The first step of a flywheel

 In this episode, Rick explains how he’s getting more hands on with marketing. 

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.

00:00.42
tylerking
What up Rick doing good are you I don't anymore I'm past the window. But yes I am ah I have a lingering cough from covid going on. So hopefully that doesn't.

00:01.76
Rick
What's up Tyler how you doing this week I'm much better than you I don't have covid.

00:16.49
tylerking
Appear in this podcast.

00:18.37
Rick
Um, yeah, if there's a long break of silence. Um, and just I can hear it probably or see Tyler coughing. You will not be able to hear it but that is what is happening um o that'd be good one. Um I was thinking about you other day. Ah.

00:26.50
tylerking
Yeah, or maybe I'll forget to meet myself. We'll see.

00:34.36
Rick
We lived in draper and they had a cafe reer there that was absolutely disgusting and I stopped eating cafe rio because that location was so bad but we've recently moved to a new neighborhood. We ordered cafe rio for the first time in a while it was so good and I know that's one of your favorite places in Utah.

00:40.73
tylerking
A.

00:49.55
tylerking
It's the best if anyone doesn't know cafe rio. It's basically like what Chipotle would be if it didn't suck fuck chipotle I hate Chipotle if you like Chipotle you're wrong. Ah, it's just like the same. Format, but delay everything has flavor and is delicious and the tortillas are fresh made everything's amazing I'm sorry you used to live next to a bad cafe area. Ah, but you're enjoying it now.

01:10.38
Rick
Um, yeah I Um I am enjoying it now. So I thought it thought of you and I I must called you over it? Um, but ah, ah exactly I was I was hoping you would you would allude to that. Um.

01:22.23
tylerking
Ah, nice. Well I'll be in Utah later this month and I'm definitely getting cafe ria.

01:29.24
Rick
Do ah I would love to get together when you're here I will be in town so we need to work that out. Um I have a big update we ah, we have made a lot of progress. Um, we were gonna have our partners meeting so at like up Tyler's a partner Jd's ah another partner with three partners. We meet every.

01:32.21
tylerking
Um, yeah.

01:48.90
Rick
Third Monday of the month to catch up where we were going to be on Monday so I was super excited to tell you about of this stuff but we're going to push it back a week because of ah some conflicts. Um, but it's exciting because since the last partner meeting. We basically said there's you know Rick and jd are going to focus on the same thing which is.

01:51.26
tylerking
Fifth.

02:05.57
Rick
Building the outbound machine versus like you know, breaking up into 2 groups and going after 2 different things and it's been so fun. So there's kind of 2 updates 1 is it's working. We're starting to get inbound. We're starting to build momentum and then I've got a couple of like observations that I just wanted to share with you. Ah.

02:10.80
tylerking
I have.

02:23.34
Rick
Ah, and and the and the audit and the listeners around like just things that are being reinforced through this which is yeah the power One of those things is the power of focus. Um, just just the fact that J D and I are focused singularly on the same thing allows our time together and a time apart to be so much more productive. Um.

02:29.40
tylerking
Um, m.

02:42.69
Rick
And and make so much more progress in a short amount of time. It's also ah we we share the same wins and so it's like this. Um, it's very ah contagious.

02:53.10
tylerking
Yeah, yeah I I like that and like as an outsider observing like it also kind of strikes me as your role being ah year that you're the founder. You're the owner. But you're not you don't have a ton of time to put into it right now I do think like it's easy to get. Removed from like like this phase of a startup is not strategic right? It's like go do the work and because you don't have the time to do the work yourself I think you were you? Yeah I fall into this trap too. You you look for other things like oh maybe I can go brainstorm about this or whatever. Um I Love the fact that you're so close to the core thing that needs to be happening now. Even if you're not. Putting in most of the time.

03:32.42
Rick
Ah, that's a good point. Yeah, like what ends up happening when you're when you're in my situation. You just create distraction and you make it harder for the person who's actually doing the thing that matters to succeed. So I've removed that distraction and also sort of double down on helping. It's been really, really fun. Um.

03:47.29
tylerking
Um, yeah, cool.

03:49.19
Rick
The main thing another takeaway around cold calling that we're observing is that um we are I'm not cold calling but outbound ah cold prospecting in general is that I think a lot of people focus on quantity of you know in terms of like. The number of accounts that you're going after the number of people that you're reaching out to and the number ah of activities you're completing and um, when you do that you lose sight of like whether or not it's actually moving the needle and so um, what we found is that optimizing for in particular a ah conversation. Um. Even if that conversation is Fifteen. Seconds is much more important than having a volume. Um, so I'd rather I'd rather you know if if I could figure out how to get Jd five fifteen minute 15 second conversations with icp accounts a day. Ah you know with 5 calls like that would be ideal.

04:34.45
tylerking
Um, and the.

04:38.97
Rick
Um, but it doesn't matter how many calls we have to make we just have to get to this 5 conversations. Um, and it changes the whole dynamic in terms of how you build ah the the content you're out reaching out with and then also like the the steps in the outreach process.

04:49.65
tylerking
So can I'm having trouble like with just imagining the specifics here like what what were you doing and what are you doing now and like what changed because you decided to focus on quality.

05:02.15
Rick
Yeah, so the well it wasn't necessarily that we first decided to focus on quality. It was that we said we we we changed the outcome. Um, and so ah, the outcome we were optimizing for before is like let's put as many accounts into a cadence as possible. Um, and oh yeah, we prospected.

05:15.13
tylerking
No.

05:19.68
Rick
Ah, thousand accounts in the last month and and we've shift what we shifted is how many people have we actually talked to and had a conversation with that you know and and and we call it profiling them but like how we found out whether they offer you know group health insurances or not.

05:36.77
tylerking
Yeah, so so you're saying before you were 1 step up in the funnel and you had like maybe 10 times as many like quote unquote leads. But maybe you weren't getting to ah the next step with any of them. Yeah, okay so.

05:36.79
Rick
Which is like like what is their current health benefit situation if we know that.

05:48.58
Rick
A conversation we weren't having any meaningful conversation. So if when we first looked at Jd's flows it was um, you know, step 1 and 2 and and 3 we're all, um, asynchronous, ah.

05:51.56
tylerking
So what did you do to change to to get the conversations.

06:03.77
Rick
Ah, written communication. There was ah an a Linkedin request an email an email number 2 and there was no phone calls. Um and and so it required someone you know replying and then Jd replying to get a conversation going. So what we did was we we drafted a call script. We changed the email structure.

06:08.50
tylerking
So.

06:23.41
Rick
But we we drafted we drafted a call script and put that as step one. So before you can send the first email you've got to make a phone call and that alone has made the difference because ah you you you have some percentage of chance every time you make a phone call that there's someone's going to answer and that's a conversation.

06:24.74
tylerking
Where.

06:37.30
tylerking
Right? Yeah I I know that the point you're making is bigger than just like calling works and emailing doesn't I know that's not the the takeaway exactly but just to like echo that a little you know we have done the whole thing with like buying leads and and trying different follow up. And the problem we always had is like we can convert them, but it's it's really time intensive to do the calls and we found a much cheaper lead source that was cheap enough that were like what if we can just email them and even if we only get you know 5% as many conversions. It's cheaper enough and then we don't have to spend all the time doing the calls this would work great anyway. So we tried that. Ah. 0 responses like and these were people who opted in into getting outreach from Sierra companies. So um, just to say as much as I hate cold calling I never want to be cold called I've only done like 3 cold calls in my life and I'm never doing another. Ah, it certainly seems to be the case that if you're trying to sell something. Like being willing to get on the phone is a huge huge unlock.

07:35.47
Rick
Absolutely And what it does for for leg of Health in particular is it. Um it like it. It ah gets that that that conversation started and then when you have that conversation. You can then Pitch. Um and there is a conversion rate on pitches like. Yeah microp pitches big pitches like it. It could be 1% or it could be 15% or it could be 50% and so if you do enough of those but it turns into pipeline eventually. Um and just like no matter what business you're in like as long as you have ah a meaningful offering. Um anyway, so so that's the big shift is shifting away from like trying to do a lot of accounts.

08:00.11
tylerking
Are.

08:11.89
Rick
And more to focusing on getting Jd a a conversation with an Icp prospect No matter how small or short or cold that conversation is.

08:22.40
tylerking
Cool. So and I can tell you've got energy and you feel like this is going well and the the 2 things I've heard one. You're kind of pairing with JD that's one of the big changes and to more of an emphasis on calling and less of an emphasis on email. Um.

08:35.86
Rick
Yeah, the yes and and there's ah, there's a larger sort of framework that I think was an unlocked 2 for our peering. So the other thing is pairing is important. Um, and so we'd bring different skillets to the the problem solving so j d is ah you know he he is a hustler.

08:35.91
tylerking
Are the 2 inputs that have gone into this so far.

08:52.62
Rick
He he will execute the play and he will do it a thousand times and he he will make it better over and over again. Um, where I come in is like what what are we actually building here. Um, what's the system that makes this work and makes it easier. You know over time so that you know we're we're not just like. Building a rat race here. We're actually building a system that makes our ah you know makes money. Um, and so we started. Ah, we kind of took a step back. Ah, before we got into the weeds and said what are we actually building here and we outlined um basically for lack of a better word of flow diagram ah flowchart of.

09:15.34
tylerking
Ah.

09:28.73
Rick
Hey, like here's a bird's eye view of what like the ideal outbound prospect like process is and here's what it feeds in terms of a marketing. Ah, you know sort of ah demand generation machine and here's how that demand generation machine then feeds back to the sales you know, sort of Cadence. And and what it what it showed was there are very clear like 6 to 10 very specific components that we need to get right? as part of the system. You know three of which are very related to the outbound cadence and the outbound cadence is the predecessor to being able to build the marketing machine. So it got us both excited to say hey let's partner on these first 3 things get this outbound thing working and once that's working it's going to unblock this marketing machine thing that's going to make your you know give you even more leads. Um, and then that's going to unblock advertising which is going to give give us even more leads and that's going and then.

10:16.21
tylerking
Are.

10:24.43
Rick
Then we could hire people to do this outbound candidate and it's going to give us even more lead So this virtuous sort of system cycle that we we see that we're that we've built is motivating.

10:31.70
tylerking
Yeah, that's cool. Can I so that all sounds great and for you like you're an experienced entrepreneur and you have experience kind of running more sophisticated like larger companies. Um, and so you know how this all works I could imagine someone listening hearing that and being kind of intimidated by like there's these 6 things and they often work together. Whatever. Can I like pitch you on a simpler version of what you just said, not to say that you and Jd should do it. But like someone who's just getting started maybe would take take this away which is what I heard First of all, is you said it goes from sales to marketing to I forget the 30 thing bit sounded like you're moving up the funnel. Yeah I know you're thinking of it as a cycle but like.

11:09.84
Rick
Um.

11:11.70
tylerking
You're starting now like if you think of what you're doing now as starting and then there's more to come later. It sounds like you started as close to the money and as close to the buyer as you could rather than starting optimizing at the top of the funnel which is kind of what email was a little higher up the funnel and saying how do we get this thing to trickle down into to high quality leads. Is is that fair to say.

11:30.11
Rick
Kind of I don't think I think most people the mistake they make is they they think of this as a funnel ah versus a flywheel. Um, and so my my methodology for thinking about this is much more in terms of a flywheel. Um, ah compounding you know, sort of processes versus like.

11:39.94
tylerking
Um I.

11:46.52
Rick
A you know trying to optimize for the perfect journey.

11:49.10
tylerking
That's fair enough as a way to think about it but like practically speaking you have to do something where do you start? and I think I think it can be really intimidating to say oh I've got to get this whole machine working and the thing that's working right now is the thing that's close like in the flywheel the thing that's closest to The. Ah, person who's actually going to buy it sounds like.

12:05.98
Rick
Yeah, so so Raw like at the top of the funnel is raw leads like if any funnel. Um, and so what is the best input for Raw leads. Well it's a person going and finding your ideal prospect and putting them in a spreadsheet like that's the most controllable. Aspect of raw leads and that's what we're focusing on like as input number one then you've got to figure out like like you could spam a list people with a marketing email like that's one option or you can try to create what's called a captive sort of audience that is has some sort of affinity that you validated like a validated list. Ah, to to start to nurture from a marketing standpoint and so what we're saying is we don't want to be like that marketing spam Engine. We want our marketing to be less spammy. Not maybe it's still spam. But um, and so what we've said is we're going to focus on like building the the manual process of building the raw lead list through our outbound Cadence. Validating that list and profiling that list ah through the outbonc cadence and then once they reach a certain you know level of like confidence in terms of quality of data. Ah pushing that into our um, our our marketing engine for purposes of like ah nurturing and ah. And long-term sort of opportunity generation.

13:18.84
tylerking
Yeah I guess my point is I'm not hearing any marketing yet which is good I think is good like you're doing sales. This is just sales right now. Yeah.

13:27.18
Rick
But what is marketing Tyler like let's have this conversation like I think you're talking about like I'm not maybe we're not, you're hearing anything about advertising or ah.

13:32.15
tylerking
Ah, no I don't mean that I mean I think of marketing as 1 to many and sales as 1 to 1 Um, that's maybe an oversimplification but no, but like if you if you had a company with like a chief revenue officer that oversees Biz Dev in sales and marketing like who would be doing the things JD is doing right now. The sales team would be.

13:51.25
Rick
Yeah, so I guess yeah so so lead generation is a marketing function. Ah, just as like competitive analysis as a marketing function just as you know, branding and positioning as a marketing function and we're doing a lot of that stuff. Um, but like I think what you're talking about is particularly like marketing. Ah.

13:51.43
tylerking
Or that the sdrs would be right.

14:08.32
Rick
With the goal of generating ah like leads for sales. Um, and that is yeah so I think again, you're thinking of marketing as a function versus like like a function in a funnel in ah in a in a a in a so.

14:13.56
tylerking
Wouldn't I wouldn't sdrs be under the sales department not the marketing department.

14:26.77
Rick
Supply chain ah versus like it's holistic across the entire. Yeah yeah, I'm not saying everything is marketing I'm just saying that it's not as simple as just like just passing leads to sales. Um, yeah.

14:28.13
tylerking
Yeah I hate that definition of marketing ever. It's like everything's marketing. It's like well then let's make up the word for the thing we all mean.

14:40.74
tylerking
Okay, anyway, fair enough and everything you're saying makes sense and anything is right I'm just trying to dumb this down for like the you don't want an Mba. You don't even want to understand how this works you just want to do the minimum viable version of this. My takeaway is fucking call people. Ah. And try and and talk to them about your product and then build build on top of that later.

14:56.38
Rick
Or or or do what you did which is you know, spend you know a very small amount of money on digital advertising or creating a creating an inbound flow. Um, if you can afford to do that I tried that it didn't work.

15:08.60
tylerking
We have a self-serve product I think that I thought a lot about that like the difference between these 2 businesses and I think that's the difference is like our product is designed to work without ever talking anyone and how do you sell a service without talking to someone you know. But anyway we we can move on i.

15:12.27
Rick
Me.

15:22.86
Rick
Yeah, agreed Yeah, the the other thing I do think like I kind of get in what your point is like which is like hey you got to get started somewhere where where's the highest leverage for your business. You know we've identified that as um, the the process of building a target account list manually through sales.

15:41.34
Rick
Ah, ah, doing outreach with the goal of learning about them and validating them and then you know that should lead to some amount of meetings. But then that is sort of the beginning of our ah marketing or our demand generation machine for like I don't want to call it marketing. Um, our our growth machine and ah you know that that if. We can't that is the the most important thing to get right first and then it feeds this other stuff that that matters because it will make that work better over time. Um, but you always have to have that spear point right? like. And for for us that spear point is is the manual prospecting and outbound for you I think it was ad digital advertising and for someone else it might be partner partner referrals. Um, it could be ah you know something else.

16:19.92
tylerking
Yeah, but they're all lower in the fight like the the thing I'm trying to avoid the mistake I've made and I see a lot lot of people I follow on Twitter and a lot of podcasts I listen to are I think currently making this mistake is they're like I'm going to go build an audience I'm going to go like I'm going to go write a newsletter.

16:34.60
Rick
Means.

16:36.56
tylerking
And that newsletter is going to turn into customer and it's like that can work but you need like a 100000 people to read a blog post to turn into one customer. It's that is not the game you play when you're first getting this engine going.

16:47.74
Rick
Yeah, agreed Yeah, there's like ah your point I think is is that I think you said something about like you're getting closest to the dollar as possible. Um in terms of like ah how to how to turn activity into money. Um, and and for for yeah and that's what.

17:00.54
tylerking
Um, yeah.

17:03.99
Rick
Like if you could go back in time. Do you think you would have done some outbound ah outreach to to to get your first customers.

17:08.22
tylerking
Ah I think it would have worked well I I know my own like there's this whole separate side to this which is play to your strengths and um if I had J D on the team. We would be a much more successful company than we are because he would have gone out and cold called some people or.

17:13.19
Rick
Yes.

17:23.79
tylerking
He would have found a way to talk to people 1 on one and right now that doesn't scale for us but like in the early days when you just need your first 5 or 10 or 20 customers. If you have what it takes to do that and j d does then I think that works better than what I did.

17:35.98
Rick
But but I'm but I'm also hearing you say is actually that's not the tip of the spear for us. It doesn't work with our revenue model. Um, and so no, that actually like maybe that would work for getting helping us get to sustainability. But it's not part of building. It's not the tip of our spear for our growth engine. Um, yeah, and so and that's what I'm talking about here is like you know what is the.

17:50.89
tylerking
Um, not for the scaling part. No yeah.

17:55.42
Rick
Yeah I would we've identified that we we cannot be successful unless we build this machine. Um, and um and so it's a tip of our. It's a tip of our thing and and and and you know if you have a captive like go back to your audience example, if you have a captive audience.

17:59.96
tylerking
Um.

18:03.19
tylerking
That you.

18:11.24
Rick
And you are building a product based on the learnings from that audience. Hell yeah, like take the audience first approach, you've already got the audience but like if you're like exactly yeah.

18:16.44
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah, but don't go build an audience so that you can do that? Yeah um, that makes it and yeah I do forget I we still talk about leg of health like it's kind of the early days or at 6 figures in revenue like I'm comparing it to the first 10 customers last knowing serum I should be comparing it to the.

18:35.33
Rick
I had that realization this week too where I was like oh wow Leg up health is where is is is past where I took over za benefits.

18:35.82
tylerking
Hundredth customer lessening serum.

18:45.80
tylerking
Wow Yeah, that's a that's a weird way to look at it and that's cool and Za benefit ended up being yeah and we ended up being huge compared to that. Oh yeah, awesome cool. Ah, what else? What's on your mind.

18:49.69
Rick
Or I've been here before? yeah yeah I have one more takeaway from that conversation then I will stop talking about outbound. Um the there is a if you choose to do outbound as the tip of your spear. Um, obviously we've talked about the cold calling like getting a conversation is more important than like sitting 10000 emails and like getting being tired at the end of a week. Um, but there is an element of mentality and hustle that is very important to have I think to make it successful. You have to have consistency daily on a daily basis. You have to have positive attitude. You have to have confidence that it's going to work. Um, and if you can do that and string it together. Um, it actually does build a lot of momentum and even if you're not making money but you're moving people down the funnel. It. It. It is a good feeling of progress when you are starting to see the seeds get planted and and and and and ah the seeds that you've planted come to sort of sprouting and ah and j d's at that moment right now where he's starting to see some imbbounds from his replies. He's starting to have connections on cold calls. He's he's also seeing people hit the website more and they're like I heard about you so there's this like so you know kind of like it's it's harvesting time now. Um, and ah, it's pretty fun.

20:11.48
tylerking
Yeah that's awesome. Can I I know I'm I tried to move on and now I'm going to belabor it even more like so a topic that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been I subscribed some to some new podcasts recently because I was like a lot of the old ones I listened to stopped having episodes. Um and a thing I keep. Seeing I follow a lot of people who are very like wildly successful like hundreds of millions of dollars plus net worth like from their own startup type stuff and so many of them basically all of them either exited or are like I have to exit like the only option is to exit and when you dig into it. Like it's because the whole process of running a company is miserable and no one would ever want to do this and every time I hear that I just can't relate I'm like it's fine. It's better than a job. It's better than what everyone else is doing but the thing that I'm I'm realizing is it's because they're not building a business that they want to work at.

20:55.44
Rick
Nay.

21:02.70
tylerking
And I think this gets back to your question of like if I could go back in time would I would I do that with less annoying and even if it would work. The problem is then you're in this, you're you're on this career path that has to you want to get out of and the thing I love about working with you and Jd is I think JD especially he gets energy from this I think he'll he'd be happy doing this long term like he he'll learn more. He'll get better. He'll do bigger things but like he gets energy from I'm calling people they're picking up the phone I'm talking them if I had to do that I'd be like can I do it? maybe. I'm going to quit in six months if this is my job. You know.

21:39.00
Rick
Yeah, yeah, and and to to I mean same for me like I would getal like what what gives me energy is building the system like and that's why I go straight to that you know birds eye view. Um, and and Jade's I think like I don't want to put words in his mouth because he's not here, but it's it's he he absolutely? um.

21:43.29
tylerking
So yeah.

21:56.18
Rick
What I think he would say is like I think he looks forward to if he if he can perfect this and build it teaching other people. How to do it successfully helping them build a career like that's where he he He really enjoys the ah the the coaching and the training elements and so for him like.

22:03.47
tylerking
Ah, hurt.

22:11.81
Rick
The the path to like making this successful for himself is not just about making leg up health successful but making it repeatable so that he can hire someone? Yeah, what else? What's what's going on your world.

22:19.24
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, so ok, cool, exciting stuff. Um I've got a few things to talk about but ah I I guess I'll just stay on the same topic I've been talking about for a while which is the the tts the talk to sales stuff. Um. Think everyone knows but I'll give a quick recap which is we did the obvious thing that we hadn't 15 years into the business. We hadn't tried yet which is when someone goes to our marketing site give them the ability to set up and ah a schedule a call with a salesperson. Um and just the the summary I'd say there's been 3 phases of this phase one is we put if you go to our marketing site. On our homepage There's a ten second delay and then this it's almost like a chat bubble except you can't chat pops up that's like hey do you want to schedule call if you go to the pricing page. It's a 2 second delay and it pops up. Basically that's a way to get on the phone with Alex our sales guy that was version one and. You know you're always experimenting and trying things and you're always hoping for it to be a home Runn and it never is like this is the first home run I've had in like 12 years I think like ah it's just worked. We've we've we're now to 70 users paying users from the first month of doing this? Um, so it's going great v two was. If Alex is free because it's not like he's booked all day if he's free and someone clicks that link instead of saying go schedule a call it. It takes him to a page. It's like do just want to talk right now like he's free. That was a complete dud. Ah, we can maybe unpack why version 3 which I just launched on Monday um, it's Thursday right now.

23:48.47
tylerking
Version 3 was when someone goes in and does a live demo meaning they're trying out the software but they haven't signed up. It's it's like a demo like a marketing demo. It doesn't actually it's not their real account. We can I built a report for Alex he can see who those people are he can see how many users they have and if he's free and they're actively using it. Can click a button and it pops a thing up on their screen. That's like hey Alex is around to talk right now like do you want someone to walk you through this results are still not in for that. But so far I'd say not optimistic about it. Um, basically there are constantly people getting this demo offer and no one's accepting. It.

24:24.84
tylerking
Um, so that's where we are right now I have things to say but yeah reactions.

24:27.45
Rick
Yeah, and I Yeah, yeah yeah, I mean it'd be interesting to I mean do you guys have like ah I don't some sort of journey that you're mapping around like the ideal person. It sounds like if you if you there's a point in time post live Demo. Um. They're like I have I have I have my list of questions now. Um and I need to talk to someone to make a decision. Um, and so this is more of a timing thing and tracking hitting them with ah with the offer at the right time more so than hitting them with the offer. Um.

24:44.71
tylerking
Um, yeah, right? so.

24:57.60
tylerking
I would have disagreed with you when we started this I would have said the thing that the people we're targeting with this are the enterprise buyers that they're not thinking product first they're thinking I have a checklist and I want to talk to a sales rep. That's what I thought. Alex has determined pretty much everyone he's talking to does the live demo then goes back to our homepage and then books this call and they don't know that that offer is going to be there necessarily so that means they're like they do the live demo and then they're like I'm going to go The journey is I'm going to go look at the marketing site and try and learn more or something I don't know what we we need to figure out what they're looking for. But so yes I think you're right. They're all doing the live demo then they talk to Alex so yeah is where you're getting at maybe like we need to time it with when they're done with the demo kind of.

25:39.34
Rick
Yeah, or um or say you know you know, kind of preempt the you know objection which is hey we we we see people come in live Demos all the time we know that sometimes you're gonna have questions that aren't going to be answered when you're ready. We're here.

25:52.34
tylerking
Yeah, so okay, yeah, that's a good thing to try. So so I'm hearing I had my own hypothesis that I think yours is more believable but I'll say mine anyway which is I Well no actually I still believe mine too which is I Just don't think so.

25:54.61
Rick
And it's not necessarily a Cta. It's a planting of seed.

26:11.24
tylerking
If I I've said this on the podcast before if I need to like if I get a voicemail from my dentist and they're like hey ah we need your insurance information I'm like spending 15 minutes being like okay got to call the dentist. Do I have my insurance card. How do I say hello how do humans say hello. What do I do with my hands I just don't like talking on the phone. Ah. I think the more people are like me than I realize I think when they get the offer and it's like do you want to talk right now. I think people actually want to schedule it in the future. That's one thing I'm taking away from this especially phase two of it does that sounds.

26:40.61
Rick
I agree with that? Yeah I think like if they're not ready for a call when you're offering a call. They're going to schedule it in the future.

26:48.25
tylerking
Yeah, but I mean some of these people literally click the button that's like talk to say it's 1 thing for the people who are in the middle of a demo. They're doing a different thing but some of them clicked the button saying talk to sales and we're saying you can talk to us right now and they're like nah we we have a link.

27:01.26
Rick
Ah, you're you're saying that mentally most people want to prepare for a call. But yeah, yeah I buy that.

27:05.18
tylerking
Yeah, or something I guess I don't know so that's 1 thing and then what I'm hearing from you is also ah the the right time to talk to sales is not step. 1 of the evaluation process and so I don't know. Yeah, maybe. I can think more about this but like giving them the offer when they want it. There's potentially a much higher number of people who would want to talk to sales if we could get them that offer at the right time but the timing is off right now.

27:31.99
Rick
Yeah, and I guess backing up for a second I'm I'm trying to accomplish a couple of things when I say do that one is like I want to know who these people are so when someone is at a live demo. Do we have a email address associated with them and we we have so like that's the thing that I would be optimizing for potentially during the live demo is.

27:43.31
tylerking
Now.

27:50.77
Rick
Ah, trying to get ah Alex some pipeline that he can track. Um, so if if the funnel is most of the people who chat from sales are people who've looked at the live demo. You know they they book after I'd want to know try to figure out. Okay, who's looking at live demos. And is there something we can do to to sort of convert them to a a and an identity and then Alex is sort of monitoring that pipeline and if those people aren't those people aren't turning into to sales. He's he's working them like a salesperson would.

28:21.50
tylerking
Yeah, the hard thing is the the whole the difference between a live demo and just signing up for an account is giving us your email address. So like if we say give us your email address to create a live demo it. It kind of loses a lot of its appeal I think um now maybe yeah, go ahead.

28:25.95
Rick
M.

28:33.18
Rick
Or or yeah, maybe that's not what you do, Maybe it's something like maybe the offer is less about scheduling a call and it's more about like hey would you like us to you know? would you like? yeah us would you like to be in our you know newsletter or or would you like to would you like to get the you know the the buying checklist for the less for the less annoying.

28:46.92
tylerking
Um, yeah.

28:51.31
tylerking
I Think that's right I I would guess that a lot of these people wouldn't mind giving us their email address. They there's this like mental hurdle of like the moment I sign up, it's like a commitment or something Even there's no credit card. There's no reason people should just sign up for a free trial immediately and start trying it out but they don't.

28:52.22
Rick
You know crm.

29:10.50
tylerking
Think that like the the human brain doesn't work that way. So yeah, getting their email address but in a way where they don't even for a moment have that like am I crossing to the next step ah thought makes sense to me.

29:21.19
Rick
Yep, and this is a mind warp but I just in general like how good is your ah I'm thinking about lucid right now and you know I don't remember back in the day but their play was like they would they would get a free user on um, a a um ah lucid flow.

29:26.92
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.

29:38.29
Rick
Chart account but then they would invite collaborators from their company to work on it and then they would see oh we've got 10 free users at Microsoft Let's go sell Microsoft not Microsoft's terrible example but like because they have a competitive product. But um, yeah, they'll land expand and so yeah, yeah, yeah, how good are you are you all at when someone signs up for a free trial and you get that email address.

29:42.70
tylerking
Um, man. But.

29:47.35
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, but the land and expands ah part slack to this to? yeah.

29:57.52
Rick
Ah, enriching that profile with like the opportunity size and saying oh this is a self-serve or this is a sales lead.

30:04.54
tylerking
Well so here's a hard thing there. So what? what we do right now is when they sign up, we ask them how many users they expect to have and if it's I think if it's over 10 Alex Reaches out to them. We no matter what we we reach out to every customer and are like do you want a demo What can we do to help and all that. But. Alex like mostly it's coming from customer service if it's over 10 people on top of that Alex Reaches out is like hey if if you want like a real sales thing let's let's go

30:31.38
Rick
Oh cool so you got that motion built so this is really about like people who aren't signing up for free trial who we don't know who they are. How do we capture them into that flow. Um, and so yeah, like it seems to me like um, you should continue this So I'm going to jump into like solutioning.

30:38.35
tylerking
Yeah.

30:47.20
Rick
I think that like what if I were you what I would do is I would continue to like offer schedule a call as a constant cta. Ah, but then I would probably mix in secondary offers um to to try to get people to convert so that ah Alex can better qualify them for for more aggressive outreach.

30:57.78
tylerking
Um, yeah.

31:04.22
tylerking
Yeah, in terms of offering it more I think that the thing that we're probably missing right now is like right Now. It's kind of a do you want this offer yes or no, if you say no, it's gone. Um, and I think what we probably need to do is figure out a way to make it more permanent and make the person know it's permanent. So It's like when you're ready. Here's where you come back to to do that because I bet we're only capturing a small number of people who just happen to go back to the homepage.

31:24.60
Rick
The the other thing that I'm thinking about here is these are people people are very like we we we werere talking about leg up. We were like we're talking about the top of the funnel like people don't even know who we are. We're talking about the bottom of the funnel here like these are people who are buying a crm um, have you guys have any content that you're surfacing up through this this journey around like.

31:33.95
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah.

31:44.30
Rick
Let's teach you how to buy a cm look. Let let me let's ah, let us teach you how to buy and a less annoying crm in the considerations associated with that.

31:51.30
tylerking
We have that content. Um, we actually had it was kind of cool some like Linkedin Influencer did a that's like a positioning expert did like a base breakdown of us recently and very complimentary and they were like this proves. They know who their buyer is and that felt cool, but um. We have that content. We do not surface it really? Um, so to be honest, the biggest eyeopening thing about this most recent round a talk to sales stuff. We've had this live demo thing forever. But we don't really have any metrics around it. Um, or we we haven't look we we haven't built any reporting or anything around it. There are like an act like.

32:09.91
Rick
That's hilarious.

32:28.85
tylerking
Right now there are ah like during this time of day roughly one live demo getting get started every 3 minutes there is a huge number of people doing these live demos like way beyond the number signing up for free trials and like I'm just looking I'm like eyeballing the report I built for this and it's like. They seem like real people. These are not bots I don't think um they see they're like clicking around. They're actually using it. So setting aside the talk to sales thing now I'm just like wow like we should surely. There's something we can do here. We already obviously do a lot to make the product good and to try to make the product appealing but we haven't really like thought of the live demo users as a marketing angle in quite a while.

33:12.37
Rick
Yeah, so yeah, it would be nice if you could figure out how to convert as many of those people into real like identities that you could qualify that would be like what I would be trying to that would be the game that I'd be playing. Yeah yeah, yeah, you want to like I think your brand is.

33:22.95
tylerking
Um, real identities qualify and then Alex falls up with the ones that are worth following up with.

33:31.68
Rick
Hey um, you know I'm not going to be annoying. So like you know there's there's sort of a pathway one. But then there's like this other pathway which is like how how can we be? How can we align to like the brand but also get them to give us their email address. Ah you know or answer their some questions.

33:43.68
tylerking
Yeah, so like the thing we're not going to do but that some companies who do here is like you can use their Ip and say this I p is coming from this corporate you know most companies if it's coming from an office you can tell who it is and then like we're going to call their front desk and be like hey. You want like someone at your company is looking at lessnoing serum right now. Can we talk to them.

34:02.95
Rick
There's some really cool like um account-based marketing tools where if if based on people hitting your website their ip address a tool will help Alex ascertain what what company they work for and you could do it that way. But I think it's I think that's ah yeah I would I would focus on just trying to convert.

34:16.42
tylerking
Um, that's too much for us.

34:20.12
Rick
Like be ah offer value to these people in exchange for information. Um and try to get more like a better understanding of who these people are and schedule a call is a very like strong offer. There's like softer offers of like hey here's ah we've put together this buying guide. Um, you know if all you need to do is tell us your email address and.

34:26.65
tylerking
Yeah.

34:38.20
Rick
Your company size in order to get it.

34:38.19
tylerking
Yeah, okay, cool I'll I'll put some more thought into that. Thank you? Um, great. Thank you? Yeah, this is the first I talk about how long have we been doing the podcast like 4 years or something and I've been talking about.

34:43.73
Rick
But do I can I just say that I'm good job. This is good stuff.

34:55.90
Rick
Um.

34:57.60
tylerking
Various marketing and sales experiments and this is the first time it's even kind of worked I think so thank you I appreciate that it feels good energy.

35:03.82
Rick
Um.

35:06.70
Rick
Yeah, yeah, and ah, it's yeah I think of the but you're you're focusing on a machine right here and you're what you're saying is like you got the free trial thing working you got this other thing that's been totally not optimized. That's feeding from the other stuff but it's all coming I think most of your traffic sources word of mouth right? Like. It's it's it's.

35:26.12
tylerking
It's at least it's it's organic in the sense. It's someone like googling less knowing serum and when we ask people it's word of mouth or in many cases. It's they like so this is another thing we're doing I don't know if we probably don't have time to get into this right now but like ah we have one of the best marketing channels we've got is like. Random websites that do reviews of crms and so like pc mag has been a big one for us. Um, they did a review of us a while ago and Alex every time he talks someone. He's like how do you hear about us. It's pretty It's it's word of mouth or it's like I saw you on one of these sites. Those are the 2 main ways. Yeah.

35:57.98
Rick
Um, yep, it's awesome.

36:01.70
tylerking
Um, cool you want to talk about vesting.

36:04.26
Rick
Yeah, so um, context here is ah Tyler and I did a deal to get him to be a partner leg up health. We made some assumptions last July around ah vesting terms for that I actually need to I should have prepared more for this I should I think that. Have to remind me of the terms. But I believe it's ah it was getting to a certain number of customers on leg up benefits to trigger the initial ah vesting and then it was a linear vesting from there over a period of ah time correct.

36:33.91
tylerking
Yeah, so the way I remember it. There's basically there's like the the total pot of what I'm getting is basically like once I've vested everything every time you make money. However, it it's whether it's through distribution selling equity. Whatever I get 10% of that same amount. That's when I'm fully vested.

36:48.62
Rick
I.

36:53.37
tylerking
And as long as I'm actively working so right now I get 10% if I quit right now I don't I vest half of it when the cumulative sales for the software. The Sas product I built hit $10000 um, and then at that point I vest the rest gradually over 5 years think that's the agreement. Um, the the reason I brought this up with you is the intent behind that first vesting period. There's nothing magic about the $10000 number it was like that was your way of de risking so that like it's like is this software actually something that's valuable to the business did I do my part of it.

37:14.27
Rick
Yep.

37:30.92
tylerking
When I did my part of it I would get half that that's I think that was kind of the intent behind it. The thing is now we're offering that product as a freemium lead Gen for just selling insurance products mostly and so the hitting the $10000 I think the software is providing value I think it's satisfied what in spirit that was meant to.

37:33.58
Rick
Um, yep.

37:50.66
tylerking
Suggest but we're not actually making the money directly from the software so that $10000 number is pretty far away still um, okay, fair enough.

37:57.50
Rick
Well, we're at $600 a month $700 a month. Ah and and recurring billings and so you know I think if we were to like fast forward. Um like 700. Let's say we took 10000 divided by like 700 how many months would it take fourteen months um so like we're on track probably you know by august to have this 50% vested under the current vesting agreement. Um, but I think what you're saying is like hey it be really nice if you just like said hey we we pivoted recognize the pivot. We did what was right? and like let's trigger this thing.

38:29.71
tylerking
Yeah, that's basically what I'm asking for here because like when we were negotiating this original deal. The hope was that it would trigger at the end of last year the hope was like I'd ship this product around mid July which happened and then j d would go sell it and.

38:39.33
Rick
Um.

38:45.62
tylerking
I think the thought was if things go according to plan. It would be around you know, end of 2023 beginning at 2024

38:50.32
Rick
Um, yep, and and just to reiterate for everyone like the way this works is this is fundamentally like ah the the deal is this is vesting for a a a an excise tax paid to Tyler on any funds paid to me from Leg up. Um, and so. Ah, while while Tyler is active as a partner which is very loosely defined regardless of vesting he gets this tax. Um, so this this vesting period is really around like if Tyler decides no longer to be an active partner will he continue to receive the the tax and if you know. If you know and at what rate, um, you know the full rate or you know a portion of that vested rate. Um and.

39:32.89
tylerking
Yeah, and the reason I care about that I don't plan on leaving anytime soon I don't expect you to fire me. But it's more to start the 5 year count countdown.

39:42.30
Rick
Yep, and and so my fear you know by the way like I'm going to say yes to this just just just just for everyone. You know of course because Ty Tyler's my friend and fundamentally like the way that I thought about this was if Tyler is focused on. On helping me make money for the rest of my life. Ah through leg up health as long as leg up health exists that is good for me. Tyler's really smart. Um, and ah and he's also a person I enjoy spending time with so having this like thing that we're tied that. Together on that you know helps my family and then also helps him is like super aligned to like the relationship I want to build with Tyler. Um, and so it's a very easy thing to say yes to plus tyler kicked ass over the last year in terms of doing like not not letting the compensation agreement drive. What was best for the business. Um, and so like this is a nobraer say yes to but like what I'm thinking through like you know, like on the on the so that's the angel right? Ah, the devil is saying well ton's going to quit in 5 years and you're going to be screwed. Ah and you're going to have this excise tax. You know that that you're paying.

40:36.27
tylerking
Yeah.

40:50.94
Rick
Ah, you know for someone who's not helping you and it's like ah you have to but I think in these situations you have to really think through like who you want to be as a person and also the relationship you want to build with the person you're doing business with um and this is something like what's the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario is ah. we we so we trigger the vesting. Um 5 years from now Teller is like peace. Ah and you know every $100000 I make I have to pay him is it 10% or 5% what is it? Yeah 10% so I pay pay him 10 grand and if it's a million dollars I pay him 100000.

41:14.00
tylerking
This is.

41:23.17
tylerking
Um, it's 10% once it's yeah, fully vested.

41:30.46
Rick
And if it's $2000000 I pay him 200000 worst case I make money he makes a little bit of money I feel good about that. So anyway that that's I just wanted to show the context of my thinking through this type of thing. But yeah I'm fine with it when do you want it to trigger.

41:36.17
tylerking
Yeah, yeah. I appreciate it I mean I'm not sure I'm not like coming in here making demands but like today like you know I think that I've I've lived up to the spirit of the the trigger that that we initially set and yeah.

41:56.71
Rick
Yeah I would I would say february first which is the beginning of our sort of year this year which when it's the effective date of of a lot of the changes we make so what's back data it retroacttive? Yeah so I retroracted to February first and yeah of course, um, well ah I think we can I can't remember if we sign anything.

42:04.64
tylerking
Okay, so you're saying retroactively. Okay I appreciate that. Thank you.

42:16.69
Rick
About this but we can figure out how to document this and ah, what we can do is we can just like do an amendment um and figure out how to write that. Um I'm I'm over revenue operations of a high-growth startup. So I understand how to write contract amendments.

42:16.76
tylerking
Yeah, okay I think there was there was a docusign at one point I think.

42:25.47
tylerking
Yeah.

42:31.33
tylerking
Well, we've got chechy Pt now. So um, now I appreciate that and it like on the to to speak to the devil side. The the arrangement I have with the partners alaing Sam is a little bit different but not not wildly different. Um, and maybe I can speak to like how it worked out a little bit.

42:34.87
Rick
Yeah.

42:50.29
tylerking
Um, on my end so the the way in which it's different I give a lot more in the sense that that this there were 6 partners originally my brother and I are the 2 co-founders and then 4 other partners. The deal is everyone gets the same amount of money period. But when someone leaves they kind of reverse vest their way out of it. So it's not like permanent forever. But if someone stays for 10 years then

42:50.52
Rick
Um.

43:09.75
tylerking
You're 9 they make nine tenths of it like sorry year one after they leave they make nine tenths of it the next year they make eight Tens what ended up happening is 2 people left before the the threshold was we need you don't get the first hundred thousand after you leave because we need to hire a replacement for you. So first hundred thousand goes away but you get everything above that we were making less than that. The first 2 people left so they they got their money while they worked here and then they quit and got nothing the other 2 people partners are still here and like they make the same amount of money as me and they always will and I've definitely had people be like wait your head of customer service is making the same amount of money as the Ceo of the company and it's like. Well above market rate for a head of customer service hi Michael I know you listen I love you Michael glad you're still on the team but like I've had people be like don't you regret that deal now that the company worked and now that you're kind of like maybe you are arguably underpaying some people early on. But now you're arguably overpaying it and it's my philosophy on is exactly what you're saying is like. Yeah I could look at it and be like maybe there was a model here where I could make five hundred thousand a year right now instead of to something and also to something is plenty of money for me like I'm working with people I'm good friends with and I make plenty of money and I'm not going to be mad that they also make plenty of money. Um.

44:22.67
Rick
Yeah, it's greed fundamentally right? like that is that's what the devil is is saying um now now there is like a downside scenario here which is like our relationship could take a turn but then it's like okay like did this thing vest if it did that means you provided 50%

44:24.53
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

44:32.28
tylerking
Um, yeah.

44:39.87
Rick
The trigger for 50% which we just approved and 5 years like value was created and I owe you for that and this is the deal I made.

44:42.24
tylerking
Um, and I I think realistically if that happened or like if if 1 of the partners left lessening serum right now right now right now right now. Anyway, they would. There's a good chance that we'd go to them and be like hey would you rather just take a lump sum right now. Um, if we have the money like there's.

44:59.70
Rick
Um, yeah, you work out a deal.

45:01.66
tylerking
Yeah, there's nothing stopping when you sign a like when you give equity to someone or anything like that. There's nothing stopping you from making a deal later on if it doesn't make sense for both parties to still be involved.

45:08.90
Rick
The the caveat here though is like who you make the deal with changes What like how they're going to handle renegotiation in the future and I know that like the money is I think for both of us this this entity The money is less important than the experience in the relationship. And doing what's like living up to our like who we want to be standards and so I know that's true of you I know it's true of me and so at the end of the day who you do with the deal with you Got to know who you're getting in in bed with and um, in this case like I know that we'll work it out if we if it if if we hit the you know if we hit the help help he switch.

45:31.49
tylerking
Um, yeah.

45:37.34
tylerking
Right.

45:43.79
tylerking
And there are lots of examples of this going. Oh of people being every bit as confident as you are and then being wrong like maybe I go crazy and betray you or whatever and like this is a thing I never hear people talk about like everyone knows starting a company is risky and you have to have a risk tolerance to do it.

45:50.62
Rick
Yep.

46:01.97
tylerking
This is one of those types of risk tolerance that I wish people talked about in this way which is like yeah well yeah, like yes, you might get burned. You might lose a friendship and also if it works you'll have a stronger friendship and you'll make more money and like that's part of the risk of it and I've taken that risk with my brother with lessening serum I started a food blog with my mom that was a.

46:06.40
Rick
Trusting people.

46:20.83
tylerking
Big success by food blog standards. Um, one of those partners that left was a good friend of mine and it did hurt our relationship So I've I've also seen the other side of this net. Overall. I'm in the game of take this risk because I think the upsides a lot bit. Well the upside and downside are both huge but like the upside is so rich.

46:37.36
Rick
Yeah, no I agree I can't can't add anything to what you just said is beautiful. My relationship with you is a product of that my relationship with JD is a product of that like I it's like I remember when I when I recruited JDTheZane benefits we are friends.

46:44.62
tylerking
Um, cool. Well thanks, you made this? yeah.

46:55.12
Rick
Um, and I was like hey I really think you should come work with me at same benefits. Worst case, it doesn't work out. But best case we develop a relationship that's far beyond what we have today and that has been totally true.

47:04.30
tylerking
Yeah, for sure I always feel sad for people when they're like don't be friends with the people you work with or you know all this because it's because like one day you'll leave the company or they might betray you they might you know and it's like what a what a sad state to be in to just constantly be on the defense about that like I don't know. I get it those it it. It does really suck when it goes wrong anyway, ah well thanks, that was easy. Um, yeah I've got ah normally I try to end in ah, 5 till but I can go all the way to the hour if you'd like here. Um.

47:23.18
Rick
Yep, no, it's bad. Um, what else.

47:40.51
tylerking
Yeah I wanted to Well do you admit? do you have any smaller updates I have some topics but I think they're probably bigger.

47:45.87
Rick
Yeah I have one I have 2 really quick ones actually? um so I I hate taxes I've done my personal taxes but I I just finished leg up leg up taxes and it's super painful now because like I feel like I'm stealing money from jd.

47:54.73
tylerking
Um.

47:59.55
tylerking
M.

48:01.56
Rick
We paid our accountant twelve hundred and fifty dollars to file taxes and it's such a simple tax return and we lose money like we lost money last year. So and we won't pay taxes for many years most likely because of the loss we've accrued over the last few years um it's hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's like why I just feel like this is like highway robbery. Um.

48:20.22
tylerking
Um, yeah, but there's not a better option I don't think.

48:21.10
Rick
It's probably how people feel about there's not better options like I wish it was $500 um, but anyway it's done and you know yeah I'm glad it's done but I feel bad about it. Um, but the cool thing is like you know in terms of our partner distribution where we're accruing. We were getting in the habit of accruing 15% of of. Part of ah of profit for tax savings and paying taxes within a year what's cool is I don't expect us pay taxes for a few years but but but we're building that in anyway which means that 15% is going to open up at some point when we want it to to be. Reinvest it back into the business and that makes me excited.

49:00.40
tylerking
Yeah I really wish we'd taken this approach from the beginning. But um, yeah I I agree Texas I I think we pay something like I want to say it's eight Thousand a year at less annoying crm and we could probably shop around and get cheaper. But I do think ours are a little more complicated than leg up health. But honestly, probably not like way more complicated. Um. And it's a pain in the ass and it's it's always like it's never done for for for me, it's never done into like April Fifteenth they're going to send me something and be like you have to sign this today and I'm going I hate it. Ah we are in lllc that ah files as a.

49:25.77
Rick
Um, are you are you a Ccorp or are you guys partnership. How do you guys file.

49:34.69
tylerking
It's always the 1 people are always like oh I bet it's a c or and and it's the other one I forget I confuse CCorp and Scorp but it's the 1 you wouldn't think.

49:41.59
Rick
Ah, probably Ccorp Ccorp means that you don't get taxed at the corporate level you get taxed at the ownership owner's level does less annoying pay the taxes or does do you in brack and pay taxes. Yeah cool ccorp.

49:47.67
tylerking
No, and so I think it's the other way then let less annoying pace the taxes. So maybe that is okay so that is the way you'd expect it to be Okay, good.

49:58.49
Rick
Yeah I would That's why I expect it to be but most people most people expect it to be Escorp or because because you generally it's better for you as the owners like you're leaving tax money on the table I'm leaving tax money on the table by having a ccorp.

50:10.25
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, and the reason we do that is I just thought it it would be a lot simpler. So First of all I just pay myself as an employee and this is like probably hugely tax inefficient. Um, but like I have a w 2 Makes my personal taxes easier and it especially simplified things with our partnership agreement because it's like everyone gets paid the same amount and it it felt kind of weird figuring out. Well if I'm getting distributions. But you're getting paid w two like how do you So I'm probably paying way more taxes than I need. But yes, it was just so much simpler to be like the company has money it pays. Everyone in the exact same way way simpler.

50:41.56
Rick
That's exactly my approach. Um, now every time I talk to an account and they're like ah don't you want to take this loss on your personal tax return So that you can offset your other gains and pay less taxes I'm like nope.

50:51.22
tylerking
Yeah I Sorry I'm going to like sound really overly critical here. But again I've been listening to a lot of podcasts with rich people on them. There is nothing more pathetic in the world than being rich and spending all your time thinking about taxes like what is the point of having money. If you're just going to worry about this thing that doesn't matter to you anymore just pay your fucking taxes I don't get it.

51:14.41
Rick
Ah I think people who are super rich are in the habit of of making money and they cannot break it once they get rich.

51:18.90
tylerking
Yeah, it's it's like pathological I kind of get it as like a you know you play Mario like the first n nes version of Mario and you want like coins but it's like the coins don't do anything for you but you want more you know so I kind of get that this is like a lizard brain thing. But how sad is it that people are like.

51:29.23
Rick
I.

51:36.19
tylerking
They're I'm in the fat fire subreddit where there's all these rich people who are retiring and they're all like I need to move to a state with note with low taxes and it's like the whole point is you're rich enough to retire at age 30 and you're about to move to like Texas you live in San Francisco and you're going to move to Texas are you crazy? ah.

51:55.21
Rick
Ah, ah well, that's awesome. Well I The only update I had is that um ah I had that meeting we call it a men's group because it's all men which I don't like saying out loud I feel awkward saying out loud. But it's a group of men who who get together.

51:55.27
tylerking
Anyway, sorry that's my rant for the day.

52:13.13
Rick
A mins group. Um and it was actually really cool. It's about 10 people. Um and it was much more life oriented than business oriented that I than I realized it was going to be um and we spent most of the time talking about and Assessing. It's been mostly exercises so far we do it. We start the meetings. Um, so It's every once a month at at 1 of the members' houses. Everyone comes over. Everyone's mostly entrepreneurial, but there are some people who have corporate jobs and are you know it's mostly the people who are professional. You know professionals who want to grow their professions. Um, but you know you go around and do kind of like a 2 minute update you know of how you're doing. Was what way more life oriented than I was expecting because I missed the first meeting. Um and then ah right now we're doing. We're working through an exercise as a group but like individually around like what our level 10 life looks like um and basically creating like creating a vision and ah a scale around.

53:02.14
tylerking

53:09.40
Rick
8 dimensions. Um on what like a 10 is and what you know and then self-assessing where you are and I was super surprised at the impact that is having on me in terms of ah, realizing where I am on certain things. Um and I did. Yeah yeah.

53:22.70
tylerking
Yeah,, that's awesome. Ah, we don't have a ton of time to dive into this but like I've said this to you before that I think one of your like it's not a weakness but it's like you know in a job interview or they're like what's your greatest weakness and you list to strength. Um, you're so good at powering through pain. That sometimes I think you tolerate more pain than you should um and visualizing what like what life could be feels like a pretty good antidote to that.

53:48.71
Rick
Ah, yeah, it's It's been a healthy exercise. Um, when I complete the ah the assessment. Um I will I'll bring the podcast and let you pick it apart? Um, ah, but anyways I'm glad I'm doing it I was very scared to do it from a time commitment standpoint. But I think it's going to be really healthy for me.

53:54.62
tylerking
Yeah, awesome.

54:04.15
tylerking
That's great, Cool looking forward to the updates. No let's call it.

54:05.64
Rick
Any other things you want to talk about all right? If you'd like to review past topics and show notes visit startup to last dot com see you next week

54:12.84
tylerking
See ya.