find the right coach I will call that out and sometimes maybe having no coaches better than the wrong coach. Yeah.

56:46.44
tylerking
Um, yeah, a bad coach. Yeah um, cool. We've got a few minutes here should I What should we talk about.

56:57.35
Rick
Anything you want I'm I've got all my topics covered and I'll just say thank you for I thank you for everything you've done for for me over the last couple weeks it's been really powerful. So thank you.

57:10.34
tylerking
Likewise man I've I've had a just a great time and I realize it's just the beginning of it. But um, again back to the well thank you for saying that. That's nice. You back to the less annoying thing again I was I was a little nervous like how how are these 2 going to play off each other and just like.

57:26.93
tylerking
I feel like an entrepreneur again. Um, which gives me so much more energy for less like Friday was one of the best workdays for less annoying I've had in a long time now. Maybe that's because it's my first day back from sabbat or whatever but like I really think there was like a tiny part of me that had been withering away just like. Like if you think of your muscles I had been exercising some of my muscles a lot like I skipped leg day and now I feel like this I just feel so energized by getting back in the the startup game.

57:58.40
Rick
Yeah, and I I think I I didn't realize we've always had some tension um on the podcast since I've gotten focused on entrepreneurship about my ability to focus on 1 thing. Um and I had I had forgotten that you've kind of always had a ah couple of things going on. Um. and and I hadn't really put it together that like one of those things. Yeah, one of those things went away. Ah and you've been trying to kind of replace it with something. Unsuccessfully, you've had you launched the less knowing um business blog that that didn't fill it for you. You Um I think you tried something else. ah ah I can't remember what it was but like some investment thing. Um.

58:16.70
tylerking
Um, I'd forgotten that too.

58:27.52
tylerking
Are.

58:33.14
tylerking
Yeah, well yeah, the you the call you're mentioning like my role in the calm fund community and stuff which is not that it didn't work. It's just like being an lp in a fund is not really that active of position. Obviously.

58:35.30
Rick
And yeah, and then did yeah.

58:46.79
Rick
Yeah, yep.

58:48.93
tylerking
But yeah, and for people who don't know what Rick's talking about or or what I'm talking about that I'm missing something when so I started last snowing serum with my brother and then after like maybe six months to a year like pretty early on I helped my mom start a food blog called the yummy life which is still going but it's very much on cruise control. So there's not like. Anything for me to do there really? Um, but yeah I was kind of I kind of had to it was very clear what my main thing was less knowing serum was always my main thing but um, just having something on the side to to kind of crosstrain. You know Michael Jordan took ballet lessons right? like anyway. Yeah. Cool, ah, let me give a real quick shout out just so I can knock this off the list and then we can call it a day does that work for you have you heard of it's called see a future dot to me like see a future me um, have you heard of this.

59:30.88
Rick
It sounds good to me.

59:39.58
Rick
Um, no.

59:42.66
tylerking
It's kind of a silly gimmick I think it's created by I forget who but someone in the indie hacker space. So it's c ya why? a future dot to me. Um, and the idea is you can just record a video of yourself and they'll hold on to it and just email it back to you after. I'm doing a year but after a month or whatever so I did this a year ago and I completely forgot about it I just recorded a video of like what my my goals at less knowing serum were at the time. What I'd hope to get done over the next year and so earlier this week I just got this video of myself from a year ago saying what the goals were. And it was ah it was pretty eyeopening to be honest because I feel like anytime you set goals you just like they kind of shift over time and by the time you get to the point where you should be evaluating them well like imagine you did that a month ago your goal with leg up benefits would have been nothing like what we're building now. That's not to say it's wrong, but it was really interesting looking back at me like wow what like what a great opportunity to reflect on how not only how did we get it done or didn't we but how much what I wanted has changed over the last year well yeah it's so I'd never done it before so I i.

01:00:50.93
Rick
Interesting. Do can you share what you said in the video.

01:00:59.14
tylerking
I think I did it poorly I Basically just said what I wanted product and growth goals at lessening serum to be Um, we did not get the product stuff done but we we got some of them done. But I I would say partially we changed what the sorry you asked for me to share what the goals were I don't know it was like um.

01:01:05.31
Rick
And.

01:01:18.62
tylerking
It was just build a bunch of features. Basically I don't remember I thought my head what they were and we did some of them but not most of them part of it was just too ambitious and part of it was I think pointed in the wrong direction and then there are growth goals and I said I wanted to be at 40 to 50 k a our growth per month. We're not there. This was I record it right before like. The demand maven engagement and like we we had a lot of ideas for growth last year that I don't want to say they didn't work but like they didn't we didn't crush it the way we'd hoped so we didn't hit those goals yet. Um, but.

01:01:46.65
Rick
Yet.

01:01:53.23
tylerking
I just recorded a new one for next year and now that I've done it once I think I I think I did a better job of like actually thinking through my goals and all that um sorry I'm a little distracted. Can you hear like crying in the background. My my dog is downstairs just like.

01:02:05.30
Rick
Nothing.

01:02:10.15
tylerking
Making sea lion noises. It's kind of distracting me um, no anyway. So but I all I also set ah some some leg up health goals as well. So I did less annoying product and growth and some leg up health stuff.

01:02:19.72
Rick
O That's cool. Um I ah am looking at the website see a future me future dot see future dot me. It's made by testimonyimonial dot too. This is a very brilliant this a very brilliant like freemium.

01:02:29.39
tylerking
Um, oh yeah, Damon Chen right

01:02:36.74
Rick
Marketing Tool Friend Awareness tool like get people using your product and then like Wow brilliant.

01:02:38.12
tylerking
Yeah, um.

01:02:41.86
tylerking
Yeah, it's cool. So anyway, we all set goals. This is a great way to actually hold yourself accountable to what the original mindframe mindset you were in when you made the goal as opposed to like a year later after you have all the context. Yeah I encourage people to give it a shot. Um, should you there are a couple of tools like this they they are expensive though I was that it oh I thought.

01:03:01.33
Rick
We should be using testimonial dot to it leg up health Holy crap.

01:03:09.75
Rick
This one's twenty five bucks a month. Yeah oh that doesn't sound great.

01:03:14.81
tylerking
Okay, all his tweets are like oh I raise prices again I raise prices again the whole the whole indie hacker bootstraper world is like so in love with raising prices and I get it. There's no better way if you already have customers. There's no better way to just like immediately make money but I do feel like Twitter. If. You just hang out on Twitter it glorifies raising prices to a a problematic degree anyway, I'm not I'm not saying that to I like Damon I I like Testimony all that too I'm not trying to shit on that. That's more of a general comment.

01:03:44.59
Rick
Yeah, well if if you've listened to the podcast before ah you know that Tyler feels how Tyler feels about price increases.

01:03:48.34
tylerking
Yes, offer everything for free. You never get to have wealth this is about suffering. Okay, let's call it.

01:03:57.24
Rick
Ah, all right? Um, if you'd like to review past topics and show notes visit startup to last dot com see you next week

01:04:02.32
tylerking
See ya.